I started my convention experience by fetching Jill (Mighty Like a Rose) and Amanda (Precipice) from the airport Friday morning, providing a tour of my house, enjoying some coffee and gossip while petting the cats, and then taking them to the hotel via the scenic route over Twin Peaks. I came home for lunch before going to the convention proper. I had to sort of psych myself up for the onslaught of people. I mean fun. I also had to get the program material as I had been in charge of the logo, the badges, and the physical program. The badges, which caused me fully two weeks of angst and despair, were a collaboration between myself and John; I designed them, he figured out how to make our printer print them correctly. He was such a hero about it that I rewarded him with a week free of dog-walking duties. I can't stress enough how much he saved my ass on this. When confronted with MailMerge instructions I simply panic and flee; I have no office skills aside from typing, truly. But by golly the badges looked terrific.

At four o'clock registration opened. The badges were much admired by everyone on the committee who knew what a tizzy I'd been in over them, the programs and guides were dutifully stuffed into envelopes and handed out, we introduced ourselves to everyone as they came in, and soon the room was full of people absolutely delighted to be meeting each other. It was gratifying. I was pleased to meet Sarah (Tomato Nation) who looked the compleat New Yorker and was disarmingly funny and nice, John (John Scalzi's Whatever Column) who was puckish and outgoing, Hez (Splog) who was much quieter than I had expected, and half a dozen others, all lovely and charming people, every one. I was particularly pleased to meet Josh (a frog's life) and KarenD (Hat on Top, Coat Below) since I had just started reading Josh and I'd been exchanging email about Las Vegas with Karen. She promised to call me when she starts planning her trip with Mr. Karen (as he was offically known at the con) to Japan next year.

Part of the cost of the convention membership went towards the plenary session known as the Friday evening banquet. I led a huge group to the Golden Phoenix in Chinatown without losing anyone, rather an accomplishment when the shops on Grant Street have so much weird and wonderful merchandise in their windows. Other people took cabs or walked down Kearney, a much more boring street. The food was acceptable, there was quite a lot of it, and there was much to-ing and fro-ing amongst the tables after dinner as everyone exchanged fortune cookie fortunes and got acquainted with some of the latecomers. I sat at a table with Bob (The Sole Proprietor), Ed (Internet Grandfather), Eleanor (formerly Ellipses), her significant other Richard, and Jane (SeeJane) who was a fellow committee member. Bob and I talked about opera while the other four bonded over having attended Cal (although Eleanor went to college in LA, sorry, but she's been learning all the fight songs and to hate Stanford, I believe). Bob and I both went to the University of Washington but neither of us remember any fight songs.

I did a bit of wandering myself. I said hi to Lunesse, another fellow committee member who was wearing her bitchin' shiny blue vinyl pants. I hugged Trish (koroshiya dot com), warned Michael Rawdon (Gazing into the Abyss) to be on the lookout for seafood as he hates it and Trish is allergic to it, and accepted my official first con swag from Krystyn (Glitter) which was a big glittery glow-in-the-dark star. Krystyn dispensed an enormous amount of glitter all weekend long and no one but Jen Wade, sane committee head and insane karaoke queen (Tight Science), seemed to escape. Pete (Thirteen) said he found glitter where he was sure it ought not to have been considering he didn't take his clothes off in public.

On Saturday I moderated two panels: one about thematic journaling and the other about how much personal information one discloses in a journal. They were very well attended and very well received. I am enormously proud of my panelists: Renee (Notes to Myself), Molly Zero (Polygloss), Slavegirl (RestaurantSlave dot com) who turned out to be Lunesse, Steve Amaya (evaporation), Lisa (Lessons Learned), and Jill. All six of them worked hard on their ten minute talks and had interesting, provocative things to say of which I recall not a word because I was busy monitoring the speakers, the audience, the time, and my nerves. The panels generated a lot of talk even after they were over, which pleased me. My one regret was there were equally good panels taking place simultaneously and I couldn't be two places at once.

I enjoyed a highly amusing lunch with Terry (Cutting Through Fluff), newlyweds Ann (girlmoxie) and Tim (vandewal dot net), the fabulous Mo, committee member and co-regent of Planet MoLu (anyone's any), Wendy (weetabix), Jake (Jake's Zen Diary), Trish and Michael. Then I went back to the hotel and sat around the lobby drinking wine and talking to an ever-changing collection of witty, funny, amusing people. I told Terry I'm one hundred percent behind a Canadian JournalCon. This is because I always look for reasons to visit new Canadian cities. Calgary? I'm there.

Throughout the day I spent time flitting around and talking to Anna Beth (hashai), Spinny (Lemon Rind), Emily (mildew), Pamie (Squishy), Michael Baker (Baker Street), Javina (eXhibition), Jared (had to be there), Charlie (Abbycat), Christopher (Days of Naze) and Michelle (Backbite). Name check? Yes and no. I want to remember who I met and doing it in chronological order is almost the only way to keep track. I was genuinely attempting to speak to everyone at the convention; I think I met at least eighty percent. I continuously asked that most inane of questions, "Are you having a good time?" of everyone, not because I needed their reassurance but because I cared about them having fun. They were all having as much fun as it was possible to have, they said in various ways. Well, all right then!

By three o'clock I could feel my energy level dropping rapidly. I was trying to decide between going home and drinking more coffee. Home won out but not before Trish surprised me with these. I squealed. Yes, I did. I made everyone look at them. They are so freakin' cool. We sat around mocking their names. They're the Sopranos of the Tiki world, am I right? The overprint on part of the packaging gave us that Tiki Party feeling without even mixing the cocktail recipes printed on the back.

Sadly, I felt it was necessary to call in sick to the Saturday night parties. I was supposed to create a Whirlpool of Fun for those who eschewed karaoke, but I was burned out and I figured hell, everyone was having a blast on their own, they could make little whirlpools just fine without me. I'm embarrassed that I fell ill, but I can't say I'm all that surprised. It's very annoying being this high strung. I don't think it would have been so bad if I hadn't been wound up over the graduation issue (see the previous month's entries ad nauseum) at the same time as finalizing all the convention arrangements. I am a big wuss.

After a quiet evening at home (and some piano practice) I was totally ready for a third and final day at the convention. I didn't make myself get up early, I knew I would miss the nine o'clock panel, but I'd promised committee member Beth (Bad Hair Days), who had stunningly beautiful hair all weekend long, journal title to the contrary, to be at the Personas panel so I got myself into the city in time for most of that one. I enjoyed hearing her, Kymm (Sweet as a Biscuit), Karen (Thought Experiment) and Lynda (her life in a nutshell) talk about the difference between writer intents and reader expectations, the art of creating a fictional journal, and whether or not they felt bad when they found out something was a construct instead of a "real" diary.

For my part I'm never happy to find out someone is using a pseudonym if I thought it was their real name. I don't mind if I've been warned in the FAQ or it's totally, completely obvious, but I like to take things at face value so I get suckered a lot and that hurts my feelings. Clearly, it's my own expectations that cause the problems. I'm simply not prone to suspicion and I expect a journal to be a real person's thoughts and feelings. It's the nature of intimate writing. I am naive. I don't like being "fooled." Others, Beth certainly, admire a good work of fiction that fools her into thinking it's real.

Afterwards I went to Lori's Diner at Powell and Sutter with about twenty journalists whom I absolutely refuse to try to name (except for Meg of Seafoam) because I was not paying attention, and had a hearty breakfast for lunch. At one point Scalzi was making kissy faces and googoo eyes at me. I was taken aback. I mean, we're not really that kind of friends on account of we're not friends at all, having met for the first time this weekend. I looked at him in fascinated dread. I very nearly pointed at myself, unsure of this turn of events. Suddenly, I realized I was sitting next to the madly flirtatious Jen (jen fu dot net). "Damn," I said, "my love affair with Scalzi is over before it began!" This made Frank (My-Journal dot com Journal), the fellow across from me, laugh pretty hard but no one else had noticed my Marx Brothers moment.

I was supposed to go to the beach with a group of people after lunch but I felt like sitting around the lobby talking to everyone who hadn't already left for the airport, so I did. To my great surprise, Amanda and Renee presented all the organizers of Journalcon with gift bags containing, among other things, a beautiful glass block frame, a feathered pen, chopsticks, chocolate, and a card signed by many of the convention attendees. I was thrilled to pieces. It was so thoughtful, and it is frankly the sort of thing I do for others but is never, ever done for me. Just looking at all the signatures on the card makes me grin like a loon.

Speaking of presents, Amanda gave me a set of Tiki Mugs exactly like the one Trish gave, but she bought it the day before and somehow hadn't managed to get it to me before Trish found them as well. Is that not great? Two sets of Lenny, Big Al, Jake, and Artie glasses. Double the Tiki fun! This means people think of me when they see Tiki stuff which can never be a bad thing. Amanda, good on ya, thanks so much.

The last few hours I talked with old friends Steve, Michael Walsh (New Lease), Krystyn, Susan (Little Monster), and Renee. Steve and I discovered our mutual Francophilia, and doesn't that sound iffy? Michael and I had an intense, personal conversation about ourselves and how we make decisions in our life which was full of heaviosity but in a positive, life-affirming way. Krystyn and I exchanged AIM handles so we can talk all day long at work. I mean in our spare time. Susan and I exchanged snarky gossip about a guy we both knew at Harvard who was the bane of the Science Fiction club there (and no, I didn't go to Harvard, she did, but I knew him via virtual Harvard and this is way too hard to explain). Renee told me she hated goodbyes something awful, so we just chatted instead.

I was very glad I didn't go to the beach. It was great to finally feel like I was attending instead of running a convention. But at last we bid goodbye to our friends and the amazingly tolerant staff of the Galleria Park Hotel and left. I took Karen to her car, Jared and Lisa (Confidentially Speaking) to the airport, and Kymm back to my house. Kymm and I spent the next several hours eating dinner, gossiping, knitting (her) and lying on the sofa (me) talking about our childhood crushes on various movie stars. Monday morning, after barely five hours of sleep, I got up at five to take her to the airport. Friendship knows no bounds, baby.

In summary, it was a good experience and I'm glad I finally got to a JournalCon. Any convention is ultimately the sum of its attendees, and although naturally I'm very proud of the work we put into the structure and content of the convention my favorite compliment is how often I heard or overhead someone say excitedly, "I am having the best time!"

I know exactly what they mean. I felt the same way myself.

Past Life The Index Next Incarnation