Of course now that things are underway, it only now occurs to me that I could have easily had a Gaylaxicon icon and then those of you who wanted to skim or skip would have been forewarned. 

I wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the GoH dinner last night, especially when I found out that tallgeese was not coming because he didn't feel well. The things that propelled me out the door were 1) Mason had planned to make a fancy curry dish for himself and Shawn.I tend to be the default cook when I'm home and I didn't want to come between that; and 2) I'd just been through one of these in Capclave and... frankly? Without the right people it can be fairly deadly.

We met out at Heather's in Minneapolis, a place I have never been before. They had a lovely, long table for us out on the patio. Turns out that Emma Törzs (rhymes with dirge--so, like terrge,) used to work with the Heather of Heather's, so that's kind of cool. I ended up, by accident, sitting in between KD Edwards and Emma, with Jim Johnson at the end of the table on the other side of KD (Keith.)  I should have, as soon as she arrived, switched places with Emma because I was pretty good at keeping the left side of the table entertained and Emma ended up somewhat stuck in conversation with someone who was, shall we say, enthusiastic in a hyperfixated way about a singular subject about which is was unclear that Emma was similarly enthusiastic. I asked her, later, if I should have done more to rescue her, but she said it was enjoyable enough though she did appreciate Bast and my efforts when we were able to pry her back into the larger conversation. To be fair to this person? I do the same thing sometimes?  We're all nerds here, So no shade. 

After a very lovely dinner, where I got to watch KD Edward's shoulders visibly relax when I explained that Minnesota is a blue state and that Minneapolis/St. Paul is so blue it might as well be navy (he's living in North Carolina), we all trundled over to Dreamhaven for the reading. 

I sort of thought that my herding cats portion of the evening was over, but Anton tapped me to do introductions so I jumped up to do that. I probably should have done more "here's a quick bio" of everyone and I managed to stumble over Emma's last name (terrrge! Like dirge!) which sucked, and I think, too, I should have had everyone go in the reverse order that we started with. Ending with Nghi Vo, instead of, like I ended up prompting, starting with her and ending with Jim Johnson. Especially since, unbeknowst to me, despite the fact that Jim is an author of several books, he decided instead to read the introduction to his newest Star Trek: Adventures book--which was... again, let's just say less high energy than spirit cannibals, which is what Nghi started with. 

BUT! The event was super well attended. Dreamhaven ran out of chairs and, really, room. (That bookstore is what you find when you look up cramped and byzantine in the dictionary.) I don't have even an unofficial count, but if I had to guess I'd say over 30. We ended up even getting an on the spot sponsor-level membership for the convention out of the deal. It was by almost all measures a success.

So yay!

Now, before I head outside to do a little more painting on the fence, I need to time one of my stories. There's a woman in-town, Cole, who runs SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and she's looking for an emergency replacement for their November 2nd show. I don't know that she's considering me for that slot, but she did ask me to time one of my stories when read aloud. So, I need to do that for her in case it will work out.

Then, it's off to the convention this afternoon.

 Last night was a comedy of errors. 

I had really wanted to go to the badge party for Gaylaxicon because I had made a whole bunch of stickers for program participants to have their schedules on the back of their badges. I figured that since I made them, I could help put them on. But, I could not figure out what the plan was supposed to be. The information I got was "we will me back at Don's place after the hotel walk-through, oh, and here's a link to the concom Zoom meeting at 6 pm." Upon reading this, my brain went through these steps. Imagine this as one of those decision trees.

Okay, they aren't likely to have the Zoom meeting at the hotel, will they?  (Yes/No. I choose the No path). So then, probably the plan is to have the people meet in-person that can and Zoom in the rest.  (Yes/No. I choose the Yes path) So best guess is that the tour will be done by 6 pm and so meeting everyone at Don's house will work out.

I still dont' know the right answer to some of these questions, but at some point I definitely went down the wrong tree, as it were.

Because I showed up at Don's at 6 pm and found no one there.  Hopping on to Discord showed that Andrew didn't know where to meet people at the hotel and so then it dawned on me that, oh, okay, maybe the tour is at 6 pm despite the fact that's when the Zoom meeting is?  But, since Andrew was also confused, I decided to download Zoom onto my phone so that I could jump on to the meeting at 6 pm. That seemed like a smart bet since the Zoom meeting was DEFINITELY scheduled for 6 pm.  Only, when I finally got online, I discovered only two other people there, neither of them were Don and neither of them knew anything about where people were supposed to be or even WHEN we were supposed to be there. 

Then, I thought, I'm being dumb. I'll just text Don directly. He confirmed that the tour was happening at six. Now, here's where I could have solved this by driving to the hotel and trying to meet everyone there. Instead, I thought, "Well, by the time I get there, the tour will be over and they'll be headed back here." So, I let Don know that I was going to hangout at a Starbucks and, if he could be so kind, I'd wait for a text on when to come over. 

Then the true comedy hit.

Randomly and quite suddenly, my phone decided it didn't want to accept any data, including messages. 

At least I managed to hear from tallgeese  who noted that I could come hang out at his place until the text came through. At this point, since I got his message, I was unaware that my phone had decided to temporarily bork itself. So we hung out and chatted about life, the universe, and everything. That was quite lovely. I finally got to meet his two dogs in person, having seen them a bunch on Zoom during our Star Trek: Adventures games. No text came, however. I was, for reasons known only to my phone, able to go to Discord and noticed that someone was franically posting on all channels that "the Zoom meeting has started!" so, I hung out a tiny bit longer, and made my way back to Don's... only to still find no one at home. So, who knows where they were Zooming from? 

At this point, I gave up.

I left the badge stickers underneath a FedEx package outside Don's door. Then, I left him a message on Discord explaining what I'd done, and headed home. It was 8 pm by the time I got home. 

What a night!

I am only a little concerned that the stickers are going to remain AWOL. But, worst case scenario (and one I am planning on) I will bring a second set to the convention early and stick them on badges myself. 

In other news, there are a couple of previous items I wanted to update you all on. Remember how I speculated that people might be filming the exhibits at the National Africian-American History & Cultural Museum (Smithsonian) in order to preserve them? Well, my friend John spotted this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/citizen-historians-document-smithsonian-exhibits-under-white-house-scrutiny  It turns out, I was right! 

Likewise, remember when I was talking about how stressful it was to leave a voice mail "tip" for The Racket? Well, they ran a story about us, which I found out about thanks to magenta : https://racketmn.com/gaylaxicon-wits-returns-oktoberfests-this-weeks-best-events  !!!!  They got some of the information wrong? Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks isn't running our D&D one-shots (though they will be one of our community tablers), Tower Games is doing our games. But, hey, The Racket listed us as one of this week's best events, so I'LL TAKE IT. I have zero idea if this will actually result in people signing up, but, you know, I feel like I gave this whole publicity thing a real try and 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' 

I honestly kind of enjoyed the stress of the voice mail? I've been thinking about offering my services to other geek venues. (Personally, I think they should hire me to be their geek on the street!)  THIS would be a fun job for me. Instead, today I applied to work as an impound lot customer service attendant. Fun times. 

Today, too, at 2 pm, I'm going to be getting a call about volunteering to be a hospice worker. I will have to be honest that I'm currently looking for work and so might not be able to be as available as I normally would be. And, I know they're going to ask me why I want to do this work, and I don't have a very good answer for them. No one really likes the job of sitting with people at a time like that, but (and this is the part I have to work out how to articulate) the world is spiralling into chaos thanks to the current presidental administration and I don't know what I can DO to stop it. However, one thing I can do is sit with someone, talk about the weather, hold a hand, read a book, or otherwise offer comfort. Fascism wants us to devalue certain lives and this is one way for me to say NO.

Can I say that in an interview? I don't know, but it's the truth.

 Actually, I worked on crafting things this weekend. Here's my current quilting project.



Image: very obviously amateur quilt with whale sharks and other sea patterns. 

I kind of hate that I have to tell social media when I post pictures like this that yes, I know my lines are crooked. I am an amteur not looking for advice. Or the kind of fake encouragement of "you'll get better some day! Just keep practicing!" which, of course, intended or not, implies that I currently suck. I used to love to post these on Facebook, but the number of folks who will come on to my comments just to tell me about how I could improve it or to tell me that "practice makes perfect" really wore me down. Like, no, this is me after years of work, thanks. I like my fucked up lines, actually? They go to the character of the piece. 

It never used to bother me. 

One of the defining moments of my childhood (and one of my clearest earliest memories) must have been from second or maybe even first grade because I was still at Jefferson Elementary. We used to have a principal there in the 1970s who was maybe named Mrs. Olsen or some other very Minnesotan name like that. She would come into classrooms to check on teachers and students and it was always very stressful for both. The memory I have is that I'm coloring away at some project or other, realy enjoying myself, and she stops to watch me and says, "Some day, dear, you'll learn to color in between the lines." I nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yep! SOMEDAY!" clearly implying at my tender age NOT TODAY, SATAN, NOT TODAY.

I have been stubbornly coloring wherever the f*ck I want ever since.

So, yeah, my lines are crooked and my stitches suck, but you know what? This is for me and I'm having fun. 



Image: close-up on some of the fabrics.

 I don't know what it is about traveling, but it wears me out.

I've been home since Tuesday (a.k.a. failed rapture day), but today is the first day that I sort of vaguely feel human again. I'm up early, so it seems like a good time to recount the last days in DC for you all. 

Speaking of up early, naomikritzer rarely is. To be fair to her and all the other crepuscular folks out there, I am an unusually early riser. Every day of the convention I popped out of bed without an alarm somewhere around 6:30 am CT/7:30 am ET.  The fact that it was an hour later in DC than at home worked to my advantage because by 7:30 am a lot of coffee shops are actually open. So, just like every day of the convention, I wandered across Rockville Pike to get us both a nice espresso drink. But, on Monday, I was in no hurry to get back because I very wisely made us no plans until noon. 

First of all, I figured that after GoHing at a convention, Naomi would appreciate a slow morning. Secondly, both she and I walked a little too far the night before and woke up feeling it. On occassion, I plan fantasy trips for myself and I'm now going to be giving any directions that include "a twenty minute walk" a bit of a side-eye. I can walk for 20 minutes, but I do start to drag if there are lots of those! I mean, it does kind of matter whether or not the view is interesting. Some 20 minute walks feel faster than others. I had, at least, taped up my arches. My arches have been giving me trouble lately (I've been seeing a PT) so I was prepared and had been doing my exercises, but, man.

DC is funny because a lot of touristy stuff in it is both really centrally located AND really spread out. As that ad reminded us last night, the  Smithsonian Mall is big!

My plan for us that morning was to check out the DC fish market.  Maine Avenue Fish Market is the oldest continually-operating open air fish market in the United States. It was founded almost two decades earlier than the one in New York City, believe it or not. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Avenue_Fish_Market).  I will say? It doesn't look like much. 


Image: fish market, with a haze of... my fingers? Not sure. Pretend it's an old-timey photo, since this was the best one I took.

The market is just off the L'Enfant Plaza metro stop (also on the red line!)  Enough people were headed to the market for lunch that we just sort of followed the crowd down to the wharf area. It is, in fact, little more than you see in the picture (minus my fingers). There's this set of stalls and another set of equal size directly behind. It's one of those places, though, where you can buy your fish or seafood on one side and bring it in a bucket over to the other and they will cook it for you fresh. Naomi bought a handful of shrimp for us to have this way and they were amazing. I ended up wanting something more like a full lunch, so I stopped at the little shop at the end which had prepared (but fresh!) sandwiches. 


Image: crab cake with sweet potato fries.

I got the crab cake because crab cake is something I used to try to make at home without ever having experienced the "real thing." This was really very good and I will admit that I fed the pigeons, seagulls, and little brown ones (sparrows) bits of fries and hamburger bun. 

We could see the tip of the Washington Monument from the market and so Naomi convinced me (only slightly against my better judgement) that it was an easy "20 minute walk" (now my code word for any walk that I later come to regret) to the Smithsonian Mall. It wasn't bad, really. Washington, DC has a whole lot of really lovely parks along the river. This one had clearly been planted with a ton of cherry trees, many of which had been trained to droop and arch their branches over the walkway. I bet that in the spring, during cherry blossom season, the walk we took would have been absolutely stunning. In late September, it was a little muggy and kind of hot. 

We once again ran into a clot of Naitonal Guard, whom Naomi asked where they were from. Once again, it was West Virginia. She also asked them all what they did when they weren't serving in the Guard and it ranged from "just out of college" to "IT manager." Again, the group was largely white, though at least one person could have qualified as a PoC in my estimation. We wished them a good day, which, I know, was probably a wasted opportunity to yell at them about the current presidential administration, but, frankly, I don't see how being deployed here is their choice. For all I know, the whole lot of them voted for Kamala Harris. I kind of have to wonder at the fact that we rarely saw National Guard anywhere but touristy places (and subway/metro stops) if this wasn't a kind of quiet quitting on their or their commander's part. Like, they weren't actually marching in the streets. They were just boredly wandering the Mall or chatting amongst themselves at metro stops. 

I dunno. I will say, they were carrying guns, so just standing around did also feel threatening? If they were in Minneapolis/St. Paul doing this, I might feel really differently, that's for sure.

These days a lot of the popular Smithsonian museums require that you sign up for timed entrances. Naomi and I debated a lot the night before about how long we thought it would take to get from here to there, and what time would be most conveinent so that we could connect up with our friend mrissa .  We had settled on 3:00 PM for the National Musuem of Africian Amerian History & Culture, which nearly worked out? With our slow wander up from the wharf, it was close to 2:00 PM when we got to the Smithsonian.  We sat for a while in the shade, having bought cold water from the gift shop near the Washington Monument. Even though it was a crap shoot as to whether or not we'd've needed timed tickets, I convinced Naomi to consider wandering the National Museum of Asian Arts as it was directly across the mall, or thereabouts. We lucked out and were able to waste a bit of time in air-conditioning wandering the exhibits. I feel like the National Museum of Asian Arts is one of those museums that could be called "stuff a rich guy brought back from Asia in the late 1800s/early 1900s." Not unlike the Walker's Asian Arts section, honestly? But, it was nice not to have to be sitting in the surprisingly bright sun.  

My feet, at this point, were kind of killing me, but I had a secret plan to solve that once we were inside the Africian American History & Culture museum. Neither Naomi and Marissa like to sit and watch movies at museums, but my plan was to sit through all of them in the back row and massage life back into my feet. Which, once we got in, I totally did. 

I actually came out of that museum feeling almost kind of human again, though when another "20 minute walk" was proposed to get us to the restaurant, I will admit, I baulked and ended up hailing us a taxi cab. 

But, I get ahead of myself. 

The museum is huge. One of the reasons, of course, that the three of us wanted to go (or at least, I wanted to go) is because it is my darkest suspicion that if Trump gets a chance, he will destroy the collection as much as possible. I noticed a lot of people--mostly Black--actually filming everything they saw on their phones. I wonder if there is some kind of community or grassroots effort to collect and preserve the exhibit, particularly the history of enslavement, given just how many people I saw filming.  The musuem as it is set up now has its lower levels devoted to history. Very cleverly, you literally rise up out of slavery, as the story of kdinapping and enslavement starts at the lowest level, C, and you work your way up through the Civil War and Emancipation, B, and end in the Civil Rights to present level, A. Luckily for me and my feet, there was a nice 10 minute movie at the crux of each level (you go up these long ramps to move between eras) and so I watched each of those. 

I suspect I was supposed to do the opposite with the culture sections, ie, start at the top and work my way down? Because the top floor has a lot of physical art, like painting and such; the next level down has what I'd call the art of revolution--so like a lot of art that came out of the sixties and the Civil Rights movement, like this....


Image: statue of the famous moment at the 1968 Olympics when medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the symbol for Black Power during the National Anthem.

...and then the next level down encouraged people to interact with art by doing a dance-dance revolution type thing to hip hop, etc. It didn't diminish my experience to do it the "wrong" way, but, because the museum closed at 5:30 pm, I sort of wish I'd had more time to explore the art at the very top. Ah well. 

I will say, it was one of the better museums I've been to in a long time. No surprise, I suppose, given that it is a Smithsonian, but I really could have spent the whole day there exploring. 

Marissa wanted to return to a place she'd had dinner at the night before, Oyamel. There is apparently also one of these in New York, but, obviously, we were at the DC location. I was not feeling nearly as adventurous as I normally am, and so I ended up just having a lovely chicken tamale. I absolutely ADORED the atmosphere of the place, however. The three of us sat outside and the evening was fully magical in terms of temperature, the company, and that sense you get when you're traveling that you are having An Experience, you know? 10/10 would again and the next time I would order the cricket tacos. 

The metro was quite close, so we all hopped on and returned to our hotel. 

All and all, it didn't necessarily feel like we did All The Things, but I think we did enough of the things. Oh, and I got to use my superpower of being able to summon a taxi in a world filled with Uber and Lyft in order to get the three of us to the restaurant. It is a superpower that is normally very useless, given that I live in a town where taxis must be called on the phone and appointments made. But, I have rarely failed to catch a taxi any time I'm visiting a large enough city. I've hailed them in Chicago, Los Angeles, and DC. (I was too young to use this superpower when I was last in NYC.) And by hail? I mean, literally, I will be in a street and an available taxi will come by and I will stick my hand out and yell, "TAXI!" and they stop for us. 

Naomi thinks I had a past life as a New Yorker. Because this skill is clearly fairly useless in the modern era. But it is the reason I do not have a Lyft or Uber app on my phone.

So, yeah, there's very little to say about Tuesday other than Naomi and I did discuss the possiblity our pilot getting raptured. Luckily, that did not happen. 

Now, I'm home, returned to the "real world" where dishes must be washed and food prepared. Alas, down to earth once again.

Image: classic image of the Washington monument at night.

Sunday morning started out much better than the day before as Naomi and I had been invited to breakfast with Joe and Gay Haldeman. We ended up having a rather leisurely brunch talking about life, the universe, and everything. Everything that everyone says about how nice and welcoming Gay and Joe are is one hundred percent true.

I, thankfully, had no panels at all on Sunday. I’d love to say that meant no one mispronunced my name, but alas. A couple of the people on concom just never got it right, despite the fact that I spent a lot of time making sure I put names to faces and knew at least one fact about them, ie, Kathy the former postal lawyer; Zen Lizard (one of the many Sams) who, shockingly, is a fan of lizards; Kim who loves animals and volunteered at the zoo; Roger, the IT guy; and Kimbery, who is easy since he’s a man named Kimberly, but also he was Naomi’s liason and so we heard his entire lifestory on the 30 minute drive from the airport (highlight reel includes, but it not limited to, his extensive time in the foreign service, being a Mormon, and a member of MENSA.)

I think all of them called me Lid-ah.

Ah well.

Knowing that we’d be starting our adventures after the con ended, I wandered over to the metro station--which is directly across from the hotel--and purchased a three day pass for myself and Naomi. That would cover Sunday night, all day Monday, and our trip to the airport on Tuesday.

I wandered back to the con hotel in time to see Scott Edelman in his fish head rushing off to do a reading. I probably should have followed him, since I did want to hear him read, but I figured (wrongly) that the program guide would direct me to where I needed to go when I was feeling ready. But, no! Not only was Scott’s reading not in the program, I could not figure out what room he was in until I overheard someone saying that their reading was around the corner and down the hall near the Green Room. I managed to walk right in during Scott’s Q&A. I’d missed the reading! Curses!

I stayed in the room to listen to the next person (who, unlike Scott, was listed in the program,) Morgan Hazelwood. Morgan was the delightful moderator of our Romance in SF panel and it was fun to hear her read her work.

From there, I sat in the back to listen to the last half hour of “Religion in SF” which Naomi was on with our mutual friend Walter Hunt.

The funny thing about Capclave is that while it is much larger than Diversicon, on occasion, it felt much smaller. Naomi and I discussed this later and we decided that possibly this sense came from the fact that in addition to a three track (four or five if you count the two rooms devoted to author’s readings) there was a gaming room and a dealer’s room. This ended up spreading out the hundred plus members quite a bit. I counted. There were fifteen people listening to a six person panel. So, the energy of the convention was always sort of low.

I have now, of course, been struck with fear that John and I have over-programmed Gaylaxicon. I guess we’ll see how it plays out!

After the religion panel, Naomi had another panel in the same room, which was “Genre Fiction versus Lit Fic.” Despite having even fewer people in the audience, the panel was lively. I think because we all get kind of worked up about mainstream literature and who gets to cross over to it and who doesn’t. (Or we get worked up because we never want to and we have FEELINGS about lit fic.) It was a good mix of panelists, too--some from the “I don’t even like the term speculative fic because it’s too fancy” camp to the PhD and MFA student. It was a great way to end the con, as far as I was concerned.

Afterwards, Naomi did some last minute hanging out with folks and I headed upstairs to prep for adventure, by which I mean snoozling.

At some point around 3 pm, we headed to DC.

I have been desperately trying to replenish my stationary stock and so we got a hot tip from a native that we should check out Jenni Bick in Dupont Circle. The red line, which our hotel is on, goes direct to Dupont Circle and add to that Naomi had a restaurant she wanted to revisit from a previous trip to DC, City Lights of China, that was nearby. So off we went.

I am a huge fan of public transportation. I find the DC metro system to be fantastic in this regard. Plus, their day passes include buses. Rockford/our hotel is, during rush hour, about a half hour from DC. I don’t know why, but that time goes faster on trains.

Jenni Bick was, alas, a bust. Americans do not understand stationary any more. (We did? In the 1970s and even into the 80s you could find huge pads of stationary at all sorts of stores.) Nowadays, we seem to that think ten sheets and ten envelopes for $30 is a great deal. Y’all, ten sheets is two letters--or, on a good day, ONE. I want a packet of 30 super-thin sheets with weird cartoon people on it for $10 to $20, what is wrong with you all???

Sigh.

It was a delightfully pretty shop and I am proud of myself for not buying all the postcards they had in the window.

From there, we stopped at a great comic book shop called Fantom Comics. This was possibly the first comicbook shop I have ever been to where all the graphic novels were organized by subject, like “action/adventure,” “horror,” “romance,” etc., and MANGA WAS MIXED IN. There was no separate manga section! It was kind of nice, actually? It felt weirdly less stigmatizing. I didn’t buy anything, but I took a lot of pictures of titles I want to look up.

Their unisex bathroom had the best art!


Image: bathroom art at Fantom

We ended up taking a bus to where Naomi’s restaurant was--only to discover it was now only a takeout window. Alas! Luckily, it was on a strip of a ton of restaurants and we were able to find a lovely ramen place just up the street.

Then, because we wanted to see some of the monuments lit up at night, we hopped another bus for a quick jaunt and then wandered towards the Lincoln memorial. What was striking was, in fact, the number of National Guard everwhere. I knew they’d be there thanks to the news, etc., but yet somehow I forgot? Someone at the con said that the Guard tend to hang out in large clots at the subway stations and wander the Smithsonian Mall area, and that did, in fact, seem to be true. Naomi was curious and so asked some of the Guard that we ran into where they were originally from and they were all from West Virginia. (Which kind of explained HOW WHITE they all were. Like, the reason we started asking was because they were noticeably missing PoCs.)

Anyway, the walk around the monuments was a bit of a hike.

There was a sign I pointed out to Naomi which read “The Mall is big! Think about renting a bike!” Because, yes. I forgot how much walking a person ends up doing in DC. My feet were a bit sore at the end of the day. Hopefully, I’ll be up for all we have planned for tomorrow which, at the moment, includes checking out the fish market, the Black History museum (Smithsonian) and/or maybe the Postal Museum. I intentionally did not plan a lot for us because frankly, even though both Naomi and I have been to DC and the Smithsonian Mall before… there’s just no way to ever see it all I suspect, unless you live here.

Okay! Off for more adventure!