February 20, 2015: A Wholly Unexpected Pleasure

I'm about to make a surprise appearance. A SURPRISE TO ME, TOO! I am in Seattle right now, all by my lonesome, for REDACTED and some quick meetings with Not Available At Your Clearance. It was a seven-hour trip from Austin; I left the house about 5 in the morning. Much of the flight has already mercifully slipped from my mind. It's better that way.

I wanted to put a gamer meet-and-greet on the schedule, but dropped it, because this was thrown together rather quickly and everybody who would normally help set up an event is recovering from Toy Fair. Yet . . .

As I was walking to my hotel room, I saw a big shiny banner and some people who looked very much like they were, well, OUR people. As in, US. I said "You're putting on a con?" They said that indeed they were. We talked. So: Mythicworlds is a new event with a heavy focus on music, art, and fantastic masquerade, and the chairman, Robert Gould, was kind enough to invite me to check out his show. I will!

Impressive guest list, including Brom and Laurie Lee Brom . . . which makes me happy because I'm a Brom fan and wish we had more chances to use his wonderful stuff.

If you're in Seattle, and this sounds good to you . . . well, I'm here, and it hasn't even started yet and already looks good to me. I do not expect to have any events, nor did I bring so much as a bowler hat. (Thought about packing it, and was overcome by sanity. It passed quickly, but not quickly enough.) But I digress. If you see someone here who looks like me, well, it probably is.

So . . . not only can I not escape geekdom, but it somehow knows where I will be and gets there before I do. What could be cooler?

-- Steve Jackson