Con(no)tension
September 3
Let's see if I can get through the first couple days of the con. Thursday we slept in (at least, later than normal for a weekday), and packed, and had a nice lunch at Mama's Royal Café. Then we zoomed down to San Jose, which takes about an hour. Heather read me a bit of "The Honeyed Knot" by Jeffrey Ford (it's such a fabulous story! I wish I could write its like!), and we chatted, and expressed gratitude that we didn't live in any of the horrid places we could see from the highway.
Our directions were useless once we got to San Jose, since the street we were supposed to take was closed for construction, but we managed to find the street our motel was on without much difficulty, and drove through downtown San Jose, which is really far lovelier than I'd expected, with palm trees, parks, fountains, and so on.
We checked into the Ramada Limited (hereafter called the "ghetto motel" or just "ghettotel"), a horrid little ratbox -- okay, actually, it wasn't that bad, definitely the high end of the motel world, I've stayed in much worse, but it's funny to exaggerate, right? Right.
We went to registration, where we found the lovely Susan Marie, and made dinner plans with her. Then we wandered around the dealer's room, stunned by the many fine commodities available for purchase. We went to the art show and ran into Mary Anne, who was setting up her wall and table. She's a good artist, and did a collage of her excellent poem "On the Uselessness of Time Travel", which will be appearing in the next Star*Line! We also found Zak and Sharon, and talked to them for a while. I got to peruse Zak's portfolio -- he's so talented! A very jetlagged China Miéville walked by, and I introduced myself and we all talked to him for a bit; I admire him very much. He has, um, a profound effect on Heather, too, but I'll let her talk about that in her own journal entries...
In the registration area we found Ling, who told us about a Clarion party (to be hosted by the inimitable Avi Bar-Zeev), and I met Jay Lake, briefly.
We met up with Susan and wandered for a bit, peering into various restaurants, looking for something cheap and palatable, and found a nice little tacqueria near the university campus. Mmm. Best burrito I've had since I left Santa Cruz. A pleasant dinner. Heather and I went back to the room, and frolicked, and she read me "Famishing" to practice for her Friday reading. Then we went to the bar and hung out with Sean Klein for a while. Then, to my delight and surprise, two of my Clarion classmates, David Kirtley and Tom Gerencer passed by. We wound up talking for a long time, catching up on our recent lives -- I haven't seen either of them since the summer of 1999. We weren't particularly close at Clarion, but there was enough of a connection to allow easy conversation, and I'm glad, because talking with them was one of the definite high points of the convention.
Eventually we went in search of the elusive Clarion party, joining Scott Edelman and Ellen Datlow, who were also searching. We finally determined that the room was not in the main part of the hotel, but in the tower -- the more posh bit, you see. We got onto the elevator there, which required a keycard to get anywhere, but fortunately another resident kindly let us off on the proper floor.
The Clarion party was great fun! I met Ben Rosenbaum! Ben rules. I knew he was a wonderful writer, but he's an amazingly smart, fun guy. Talked with him for ages, and with other assorted friends and acquaintances, including (too briefly) Susan Lee. A good beginning to the con!
Heather and I stumbled off to bed, eventually, and slept on the squeaky bed with the bad springs. Horrid bed. No hyperbole there.
Friday I rose, feeling slightly hungover and quite inhuman. I showered and had a bad latté at café Matisse, which has good ambience and crappy beverages, alas. Heather and I sat outside, and we practiced for our readings, la.
We went to the dealer's room, and visited people at the A Certain Magazine table (they wanted me to go photocopy things, but I didn't have time, for which I felt a certain measure of guilt; I do like to be helpful, if I can). Then, to the SFF.net suite, hosted by Tom Powers.
I finally met Greg! And he's just as damn cool in person as I thought he'd be, funny and witty and kind. Also met David Moles, who I knew only indirectly, from his posting in the comments section on Greg's journal. I greatly enjoyed his company over the course of the convention, too. Seeing his easy rapport with Greg made me miss hanging out with my best friend Scott...
Then, readings! So many readings! Greg read "Show and Tell" ("Whip whip whip!") and "People Stuff", both very well; though I've read both of them a couple of times each, I was still captivated. Then we sat around and shot the breeze for a while, and at 2:00 I read, first a few poems, then "Annabelle's", then more poems, and everyone seemed to like them, and I always enjoy reading, so.
We retired to the bar to wait for Mike, which proved akin to waiting for Godot; by the time we reached the far side of our expensive drinks, he still hadn't arrived, alas. So we went back up, and saw Ling read a nice mainstreamish piece, and then Heather performed "Famishing", brilliantly, I think. And then Mike arrived, having suffered various indignities at the hands of airport shuttles and clueless help desk attendants. He read "Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies", which ruled just about as much as it's possible for a zombie story to rule, which is considerable much. I hadn't seen Mike since May of 2001, and that was only for the space of a dinner, so being able to spend a good bunch of time with him at the con was definitely a good thing.
We went walking, and had dinner at a decent Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant. Then Heather and I said farewells and went back to the room for a very brief rest. We stopped into a publisher party in a pool hall, but all my co-workers were gone already, and I didn't know many people there, so we didn't stay long. Then to the Civic Center auditorium to see (ahem, I'm slightly embarrassed) Patrick Stewart, who was charming and funny and promoting both Nemesis and X-Men 2, the latter of which I'm rather looking forward to. It was entertaining, and there was a certain symmetry to seeing Stewart after seeing Wil Wheaton a couple of weeks ago...
I went with Heather to the drugstore so she could buy earplugs and assorted medicines, and then we went to the terribly posh DAW 30th Anniversary party, which was packed with DAW authors and various publishing personages. Had a nice chat with Jonathan Strahan and Mandy, and ate good desserts, and drank free champagne. I wound up sitting mostly beneath a large potted tree, with Heather in a chair beside me, and found myself briefly trapped by a bunch of authors standing around in a group for photos; I was literally walled in by literary legs. Rather bemusing. We slipped away, stopped into the Circlet Press party, talked to Susan a bit, ate cashew brittle, and then realized we were well and truly exhausted. So we went to bed.
The next entry, with luck, will cover Saturday and Sunday and likely Monday, since there's precious little of Monday to report...
Words written since February 1, 2002: 142,400
Words written since last entry: Nada.
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