Author name: Sandra Tayler

We are still travel lagged and tripping over suitcases, but all is right with the world because the kids are back home. I’ll admit that I was not thrilled about 6 hours of driving on the day after 14 continuous hours of airplanes and airports. But three hours of driving turned out to be the perfect amount of uninterrupted time for me to unpack all the random convention thoughts and sort them into orderly piles to be dealt with later. The three hours of return trip turned out to be just enough time for Kiki and I to talk over our separate trip experiences. Also there were hugs from children glad to be going home and that makes any amount of driving worthwhile.

I still need to write up all those thoughts which I’ve sorted into piles. Some are blog entries. Some may be essays. Some are emails. Some are tasks. I’ll tackle all of that starting tomorrow. Today is for home and family. And for preparing Howard to leave again. I’ll be really glad when he is back home and we can all settle in a regular schedule again.

And here we are dressed up for the Hugo awards. The picture does not show how swishy and fun the skirt is to wear. The motion of the skirt was what made it beautiful. I got several compliments, which made me happy. In fact I find I am loathe to take off the pretty clothes. As soon as I do, it will be bedtime and then the convention will be over. We wake early early and board a plane for home.

I was not nervous about the Hugo ceremony until Howard and I arrived at the rehearsal. Somehow being in the room with the lights and the tech crew scurrying around really brought home the possibility that was in front of us. Then we saw the Hugo unveiled and it was beautiful. We walked into the theater and both Howard and I were full of jitters. I couldn’t even sort out what I was feeling. I’d thought that I was reconciled to losing because Joss Whedon was in the category, but I found that all the what-if possibilities clouded my brain. I alternated between picturing Howard winning and soothing my nerves by assuring myself that surely Joss would win. When they announced that Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio had won the award, all of the jittery possibilities vanished and I was left with relief and Joy. It was such a relief that Howard did not win. It would have felt wrong for Howard to get this award before Phil and Kaja. They have been doing this for so much longer than we have. Their story is fantastic and their art is beautiful.

Phil and Kaja are not here. In fact, they were so sure that Joss would win, that they did not even send acceptance speeches. The award acceptors created speeches for them. I remember last year when Phil did not will the Best Professional Artist award. Both Phil and Kaja radiated disappointment, and yet they were wonderful and gracious to everyone around them. We sat with them and laughed while Howard and Phil tossed jokes. I rejoice for them because I know how happy they are going to be when they hear the news.

Howard feels the same way that I do. We are both honestly happy and relieved that Girl Genius won. Hurray for Girl Genius.

Trying to capture Worldcon in writing while it is still going on is difficult. There is this sense that every minute I spend writing I will be missing something else. This is true I suppose because every hour is packed with options. But I must face the fact that I need down time in between the events. I need time to ponder and absorb all the new thoughts, experiences, conversations. Conversations are the best. I love getting the chance to visit with intelligent and creative people. We’re a full two days into the convention now. This means that people are settling and and have more time to sit down and talk for longer periods. We also have more fodder for conversation since we can all discuss panels that we’ve been on or that we have been to. It helps that there are about 8 of us here from Utah, so we have some familiar friends to talk to. The overwhelmed, insignificant, lost feelings have subsided. This is not because we’ve become more significant, but because I’ve become more settled and feel more confident.

Capturing Worldcon in writing is also difficult because the only places that I can connect to the internet are public. This means that my attempts to compose my thoughts are invariably interrupted by someone stopping by to chat. It is happy to have so many people who know us well enough to stop and talk, but it does fracture my concentration. This means that the resulting blog entries are not composed as well as I would like.

I also notice that I keep jumping between first person singular and first person plural during this entry and probably during the other Worldcon entries. This is a reflection of my odd state of mind here. I am here primarily as an annex to Howard rather than on my own merits. I am Howard’s wife, assistant, publisher, manager rather than being Sandra Tayler by myself. My value here is measured by his achievements. Most of the people here only know me as I am attached to him. This is correct for this venue and particularly on this occasion with him being nominated for a Hugo. The last thing we need is for me to try to define myself as separate or to compete with him for attention. Our efforts here are focused on promoting Howard Tayler and Schlock Mercenary with a side order of XDM. I suspect that this is part of what added to the feelings of insignificance early in the convention. Howard would be introduced and maintain the attention of the people. I would slide from notice as soon as my name was done. Over repeat meetings and extended conversations this is not true, but it is definitely true when we first meet people. Except Schlockers. Schlockers are already emotionally invested in us and they have all been kind and glad to meet me as well as Howard. This is very gratifying to my vanity.

The experience of being an annex leads me along feminist thought paths. It has me realizing that sometime I want to be in a situation where Howard is introduced as my Husband rather than the other way around. It has happened before. I know it will happen again. Then I think how this little competitive streak in my soul is really not conducive to good business and definitely not good for marital harmony. Howard and I have avoided professional jealousy, not because it never strikes, but because when it strikes we call it out and name it. We see it for what it is and take steps to redress the emotional imbalance. I am very happy to be Howard’s annex this weekend because I know that for him I am irreplaceable.

Montreal is a perfect city for getting the feel of being in a foreign country while still being able to communicate clearly with all the natives. All of the signs are in French first and sometimes (but not always) they have English subtitles. Everywhere I go I hear people speaking French to each other. Most adorable are the small children speaking French with childish mispronunciations. I’ve been here two days now and I find myself wanting to be able to speak French. I want to understand all those words rolling past my ears. I want to be able to order my food in French. I even decided to do it once. I figured I could just read the words off the menu, but as I tried to compose the words in my head I realized that I was not composing French I was composing Foreign which was parts French and Spanish. I realized this would be less intelligible to the Quebecois in front of me than if I used straight English. I’ve always been leery of traveling in a country where I did not speak the native language, but after being here, I can picture myself doing it and happily learning the language in question.

Tonight we ventured out into the city to a restaurant recommended by a local Schlock fan. We walked into Old Montreal which involved walking past some buildings with beautiful architecture. The weather was perfect and then we arrived at a restaurant that served amazing crepes. It was French style service with lots of long pauses between ordering and delivery of food. This was perfect since the point of the event was to visit with Schlock fans. Every time we have a chance to meet with Schlock fans I realize how very fortunate we are. Howard and I send out the comic and the blogs into the world and they find intelligent and interesting friends for us to meet. There is so much more to tell, but the hour is late.

I almost did not go out to the room parties last night. I am very glad that I did. I was reminded again that the best thing about conventions is the interesting people that I have the chance to talk to. The conversations were constantly losing and gaining people because that is the nature of party conversation, but we had fun. There were two particularly heartwarming moments. Lee Modesitt took the time to grab a Locus photographer and as her to photograph us with him. He then made sure she had our card with contact info. It was wonderful of him to take the time. It was lovely meeting his wife as well. The other heartwarming moment was when Jay Lake grabbed us in the hall and said wonderful things about Schlock Mercenary. Got to go.

Written in the afternoon on August 6th. Posted when internet was available:

On the leg from Denver to Montreal it felt like half the flight was folks traveling to Worldcon. We ended up sitting next to a fellow Hugo nominee Paolo Bacigalupi. We had fun conversations for most of the three and a half hour flight. This was wonderful. Those sorts of conversations are what I love best about convention attendance. The down side is that I didn’t do any sleeping on the plane. This led to the sort of fatigue that is so beyond tired that it manifests as an overwhelmed depressive state. Howard and I both elected to stay in the room and we were both asleep by 8 pm and we stayed asleep until 9 am.

Howard’s first panel was at 3:30, which left us at loose ends for most of the morning. Fortunately we had a lunch date and we keep seeing cool people in the hallway. Most of the conversations are brief because everyone is still orienting themselves. It is nice to realize that we do know some people in the vast sea of strangers. Self-doubt is very plaguesome at such a large convention. Because the moments when someone recognizes us are surrounded by long stretches when no one does.

3 hours of sleep
3 airports
2 plane rides
1 cab ride
An unfamiliar hotel and the sinking realization that I do not know where any of the event locations are. I am going to get turned around frequently in the next few days. Also the hotel is full of unfamiliar people wearing badges and most of them haven’t a clue who we are. It is enough to make one feel insignificant. I turned to Howard and said
“Right now it is hard to believe that I’m going to have fun this weekend.” He agreed.

Thirteen hours of sleep later. Things are looking much brighter. We’re about to head out to the convention and fun will be had.

Airports are great for people watching. It makes me realize how much of my life is spent in little eddies of the river of humanity. Even being at the airport only offers a cross section of people. This was more apparent on the first leg of our journey. Now we’re waiting for the Montreal flight and we’ve already discovered several fellow passengers that are also Worldcon bound. In fact we met a person who is heading to Worldcon, who is good friends with people with whom Howard and I are also good friends. It is always fun playing “small world.”

There are lots of parents here with their kids. It makes me simultaneously lonesome for my kids and very glad that I’m able to sit here with my laptop instead of managing small people. The plane will board soon. It looks like the plane may be overbooked. Not thrilled at the prospect of being delayed.

My children are not the center of my life. I know this is true because I am able to function even when they are not around. On the whole I believe this is a good thing. Children need to have a mother who does not revolve around them, but who would rather have them than not. Yesterday I delivered my kids to my brother’s house. Then I drove home alone. It is interesting the gyrations my brain goes through as I try to disengage the habit pattern that checks on the location of the kids periodically. For the first hour of the return trip I kept having a nagging feeling that I’d left something behind, then I would remember that I did leave four somethings behind, but that I’d done it on purpose. Here at home the absence of the kids is also very apparent. Sometimes this is cause for rejoicing (no noise!) and sometimes it is a little sad (no morning hugs.) But mostly I just note that I am missing them a little, remember that we’ll all be back together in a week, and then I focus on the task at hand. This is good because there are many tasks at hand today. Many things which must be finished up before we leave at o-dark thirty tomorrow.

It has not all been roses and sunshine. I had an anxiety attack for about an hour where I curled up and felt very afraid of all the many things which could possibly go wrong. It was rather like there was this little guy running around in the back of my brain and screaming. Locking him in the closet didn’t shut him up, so instead I pulled him into the center of my brain and listened to every terrified rant he had. He screamed of plane crashes, and lost luggage, and children lost, and children injured, and books not arriving to shows, and consignment deals reneged upon, and spending piles of money, and not getting any money back. Eventually he ran out of things to scream about and I made plans for managing each of these potential bad things. Then I got back up and went back to work. All it amounts to is pre-trip jitters. Once we swing into full motion, the anxieties will vanish and I’ll be able to relax and enjoy the trip. It is going to be a good trip.