Son of Comic-Con: Our Return Against Significant Odds Back to Southern California
Yeah, I know. I’m an bad, bad Ljer. I cheat over at twitter on a way more than regular basis. The big hook for me is the fact that my twittering is about a zillion times easier on my shitty excuse for a phone. 140 characters I can type out in a jiffy pretty much anywhere, even on my microscopic QWERTY keyboard and then my little missive is out in the electronic hinterlands, reaching my people. Try and do that in LJ’s “longform.” I’d no doubt get midway through some perilously insane navel-gazing topic and my phone would seize up or the online connection would sever, or some other tech calamity would befall the post, winking it out of existence in a nanosecond.
So I sit at my desk day-in, day-out and I tweet, usually bored senseless waiting for Lexis to deign return my searches to me. It’s become a habit - and not a good one, since by about 8 p.m. Chicago-time, I start seeing waves of tweets from distant acquaintances from all other timezones, living this thing they call a “life,” meeting, conversing, rutting, drinking, carousing, carrying on, socializing, building friendships, etc. - whereas I remain rooted in front of my blank WordPerfect screen night after night trying to hammer the law into a shape that resembles “justice.” Okay, okay. That’s a pretty “high-hat” way of saying I’m jealous of the “lives” teeming around me; but cut me some slack, would ya? I get lyrical when I get maudlin; and watching the twittersphere light up with drunken, slap-happy tweets mid-week makes me sad and maybe a little too aware of just how lonely the job can be.
Anyway . . . that’s not why I’m writing tonight.
For weeks now, I had planned on once again putting out the super-sized, el deluxe itinerary for our second big trek out west like I had in the past. But work, more work, still more work and the inevitable by-product thereof: total weekend slothitude - wore me down to the point where here it is now only 48 hours before our embarkment; and I’ve barely made mention to anyone that, yes, we loved Southern California so much last summer that we’re coming back. Hopefully this too will become an annual (if not more so) habit. In life, I suppose, we should all pursue the things that best bring us “the happy.” California - so completely befuddling my prejudices and expectations - made me, and I’m sure John, the closest we’d been to happy in good long while; so much so that in our maddest of mad exile moments over the last year, we’ve entertained the lark that one day, maybe someday soon, we’d light out for the left coast and leave the frigid, mannered midwest far, far behind. (But then, of course, I went and kinda ruined that daydream by accidentally doing a whole series of really big things right at the law firm, bringing this truly alarming notoriety to my position that previously had not been mine to indulge and well, things got, um, complicated. The words “grooming” and “partner” and the phrase “going places” were used in their most non-hostile, non-ironic senses in relation to me, and well, things are presently emerging that are, um, complicated. A whole other story for another day . . . )
Besides, this was the trip we sacrificed Bear Pride for this year. In the most painful application of my “Geek Over Bear” life-rule, at the very last possible second, mere moments before hopping into the car to attend the Touche “early bird” party this past Memorial Day, we opted out of the whole damned event (and smack into a giant, strike-to-wound-style screaming fight, if the truth be told). A huge financial blunder, paying certain bills more than once, left my bank account a-shambles, with no good way to fix it quickly on the eve of the long holiday weekend. Rather than half-ass the weekend and tap into the funds we had set aside for the trip west, we pretended to be adult about the situation and chose to stay home, as much as it ripped me up inside to, for the first time in 13 years, miss out on Bear Pride altogether. To rub salt in the wound, I had to save what little was in the account to drive downstate for an overnight stay on the Tuesday after Memorial Day for another of my swings through the southern Illinois legal circuit to attend two hearings out of which I simply could not extricate myself. To say that I was unhappy is an understatement. Reading the too rare occasional twitters of the guys getting their Pride on just “L” stops away was pure fucking torture. Thus began my unhealthy relationship with the alterna-LJ. The twitter, it hurt me.
The other reason for the delayed announcement was our uncertainty about John’s vision. See, last summer when we went out, we had an inkling that John’s eyes were starting to “go bad.” He had blind spots in his sightline that his regular doctor suggested might be cataracts, but could also potentially have been a diabetes-related loss of vision. When John would read his beloved mystery novels, he would have to turn his head slightly to the side to peer at the words on the page peripherally, avoiding the “bad” spots. I was flat out terrified that John could go blind at any moment. The trip west had to be perfect if, in my natural tendency to extrapolate out only the worst possible scenarios, these were literally the last things that John was ever going to see. Putting John on that Amtrak train all by himself last July, knowing fully well that he couldn’t quite see, was positively harrowing.
The trouble being: John’s eyes haven’t gotten better over the last year. They’ve actually gotten worse. Even when he was forced to stop driving because the glare from the sun was interfering with his field of vision, I thought we’d weathered the worst of things. But then he stopped reading altogether, and eventually degenerated to the point where he was unable to decipher the text on our now over-sized computer monitor to run his eBay business, we entered a sort of “crisis” mode from which we’ve not yet recovered. John has this stubborn prideful streak. Even when things are bad, he won’t always let me help. He would get mad when I would drag out the vacuum cleaner to occasionally suck up the dust bunnies on the carpet that he’d not seen, or quick, grab the dish towel to catch the excess sauce that he’d not also seen seep over the edge of the stove burners. Our world gradually became somehow more fuzzy around the edges, smaller and more insular, with a distinct edge to the exile. How do you socialize breezily and light, when you have something like this hanging over your heads? I’ve tried through it all to stay positive, to keep his spirits up as best I could; but what do you do or say when your partner in all seriousness wishes aloud, in a moment of true weakness, that he hopes one day to see you clearly again? What do you do when you see him tottering on some uneven patch of pavement, nearly tripping in broad daylight, knowing full well that if you reach out with your hand to steady him, he’ll bat it away, embarrassed? What do you do when you go to a film and catch him laughing a little behind the crowd, knowing full well that he can’t possibly make out the subtitles on the screen - even though he insists angrily afterwards that he understood everything that was said perfectly well? What do you do when you catch him talking to a pile of folded dark t-shirts on the bed as if it were the cat?
We’re currently in a holding pattern with regard to the cataract surgery. We had hoped the procedure could have been completed before the trip west, but John’s doctor was only able to get the first of the operations scheduled for mid-August. There’s no telling that when the operation happens that his vision will improve. All we can do is hope. Last month, I took a day off from work and escorted John one rainy afternoon down to the eye specialist for the necessary physical “mapping” of the eye before the actual operation was to take place. What we feared the most had mostly come true. John’s legally blind in one eye and most of the way there with the other. Truthfully, the diagnosis lead us away from even considering the trip for awhile. Really, what would be the point? But John eventually called me at work one afternoon and said, “You know what, let’s just do it.” Neither of us can change the eye situation right now; and there’s no sense completely losing out on the trip that we’d spent the better part of the last year scrimping and saving to accomplish. Besides we need a little happy, especially right now.
So we’re doing - as usual - something a little insane. To avoid the uncertainties of us taking different modes of transportation, we’re doing this summer’s cross-country jaunt “en automobile.” That’s right, we’re trekking across the desert in the Jeep - me, being able to keep my eyes on John the whole time. I, of course, will be doing all of the driving, aiming to make the trip out (and back) to Anaheim/San Diego in a little over 2 days, each way. We’ll be leaving Thursday morning, July 16th, to run some errands, get the hairs cut, buy some groceries for the cooler and expect to get down to St. Louis by mid-afternoon to stay overnight for a “head-start” on the remainder of the drive. We’ll be heading to bed super-early that night such that we can get up well before the ass-crack of dawn on the 17th, hoping to be on the road and well on our way by 5 a.m. The goal that day is to get to Albuquerque, New Mexico or thereabouts by or before 9 or 10 in the evening. The next day we’ll push on to Anaheim, staying at the HoJo’s just across the street from Space Mountain for a few days at Disneyland before heading down to San Diego proper the following Wednesday, the 22nd for Comic-Con.
Truthfully, I’m not sure exactly how the whole trip will go down. John’s condition and my solo chauffership will most likely temper a lot of the bigger, original plans for the week. We will definitely be at Disneyland this coming Sunday, July the 19th, but expect to take a break on Monday, July 20th, to travel over to Hollywood to visit Amoeba Records, Graumann’s Chinese, the “Walk of Fame” and with luck, later in the afternoon the Santa Monica Pier. (If anybody from the area has any good suggestions on how all of this could possibly be accomplished in one day - knowing in advance that my shopping trip to Amoeba shall be suitably “epic” - I’d very much appreciate the tips. We have no idea where to park over near the Pier and would welcome any suggestions as to good restaurants, things to do, places to see, etc.) Tuesday, the 21st, we’ll head back to Disneyland such that we can both get our Pirates/Mansion/Dole Whip fixes.
On Tuesday, the 22nd we head to San Diego and will be staying at the very same bed-n-breakfast hideaway that we fell in love with last summer. Honestly, that little nook of arts-n-crafts splendor was a huge part of our decision to return to Southern California. It was essentially a chance to live in our dream home, if only for a few days. We’ll lunch at the Hillcrest “Bryan’s” (scallops!) before heading over to the Convention Center to pick up our badges and probably jump the line for Preview Night. Post-preview, I fully expect that we’ll return to Pec’s for the impromptu bear gathering that occurred there last year. I hope to see some serious LJ-ness in attendance. In fact, I would expect on most nights, if we’re not too over-tired, you’d be most likely to find us at Pec’s. Thursday is pretty much hard-core exhibit hall day for me, digging in the longboxes for 4-color bronze-age treasures - even though it’ll kill me not to at least attempt to make it into Hall H to see Tim Burton, Peter Jackson and/or Terry Gilliam. If anything gets sacrificed at the show this year, it’ll be the crazy wait-in-line-14-hours-to-maybe-see-a-star thing. (Yes, this coming from the nerd who camped out in line to see “The Phantom Menace” all those years ago.) John’s just not up for it this year. (Although, come hell or high water, somehow I want to score a pair of tickets to a screening of Chan-Wook Park’s new vampire flick: “Thirst.” Chan-Wook to me now, is like Tarrantino was to me in 1994. The man can do no wrong. I fully expect to be blown through the back of the theater by this new film. You have been fore-warned.)
We also want desperately to return to Black’s Beach in La Jolla at some point (because we’re “pervy” like that) and, will probably, once again, try to see the sights in at least Balboa Park. Of course, I’m not entirely sure that Black’s Beach is do-able, considering the “cliffs of death” that must be navigated to get to the beach proper. Would any locals know of an easier way down to the nudie part of the beach? Is there another similar spot along the coast nearby where swimsuits are optional? Last year we accomplished all of these things by skipping out on Friday afternoon and Saturday when the con is at its over-the-top most crowded. Again, if any locals have any suggestions about how best to use our time, we certainly would welcome the input. I even believe we’ll try to make the Hole on Sunday afternoon, just because we got so lambasted last year for not sticking around to experience the Bar That Would Be “Thunderdome” the one time. Although I fear I may not be able to partake of the adult beverages if we do go, since we need to be on the road, bright and early Monday the 27th to push on back home towards Illinois.
Yeah, it’s a lot. I know.
But given the circumstances, we truly need some happy. Despite my ever-present fears, we’re going to try to make a go of this. If luck be with us, we’ll be smiling.
So I sit at my desk day-in, day-out and I tweet, usually bored senseless waiting for Lexis to deign return my searches to me. It’s become a habit - and not a good one, since by about 8 p.m. Chicago-time, I start seeing waves of tweets from distant acquaintances from all other timezones, living this thing they call a “life,” meeting, conversing, rutting, drinking, carousing, carrying on, socializing, building friendships, etc. - whereas I remain rooted in front of my blank WordPerfect screen night after night trying to hammer the law into a shape that resembles “justice.” Okay, okay. That’s a pretty “high-hat” way of saying I’m jealous of the “lives” teeming around me; but cut me some slack, would ya? I get lyrical when I get maudlin; and watching the twittersphere light up with drunken, slap-happy tweets mid-week makes me sad and maybe a little too aware of just how lonely the job can be.
Anyway . . . that’s not why I’m writing tonight.
For weeks now, I had planned on once again putting out the super-sized, el deluxe itinerary for our second big trek out west like I had in the past. But work, more work, still more work and the inevitable by-product thereof: total weekend slothitude - wore me down to the point where here it is now only 48 hours before our embarkment; and I’ve barely made mention to anyone that, yes, we loved Southern California so much last summer that we’re coming back. Hopefully this too will become an annual (if not more so) habit. In life, I suppose, we should all pursue the things that best bring us “the happy.” California - so completely befuddling my prejudices and expectations - made me, and I’m sure John, the closest we’d been to happy in good long while; so much so that in our maddest of mad exile moments over the last year, we’ve entertained the lark that one day, maybe someday soon, we’d light out for the left coast and leave the frigid, mannered midwest far, far behind. (But then, of course, I went and kinda ruined that daydream by accidentally doing a whole series of really big things right at the law firm, bringing this truly alarming notoriety to my position that previously had not been mine to indulge and well, things got, um, complicated. The words “grooming” and “partner” and the phrase “going places” were used in their most non-hostile, non-ironic senses in relation to me, and well, things are presently emerging that are, um, complicated. A whole other story for another day . . . )
Besides, this was the trip we sacrificed Bear Pride for this year. In the most painful application of my “Geek Over Bear” life-rule, at the very last possible second, mere moments before hopping into the car to attend the Touche “early bird” party this past Memorial Day, we opted out of the whole damned event (and smack into a giant, strike-to-wound-style screaming fight, if the truth be told). A huge financial blunder, paying certain bills more than once, left my bank account a-shambles, with no good way to fix it quickly on the eve of the long holiday weekend. Rather than half-ass the weekend and tap into the funds we had set aside for the trip west, we pretended to be adult about the situation and chose to stay home, as much as it ripped me up inside to, for the first time in 13 years, miss out on Bear Pride altogether. To rub salt in the wound, I had to save what little was in the account to drive downstate for an overnight stay on the Tuesday after Memorial Day for another of my swings through the southern Illinois legal circuit to attend two hearings out of which I simply could not extricate myself. To say that I was unhappy is an understatement. Reading the too rare occasional twitters of the guys getting their Pride on just “L” stops away was pure fucking torture. Thus began my unhealthy relationship with the alterna-LJ. The twitter, it hurt me.
The other reason for the delayed announcement was our uncertainty about John’s vision. See, last summer when we went out, we had an inkling that John’s eyes were starting to “go bad.” He had blind spots in his sightline that his regular doctor suggested might be cataracts, but could also potentially have been a diabetes-related loss of vision. When John would read his beloved mystery novels, he would have to turn his head slightly to the side to peer at the words on the page peripherally, avoiding the “bad” spots. I was flat out terrified that John could go blind at any moment. The trip west had to be perfect if, in my natural tendency to extrapolate out only the worst possible scenarios, these were literally the last things that John was ever going to see. Putting John on that Amtrak train all by himself last July, knowing fully well that he couldn’t quite see, was positively harrowing.
The trouble being: John’s eyes haven’t gotten better over the last year. They’ve actually gotten worse. Even when he was forced to stop driving because the glare from the sun was interfering with his field of vision, I thought we’d weathered the worst of things. But then he stopped reading altogether, and eventually degenerated to the point where he was unable to decipher the text on our now over-sized computer monitor to run his eBay business, we entered a sort of “crisis” mode from which we’ve not yet recovered. John has this stubborn prideful streak. Even when things are bad, he won’t always let me help. He would get mad when I would drag out the vacuum cleaner to occasionally suck up the dust bunnies on the carpet that he’d not seen, or quick, grab the dish towel to catch the excess sauce that he’d not also seen seep over the edge of the stove burners. Our world gradually became somehow more fuzzy around the edges, smaller and more insular, with a distinct edge to the exile. How do you socialize breezily and light, when you have something like this hanging over your heads? I’ve tried through it all to stay positive, to keep his spirits up as best I could; but what do you do or say when your partner in all seriousness wishes aloud, in a moment of true weakness, that he hopes one day to see you clearly again? What do you do when you see him tottering on some uneven patch of pavement, nearly tripping in broad daylight, knowing full well that if you reach out with your hand to steady him, he’ll bat it away, embarrassed? What do you do when you go to a film and catch him laughing a little behind the crowd, knowing full well that he can’t possibly make out the subtitles on the screen - even though he insists angrily afterwards that he understood everything that was said perfectly well? What do you do when you catch him talking to a pile of folded dark t-shirts on the bed as if it were the cat?
We’re currently in a holding pattern with regard to the cataract surgery. We had hoped the procedure could have been completed before the trip west, but John’s doctor was only able to get the first of the operations scheduled for mid-August. There’s no telling that when the operation happens that his vision will improve. All we can do is hope. Last month, I took a day off from work and escorted John one rainy afternoon down to the eye specialist for the necessary physical “mapping” of the eye before the actual operation was to take place. What we feared the most had mostly come true. John’s legally blind in one eye and most of the way there with the other. Truthfully, the diagnosis lead us away from even considering the trip for awhile. Really, what would be the point? But John eventually called me at work one afternoon and said, “You know what, let’s just do it.” Neither of us can change the eye situation right now; and there’s no sense completely losing out on the trip that we’d spent the better part of the last year scrimping and saving to accomplish. Besides we need a little happy, especially right now.
So we’re doing - as usual - something a little insane. To avoid the uncertainties of us taking different modes of transportation, we’re doing this summer’s cross-country jaunt “en automobile.” That’s right, we’re trekking across the desert in the Jeep - me, being able to keep my eyes on John the whole time. I, of course, will be doing all of the driving, aiming to make the trip out (and back) to Anaheim/San Diego in a little over 2 days, each way. We’ll be leaving Thursday morning, July 16th, to run some errands, get the hairs cut, buy some groceries for the cooler and expect to get down to St. Louis by mid-afternoon to stay overnight for a “head-start” on the remainder of the drive. We’ll be heading to bed super-early that night such that we can get up well before the ass-crack of dawn on the 17th, hoping to be on the road and well on our way by 5 a.m. The goal that day is to get to Albuquerque, New Mexico or thereabouts by or before 9 or 10 in the evening. The next day we’ll push on to Anaheim, staying at the HoJo’s just across the street from Space Mountain for a few days at Disneyland before heading down to San Diego proper the following Wednesday, the 22nd for Comic-Con.
Truthfully, I’m not sure exactly how the whole trip will go down. John’s condition and my solo chauffership will most likely temper a lot of the bigger, original plans for the week. We will definitely be at Disneyland this coming Sunday, July the 19th, but expect to take a break on Monday, July 20th, to travel over to Hollywood to visit Amoeba Records, Graumann’s Chinese, the “Walk of Fame” and with luck, later in the afternoon the Santa Monica Pier. (If anybody from the area has any good suggestions on how all of this could possibly be accomplished in one day - knowing in advance that my shopping trip to Amoeba shall be suitably “epic” - I’d very much appreciate the tips. We have no idea where to park over near the Pier and would welcome any suggestions as to good restaurants, things to do, places to see, etc.) Tuesday, the 21st, we’ll head back to Disneyland such that we can both get our Pirates/Mansion/Dole Whip fixes.
On Tuesday, the 22nd we head to San Diego and will be staying at the very same bed-n-breakfast hideaway that we fell in love with last summer. Honestly, that little nook of arts-n-crafts splendor was a huge part of our decision to return to Southern California. It was essentially a chance to live in our dream home, if only for a few days. We’ll lunch at the Hillcrest “Bryan’s” (scallops!) before heading over to the Convention Center to pick up our badges and probably jump the line for Preview Night. Post-preview, I fully expect that we’ll return to Pec’s for the impromptu bear gathering that occurred there last year. I hope to see some serious LJ-ness in attendance. In fact, I would expect on most nights, if we’re not too over-tired, you’d be most likely to find us at Pec’s. Thursday is pretty much hard-core exhibit hall day for me, digging in the longboxes for 4-color bronze-age treasures - even though it’ll kill me not to at least attempt to make it into Hall H to see Tim Burton, Peter Jackson and/or Terry Gilliam. If anything gets sacrificed at the show this year, it’ll be the crazy wait-in-line-14-hours-to-maybe-see-a-star thing. (Yes, this coming from the nerd who camped out in line to see “The Phantom Menace” all those years ago.) John’s just not up for it this year. (Although, come hell or high water, somehow I want to score a pair of tickets to a screening of Chan-Wook Park’s new vampire flick: “Thirst.” Chan-Wook to me now, is like Tarrantino was to me in 1994. The man can do no wrong. I fully expect to be blown through the back of the theater by this new film. You have been fore-warned.)
We also want desperately to return to Black’s Beach in La Jolla at some point (because we’re “pervy” like that) and, will probably, once again, try to see the sights in at least Balboa Park. Of course, I’m not entirely sure that Black’s Beach is do-able, considering the “cliffs of death” that must be navigated to get to the beach proper. Would any locals know of an easier way down to the nudie part of the beach? Is there another similar spot along the coast nearby where swimsuits are optional? Last year we accomplished all of these things by skipping out on Friday afternoon and Saturday when the con is at its over-the-top most crowded. Again, if any locals have any suggestions about how best to use our time, we certainly would welcome the input. I even believe we’ll try to make the Hole on Sunday afternoon, just because we got so lambasted last year for not sticking around to experience the Bar That Would Be “Thunderdome” the one time. Although I fear I may not be able to partake of the adult beverages if we do go, since we need to be on the road, bright and early Monday the 27th to push on back home towards Illinois.
Yeah, it’s a lot. I know.
But given the circumstances, we truly need some happy. Despite my ever-present fears, we’re going to try to make a go of this. If luck be with us, we’ll be smiling.