Friends and Allies

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!

Perhaps I should have taken the fact that the hotel's Starbucks' espresso maker was broken Saturday morning as an omen for the rest of my day. I was able to get caffeine by running across Rockville Pike to the Chateau again, but it was a very “??” and “!!” start to the day.

Naomi and I were both on a panel at 10:00 am entitled “Benevolent AIs. The moderator, Wendy Delmater Theis (formerly of Abyss & Apex), went down the row and introduced herself before the panel, which was fine. She asked everyone who they were and seemed very confused by my general existence. I’m not sure if it was the horror of, “Oh no, a name I don’t know how to pronounce?” or (something I’ve been getting on and off here, which is) "... and you are?”

I am admittedly sensitive to the latter. Much more than when someone flubs my name. It’s not a real microaggression against me when someone isn’t sure if my name is LIE-duh or LEE-duh or ends up calling me Lynda or Lydia. I’m a white lady. You mispronouncing my name is not a reflection on how you feel about my ethnicity or my heritage. It’s annoying to me when fear of mispronouncing my names stops people from calling on me on a panel or saying, “You, the end,” rather than trying and failing to say LIE-duh. But, like, it's just something I live with. 

However, the whole long stare of ‘hmmm, you have said you are an author, but clearly you are one I have not heard of. Whelp, I guess that means you’re not important” is something that feels much more like a microagression of a sort. I’ve been slowly getting used to it happening. It was always a crapshoot outside of my regional conventions if anyone had heard of me, and this has only increased as time wears on.

But, while I did get ‘the long stare’ and the ‘uh, YOU, at the end’ from our moderator, that wasn’t the real problem with this panel.

First, as expected with a panel about AI, it was somewhat unclear if we’d be talking about LLM and other so-called AI, like ChatGPT, that are operating in the real world as we know it right now or if we’d be talking about fictional versions. The panel description didn’t actually help. Neither did the moderator. Worse, she was one of those moderators that really just wanted to be the one talking. She’d pose questions, let us throw out a couple examples--scold us if we were not precisely on the format she set out (film, TV, books, series) and… I don’t really know because at some point my soul left my body after she shut down Naomi for starting to talk about the AIs in Murderbot Diaries (ART and Mickey) because those were AIs from a book series, not standalones and we were on standalones. Like, wow. We were in the book category why the distinction and is it really something to get cranky about? Whatever. I checked out.

It wasn’t bad in the “someone brought up Hilter” kind of bad (that would be my next panel-panel) but more a “WTF was that?”

Next up wasn’t exactly a panel, it was me interviewing Naomi. And this went fine--quite well, actually.

Scott Edelman, who published my first professionally published short story (in SF Age back in the 90s), chatted with me in the hall for a long time before the interview. We were waiting for Naomi to get out of the panel she was on and just sat on the hallway couch chatting about this and that. Scott did a lot for my ego by apologizing for not knowing that I was going to be at this convention as he would have had me guest on “Eating the Fantastic,” as well. (This is the podcast where he interviews writers over meals that I linked to in yesterday's post). He noted that couldn’t just slot me in because he reads everything the author has written in preparation and, I don’t know if you know this, gentle reader, but I’ve written and published sixteen novels. That would be a lot to just read in a matter of hours. And maybe he was lying, but 1) I don’t think so. He genuinely seemed to remember me. And 2) even if he was, it was a nice thing to say.

The interview was great. Naomi is easy for me to talk to, of course. We’ve been friends for decades.

At some point there was a run to get sandwiches for lunch at the local grocery store and.... then came the panel from hell.

I seem to have been cursed with moderators who really had points they wanted to make on Saturday. This panel was called “For the Love of Evil” and, ostensibly, was about villains we should hate, but secretly love (or perhaps that we love to hate.) I had a nice little list of names like Killmonger, Moriarty from Sherlock, (Milton’s Satan?), and Loki. Things started off well because Capclave is an East Coast con and East Coast cons have the culture of “list all your books and awards” and so I got a big laugh when I noted that ,when I won the Philip K Dick Special Citation for Excellence, I sent out a press release that said, “Lesbian wins Second Place Dick” (which I really did!) But, as things turned out, that might have been the high point of the panel?

Things went along for a while pretty well, but then for reasons known only to our mod, Larry Hodges, he decided that he needed to monologue about how various real life villains mapped to fictitious ones. This was already a bad idea because he was talking about Stalin and Mussolini (neither of which he could pronounce) and... of course, we could see where this was going.

Inexorably, he gets to Hitler, whom he likens to Thanos because “he thought he was doing what was right for the world.”

The author next to me, Diana Peterfreund, dropped her head to the table.

I full-body disassociated.

For me, it was a kind of decision paralysis. I was torn between grabbing the mic and just saying “no, no, no” until Larry stopped talking or faking my own death/dropping the the floor and marine crawling out the door.

Meanwhile, of course, Larry is still making his case that Hilter was just trying to right the wrongs of the world (in his own head, like how a villain thinks he’s a hero, but still, Larry, there’s no justifying this, so please just STOP.) But he didn’t stop, he kept talking, and so thank GOD for Diana who finally does manage to grab the mike and say, “SO! Change of subject, Loki sure is hot!” This allows me to finally return to my body and I grab my mike and say, “So hot!” We go back and forth like this until the bad feelings go away.

Why do people feel the need to EVER bring up Hilter? I feel like unless you're comparing the current presidential administration to the Third Reich, just don't. 

Anyway, Loki is not exactly what we talked about--Diana managed to be far more articulate, but I no longer remember anything other than SOMEHOW we managed to literally wrestle the panel back to something akin to squee about villains. And when I say “we,” I mean Diana, with some support from me. The panel was saved. It even, miraculously, snaps back to true and we end with some nice questions from the audience which aren’t just “WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WITNESS?”

I did have some great things happen on Saturday, like the chat with Scott E. and running into some other folks I know like Carolyn Ives Gilman and Walter Hunt. I was the “comealong friend” to Naomi’s Scintilation Discord group dinner, which was delightful. Then, just before retiring upstairs, I watched the WSFA award ceremony which was nice in the classic small con award way, even though Marissa Lingen didn’t win.

No further mishaps.

But, the ones I had? Doozies.

Thanks to all the trauma, I retired early last night. As noted previously, I just don't really function all that well in social situations after dark any more. Naomi was apparently out until quite late. I woke up long enough last night to have a nice chat with her about it all (and catch her up on all my trauma). 

This morning we'd been invited to breakfast with Joe and Gay Haldeman at 9 am. The two of them are, of course, quite wonderful so we had a lovely time talking to them both for several hours over eggs and toast.

Today things wrap up in the early afternoon, so I've been put in charge of finding something fun for us to do this evening. Tomorrow we're still in DC for some sightseeing, and then it's home Tuesday afternoon.

 Things don't kick off here at Capclave until after 1 pm, and I am, unfortuntely, an early riser. At least with the time zone shift waking up at Saint Paul 6:30 am is a much more reasonable (for most people) 7:30 am here.

I let Naomi sleep in and went in search of coffee. The hotel has a Starbucks so, in desperation, there's always that. But I live in hope of a good latte. I didn't exactly find one, though Chateau de Rockville Cafe wasn't bad. As I told my wife this morning, it was more bakery than coffeeshop. I might try a place called The Espresso Bar (GPS thinks it's a 7 minute walk from the hotel (on the other side of the metro line, which is directly behind the con hotel.) 

For reasons known only to Rockville, the little strip malls around the hotel seem to be filled with Japanese-themed shops. There's even a place called Teso Life, which porports to be in the style of a Japanese "departo" (department store.) The internet tells me, howeve, that it is not a Japanese company. This is an American company that is importing the vibe, if you will. There is an Eibsu, which is a Japanese grocery store with a lot of Japanese products and just a ton of other places like this. I don't know if this is a Japantown little corridor in Rockville or just a quirk.Okay a quick jaunt over to Reddit tells me that where we are, the Rockville Pike, does in fact have a small community of Japanese immigrants/Japanese Americans. I am warned, however, that the Teso Life is actually owned by a Chinese company. Apparently, the Maruichi Japanese grocery store and Temari Japanese cafe on Rockville Pike, are both run by Japanese expats.Regardless, I'm excited to check it out. And we need to do something for awhile. 

I'm glad I packed a pair of shorts, however. In my little jaunt for coffee, I managed to get very sweaty. It's warm here today. Shawn tells me that y'all in the Twin Cities got a lovely thunderstorm last night. 

Okay, I'm off exploring more exciting news as it breaks.

Look at me posting on a Monday! Will wonders never cease?

On Saturday, I ran my usual D&D campaign. Because a lot of people find this stuff boring, I shall put my brief discussion about it under the cut.

As part of our usual Saturday alliterative errands, Shawn and I stop for coffee. (Our alliteration is: coffee, cardboard, cardamon buns... and then sometimes other that things we struggle to turn into 'c's, like Mendards which we sometimes just call 'cart,' because it's shopping.) This Saturday is was only the traditional three stops. Our cardboard recycling center has closed in Saint Paul, so now we have to drive all the way out to Roseville, which is... annoying? Though it may mean that we will return "car" to our alliterative errands as the car wash place is out in the same direction.

Anyway, my point in bringing this up is that my barista often ask me if I have fun plans for the weekend and so I mentioned D&D. One of the guys there also runs a campaign and GUESS WHAT THEY'RE PLAYING??? Yep, the same thing we are: The Curse of Strahd. Like me, he's having to do some heavy homebrewing to make it fit into the play style of his group. We both joked that we might be using some of the same source materials but there's no way we're playing the same game.

Which is what I love about GMing and RPGs in general.

( So called boring stuff... )

Other things I did this weekend was start watching Altered Carbon. And, before you ask, no, I'm not watching it for the podcast. It came up when I was looking for something new and I thought: why not? I hear that the second season isn't as good, but I'm enjoying the story so far. To be clear, however, thanks to all the shounen anime that I consume I have a LARGE tolerance for what is essentially splatterpunk. I would not recommend this show to anyone squeamish about blood, gore, or realistic violence. It also treats women (particularly sex workers) as disposable and so has gotten the reputation as misogynistic, but I'm really enjoying two of the women characters in it SO FAR. We'll see how it all plays out as I go along. I'm only up to episode four, I think.

Netflix also reminded me that I need to continue with The Summer Hikaru Died, but I am waiting for a few more episodes to drop before I return to that one. At some point, too, the anime is going to go past what I've read of the manga, and I'll have to decide if I should go to the library and check out any new volumes or if I'm cool with letting the anime carry me. I'll probably be cool with just going with the anime? Sometimes you just have to because the English language release is that much further behind?

Anyway, my alarm went off for my writing accountablity Zoom so I should head off and try to do some writing!