Meanderings: August 26, 1999

Thursday,
August 26, 1999
Day One

NASFIC!

Fandom! Science fiction! Costumes! Writers, editors, publishers, readers! I'm home!

Can you tell I'm happy?

The trip up from San Diego was nice -- the nearest Amtrak station to Janis's place is Solona Beach, which is right on a cliff. As you approach it from the highway, you see the Pacific spreading out in front of you -- gorgeous! So I got there, bought a ticket and caught the 11:03 am to Anaheim. God, I'd forgot how wonderful Amtrak seats are -- big, lots of leg room, comfortable as all hell, and plenty of elbow space for crocheting. Which is what I did for an hour and a half, taking the occasional break to peer out the window and play peekaboo with this cute kid sitting across the aisle from me.

Got to Anaheim, caught a cab and arrived at the hotel in style. It's kinda incredible -- you've got Disneyworld two blocks down the road, a whole slew of tiny hotels and motels congregating around the entrance road like barnacles, and then off on one side is the convention center with the Hilton and the Marriott. I stayed in the Hilton for LACon III, and to be perfectly honest I prefer the Marriott -- at least there you can open the windows if you like.

In any case, I dumped the bags in the room, wandered down to the convention rooms where the con proper would take place, bought two memberships, did a bit of a meander through the dealer's room, then went off to get lunch. Big mistake. Not the food -- the Cafe Del Sol had some weird but good food on the menu. No, the mistake was that they had a "Sex in SF" panel scheduled for 1:00 pm, and I was busy stuffing my face during it. Problem was, it had a tinly listing in the program guide and no names attached to the panel (to protect the guilty? Who knows). Dave Smeds among others eventually wound up doing it, and I was ticked because Dave is always an entertaining panelist.

Admittedly, I was also a bit miffed because I had moderated the "Alt.Sex" panel at LoneStarCon II, and I volunteered to do panels way back in April and got a "Gee, thanks for offering, maybe next time" message in response. Vera Nazarian told me later on that what I should have done was email the programming department regularly and ask, "So, am I on a panel yet?" "So, did you guys put me on a panel?" "Hey, I need my panel schedule." Oh, well -- live and learn.

And since Lyndon was supposed to be arriving this afternoon, and I KNEW that he'd be zoned from dragging the Suitcase from Hell around, I skipped the afternoon panels and took a nap so that I'd be in when he got there. Which was a good thing -- he walked in, looked at me, and almost fainted with relief, poor boy. Apparently the trip from Philly to LAX was not a pleasant one and he was absolutely starving by that time. So we trooped back down to Cafe Del Sole and I watched while he demolished a Thai Chicken pizza (I said they had weird food).

And then -- off to bed. Yes, I know it's boring, but we were both tired and there wasn't much else going on apart from the Karaoke and Ice Cream Social (although I was STRONGLY tempted to troop in there and show those whippersnappers how it was supposed to be done when I heard some sweet little femmefan crooning a soul song in this high, painfully breathy voice. Just give me the damn microphone and put on anything by Joplin, honey).

Tomorrow -- panels, Musketeers, and the SFF.Net party.

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