Twenty years after I first heard of the concept (which seemed and still seems pretty darn silly), it hit me that Sime/Gen is about sex. Yeah, I’m slow sometimes — especially about sex!

A fan slipped on some stairs at the Convention Center and hurt his ankle. An EMT was summoned, but before he or she showed, an uniformed authority figure asked the victim for an identifying document and his Database Insecurity Number. What the hell? Does one need credentials to slip on a stairway? If the victim were (like many of the folks at the convention) from overseas, would his lack of a tax number cause the EMT to be chased away?

Thursday: met not one but two bloggers who had been kind enough to link to me, Charlie Stross and Anita Rowland; as well as Sarah Lawrence without the famous burqa. Chatted with Karen Anderson about this and that. John Hertz, as he always does, urged me to return to APA-L. Gotta get a printer hooked up . . . . (I’d urge him to do a blog, if it weren’t hopeless; he turns up his nose even at e-mail.)

Friday morning: met my first two sex-partners. One gave no sign of recognition, which may be just as well. (And is she saying the same of me?) The other double-took and cried “God in Heaven!”.
Also saw several ChUSFA alums; and friends’ children of whose existence I had not known.

Friday evening, a thrill out of the blue: Janis Ian, whose songs have been a delight and a comfort for my entire adult life, spoke to me! I’ll treasure her words always: “Did you see which way they went?”
(There seems to be a pattern. Richard Feynman spoke to me once, half my life ago, to ask where his son was. What demigod will ask me a similar question in 2023?)

Saturday, I paused to admire some fan’s hat, because it was just like mine except for the color. He was Dean Gahlon; we had met in Minneapa.
We were waiting for the computer folklore panel, in which I got to tell about my one role as a film actor. In ~1970 somebody made a movie for use in schools, whose gist apparently was “there’s a computer terminal in your future.” I got a ten-dollar bill for playing one scene as a boy who wanders into a room where there’s a PLATO IV terminal, is fascinated, and starts poking buttons. I never saw this flick, but over the years met two or three kids who recognized me from it. (Then I grew a beard.)

Dunno what I’ll do tonight. Party-hunting last night was too stressful; but there’s not much alternative, short of a long ride home on public transport.

Subject: [spam score 5/10 -pobox] This may seem wierd
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 14:54:18 +0900

Hi my name is Beth. I saw yourprofile on ICQ. I am new to the area and am looking for someone to show me around. If you’re interested in hanging out with a cool girl send me an email at [censored] and we can chat on instant messenger.

Almost makes me wish myprofile were on ICQ, whatever that means.

Going to Worldcon tomorrow, because it would be almost a sin not to. Let’s see whether this time I manage not to obsess over being lonely in the crowds.

Later: Partial success.

“Professor Michael Bellesiles will be on paid leave from his teaching duties at Emory University during the fall semester.”

“The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.”
(Cited today in rec.arts.sf.written.)

It’s a good bet that the twenty or thirty of you who read this are brighter than average. (At least it’s always safe to say that, eh?) Suppose that a magic pill makes everyone 3±1 times smarter. What would it be like for one of us, after treatment, to find ourself less bright than the new average?

Buddhists say that happiness comes through detachment from desire.

Don’t believe it.