Saturday, January 18, 2003

Went to a science fiction convention in Boston today. I know, I should've been out protesting, but, honestly, I forgot. I know, I know, it's pathetic. I'm a bad leftist. But anyway. The trip started out poorly - it was -2 when I woke up, and 3 degrees above 0 when I got moving...which was a little later than planned, so I missed (by 30 seconds) the train from Lowell to Boston. The train would have afforded me an easy ride to the right subway line, just a few stops from where I needed to be. But I missed it. By 30 goddamn seconds. I had to pay my $3.50 for parking up front, too. So I drove off to the end of the Red Line in Cambridge, half an hour away, and took the T in after all. The con...well, it was a sci-fi con. I bought some books, I went to a couple semi-decent panels, I saw a great Eric Bogosian-like performance artist/ranter/anarchist (which, honestly, was worth the price of admission to the whole damned con - really, really good stuff). And I saw a bunch of people who made me feel like I'm part of the American mainstream. I shouldn't say this kind of thing. It's really quite offensive, I know. But good GOD! It's not just the bad hair and the smelliness, and the desperately exposed bosoms (and yes, I deliberately used the word bosoms there. If you've been to a con, you know why.) - it's the whole image that many con goers present. They're angry that society won't accept them on one level, and terrified of acceptance on another. And a large portion of them have no social skills to speak of. Oy. More later - must cook now.

5:50:52 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []