I keep sleeping later than I mean to. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m three hours west; shouldn’t I be waking up earlier? Tomorrow I’m going to have to set an alarm just to make sure I don’t sleep past when Jeff’s supposed to arrive.

Today I went to a panel called Trivia for Chocolate, where rapid-fire questions were asked, answers were shouted out, and those answering correctly fastest were pelted with Andes mints. All of the questions were fantasy and science fiction–related. Most of them wanted authors’ names in exchange for information about or titles of short stories and seen-one-seen-’em-all series novels.

I walked out with about nine pieces of free chocolate, which is fine with me. A few answers I won on, like “Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster” and “Nearly Headless Nick,” were just me being the fastest, but the proudest moment was being the only one in the room who knew Sandy and Dennys were the names of the twins in A Wrinkle in Time (including, though it wasn’t asked, that Dennys was spelled with a y), though I know them best from their own book in that series, Many Waters, which says interesting things about Noah (did you know his daughters weren’t allowed on board the ark?) and from which I learned the word seraphim. As a further aside, A Wind in the Door is the best one in the series. I love that book.

But anyway. The winners easily had a hundred. Each. I couldn’t believe the kind of shit they knew.

This competition was utterly dominated by two fans of a very particular sort, the sort that makes it less fun to come to conventions. The sort that spend time reading science fiction that the rest of us spend on friends, family, and hygiene. I swear, the guy in front of me was the absolute apotheosis—epitome, if you will—of the form. Every time he moved there was a waft of B.O. It was inconceivable that he let an opportunity to speak out go by. People were actually shushing him. The other guy was one of those who’s so socially inept you feel bad for them, plus I think he had a speech impediment. And honestly? Neither of these guys needed free chocolate any more than I do. But they won, and they were happy, and I guess that’s what matters.

Also, there was a guy in the front row wearing a really well-done rune-decorated cape, with all sorts of matching accessories. Just really nice for what it was, which was an amateur hall costume. He kept getting accidentally pelted with chocolates meant for the dude next to him.

After that I finished walking around the art show, as I’d only seen half of it yesterday. There was a docent tour I’d been planning to follow, but it turned out the docent wasn’t able to speak loudly enough to be heard over the convention center ventilation system, so I just finished on my own. There are a few things in there I’m kind of excited to show Jeff. Unfortunately, the one artist I was really hoping to see isn’t there this year, but there’s a guy doing the same type of technique on a smaller scale. They aren’t as good, which is a shame, because this particular type of painting can really only be appreciated in person, and it is stunningly beautiful. I wanted Jeff to see it.

I toyed with the idea of watching a screening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but it just didn’t seem worth the walk. This may be because it’s one of the DVDs I actually brought with me to watch on the plane. So instead I came back to the Marriott and went swimming, and then I sat in the bar and had a glass of wine and some really good sausage rigatoni, and half-heartedly watched some baseball.

The Angels, by the way, are not good.

Let me say something about wine. I don’t know if it’s because this is California, or because it’s a nice hotel, but here I am not resenting paying $8–$10 for a glass of wine. These guys pour a hell of a glass of wine. These glasses are easily as large as the ones at Lisa’s house (if you know what that means), and they fill them up. These glasses are so generous that if Lisa were pouring them I’d “whoa” her.

In an hour and a half I have a chance to go see this. Read this, and tell me if it still sounds fun. I have no idea if I’m going to go.

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