Home from Orycon

The thing which is the most outstanding and chiefly to be desired by all healthy and good and well-off persons, is leisure with honor.
-- Cicero

Sunday, November 15, 1998

Updated and completed Tuesday, November 17, 1998. The trip report starts with Friday's entry and continues through Saturday.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

Well, I'm home from Orycon, chickabiddies! (I like that word!) I'm too tired to write the story of the weekend; I'll probably do it tomorrow -- post entries for Friday and Saturday, and update this one. For now this is stream of consciousness on Sunday evening.

It's comfortable and cozy to be back in my own place. I was able to scan my email, answer a few messages, and delete list email several times over the weekend from the "Internet Café" at the con. (Why is it called this? It's just a room with PCs connected to the internet and I'm very glad they have it! but there is no coffee involved!) So I wasn't really buried under a pile of email, but I had an orgy of journal catch-up. Both Lucy and Vicki Jean said at brunch that they don't read that many journals, but I will freely admit to reading many!

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

Jack said in email, a few weeks back (about INTP types liking to argue for fun) "I often throw out openers to these kind of debates when speaking to you, but you rarely take the bait (or should I say 'de bait')." So when, as we were driving home this evening, he started talking about the need for an old-fashioned sense of honor in today's culture, I didn't precisely take the opposing side, but I did question him more closely than I might have previously on what exactly he meant. I have some qualms about the bad things that have happened in the name of honor or chivalry.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

This morning we slept too late to get that free breakfast, which disappointed Jack! I had an appointment to meet with other online journalers at eleven, so I showered, packed my stuff, and left the checkout for him to deal with (forgetting about the room deposit that I needed back). Once more I walked over to the Doubletree Hotel Columbia River. The walk across the hotel parking lot is a defining moment of my Orycon experience. The space under a bridge is always a place of power -- witness the myths about trolls and goats!

I met Vicki Jean and Lucy at the hotel lobby, and we commenced to wait. We waited for Elizabeth of Scrawls for half an hour, chatting the while, before giving up and walking across the street to get some food. We would have called, but none of us had her number with us!

I treated myself to the "sausage-lover's slam" at Denny's, which had sausage in the scrambled eggs, link sausage, patty sausage, and pancakes. It hit the spot! We three had fun chatting, despite (or because of?) our differing ideas about journals, web philosophy, and life philosophy.

VJ did take a tumble on the way back to the con hotel, which reminded me of the spill I took a few weeks ago. I found Jack in the lobby, and we visited the art auction (but didn't buy anything), and the dealers room (and did buy some things -- jewelry for me, a tshirt for Jack). We stopped by the con office and Jack bought us offical Orycon 20 tshirts. The one thing we didn't do was stop by the line where folks were pre-registering for next year. I kept thinking the line would get shorter, each time we passed, and when I decided to go get in the line anyway, they'd cut registrations off! So now I'll have to register by mail. Rats! After doing so well in this regard last year!

The last bit of programming I attended was a reading by Howard Waldrop, one of my favorite writers. He's a Texan who moved to Washinton state a few years ago, so he could do more fishing. The first part of his thing was "not the normal thing I do," he said: a Bruce Sterling-style rant about the intersection of the Roswell incident and the Rosenberg case. He said that the person who writes that article will get the Pulitzer prize! He also read a short story, a multi-generational saga (that's what someone told him he should be writing, a la John Jakes) about prehistoric days.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

We went back to the fan lounge and hung out for a while. Vicki Jean came by and showed us her new toy, an extremely thin Sony laptop that she had bought not an hour before. It is indeed very cool!

We stopped back at the Oxford Suites to pick up my deposit money, and then we were off, driving north. I was glad Jack was driving, since the weather turned nasty, rainy, windy and dark! Almost every year when I'm driving north from Orycon, the weather is bad. Having each other to talk to made the time go more quickly. No stops, except to fuel the car, until we picked up A----, Jack's older daughter, just outside Olympia.

We stopped for dinner (Jack had planned on this; his daughter usually needs to be fed when he picks her up) at the Hawks Prairie Inn, a restaurant/diner that's been around a long time. We told A---- about the con (she's been a Norwescon attendee) and showed her the program book and the pictures I'd taken. We were talking about Thanksgiving plans. Jack said he was almost certainly going to his folks' place in Eastern Washington. I must have shown some disappointment -- I'd suggested the other week that he could join me at my sister's friends, if he stayed in town -- because he immediately suggested that I should go too!

But since this was a spur-of-the-moment invitation, he'll need to check with his parents to make sure this will be ok with them.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

General thoughts about Orycon this year: I wish that I had made more time to talk to Timebinders list members. I exchanged words with a few; some I just nodded to in passing. I saw much less MTG card playing than happened a few years ago. So many good guests and members because of it being number 20! Jack said he felt rushed. But overall I had a great time!