KJ

Hard to believe that Worldcon 2025 is almost upon us. Despite the various dramas and screw-ups of the con-runners, I'm still planning to go, mainly because Seattle is one of my favorite places to visit, especially via road trip, and I have plenty of time to make a leisurely drive out of it. Except for a brief work trip to Oregon, I haven't been to the Pacific Northwest since my last road trip up there in 2012, so a return trip is long overdue.

The other reason to go to Worldcon is to see and meet friends! So I'm posting to ask who else is going, and/or if you live in the area/on the way between Seattle and SF and would like to meet up.

My rough plan:

• Leave SF early on Wednesday 8/13, with a goal of arriving in Seattle in time for Writers with Drinks on Thursday, 8/14. WWD is always a fun time, and that line-up is stacked!
• Attend various Worldcon and/or Fringe events on Friday and Saturday; I still need to sit down with the schedules to see what, if anything, is interesting. I also plan to hit Pike Place Market (can't leave Seattle without a stop there) and maybe the Chihuly museum (which I've never visited). This would also be a great time to see people!
• Attend the Hugo Awards Ceremony at 8:30pm on Saturday -- I'm extremely uninvested this year (I have to confess that I didn't even vote), but I'd still like to go.
• Leave for Portland on Sunday 8/17 -- my one firm commitment, since I'm taking a friend to the airport
• Spend at least 2-3 days in Portland, then drive back to SF via the coastal route.

Let me know if you'd like to connect!

Well, hello. There's no way I'm going to catch up on over six months of life in one DW post, so I'm not even going to try. But the highlights:

1. ( Work stuff )

2. 2022 was a bit of a year for me on the health front. ( Health and medical stuff. )

3. So yeah, I turned 50 in March. Time comes for us all. I didn't get my act together for as much of a celebration as I might have liked, but my friends R & S hosted a birthday brunch for me along with enf, whose birthday is the day after mine. Then T and I hopped up to Napa for the day where we had a fancy lunch and bought many tasty treats, and it was a gorgeous day, a welcome respite from the five million storms we had this winter (maybe you've heard about those; fortunately we live in a neighborhood that isn't at risk of floods or mudslides, but there were a lot of messes around us and I sure got tired of rain).

4. We continue to live in pandemic mode, even though much of the world has moved on. I do still wear a mask in most indoor settings and avoid indoor restaurant dining as much as possible (T won't do it at all). Maybe it's not necessary, but the fact is that, between cautious behavior and good fortune, I still haven't gotten COVID (as far as I know), and I would prefer to keep it that way. And it's not a big deal for me to wear a mask on transit, or in the grocery store, or at the theater, etc., even if most other people aren't. T's unwillingness to dine indoors, even in the worst weather, is starting to become a concern, but now that spring is upon us it will hopefully be less of an issue for awhile. The bigger deal is that I've finally coaxed him back onto an airplane, and we're going to take our first two real vacations since September 2019: Hawaii at the end of the month, and Maine for a friend's wedding in July. I am super excited for both of these trips and can't believe that Hawaii is only about two weeks away! Unfortunately, though, the trip conflicts with WisCon, so I won't be attending in person. It was a tough decision but ultimately it made the most sense for me. I do plan to attend at least some events virtually.

5. CW for pet loss and cancer. ( About Tori )

In Chicago! So far I have pretty much gotten here, bought dinner to eat in my room, and relaxed after a relatively non-eventful flight. I haven't seen anyone I know or even registered yet (and I'm not sure registration is even open), so it's hard to feel like I'm "at" the con. But tomorrow I have plans to find people and have flagged some programming to attend, so I'm sure I'll settle in then.

If you're here too, let me know!

My first foray into plane travel since January 2020 seems to have gone well enough. Both flights were uneventful, which is about as much as you can ask from a plane flight; I could wish that the mask mandate hadn't been struck down, but I feel like I made the best of it. I decided to skip out on the GoH reading, because I got to the hotel only 10 minutes before it was supposed to start, it was raining pretty hard, and I was really ready to be in a no-mask space for awhile. So I watched the livestream on Zoom, and enjoyed both the reading by Sheree Renee Thomas and especially the Q&A with her afterwards. After that I picked up my badge, considered attempting to find some dinner, but decided that I wasn't up for braving the rain without a jacket or umbrella to find a restaurant with outdoor covered seating. So I ordered room service and have been turtling up in my room ever since, and I'm 100% okay with that. I'll go join con space tomorrow.

That said, I've already run into a couple of friends (including justira!), and it felt so good to see them and know I'll be spending the next few days with them, so I'm really happy I'm here.

( My schedule )

Vacation has overall been very nice! Brunch and pool laziness on Monday, a day of total sloth on Tuesday, Wednesday-Thursday-Friday a good mix of relaxing and attending work meetings while making my co-workers jealous with my palm tree background and bird sounds. Also on Wednesday we went up the Palm Springs Tramway where we took in some really amazing views.

Today some of my friends went to Joshua Tree, but I decided I wasn't up for that because I took a bit of a tumble on Wednesday after dinner. ( Non-graphic medical details behind the cut )

Tomorrow we head home. Despite getting injured, overall it's been a wonderful escape. I would definitely do this again. And if you're ever looking to rent a house in Palm Springs, I'd recommend this one for sure - feel free to send me a DM and I'll give you the info.

Thursday morning, 8:30 AM

This is my view as the sun rises behind me, as I sit at the bow of a houseboat on the Sacramento River arm of Lake Shasta (or maybe it’s Shasta Lake; maps and signage are a bit confused on this point).

I sat down to write a post about my trip during my trip, a week ago today, but that's as far as I ever got. Except for this and a little time spent wrapping up and polishing my Remix Revival story, which was due, my houseboat vacation was not a writing vacation, for a number of reasons -- there was no good place to set up a laptop on the boat, very poor cell service and no wifi at all except at the marina, and spending the time focused on friends and reading and basking in nature instead. (Yes, reading. I finished five books in a week. I don't remember the last time I managed that.) But really, given the kind of nature I was surrounded by, who could blame me?

Some creatives are inspired by being out in nature; much as I could wish that were true of me, it's really not. I do my best work either at my own desk or in a cafe, the urban world bustling around me. I've considered whether there's any possible way for me to do such a thing now, in the pandemic times; would sitting masked at an outdoor cafe do the trick? Or would the mask be too much of a distraction? It's hard to say, which is why I haven't tried it yet.

Still, even if it didn't spark a burst of creativity, being out of town, surrounded by nature, and far from the bustle of the world was still a balm to my soul, a much-needed respite. I'm really glad we were able to make it work.

My view right now

I severely overestimated the amount of writing time I would have on this trip, but that's okay because I've spent it lounging and board gaming and hanging out with people, and reading a little, and if that means I fall further behind on my writing goals this year, in the long run I think that's okay. I've needed this getaway so much, and I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to have one.

(Written on Saturday, didn't post until today. Now I am home. Tomorrow will tell if this trip was the reset I needed. I hope so.)

I have booked my plane tickets for my epic May travels! My 25th college reunion is the last weekend in May, and Wiscon is the weekend before. It seemed silly to go home in between, so I'll be gone for a week and a half. Flying into Madison on Thursday, 5/21 and out of Philadelphia on Sunday, 5/31. I'm sure I'll see some of you at each event -- and perhaps both??

Now, the question of how I get from Madison to Philadelphia is an open one. I have tentative plans to visit folks during the week between events. Train, bus, rent a car? I'll have to figure out and price my options. If anyone has advice, I'm happy to hear it!

I was basically off DW for the past week and a bit -- took a trip to Massachusetts, Maine, and Pennsylvania, and four more states if you include the ones I only drove through (Boston to Portland and back, and later Boston to the Philadelphia area). The central reason for this trip was a meeting at Bryn Mawr on Friday night and Saturday, but T and I decided to make a real vacation out of it, and he'd never been to Boston (or any other part of New England, for that matter) so we flew out a week early. We started at A's house in Boston for a couple of days (highlights included the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum -- anyone named Isabella gets in free! -- and an architecture-focused boat tour of Boston Harbor and the Charles River). Then M, who lives in Portland, Maine, but came down to Boston on Sunday, took us on a scenic drive up there. We stayed the night, spent the morning wandering around Portland, and then took the bus back to Boston. T decided to skip the Philadelphia portion of the trip and flew home on Thursday; A and I drove down to Bryn Mawr on Friday. We somehow got ourselves elected class co-presidents, and the time has come to start planning our 25th reunion -- someone please tell me how it has been a quarter century since I started my senior year of college?? Anyway, it was a great get together with our classmates and other Mawrters, energizing as a trip to the Mothership always is, and I can't wait for the reunion, which is the last week of May.

It was good to get away, and to see more of Maine -- I'd been to Portland once many years ago, for a Barenaked Ladies concert, but we basically drove up from Boston and back in a day, and it was essentially dark the entire time we were in the city. And of course I always enjoy time with M and A, a commodity much rarer than it used to be. It's amazing to have friends that I've known continuously for almost 30 years, and with luck I'll know them for 30 more.