Kathleen, Kage and the Company

Kage Baker was born on June 10, 1952. She would have been 61 years old today.

I don’t think she would have liked it.

No question, she’d have been glad to be alive! That would have meant she’d beaten the cancer. By now, her hair would have been growing back; she’d still be skinny, from the surgeries and therapies. God He knows, she wanted to live. I just don’t think she’d have been best pleased at being 61. She was never flattered by those letters from AARP that we all start getting when we turn 50 years old.

But she’d have found ways to have fun with it. Assuming the mantle of age and wisdom would have been fun. She’d have had the chance to make a Granny Weatherwax costume, and she’d have looked damn convincing in it. She would have been able to see her eldest niece, Katie, following the family trade of painting; she’d have cheered the middle niece, Anne, in graduating with her degree in law. And she’d be proudly watching the youngest, Emma, as she prepared for the entrance exam for West Point and going on to another family tradition of service: the first girl to do so.

And there are all our friends’ kids, too, to watch grow. She’d enjoy watching her namesake, Alexander Kage – who just yestreday learned how to climb over the baby gates and made a successful escape into his parents’ garden through the dog door. She would be so proud of Patrick and Garrett for making Eagle Scout, and so happily impressed with Meagan, who is now making art with her camera, her pencils, her paintbrushes …

Kage would  have had more books out, more stories written. I’m trying to take up the slack there, of course, but I think she’d rather have done it herself … on the other hand, having gotten me to finish Nell Gwynne II, Kage would probably not have let me completely off the hook. She always wanted me to write. She was convinced it would do me good.

And she was pretty much right, too. The advance from Company of Thieves, which has the new Company story “Hollywood Ikons” in it, has just paid for the transmission on the PT Cruiser getting repaired. Saved once again by a timely check from a publisher! Kage would have been absolutely smug about that.

And some interesting weirdness today, in the mail. I got an offer from a marketing company. You know, the sort that sells pens and pencils and coin purses and keychains with your business name and vitals on them, to hand out to potential clients. In my case, it would be to hand around at conventions, I guess … what they sent me was an order form for little LED flashlights, which were really pretty keen. There was a sample, too – engraved with what these folks evidently figured was my company’s name: Dr. Zeus.

Now I’ve got this teeny little flashlight, bright enough to blind someone yet small enough to conceal about one’s person. And it says Dr. Zeus. And it got here on Kage’s birthday.

Wow.

So, I guess I’ll order some. I can give them away to Kage’s fans and friends, and bind everyone to the dread service of The Company. It’ll be a late birthday present from Kage, Hobbit-style, to everyone else. Pretty cool.

Happy Birthday, kiddo. Don’t think about the years. Just think how your creation is lighting the world. That really is pretty damned cool.

Kage Baker regarded her own birthday as the beginning of Summer.

That was when real summer began. The calendar insisted it was June 21st, and Kage happily celebrated the older holiday of Midsummer on that date.  And of course, the ending of school was an enormous landmark. By most kids’ reckoning, summer begins then, as you rush hysterically out of school on That Day, eager to spend your last secretly hoarded milk money on Pixie Sticks and Tootsie Roll Minis on the way home.

But we were almost always out of school before Kage’s birthday rolled round on June 10th. She almost never had the cupcakes in the classroom thing. Of course, most kids miss out on that these days anyway, as the Powers That Be have decided that homemade cupcakes are no longer welcome in the classroom. But in our antedeluvian day, your mom showed up at lunch time with a tray full of cupcakes, and everyone toasted you in Betty Crocker’s best.

Unless you had a summer birthday. Most of us girls did, with Kage coming earliest on the rota. But that was all right, once she decided her birthday was summer’s actual start.

When we were grownups, out living on our own, the whole week surrounding a birthday was sacrosant. Ladies never tell their ages, per maternal order: but neither of us cared much about how old we were. It was the observation of the anniversary, not the tag on it. Birthdays were often the occasions of road trips; birthday charabancs, wild adventures over the edge of the horizon, tropical cocktails, weird sweets found in tiny shops in strange towns.

Being able to drive, buy alcohol and dine in nice restaurants made it all the more adventurous. Kage often said, she wouldn’t go back to childhood birthday parties for anything: steak dinners at some restaurant on the Northern Coast, with a glass full of rum, orchids and plastic dolphins – that was what she liked. Walking late at night on strange beaches, headed back to a bespoke room.

Sometimes she liked to pretend we were creeping in to our own house or hotel room. “This looks like a nice place,” Kage would say as we wandered through the warm darkness. “Let’s break in and sleep there tonight.”

“Sounds good to me,” I would agree. And we would do that.  When we were young and limber and the cocktails had been especially good, we sometimes really did sneak around to a window we knew was loose or open – Kage would give me a leg up, I’d more or less fall through the window, and then pull her in. Much giggling and a really atrocious amount of noise accompanied these faux home invasions, so  it’s a minor miracle we never got the cops called on us.

And after that celebration, it would be summer forever … or at least until the crepe myrtle began to bloom in early September. That was Kage’s private marker for the start of school, and autumn. She always mourned the blossoms of the crepe myrtle; those prevaricating clouds of pink and purple and white; lying spring colours, that were really announcing the first sighting of fall.

It’s along, long way from June 10th to that, though. Right now is the season of abundance.

The Santa Rosa plums are just coming ripe on my tiny little tree in the backyard – three of them this year! I had only one last year. Peaches, apricots, nectarines, pluots, apridoodles and Goddess knows what else are ripe and tempting in every market. Exotic tomatoes and cucumbers. Corn – gold, white, and  unlikely but edible jewel colours. Lettuces in shades of green and red, like a sunset with the green flash showing.  There are red, white, black and amber grapes. There is local watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew; muskmelon, Persian melon, horned melon; Canary, Casaba and Crenshaw. Plus all the merrily incestuous hybrids that result when you plant different melons too close together.

So I’ll eat a plum from my very own tree tomorrow, to celebrate Kage’s birthday. I used to eat the apricots, while she ate the plums. But it’s her day tomorrow, and the beginning of real summer – so it’s plums. Plums, all the way down.

Kage Baker, like most writers, kept an eye on several topics in news and research. Being a science fiction writer, a lot of them were science aggregators; for the same reason, others were purveyors of Weird News.

The eyes were usually mine. Kage had sites she checked regularly (Pirates. Also ghosts, sasquatches, and old candies) but that was for personal giggles; the hard science and the weirder news were usually my responsibility – I was her clipping service. When I found something interesting, I alerted her. She’d add it to whatever was currently frothing around in her head, and then wait to see what bubbled up …

That was the root of “The Bohemian Astrobleme”. And the room temperature superconductor gittite, in “The Unfortunate Gitt”. Kage’s fascination with Mount Everest provided the plot point of low-oxygen-induced sterility in Empress of Mars. My interests in textile history led to the carbon fibre corset stays in Nell Gwynne II.

Since you never know what will spark an idea or connect the first links in a logic chain, it was Kage’s method to keep looking everywhere, all the time, at everything. She said it was the antithesis of Sherlock Holmes’ metaphor of the mind as lumber room – store in it only what you need, he said, and ruthlessly toss the rest. Kage said, No, keep everything you find and move it around constantly to see what becomes visible.

She didn’t think much , either, of the famous statement:  “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth”. Her disdain for that arose from her conviction that you never could eliminate the impossible – that was a task beyond the human brain. If you ever decided you had succeeded in doing so, you were a victim of your own limited viewpoint – because there was always something else just waiting for a space in the queue on belief to open up. Whatever you thought you had eliminated just made room for another ‘impossible’ thing.

“Artichokes! Penicillin! Flint and steel! Solid circuits!” she would enumerate, hands flying in animated discourse. “Somebody gave up and tried the impossible, and changed the world!”

Lots of you, Dear Readers, send me such goodies nowadays, and they are always appreciated. Some of them have already crept into stories here and there. More of them will, too.

Now, just at this moment, I am looking around and realizing I need to settle down and do some work, fast and hard. I just got the copy edited pages for Company of Thieves, and the ever-patient Jill at Tachyon wants them back in a reasonable amount of time. I lost Monday to the new Steven King – it was grand, too, but not even glorious reading gets my own parsnips properly buttered … plus, I stayed awake until 4 AM to finish it, and was thus walking into walls a lot yestreday on Tuesday.

And today – why, I do not know; it was not the most sensible thing to do – I went prowling through the dim caves and orchid-scented clearings of the Interwebs to find strange articles. For your amusement, Dear Readers, they are listed below – they entertained me, they may entertain you. I miss having someone to share these with, which is why I like it so much when one of you sends me something.

So take a gander. Glass is not a liquid after all, which would have disappointed Kage; though maybe its actual status as an amorphous supercooled non-crystalline solid would have been as fascinating.

There’s a vortex in Brighton – Kage expected those in beach towns and wrote about them more than once. Brighton’s would only have gotten a wise nod from her. Atoms switching bonds actually do look like Tinkertoys. Another extinct amphibian is actually not – some Company dude or dudette got to clean out the vivarium tanks in their bathroom, I suspect. And there is a site on line where you can wander through endless random doorways …

I already have an idea for that last one. Nothing like having to copy-edit something to make a story idea pop up. In the meantime, folks, enjoy!

http://io9.com/the-glass-is-a-liquid-myth-has-finally-been-destroyed-496190894

http://metro.co.uk/2013/05/13/brighton-resident-discovers-vortex-to-another-dimension-3757346

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2013/05/30/atom-by-atom/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22770959

http://www.safestyle-windows.co.uk/secret-door/

Kage Baker just missed e-readers. She would probably have liked them; she was certainly delighted to be able to sell her own works online, and she was an enthusiastic user of sites like GoogleBooks and The Gutenberg Project.

I was seriously considering an early Nook or Kindle for her, when she died. As it was, I waited only a year or so before getting my own – and I’ve updated to a Kindle Fire since then, and so passed on the other electronic toy to Kimberly. Who is now as addicted as I am, bwa ha ha.

While ordering books for my nephew Michael (so much cheaper and easier to get online than in the college bookstore!) I also discovered how to link the two Kindles. And then link them to the same Kindle app on desktops, laptops, phones … what we have now is the electronic equivalent of the New Books Place that we all shared when we were kids. One enormous “place” that the entire family of readers can access to see what has most recently been added. Old favourites, classics, updates in series one or another of us follows: now, this is the future of my dreams! A magic purse full of books!

Kimberly first became aware of the Great Electronic Shelf when she commented one evening that her copy of a favourite old book had vanished, and she didn’t know where. Three minutes later, it was ordered on my Kindle and showing on hers. Behold, Bride of the Rat God immediately to hand! Enthusiasm ensued.

However, real physical books are by no means obsolete; at least, for dedicated readers like my family. Some books must be possessed, to be held in loving hands and caressed. I have taken to ordering both the hard copies and e-copies of Sir Terry Pratchett, for instance: one for the home library, and one for the library in my purse. I recently acquired J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur in hardcover, because Professor Tolkien’s books must be savoured first in corporeal form. And I have slowly been acquiring Stephen King’s works in e-books as well, at least partially in self-defense – his books tend to be freaking enormous! It’s nice to read them without courting carpel tunnel damage.

However, Mr. King’s most recent effort was deliberately not issued in an e-version. It’s called Joyland, published by Hard Case Crime, and in a deliberate act of dramatic verisimilitude, it’s only available as a cheesy paperback. It’s definitely cool – a redheaded young lady with physically impossible decolletage and Bakelite bracelets matching her emerald-green spaghetti-strap frock, pressed up against a poster for a fortune teller. She’s on the verge of screaming at something horrific off-camera, and is obviously no better than she should be … a neon-lit carnival burns in the background, and she is clutching something in one hand that might be an old-fashioned camera. Or a 1920’s phone she tore off a wall. Or an original-issue Geiger counter. Or a DIY theremin.

Whatever she’s holding, it’s the size of a suitcase; and the way she’s holding it, it’s either glued to her hand or equipped with anti-gravity. I can hardly wait to find out what it’s meant to be. Or if the scene even shows up in the narrative; cheesy paperbacks were infamous for covers that were purer imagination that the plots inside them.

And this, Dear Readers, is a perfect illustration of the Janus-faced publishing industry. On one hand, our new and many-headed family library, where we can share electronic ink and store books in a handy pocket dimension. On the other … books produced as deliberate works of art and ambiance, where everything from the primary-colours covers to the sweet musk of the cheap paper pages creates the desired ambiance.

Of course, it does mean we only have one copy. And both Kimberly and I have been waiting, drooling and moaning like zombies, for Joyland.  In past years, when there were even more of us, wars broke out over this kind of thing: I actually bought two copies of the last Henry Potter novel  – in our putative adulthood – so Kage wouldn’t smother me in my sleep to get her hands on it.

But in an act of true sororal generosity, Kimberly has told me, “You read it first. You’re faster than me.” Although she added a codicil: “So start reading NOW!”

And that’s what I’m gonna do.

Kage Baker bewailed the necessity of re-charging one’s batteries as one grew older. She felt it was vastly unfair – as one grew older and wiser and more adept at finding the fun things to do, one also grew more perpetually tired and in need of rest. She considered it a very poor energy plan.

In our 20’s, and even into our 30’s, we could go through a weekend of working a Renaissance Faire – which ran from Friday afternoon to Sunday night, often without sleep – and still report for work on Monday. With access to an efficient water heater, we could go straight from one to the other with never a pause – as long as we had time to shower and change into more normal clothes. And we did.

Alas, such fortitude does not last! When our schedules added in Cons between Faires, it got increasingly difficult to keep up with ourselves. Kage happily gave up her day job eventually, because it was easier to make her bread by writing – including simple logistics like, “How far do I have to go to fall into a bed?” and “I can stay here and write while wearing pajamas, or I can get tarted up and go to the office: for the same amount of money.” The logical course was, of course, to stay home and write. It was easier to survive, too.

I am now years older than Kage ever was.  (An idea that makes my head feel like it’s imploding.)  I am at that awkward age where you’re trying to figure out how to balance the capabilities of your crumbling body with the needs of your ever-busier mind. And it seems that my mind is running on a straight eight with double carburetors, while my body has regressed to a 1-stroke lawnmower engine. And is seriously considering a downgrade to AAA batteries.

My weekend at at BayCon was a delight. My drive home Monday was also a delight, at least until I hit Buttonwillow. That’s where the traffic to Los Angeles began to clot like stale blood, reducing my swift run homeward to a deathly crawl for the last 88 miles. At the crest of the Grapevine, the road was being intermittently obscured by walls of dust and ash blowing off the most recent brush fire. And I returned to a Los Angeles Basin flirting with triple digit heat.

On Tuesday, my stalwart PT Cruiser abruptly decided it no longer would use a Reverse gear. I drive an old-fashioned stick tranny, and there is no confusion or doubt when you lose a gear on one of those: the shift just does not go. I had to call several places before I found one with a mechanic who even knew how to work on a manual. On the way in to the shop, my rear view mirror fell off the windshield. And so far, I am looking at over a grand to get it repaired – which is not a problem, and I can do it, but it does mean some fanciful plans for later in the month will have to be scrapped …

And it’s too hot. Too hot in the day for me to venture out except at early morn or in the gloaming; too hot at night to sleep deeply. So my energies are re-charging even more slowly than usual.

And we’re on fire, of course. The Powerhouse Fire up near Castaic has consumed 20,000 + acres; when the wind is right, the smoke plumes east right into the Basin, and the evenings look like an October with busy chimneys. Smaller fires break out every few hours beside the freeways, and are all (so far) duly stamped out. But it does indicate that Angelinos have once more given in to the short term memory loss that leads them to throw cigarette butts out their car windows …

At least the humidity is high: 58% where I am right now. It makes for misery here at my computer, but it helps the lads and lasses out in Castaic. There is even a chance of drizzle the next few days – which is insane and unnatural, but if it helps with the fires, I’ll be glad to sweat.

What this all means,  Dear Readers, is that – aside from this peevish litany of petty woes – I’ve accomplished squat the last few days. Though I did read World War Z finally, and tried out all the new flavours of Magnum ice cream bars. The new Golden ones are especially nice … I’m too tired and hot and cranky to write. Hell, I’m almost to tired and cranky to read, which may just mean the End Times are upon us.

Who knows? I may be keeping the space-time continuum from unravelling by clinging to this blog – and you are all helping by reading it. Be stalwart, Brave  Hearts!

The fate of the Universe may be in our hands. Our tired, sweaty, ice-cream-sticky hands …

Kage Baker was a perpetual passenger. Usually, mine.

She never learned to drive – nor ever wanted to, either. She felt that her chancy vision – which was not always reliably binocular – plus her innate nervousness would constitute a major public health hazard if she ever took the wheel. I think she was right, too.

And, of course, she was an avid sightseer. The view out the windows was a constant source of inspiration for her. And you can’t do that as much when you are driving. Kage might have driven off the road craning her neck to follow the flight of a red-tailed hawk: I got dive-bombed by giant grasshoppers, suicidal butterflies, tumbleweeds and the odd bat, and never lost the wheel. I screamed a lot, but I never lost the wheel.

Kage’s other responsibility in driving was as my support system. She handed me food and drink, and was in charge of making sure what I wanted was easy of access and yet not likely to roll under the gas pedal. (Safety tip, Dear Readers: do not let the cheese board slide under the brake pedal.) She was especially vigilant about that after I got distracted by a blocked straw in a date shake, and we ended up on the center divider on the main drag in Santa Barbara …

And Kage kept me awake. Even I, nocturnal though I am, do sleep from time time. On the road is not the optimum place. A lot of stories originated with the need to keep me awake and focused. Who would even want to sleep, if you could have Kage spinning yarns – complete with all the different voices and special effects – in their ear?

Now, on my long mad drives up and down California, I am often alone. Everyone on both ends makes me vow not to get careless, not to eat slippery things, not to order any more damned date shakes! And I take travelling companions whenever I can.

But sometimes – I just can’t. No one is free. When that happens, I endeavor not to drive more than 12 hours straight, or too far into the dark. Honestly, I think I could handle it – but too many of my kith and kin howl with outrage and fear at the idea, and threaten to mutilate my dear PC Cruiser.

So, I drove to BayCon on my own; and back again today. I had plenty of water in a grown-up sippy cup (no spilling!), bagel chips, gummy Life Savers, cheese pretzels … and lots of music to keep me singing at the top of my lungs. And I made it without incident, despite all those other stupid people on my road.

The nerve of them.

But now, Dear Readers, I am really, really tired. I got home just in time for the Memorial Day barbecue, and feasted on hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans and potato salad. Replete and exhausted, I shall be seeking my bed soon. Tomorrow, though, I promise to post more of my time and observations from BayCon. Right now I have to go find my nightgown, which I think is wrapped around my Kindle somewhere in my wheelie luggage.

Man, I lead a wild life.

Kage Baker was not one to stay up late at Cons. She insisted on as full a night’s sleep as she could get, so as to be sharp for the next day.

I have neither her self-discipline, nor her sleep patterns. It’s 1 in the morning now, and I have just wandered back to the room – been watching the Regency dancing for 4 hours. It was a lovely evening, ending with the most beautiful of waltzes – the Congress of Vienna waltz. It was Kage’s favourite …

I’ve decided that the way this grieving thing works for me has nothing to do with a normal progression of Time. It doesn’t get easier as Time passes. Pain doesn’t lessen and sorrow doesn’t end. From time to time, though, I just stop feeling it. Then, when I least expect it, it crashes over me like a tidal wave, as raw and new as ever.

So I am learning to enjoy the respites, and survive the returning waves. I suspect that the Congress of Vienna waltz will always hurt. Still, it is the loveliest waltz in the world … so I am certainly not going to give it up.

I don’t dance, anyway. I sit on the sidelines and knit, and am available to hold purses, watch coats and occasionally assist with a loose stay or a torn hem. It’s a classical role for an older lady for whom the dances bring more memories than partners … besides, someone has to watch the hats and shawls.

More on BayCon tomorrow, Dear Readers – though I shall be on the road most of the day, jaunting home after an early morning panel. To which end, going to bed would be a great idea.

Who knows what adventures still await me?

Kage Baker loved going to conventions, but they were hard on her.

The hours one tends to keep were tough – she was a diurnal person, and not inclined to go out to parties and be loud in any event. And when one is on panels, one tends to be on the move a lot – like airports, whatever you need next tends to be scheduled on the opposite end of the venue. And just being “on” wore her out – so much time presenting the relentless public persona was fairly alien to Kage.

The older Kage got, the more difficult she found dealing with strangers. One of the best things to happen to her in her entire life was the development of the Internet. That’s where she met and interacted with her professional peers and her fans. It let her get to know people in an un-alarming environment before she had to cope with them in public. The ability to meet people and not necessarily have to be physically proximate was the best possible development for a person with Aspergers.

There is not anything necessarily wrong with a person who has Aspergers Syndrome. Their brains are, however, unequivocally wired differently from most people; you have to learn to deal with that. Kage had the good fortune to grow up in a family where eccentricity was a badge of honour – the family definitely subscribes to the attitude of “Yeah, well, on me it does look good.” She also sought and found environments where social behaviour took a backseat to creativity: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, the science fiction writing community, conventions … she had support staff.

So the internet gave her the chance to meet people without the stress of eye contact and facial expressions. She didn’t have to wonder what someone’s expression meant, or why they were insisting on standing so damned close to her, or whether or not they would comment on her disinclination to meet their eyes. On the internet, no one asks you why you are tying knots in your hair – or whatever nervous tic afflicts you. And, of course, with none of that stress happening, Kage was less likely to have to compensate for it. Her hair was grateful.

I was on a panel this morning: Cultural Norms Affecting This Generation of People with Autism. I’m not on it – but I have decades of experience with people who are. Kage, my sister Kimberly, her husband, their son … and I was able to give forth on my own personal observations:

First, this is a lucky time to be on the autism spectrum. There is a growing acceptance of it; nerds are suddenly sexy. The internet gives them all the chance it gave Kage – to interact with others without distressing distractions, and so enjoy a deeper and more detailed communication. We are in a technological age, where the often astounding mathematical and other scientific abilities that accompany autism spectrum disorders are and advantage; where people on the spectrum can shine, and be accepted for what they are.

Second, these are normal variations on the human mind. When autism is so profound that the sufferer cannot speak or stand contact with others – then it is a tragic variation, even pathological. But it’s not a disease. While their lives may be constrained by accompanying problems – inappropriate responses to stress, painfully heightened sensory impressions, OCD, ADHD – there is nothing inherently wrong with people on the autistic spectrum.

Third, we need these people. Diversity is the emergency supply kit of a species – the myriad traits and abilities carried along until the changing environment requires them to surface and become the tools of survival. I am not surprised that more and more youngsters are found to be on the autistic spectrum right now: because our tools are on the verge of getting out of control, and these people are our best folks to deal with that.

I’m an optimist about it. I look around me, at my family and many of my friends, at their children: and I see a latent skill set coming to the fore just in time to take control of our ever-expanding electronic environment. I see the diversity of the human mind stepping up for one of its periodic turns in the spotlight; I hear the Voice of the Narrator intoning “And now for something completely different …”

This is my conviction. Half a century dealing with my brilliant, funny, compassionate, over-stressed but courageous Aspergers sister has taught me that one of the answers is symbiosis. More than even neurotypicals, autistic people need to learn to be part of a network; they need to connect with the rest of us. They have tremendous good to offer to the human condition. And since we neurotypicals are the ones that are supposed to be so good at this communication trick – it behooves us to get up off our butts and do it.

My attitude surprised a lot of the folks at the panel. But afterwards, some came up and thanked me, saying I had given them a thought they had never had before … so I guess I did my duty.

I think Kage would have approved.

Kage Baker loved people watching. The Faire was the best place for it, and we spent many a hot afternoon with our feet up, mugs of ale in hand, watching the tide of customers go by.

It was always fun identifying the various species: the Conehead Princess who had not tracked fashion changes since the 1100’s. The Knights Templars, the Vikings, the blue-stained Picts – who had all been extinct for generations. The generic barbarians dressed in a few strategically placed chamois cloths: how did those guys ever sit down on hay bales? Klingons galore, and every branch of Star Fleet. And usually King Arthur and Patsy, complete with cocoanut shells …

To Kage’s delight, Science Fiction Conventions turned out to be just as fine a venue for the hobby. In fact, we often saw the same folks at Conventions that we had seen out under the oaks of the Faire. It was no end of fun.

I’ve spent a few hours today in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency, happily taking in the show. I’ll do more of it over the next few days, too – sitting with a venti Latte from the bar, my Kindle and my knitting to hand, watching those with fewer years and more energy than me proudly walking around dressed as the crew of Firefly. Or yet more Klingons and Star Fleet personnel. Or various non-specific steam punk adventurers in Victorian clothes – as few as possible, it seems, for the ladies – plus air tanks, gauges and goggles.

There are the usual wizards, sorcerers and fairies, as well; there has been an enormous boom in wing technology the last few years, and multicoloured wings up to 6 feet tall are not uncommon, now. Some, all black velvet and tulle, are obviously moths … I saw a lady in resplendent moon-green wings being trailed by her little girl; who was gamely dressed as a spangled, sequined, shimmering – caterpillar.

Jayne passed me this afternoon, carrying a flame lance from Star Gate. There was a Storm Trooper in a white utili-kilt. There were portions and variations of renaissance clothes all over the place, usually enhanced with ray guns or combat boots. Mysterious veiled figures drifted past frequently; I don’t know if they were vacationing from a harem or a Bene Gesserit convent.

My whole afternoon was made when I rounded a corner in the corridor outside my room, and ran smack into one of my own dear folk – the beautiful Thomas Noe, resplendent in full Victorians and looking remarkably like some new incarnation of Dr. Who. At least, if the Doctor had a stuffed monkey in the breast pocket of his frock coat …

All in all, I’ve had great hunting today. I expect even better tomorrow, because tomorrow night is the Masked Ball. Strange eldritch creatures will multiply in the halls and lobbies all day, to culminate in the Grand Processional in the Ballroom.

Me, I’ll be dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and huaraches.  And if anyone asks what I represent:  I’m on a sabbatical from Amber.

Kage Baker was a firm believer in the adage that the point of a journey is the journey itself.

Often, for her, it was; we’d set off with no goal or destination in mind, just to be travelling. The things we found (or lost) along the way were incidental. The main thing was The Journey.

I find that still to be true for me. All the times I driven up and down the length of California – and still, the charm and magic of the road are a huge part of why I do it at all. When I am alone, I love the solitude; when I have passengers, I love the company. And always, everywhere, I love the road.

I took I-5 up to Santa Clara today. Comparing routes between I-5 and 101, the former was supposedly 30 minutes briefer than the latter. And I-5 in early summer is beautiful. At any time at all, it’s weird and entertaining.

Corn was reaching knee-high, and there were miles of tomatoes and peppers glowing red and orange amid their green leaves. The first cutting of fodder has left ziggurats of olive-green bales everywhere. The fruit trees are all draped in nets like wedding veils, to keep off the birds. Sometimes it even works, but it’s always pretty to see …

Of course, the time quoted by Google Maps was predicated on there being no other cars on the road, I think. Certainly, on no disasters. So a considerable crimp was put in my speediness when traffic began to slow and lanes began to close on the approach to the Grapevine. It took 45 minutes to get from Pyramid Lake to Quail lake – though the reason was clear once I cam abreast of it: a merrily burning VW van. Luckily, the firemen had it under control so it did not ignite the grasslands up there, but it took quite a while to get past.

Other than that classic sight, though, it was an uneventful drive. It never got very hot. I saw an interesting zoo’s worth of road kill animals – the usual faking coyotes and owls with poor depth perception, but also a badger. And a goat. A dead goat on the side of I-5 is very unusual; and while it was also very dead, the little cloven hooves and goat horns identified it pretty well. You don’t get jackalopes this far West.

No redcaps this trip. However, there was a one-armed man thumbing beside the road near Lost Hills. Very strange. And I can’t imagine the poor dude was going to find someone willing to pick him up. He was – alarming looking.

There wasn’t even traffic through the Pacheco Pass, or on the 101 to Santa Clara; which is astonishing! And I made it safely to the hotel and got my creaky self inside – my wheelie luggage is a life saver. I’ve checked in at the con, although the badges for the Program Participants are not available yet – but I already have 4 neat stickers to put on it when I get it. I’m not one of those mad enthusiasts who has a tail of stickers longer than they’re tall pendent from my badge, but I do appreciate the really funny ones.

I also indulged in a truly remarkable dinner. They’ve changed the menu again here at the Hyatt Regency – that’s an advantage of visiting at yearly intervals; I don’t get bored with the food. Tonight I threw sense to the winds and had a rib-eye steak with herbed butter melting on it – a buttered steak, no wonder I have heart attacks! But the risotto with beets in was not only delicious and probably good for me, it was an amazing neon burgundy colour. And then there was the crostini with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with house-made fig preserves and clotted cream on the side … Kage would have teased me about the exotica, but she’d have admired the artistry. And my stomach is very, very happy.

I’ve got a bucket of ice and lots of water; a comfy armchair, a view of the West, and a soft bed waiting. I look forward to a lovely quiet evening, before all the excitement begins tomorrow.

But right now … there appears to be a handball game going on against the wall out in the corridor. And much giggling. I think I will go frighten some of the younger generation of Con attendees.

More tomorrow!