the unintentional tour.
The quote of the day:
There are no barriers to writing hard SF--even ignorance.
We went back to Nate's and Leon's for breakfast, only it was too late in the day for me to have the challah bread French toast. This restaurant is weird: not only do they take forever to clear tables and serve you (actually, we've noticed this every place we've gone so far), but everything on their menu is available all day long except for 3 items, all in the breakfast section. Mind you, most of the breakfast section is available, just not these 3 items.
So I had a chocolate croissant that was larger than my head. Not really, but it looked that way.
Darin had his first Baltimore crab cake. He ate it, he looked at me, and he said, "I think I'm going to have another one of these." Right now? I asked. No...but soon.
Baltimore, it seems, is famous for its crab. Everywhere you go, the signs read, "Our specialty: crab cake." The best crab cakes are made from lump, which sounds untasty but reportedly is the best part of the crab--a big hunk of crab, rather than stringy bits and flakes of crab. And the crab in Baltimore is so far untainted by whatever diseases are floating in the Chesapeake...or at least, they haven't told the crab-consuming population about them yet.
After lunch we hit the "Women Writing Hard SF" panel, which taught me 3 things:
- There is no controversy over women writing hard SF: they do it, they sell quite well, there's no problem.
- Nancy Kress is an interesting person and I would like to hear her speak more.
- Given the opportunity, every woman save Nancy Kress will launch into a "How my life's been made difficult by being a woman" story.
The panel consisted of Nancy Kress, Shariann Lewitt, Catherine Asaro, and Amy Thomsen.
- Catherine Asaro hogged the mike and was a relentless self-promoter, to the point where I thought I would avoid her novels, even though they'd sounded interesting.
- Shariann Lewitt couldn't get her hands on the mike and openly sulked about it, thereby guaranteeing I would avoid her novels.
- Amy Thomson went on at length about how she can't talk to less educated people, particularly those in the suburbs. When she mentioned that she was going to have a baby in the coming year and would "get stuck with most of the child care," Nancy Kress pointed out that we do not honor women's choices by talking about "getting stuck." There was little love lost between Amy and Nancy.
- Nancy Kress was not only the most interesting person there--which made me interested in one or two of her novels that Darin has around--but she stayed on topic and did not go off on a recitation of events of her own life.
Almost all things said by the audience were comments, usually angry ones, about how women are discriminated against in our society. Nancy Kress's statistics about women's representation in the SFWA Directory and in the totals of all the Hugo and Nebula awards ever given made no difference--someone mentioned that only one woman is nominated for a writing Hugo this year, and someone else pointed out that there are no women writers reviewed in the current issue of Locus magazine. Pointing out that these are statistically insignificant occurrences made no differences: the topic invited polemic and received it over and over and over again.
The woman who sat down next to me was one of the problems in the room. Not only was she in a loud, garish outfit--and I'm not sure if it was one of the many costumes found at any science-fiction convention--but she was a loud, garish person. She wore all pink: pink sparkly wig, pink latex jumpsuit. (Okay, silver boots, but they reflected pink as well.) And she was loud: shouting things out, saying, "Amen sister," and jumping in on the male-bashing.
There were angry comments from the crowd when the moderator (I don't remember her name) chose a woman instead of a man for a question...not that woman asked a question, of course.
Once again, I found myself thinking, Participation is one thing, but this is not your show. I can see one good use for the web: you can finally have the spotlight on you all the time.
Ceej's vast network of Clarion friends shook itself out into a group for lunch, and Darin and I tagged along. We went to the brew pub across from the convention center. I ordered the gumbo, which was tasty but much too spicy-hot, and had about 3 spoonfuls. I think Darin had...crab.
After lunch I left Darin, asking which panel he'd be at and when could I meet up with him again. I wanted to go back to the hotel room and get mail--I'd managed to last from Wednesday morning until Friday afternoon, before I logged in again. Better than I'd expected, worse than I'd hoped. But I was jonesing something awful. He told me where and when to meet him, and we split up.
The next time I saw Darin, he asked what I'd been up to, and I said I'd been on a Quest that included my getting into strangers' cars. He said, WHAT?
I stopped at the Rite-Aid pharmacy on the way back to the hotel room to pick up a few things, like nail clippers. Once in the hotel room I went to plug my laptop in and discovered all of the outlets were 2-prong instead of 3-prong, an artifact of having been built before the discovery of electricity (or, at least, of grounding). I called down to the front desk: they had no adapters they could loan me.
Oh fuck, back to the Rite-Aid. How annoying.
The Baltimore Avenue Shuffle
At the Rite-Aid there were no adapters. All of the extension cords were 2-prong to 2-prong. I asked where I might be able to find such adapters, and the clerk mentioned the discount pager store a few blocks down Baltimore Avenue. Only...4 or 5 blocks. Well, the day was hot but not terribly so, and I really did want to check my mail, so I headed off.
At the discount pager store the guy behind the counter looked at me as though I'd just asked for the magical incantation to raise spirits. A what? He showed me what they did have--extension cords for 2-prong to 2-prong--and I asked where else I might go. He said the Rite-Aid. I asked Where else and he had no idea. The other clerk said I could have gone to the Video Shack [sic] but it closed last week (thanks), then suggested that I go to the hardware store at Baltimore and Century, and it was about 6 blocks further on.
Okay, fine.
I headed out and continued down Baltimore Avenue. Right into the red-light district, or at least one of them: this one lasted about a block and I got nervous as I walked through it, but I had no problems. Possibly because on the other side of the porno shops was every cop car in Greater Baltimore and quite a few cops milling about. I didn't see any dead bodies, so I assumed this was a police station. I felt a little better.
This feeling lasted for half a block.
I crossed a giant parkway--President?--and found myself looking at a neighborhood it would be safe to call "lower-class." Lots of windows boarded up, the sidewalks cracked and covered with weeds, generally run-down buildings. (Not much graffiti though. I've got to give Baltimore this--despite being generally dark, dank, and scary, there's little to no graffiti.)
I saw a cop standing on the corner and walked over to him.
"Excuse me, how far is it to Century?"
He looked at me strangely. "Century? Oh, you mean Central. Uh, Center. About 4 blocks that way." He pointed past the boarded up windows.
Oh fuck.
Well, he didn't tell me not to go there, and cops would offer advice like that, wouldn't they? (Hahahahahahaha.) I started walking. I passed a store called the Cop Shop, which sold every manner of gun and ammo under the sun. That was the only store around. I passed a few more scary buildings. I looked down one street and saw a building that in San Francisco would immediately be recognizable as projects.
I stopped and remembered some kind advice from The Gift Of Fear by Gavin de Becker, which is basically, "If you feel unsafe, you are. Get out of there."
My little voice kept saying, Get the fuck out of here.
I was going to win no points with myself for overcoming my unease for being in this neighborhood, and I was going to lose a lot of points if I bet wrong and was in the wrong neighborhood.
I turned around and walked back the way I came. I decided to avoid Baltimore Avenue with its porn shops and cop conventions and take a diagonal route directly back to the Inner Harbor.
The Inner Harbor
There had to be someplace in downtown Baltimore that had converters, right? After all, there are 3 malls right next to one another on the harbor. So I walked to the harbor--a nice hike from where I was--and cruised the malls.
Crab stands: 100+. T-shirt shops: 50+. Coffee stands: 50+. Electrical converters: 0. I stopped in 5 or 6 shops and asked everyone I ran into, "Do you know where I can get these electrical converters?" No clue. Totally blank expressions.
The closest I came was a full international electrical converter set, which believe you me I would have bought could it have handled 3-prong to 2-prong conversion. Which it could not. Of course.
I finally found someone who knew of a place for me to get the converters, and I could possibly walk there. She drew me a map to a neighborhood south of downtown.
I started walking.
Turned out I had made a crucial error and walked on the wrong side of the harbor. Thereby wasting another half-hour and whatever energy was left in my legs.
I had way too much invested now to give up on the idea of finding one of these bloody fucking 3-prong adapters, blistered feet or no blistered feet, so I was going to use some of the remaining cash I had on hand to take a damn taxi to where I could buy one of them, goddammit.
Usually, I Love Taxis
Mind you, I love taxis. I remember reading an interview with Sian Phillips, who played Livia in I, Claudius (the show which was the seminal event of my youth) and she said she knew everything that was going on because "I live in taxis." I thought, Hey, right on. Even though I was, like, 15 when I read that. In San Francisco, driving is a pain in the butt--you take taxis. Same in New York and London. I love visiting these cities, because I get to take taxis all the time.
(In LA, you're lucky if they know what a taxi is.)
I walked back to one of the hotels and got in a taxi. I showed the driver the map the clerk had drawn for me to get to a Radio Shack, and we were off.
We waited at a red light. Just as the light turned, a car going the cross direction blocked our left-turn lane. The cab driver yanked his car out of the left-turn lane into oncoming traffic to go around this yokel, just as said yokel decided to get out of traffic by turning down the opposing traffic lane. Thereby nearly slamming head-on into my taxi.
Once we made the left turn, a second car--once again, a late-model American sedan; all cars in Baltimore look like undercover police cars--pulled up alongside the taxi. The driver of the second car started yelling at my taxi driver, asking, "Bitch, why'd you do that bullshit, bitch?" My taxi driver started giving it back in much the same language.
Then the driver of the first car ran up alongside the taxi and started yelling obscenities in the window--"Motherfucker, what the fuck you trying to pull motherfucking bitch?"
The taxi driver pulled out a sawed-off broom handle and laid it across his lap, ready to use. He then began yelling obscenities at both men.
At this point, I had been in the taxi for one minute.
I found myself thankful the driver hadn't pulled out a sawed-off shotgun. I also found myself wondering, Do I get out of the taxi, putting myself right next to irate Driver Number One? What do I do when violence starts? What will Driver Number Two do?
Finally traffic opened up and my taxi sped off, leaving Driver Number One on the side of the road. (What happened to Driver Number Two I have no idea.)
I got out of the taxi at the suburban strip mall and let him leave. If I'd had a better ride I might have asked him to stay, but I wanted away from that taxi. I could always get another one.
20/20 hindsight: always keep the taxi. I weep for my boundless naivete.
Suburban Baltimore: The 8th Circle
I went into the Radio Shack and asked for 3-prong convertors. Once again, I ran into someone who wondered what the hell I was talking about.
This is Radio Shack, for crying out loud, take me to electrical supplies.
Well, they had a fully stocked electrical section--except for the convertors; those they were sold out of.
I walked down the mall to the Rite-Aid and wondered if I should just chance it. I went into the Rite-Aid, walked down the aisle, and...yes! Converters! Lots of converters! I checked the package carefully--yes, it handled 3-prong to 2-prong conversion. I realized with the way my luck was running something horrible would go wrong, such as it just wouldn't fit my 3-prong plug, but I was willing to chance it.
I looked around the store to find the cashier. And discovered I was the only person in it. I mean, the only person.
I then looked around the store again, wondering if maybe everyone else was on the floor and I had missed the robber with the gun telling everyone to get down. I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised.
There was a cashier at back, in pharmacy, and by the time I'd walked back there a cashier had appeared up front, so I went back to the front and bought my convertors.
"Oh, do you have a phone book? I want to call a cab."
That goddamned blank look again. What was it with people in this town?
She pointed to the photo developing desk.
I walked back to the desk and flipped through the white pages, only to discover that no businesses are listed in the white pages in the Baltimore area. What the fuck? I needed the yellow pages. Did they have those? Of course not. That would be too easy.
"Go to the Metro grocery."
Big ol' supermarket taking up one end of the strip mall. Okay, fine. I walked over there.
I see by the time stamp on my Rite-Aid receipt I bought the converters at 4:33, so I assume I left there around 4:35. I'd started this quest at 2. I was tired. I was hot. I'd walked a couple of miles. I knew I'd gone past the point where getting this converter was worth it, and I just wanted to go home. Get me in a taxi, preferably without a confrontational driver, and let me go back to my hotel room. Actually, I'd even pass on going back to the hotel room; just let me go back and see a friendly face.
The cheerful elves behind the counter at Customer Service were more than happy to call me a cab. Cool, thought I. They do this all the time.
I waited out in front of the market. A cab pulled up. Excellent. "Who are you?" the driver said.
"Diane," I said, opening the door.
"I'm not here for Diane," he said, driving off with an open door.
Um, okay. I made myself as comfortable as I could on one of the posts surrounding the front door area. These posts are designed to keep patrons from taking the grocery carts out to their cars, or, one assumes, home. This meant a lot of people left their grocery carts at the front, got their cars, drove back to the front, and loaded their groceries. There was a lot of activity all around me.
What there was not was a taxi.
At 5 I went back inside and the Customer Service elf said, "You'd better wait! Somebody'll take your taxi!"
I said, "I rather think someone already has," but I went back to wait anyhow.
At 5:15 I went back into the store and the extremely grumpy elf handed me the phone and said, "You call." I waited on hold for a while, then ordered a new taxi.
Taxis kept going by. I saw them passing the parking lot for the mall but never stopping. Usually they'd slow down just enough to assure me they were going to turn...but then they'd break out of the fake and keep driving.
The Samaritan
At 5:45 another taxi came closer, came closer, came closer...and turned.
I burst into tears.
A woman about my age in a demure print dress and sensible shoes stopped and said, "Are you all right?"
I said, "I've been waiting for a taxi."
"Where are you going? Can I give you a ride?"
I thought about it for two and a half seconds before nodding. "The Convention Center."
Turns out she worked downtown but lived in the opposite direction, so this Samaritanism was really taking her out of her way. She clucked about the annoying taxi drivers and hoped that I was having a good time in Baltimore, but she didn't like the downtown very much. She dropped me off at the convention center, making sure first that I knew where I was and my husband would be there to meet me. And don't wander too far north of the convention center. I said I wouldn't--I'd learned that, so far.
(I don't know whether I should add this or not--or why I would add it--but now's the time to mention that this woman was black.
(Now is probably also the time to mention that black, white, Asian, or other, I would never do the same thing were the circumstances reversed. How's that for the kindness of the modern soul?)
I decided that when I saw Darin or Ceej I was not going to complain about my day--plenty of time for that, and I could always write my complaints in here. I was going to make the day sound as funny as possible, despite being tired, upset, scared, and in a general state of loathing when it came to the City of Baltimore. The single bright spot had been meeting a really kind stranger who offered to do something nice, and for once in my life I trusted that such a soul could exist.
I found Darin in the convention center and we once again followed the Ceej-crowd to an Afghan restaurant right across the street from the Chinese restaurant we'd had dinner in the night before.
(What I discovered after this verkakate journey: there was a 3-prong plug in the bathroom, and there was a CVS/pharmacy in downtown Baltimore that probably had the adapters, but not one person I spoke to knew of it. I hate this town. Honestly.)
We piled into a taxi to get back to the convention center for the Hugo awards. I found myself sitting next to the driver, who pleasantly talked to me about the Bromo Seltzer tower and the neighborhood we'd just eaten in was...oh bother, now I can't remember...and a few other things. He did his part to cancel out my earlier Baltimore taxi experience, so I'm now left with a score of 0.
The Hugo awards were as fun as they could be. I didn't know any of the books, stories, novellas, or authors nominated, except for Joe Haldeman (who won Best Novel), but I did know all 5 of the movies nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation. The only one I hadn't seen, Contact, won. Whenever someone opened an envelope I kept expecting him or her to say, "And the Hugo goes to..." but every one said, "And the winner is..." Clearly, good manners have not filtered down to all awards shows.
Best Presenter: Connie Willis (of course).
After the awards it was little to no trouble to drag Ceej, David, and Darin over to Lee's ice cream.
We continued walking toward the Omni, which was hosting a couple of post-Hugo parties. Darin wanted to attend those, but I was feeling l less than sociable, given my day. I bid the three of them adieu, retired to our hotel room, and collected 550+ pieces of mail.
I immediately halted a few of my mailing lists, so that I wouldn't continue to download that much mail whenever I logged in.
I couldn't send any mail, because I had the wrong SMTP server in my Internet Config file; by the time Darin came home and told me the correct server to use, I'd already shut the 'puter down.
|
|
|
|
Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com