Et in California ego
Mar. 12th, 2012 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI know, I've used that subject line before. Don't care. It's too good to pass up.
And yes: here I am, tho' not without adventures. Including an almost-total meltdown in Heathrow security when they couldn't find my return booking and wouldn't let me fly without it and I apparently hadn't printed out that bit of the itinerary and I had to phone Karen from my mobile in the middle of a busy airport and it was 6am in CA and I got her voicemail and aaargh! Please not to say, if you can imagine anything worse for a Chaz. But I phoned again and the second time she answered, and she was a voice of calm rationality against my panic and once we had told the silly people where to look they said "oh yes, there you are," and all was well. Ish.
And the immigration person at Chicago said "What's happening, Charles? This is a very odd pattern of visits," and I was Direct and Honest and explained about the visa application &c, and he Made Notes On My File. Ahem. Nothing negative, he said, but... Yeah.
Anyway. Here I am. Slept overnight in Chicago, after a last phonecall with Karen, when she reminded me that the clocks were going forward; and I'd booked an early alarm call anyway and was worried that it might not be early enough, so when I woke and drowsed and woke again and thought the sky was looking brighter I figured I should probably start waking up. So I did that, and wandered through to the bathroom and drifted about a bit and finally spotted an actual clock on the far side of the bed (I never make it all across the bed, in US hotels) and discovered that actually it was 2.15am Chicago time, and I'd only slept a couple of hours before my body remembered that it was eight-ish UK time and I really should be waking, so...
So by then I was pretty much awake. Went back to bed and drowsed but didn't sleep, and so by 3.30 I was working through an idea for a story, and by 5.30 I was writing it. Just the opening page, but it's going to be a slightly steampunk fantasy mystery with no magic (I love fantasies with no magic), where the solution is going to be both rigorously logical and utterly dependent on its fantasy environment (It Couldn't Happen Here). Needless to say, I have no idea what the mystery is yet, let alone the solution, but I'm determined to cover both those bases. And the character is called Logic Hallelujah Chain, because I was that tired and halfway hallucinating; and yes, his initials are LHC, and no, of course I am not going to be inserting sly references to doughnuts and toroids and particles and such*.
His given names are Logic and Hallelujah; his family name is Chain. That’s a heavy thing for a boy to drag behind him. But he grew big, and he grew quiet, and he grew ... oblique. At school the bullies learned to be afraid of him, and the masters too, a little. Cross Chain, and there would be a price to pay. Walk with him, and there would be rewards.
I walked in his shadow, when he would let me: in school and out of school, in the precincts and in the world. There was shelter there, and danger, and enchantment.
There still is.
I still do.
When he will let me.
And then there was yet more airport and yet more plane, that seemed to last for ever: but at the end of it was Karen. And now I am here, and we are drinking our first glass of Firefly Ridge, and life is good.
Also, there are boys. Who seem vaguely pleased to see me here, as an adjunct or addendum to Karen.
I haven't yet spotted either of the turtles.
Also, I am just astonishingly tired, tho' I don't expect to sleep. And I left my house in a hell of a state, so I feel all guilty about that; I needed an extra week, but I would probably always have needed an extra week, so.
I have programming at FogCon, which is generous of them, as I didn't fill in the proper forms on time. Come to FogCon, California people!
And today we had lunch at Hobee's, as is our Sunday tradition (it's usually brunch, but the food remains the same; coffee cake continues not to be flavoured with coffee), and tonight we're having dinner at Kabul, as is our first-night tradition. See, we already have traditions...
*The hell I won't.
And yes: here I am, tho' not without adventures. Including an almost-total meltdown in Heathrow security when they couldn't find my return booking and wouldn't let me fly without it and I apparently hadn't printed out that bit of the itinerary and I had to phone Karen from my mobile in the middle of a busy airport and it was 6am in CA and I got her voicemail and aaargh! Please not to say, if you can imagine anything worse for a Chaz. But I phoned again and the second time she answered, and she was a voice of calm rationality against my panic and once we had told the silly people where to look they said "oh yes, there you are," and all was well. Ish.
And the immigration person at Chicago said "What's happening, Charles? This is a very odd pattern of visits," and I was Direct and Honest and explained about the visa application &c, and he Made Notes On My File. Ahem. Nothing negative, he said, but... Yeah.
Anyway. Here I am. Slept overnight in Chicago, after a last phonecall with Karen, when she reminded me that the clocks were going forward; and I'd booked an early alarm call anyway and was worried that it might not be early enough, so when I woke and drowsed and woke again and thought the sky was looking brighter I figured I should probably start waking up. So I did that, and wandered through to the bathroom and drifted about a bit and finally spotted an actual clock on the far side of the bed (I never make it all across the bed, in US hotels) and discovered that actually it was 2.15am Chicago time, and I'd only slept a couple of hours before my body remembered that it was eight-ish UK time and I really should be waking, so...
So by then I was pretty much awake. Went back to bed and drowsed but didn't sleep, and so by 3.30 I was working through an idea for a story, and by 5.30 I was writing it. Just the opening page, but it's going to be a slightly steampunk fantasy mystery with no magic (I love fantasies with no magic), where the solution is going to be both rigorously logical and utterly dependent on its fantasy environment (It Couldn't Happen Here). Needless to say, I have no idea what the mystery is yet, let alone the solution, but I'm determined to cover both those bases. And the character is called Logic Hallelujah Chain, because I was that tired and halfway hallucinating; and yes, his initials are LHC, and no, of course I am not going to be inserting sly references to doughnuts and toroids and particles and such*.
His given names are Logic and Hallelujah; his family name is Chain. That’s a heavy thing for a boy to drag behind him. But he grew big, and he grew quiet, and he grew ... oblique. At school the bullies learned to be afraid of him, and the masters too, a little. Cross Chain, and there would be a price to pay. Walk with him, and there would be rewards.
I walked in his shadow, when he would let me: in school and out of school, in the precincts and in the world. There was shelter there, and danger, and enchantment.
There still is.
I still do.
When he will let me.
And then there was yet more airport and yet more plane, that seemed to last for ever: but at the end of it was Karen. And now I am here, and we are drinking our first glass of Firefly Ridge, and life is good.
Also, there are boys. Who seem vaguely pleased to see me here, as an adjunct or addendum to Karen.
I haven't yet spotted either of the turtles.
Also, I am just astonishingly tired, tho' I don't expect to sleep. And I left my house in a hell of a state, so I feel all guilty about that; I needed an extra week, but I would probably always have needed an extra week, so.
I have programming at FogCon, which is generous of them, as I didn't fill in the proper forms on time. Come to FogCon, California people!
And today we had lunch at Hobee's, as is our Sunday tradition (it's usually brunch, but the food remains the same; coffee cake continues not to be flavoured with coffee), and tonight we're having dinner at Kabul, as is our first-night tradition. See, we already have traditions...
*The hell I won't.