Thursday & Friday, September 5-6, 2000:
Most Offensive Quote Said to Me:
"Is *YOUR* journal all true?" ( -- anon)
My Response: "Well, yeah, as far as I know."
Oh no, what about ... The LIGER!? He was getting too fat anyways.
Cross-reference link: Journalcon.
JOURNALING ABOUT JOURNALING
GROUND ZERO
"This does not look safe,"
Amy stated as we walked onto the runway toward the smallest plane I had ever seen. It was raining, so the stewardess gave us an umbrella as we walked outside toward our "Express" plane. Outside.
The plane held about 20 passengers tops. An older unnaturally-orange-haired lady and her friend chatted in front of us.
"I’m getting sick," Amy said before take-off. She always gets sick with air travel. I on the other hand thought our 12-hour flight to Korea last year was a breeze. This one was just one hour.
Thirty minutes later, Amy was dry-retching into her barf bag. The storm and turbulence had turned our mini-flight into the world’s fastest and highest roller coaster. Look ma, no functional gyroscopes! Where the hell are the shoulder guards?
The orange-haired lady gabbed on incessantly. She must have been loaded up on Scopoloamine, Xanax, and Inderal, I guessed from her wrinkles, hair dye, and low-grade mania / loquaciousness despite spinning nearly upside-down to our deaths.
I took deep breaths, I leaned forward, backward. Think stable tho – urrruggp -- gulp. Amy and I were symbionts at that point; empathically linked. Her nausea was my nausea. I’m never going to spin … The LIGER! around until he pukes ever again, I promise! My biggest disappointment was that I wouldn’t have what it takes to be Corporal Hicks in that Aliens movie, at least the dropship part. Bummer. I reached for the barf bag.
When we landed, both of our bags were for the most part empty. Just barely. Thank you ground.
DAY ONE
Drawing is like masturbating. I can’t do either one in a strange place. Not that I haven’t on occasion, but it’s not a habit. Amy was still asleep at noon in our hotel room. So with nothing to do I went to the "fitness center." Contrary to what exercise-despisers claim, it is nothing like masturbation.
Downstairs at the front desk, while trying to get a second keycard, I noticed the back of a dark Asian man in the next line. Is that Ryan (co-organizer of journalcon)? No, doesn’t look like his web picture. Just because this is the only other Asian person I’ve seen in Pittsburgh, does not mean it is Ryan Ozawa.
"Dr. Scott?!"
Amy and I turned around to see a jolly looking African-American woman, Dreama. She looked much happier than her argumentative online presence would ever suggest. I’d heard this about her before. She introduced us to her mother, Amethyst. The only other Asian person I’ve seen in Pittsburgh turned out to be Ryan after all. They made us feel more than welcome and we joined their group for lunch.
At lunch, we met Amy Lester, Carolyn Burke, Renee, and Amanda.
Carolyn Burke is the very first online diarist. She was much taller, darker, and thinner than I imagined. Prettier too, if I’m allowed to say that about the very first online diarist.
Most of the entertainment was provided by Renee’s Notherner in Redneckville stories or What the Confederates Do For Fun.
"So the actual bullet for this gun is a potato?" I asked her in mid-story.
"Yeah, it’s a potato gun," she answered.
Renee, the fast-talking Southerner, was the sleeper comedy hit of the convention.
The rest of us sampled Amanda’s Bag of Aussie Sweets. Note to self: Perfumed life-savers are better left smelled and not eaten. (You’d think I’d learn after having eaten cherry chapstick.)
I'M SCOTT, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?
"Hi, who are you?"
[Insert name of journaler.]
"Hmm. What's your URL?"
[Insert name of journaler's URL.]
"Oh yeah, hey, nice to meet you."
Amy and I sat at the less crowded side of the table, where I met Brian of Open Brain Surgery (www.obsurgery.org). He was very quick-witted and, despite his journal title / URL, is neither a neurosurgeon nor an obstetrician. I liked him immediately.
Jeff and his goatee looked like a young physicist / mad scientist, and sure enough his URL did too (www.onefreeradical.com ... actually kind of neat).
Jen Wade flitted over to our side of the table (and I for one did NOT think she was shorter than I expected ... I knew she was short all along). She’s a vivacious conversationalist and quite nice, to my online reading surprise. Jen knows much about the web beneath the web where online diarists live and lie.
"I thought I was reading that person," occurred to me more than once during her stories.
Carolyn summed up Ryan and Dreama's efforts with:
"This is a big deal for journaling. There's never been a gathering of this scale before for online journalers."
And I just wanted to see some bare-knuckle boxing.
Most of the time, things were quiet though. You’d think having everyone’s inner thoughts online would enable easy conversation. But to quote Carolyn Burke again,
"I’m a bit uncomfortable. I don’t read anyone here."
"Me too."
Me too.
ON THE NINTH
"In hell, all the music is jazz." -- Ryan Ozawa (quoting someone else I forgot).
"Do you like your job?" my golden-haired hard-bodied friend asked from across the dimly lit dining table.
It was one of those questions where the answer varies depending on who wants to know. In this case, I had foregone my Reserved Answer file and went for the Honest Answer file. It was empty; I’m not sure if I’ve ever been asked this before out loud.
Of all the people at journalcon, Athena had been the most instrumental in my decision to go. I did my best to answer honestly.
She patiently waited for an answer, as the jazz music blared out its chaotic rhythm and stone blocks shifted under my dura mater.
"Sometimes …. " was my initial answer. It sounded awfully negative spoken aloud, so I elaborated until I felt better.
Then she smiled and said, "I find it fascinating how you seem to be distancing yourself more in your journal as time goes by." I was amazed and frightened at how aptly she exposed the devil within the shadows of my heart. Recognizing it. Accepting it. And taming it.
The reflection of candle flames in her eyes told me, "You're not so horrible." It was good.My bride, Amy, rejoined us, along with Ryan, and we had a wonderful time talking and watching two other journalers also pretend to salsa dance ... only, they were on the dance floor.
FEAR AND BONDING IN DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH
Walking in downtown Pittsburgh with a group of twenty internet geeks (myself included), searching for after hours entertainment:
VAN FULL OF URBANITES: "Woowoo!! A parade of white folks!!! Lookit that!!"
ME: "This might actually be scary if our group wasn’t so large."
ATHENA: "Haha. Yeah, I didn’t even think of that."
AMY: "Damn hick-town."
Thirty minutes and one major miscommunication later …
Walking in downtown Pittsburgh with a group of three (myself, my bride Amy, and Athena), searching for shelter from being mugged and / or killed.
ME: "I don’t think we’re going to find the main group. Let’s try to make it to that Burger King and call a cab back to the hotel."
ATHENA: "Sounds good. This is getting a little bit scary now."
AMY: "It’s all in the way you walk. Look confident."
I try to hunch up my shoulders and take my hands out of my pockets and look menacing, as opposed to lost.
ATHENA: "Scott’s going to have to be the big male protector now. Haha."
My male ego is boosted briefly until I realize that action heroes don’t wear eyeglasses for a reason.
Burger King is closed. But McDonald’s is open! We walk through the golden arches of safety. Flame-broiled hamburgers suck Suck SUCK!
Amy takes charge inside and arranges for a cab, while the skinsuit-wearing freakshow from Silence of the Lambs sits down and stares at Athena. I don't think he was looking at the snake tattoo near her ankle either.
KARATE-OKE
Apparently the hotel was only two blocks away, but our cab drove down the two nastiest blocks this side of Detroit. Strung-out hollow men stood at street-corners in alleys peddling either recreational drugs or recreational mucus membranes.
Dreama and Ryan were kind enough to leave message of their concern and the group's whereabouts on our answering machine.
"Smithfield Cafe," we told the cabby.
"Why you wanna go there? There's not much to do," the cabby stated.
Athena, Amy, and myself tried to come up with a good reason.
"Well, our convention group is there," Athena said.
"It's less than a block away, sure you don't want to walk it?" Of all the cabbies in Pennsylvania, we get the HONEST one.
"Oh look it's raining. Let's drive," Athena replied.
"Yeah, we've had our fill of Pittsburgh's street scene for tonight," I said.
The Cafe was a karaoke bar. Previous to seeing "Duets," I had never seen a non-Asian karaoke bar before. Or song books that were all in ENGLISH, for that matter.
It was a lot of fun.
Two drunken locals, TOOTHLESS BACHELOR NO. 1 AND 2, behind Amy's booth kept commenting (loudly) on the women "wit dem dern innernet geeks."
"Are you sure those fucks didn't say anything about you?" I questioned Amy loudly.
"Yeah, they probably don't even think I'm human," Amy replied.
"Are you absolutely sure they didn't say anything to you?" I asked again, running through alternating male fantasies of whether I should yell at the rude bastards first and then hit them, or hit and then yell.
Emily, Jan, and Jen sang "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. They rocked like a punk chick band on a castration vendetta.
John Scalzi was The Surprise Charming Guy of the Con (or The Charming Con Man, depending). But I beat the bandwagon and thought he was pretty cool months ago, so there. He sang Modern English's "Melt With You," complete with theatrics and great vocals.
Fellow Michigan native, Shelley, walked over in her shiny black pants and stylish green jacket, squinted delicately defined eyelids (the kind I like to draw), and said hello.
SHELLEY: "I thought you were going to speak at journalcon? What happened?"
ME: "I, uh, wasn't sure I'd make it ... and ... I didn't have a whole lot to say, I guess."
SHELLEY: "Well, it's too bad you weren't UP to it. I was looking forward to it."
Heck, if I'd known a tall long-legged brunette in tight shiny pants wanted to hear me speak, I might have reconsidered.
Shortly after, TOOTHLESS BACHELOR NO.1 burped for her attention.
BACHELOR NO.1: "Hey baby, we went to school together, right?"
SHELLEY: "Uh, no."
BACHELOR NO.1: "Yeah, we did, remember?"
SHELLEY: "Like am I supposed to lie, and say YES? Sure we did, Mrs. Veracosavein's class (I couldn't remember the teacher's name). Yeah, that's it."
And so on ....
Apparently Athena had the misfortune of being accosted by TOOTHLESS BACHELOR NO.2 to which she said absolutely nothing to until he left.
We danced like the Peanuts gang until closing time.
(I would have sang but doing so for the first time in front of thirty online journalers didn't seem to be the wisest thing.)
One more day left ....
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