24 June 2001

Michelle and Scott arrived as close to on time as one could expect from an airline that isn't Midwest Express. I hadn't been to the San Jose airport in a long time. It's really dinky. Every time I go there, I say this, but it is. The baggage carousels are the size of merry-go-rounds. Not carnival carousels. Playground merry-go-rounds. It's like the Phoenix airport cut in fourths or more. But it got us Scott and Michelle, which is the important part.

Michelle has short hair now. Mark was warned about this, so his hyperventilating was theatrics only. He started making hyperventilating noises when I warned him in the car on Wednesday. I said, "No, no. If I'd known you were going to hyperventilate anyway, I would have waited until you weren't driving. The airport would have been as good a place as any.

Speaking of Wednesday combined with the airport, you know what I like about Us? We're so easy to spot, is what. We were pulling a U-turn in a Lyon's parking lot (I think it was Lyon's) on Wednesday (because one of us was looking for the highway 13 exit when we were only on Foothill, but that's not a big deal), and Timprov said, "Hey, that guy has nice boots."

We all looked. He did indeed have nice boots. One of us said, "I wonder if he's in the SCA." And we all laughed. Because of course he was. There was no way this man was not in the SCA. Every pore of his face said, "I have been known to say 'huzzah' from time to time." Then, of course, there were the boots, and the pants tucked into the boots. But the face would have done it. This was the face of a man who owned every single Robert Jordan book.

Happened again at the airport last night. I said to Mark, "Hey, I wonder if that guy works in the computer industry." We laughed. Because of course he did. No question. His face screamed, "I will argue with you about my favorite programming language for several hours on end if necessary."

Some people complain about geeks having no social graces, or dressing funny, or whatever. But it wouldn't matter if we didn't. (And, in fact, I can fake socially graceful in a pinch, and I dress pretty well, thank you.) We still look like Us. And I guess I really like that.

This afternoon, Mark and I are going to the symphony -- Valentine's present, planned long in advance, Sir Neville Mariner and "The Magic Flute," among other things. So that should be nice. If I can stay awake that long. I dreamed that I had wings. I also dreamed that Theodore Sturgeon was writing my story, the story of me with wings. It was a good dream, but not, eh, relaxing. Anyway.

For those of you who want to see me and Timprov or meet La Michelle (or meet me and Timprov, I guess, if we have any Bay Area journal readers we don't know), we're planning on having an Open Michelle on Wednesday afternoon at Au Coquelet in Berkeley. We'll be there sitting around drinking coffee and possibly eating torte (but not the chocolate walnut torte -- that's no good) and reading and talking and writing and talking some more. We need to do it anyway. It's been way too long since we've done that. And despite the tolerability of the Bistro, there are no good coffeehouses in Hayward. So up to Berkeley we go, for coffee and Open Michelle and noodles (later). If you want to have lunch with us up there, e-mail me and let me know.

I'm going to be a touristy butterfly this week, folks, so if I update erratically, well, so do you.