It’s our last night in the city, and I’m typing this from our hotel room while Parris naps.

Tomorrow will be a long day. We’ll be headed home, but not until the evening, on Continental’s night flight out of Newark airport, the only direct flight from the NYC area to Albuquerque. Leaving that late in the day is a bit of a pain, but worth it, usually — not having to change planes shaves at least three hours off the travel time, and makes it less likely that we’ll miss a connection and wind up stranded at some hub somewhere. (The hub system is another of the crimes against humanity by the airlines). Even so, it will be a grueling day.

We’re both looking forward to getting home, however. Our annual midwinter visit to Boskone and New York City is normally a high point of our year, but this year’s version was more exhausting than usual. Nothing like a nice dose of norovirus to slow down all your fun. Neither of us is completely recovered even now. Just when you think it’s all over, you eat something you shouldn’t and your gut gives you a little reminder that no, it’s still feeling tender. I’ve been running at about 80% of my usual energy, and Phipps at no more than 50%. She had another bad bout last night and missed a wonderful dinner at Peter Lugar’s, the best steakhouse in the city.

We have had some fun, of course, but maybe only about half as much fun as we planned on having. NYC has so much to do that we always leave town regretting the stuff that we didn’t get around to doing, and this time we didn’t get around to even more than usual. Never got to a Broadway show or the IMAX theatre, never had a hot dog at Papaya King, no rides on the Staten Island ferry, never got over to Bayonne, never touched base with a bunch of our New York friends, etc. etc.

I did get to see my family, however, which was wonderful, and we also had a good time at the NYC Comicon, despite the crowds. We finally got to announce the new WILD CARDS comic series that we’ll be doing with DBPro and Marvel (to be scripted by Daniel Abraham), and we met the rest of the vast, charming, and very talented Dabel clan. Les and Ernst had some penciled pages and a cover on the SWORN SWORD comic as well, and it was great to get a look at that… and we touched base with some wonderful artists who may be doing covers for us in the future.

Well, Parris is stirring, so I’ll post now and see if she’s feeling well enough for dinner. More later, or maybe when we get home.

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