Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

I took BART up to The City today to attend a World Fantasy Convention 2009 meeting. Because I got off to a late start, I had to the choice of getting to the razor-repair place before the meeting or having breakfast; I choose the latter for health reasons. Not much I can say about the meeting other than "it was a con committee meeting and we talked about a lot of organizational stuff, some of which affects me." After the meeting, I started walking down Market Street toward 5th when a streetcar happened to come along. As a Muni transfer is good for 90 minutes, I figured I could get two rides out of the system, so I paid my $1.50 (soon to be $2) and hopped on for the short trip. I then walked down to the appliance-repair place on Folsom Street.

( So much for that electric razor )

I then had lunch and decided to walk down Market toward the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero, planning to catch the next streetcar going my way. I got nearly all the way to Pier 39 before one came along, while eight went the other direction. Sheesh. And when one did come along, it only went about three stops before getting to Pier 39 and the end of the line. By then my transfer had run out, and I had the choice of paying another $1.50 or walking back downtown. I walked. I walked a lot. Right now there's over 11,000 steps on my pedometer. My blood sugar an hour after a big plate of pasta was a mere 78, so I didn't feel guilty at all about getting a venti Mocha at Starbucks, where I'm finally online for the first time since I got up here. That briefcase with the computer including the spare battery is heavy, and really there was no point in my having brought it along, but it does give me a chance to record my thoughts while I'm still thinking about it before tonight's SF in SF reading.

At one point I thought I might just go back to Fremont, but once I was up here and after all that time spent walking, I figured I might as well stay up here until the SF in SF event tonight and get "full value" from my travel day.

The people in this Starbucks are mopping the floor and looking anxiously at me, with ten minutes to closing, so I'll shut down here and get a move on.

Tonight I did something unusual for me -- I went up to the SF in SF reading without Cheryl's prompting, in the main because jaylake was attending along with Susan Palwick. I got there early to stake out one of the comfy chairs in the back of the room, and shortly after things got under way, I spotted a familiar form settle in to the row ahead of me -- my friend Raven, who most of you who frequent Bay Area conventions probably know. I went and said hello to her at the break. She said she comes to these readings now and then, as do I; obviously, this was the first time we both showed up at the same one.

The usual post-reading-and-discussion dinner outing not being on this time, Raven and I went off and had a late small dinner at Max's on Geary Street. We regaled each other with our mutual travel tales -- hers more interesting than mine, I think. After dinner, I walked her back to her apartment (with me doing ice-breaker duty to make our way through the massive queue waiting to get into the nightclub up the street) before having to beat feet back down the hill in order to catch a BART train home. As it happens, I made it with two trains to spare, but made the train I did catch by only two minutes. It did mean I made it home before 1 AM, for which I'm happy.