I am now re-tired! When I called Wednesday morning, it sounded kind of like they'd forgotten to try to get the tire and said they'd send a courier to another store to get it, and swore they'd have it that afternoon. I called shortly after five when I hadn't heard anything, and they said they just got it. So I went this morning and had it put on (and they called me this morning to say they had it). I also now have groceries (something I'd been putting off while in tireless limbo) and I can't decide what to eat for lunch because I have too many options, for a change.
FenCon kicks off tomorrow, and I'm on a lot of fun panels. Plus, there are a lot of other fun panels. In fact, the Law of Convention Scheduling came into play, in that whenever there's a panel I wanted to hear, it was opposite one I was on. But I want to be on the ones I'm on and would want to hear them even if I wasn't on them, so I guess that just means there are too many good panels for one person to possibly attend. I think they knew I'd be stalking Connie Willis because they always scheduled me opposite her, aside from a panel we're on together and the autograph session we have together. Really, I'm totally over the need to get revenge on her for the time she sort of facilitated me getting together with a guy who turned out to be a total loony.
It was at the Pike's Peak Writers Conference back in 2002. I'd finally worked up the courage to talk to her during her autograph session, and found after I got over the fangirl nerves that we had a lot to talk about and got on pretty well. After the autograph session, we adjourned to the bar, where she bought me orange juice, which seemed to help with my altitude issues. The crowd in the bar grew, and then this guy joined the group, he seemed torn between talking to me and talking to her, and she ended up scooting over so he could sit between us. He and I hit it off, and we ended up sneaking out of the awards ceremony to go to a movie. We exchanged contact info, then a few months later he said he'd be in my area on vacation, and he wanted to see me. We arranged to get together, he came over, we had dinner. We watched a DVD. And then when I was doing the "yawn, it's getting late, it was great to see you" routine, he announced that he'd brought his sleeping bag, and did I mind if he stayed with me. Silly me, I thought he was stopping by while on vacation, but it turned out I was the Holiday Inn (and I got the distinct impression that he'd been hoping the sleeping bag wouldn't be needed, if you know what I mean. He did need it.). And then he spend the weekend criticizing my life (not that he knew anything about it). I kicked him out after two days and then never heard from him again. See why I'm still single?
On a more pleasant Connie Willis note, back in 2000 I took a vacation to England. I was mostly looking for an escape from work, and I caught an incredible airfare sale I couldn't resist. While looking for places to go within England, I settled on Oxford because it was close enough to London for easy access but the lodgings were much more reasonable, and there was a lot I could get to from there. When I got to my guest house, I noticed a sign on the door of my room explaining the ways to get into town (we were on the outskirts) and one of them mentioned going to Iffley, just a short walk down the road, and then following the path along the river back into Oxford. I remembered then that Iffley was where Ned and Verity first ran into each other back in Victorian times at a church in the book To Say Nothing of the Dog. So, I took off walking that way -- and then saw the church. It was right out of the book. From that point, I managed to more or less find my way around according to the descriptions in the book. It might be a sign that I'd read the book too many times that I did this without actually having a copy with me. I managed to catch most of the major settings around Oxford, and then when I was in London, I went out of my way to see the Albert Memorial, which isn't actually in the book, but it is often cited as an example of hideous Victorian design. When I put together my photo album from that trip, I used quotes from the book as captions.
And now I'll share the album with you, via the magic of the LiveJournal scrapbook feature. Some of the locations are my best guesses, or else they're something near where the item in the book was, or are something that's probably newer than Victorian that still seems like it could fit there.
The To Say Nothing of the Dog World Tour, 2000
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