08/05/98

Packing is an art. I occasionally surprise myself with my skill at it. Most women I know are terrible packers: they bring twice the amount they need, their luggage has to be handled by porters and/or pack animals, and they still complain about not having anything to wear. The trick is to visualize what you own, find out what the weather's going to be like, decide what specialty items are required such as fancy dress, and then color coordinate ruthlessly. Lucy's Rule: always choose one anchoring dark color (navy, black, or brown) and one contrasting color (usually a neutral like sand or sage but lately I've been into lilac in a big way), then don't pack anything that won't go with one or the other no matter how great you look in garment x, y, or z. This is guaranteed to cut down on the number of clothes you take on a trip. The rule's corollary is three pairs of shoes is truly the maximum anyone needs, and I speak as one who would rather pack an extra pair of heels than something sensible like a warm coat.

I've just quickly and efficiently packed for my trip to Baltimore so I'm quite chuffed. It took me half an hour, everything fits in my carry-on bag, everything can be worn with everything else, and I won't have to pay a porter to get it from my cab to my hotel room unless I feel self-indulgent. I debated over bringing my gold glitter shoes for quite a while since it violated my rule but in the end decided I'd wear them if I had them. Packing for a weekend of parties is a lot harder than packing for a trip to go sightseeing. I am never sure of how dressed up I'll want to get. Trying to second-guess my desire to show off is always a tricky proposition. Generally, though, I like to dazzle the crowd with lots of odd space-age fabrics and unique shoes rather than elaborate costumes. I leave that to the folks who work all year on their outfits for the Masquerade Contest. I can't compete with someone's homemade Kosh costume, after all.

John is quite happy to stay home and tend the pets while I spend four days at the circus... I mean Worldcon. He rarely goes to cons any more. I have stopped going to anything but the biggest and the smallest. The World Science Fiction Convention is such an amazing piece of performance art. There's going to be something on the order of 5000 people there, and for the most part everything will function smoothly. The two plenary sessions are normally well-attended even though nothing much happens at them; the Masquerade Contest and the Hugo Awards Ceremony will be standing room only. The entire spectrum of science fiction and fantasy will be represented: authors, editors, publishers, artists, readers, gamers, actors, special effects experts, NASA technicians, wannabe vampires, UFOlogists, anime enthusiasts, the Society for Creative Anachronism, fanzine fans, costumers, filkers, people with shoulder dragons, people in squirrel fur bikinis vaguely representing a Star Trekian future, people wearing innumerable jokey buttons, people buying bad fantasy art, people interested in speculative fiction whether in book, film, television, cartoon, or comic book format, and willing to fork over one hundred and thirty smackers to mingle with other like-minded funsters.

Them's my homeys. See you on Monday.