Philip Weiss

Dynavox

I barely remember mom’s voice. The last time she tried to talk to me was over the phone after a family vacation to Ocean Shores. I left a day early because Erin needed to get back to work. On the way home, mom called to ask me something. I couldn’t understand a word she said.

Dad fared better than I did. He was able to interpret mom’s grunts four or five months longer than I could.

At the first A.L.S.A. support group meeting mom went to, someone there loaned her a Dynavox. Basically a talking computer. It has a touch screen that lets you pick letters or words. It has a computer generated voice that speaks what you’ve typed. It’s portable, at least compared to a laptop. Thing weighed more than my laptop though. But it’s design makes it more usable for carrying and speaking than a laptop. Under the hood it ran Windows CE, so it had typical Windows stability issues. The new versions run Windows XP.

Mom had a love/hate relationship with her Dynavox. I asked her to practice with it before she needed to use it. I figured it would be easier to solve any problems with it when she could still talk. But she didn’t. It was too slow. And it was too much like giving up. So she only started using it after her speech was nearly gone.

A Dynavox is a pretty versatile machine, but it’s not designed specifically for A.L.S. patients. It’s primary users are seriously mobility impaired, paralyzed, or with severe loss of fine motor control. Eventually mom got to that point, but not until the last few months she was alive. A.L.S. patients tend to lose their speech either near the beginning of their illness (in the case of bulbar onset A.L.S.) or near the end (in limb onset A.L.S.). There are exceptions, but these are the general cases.

For those with bulbar onset A.L.S., using the touch screen is pretty slow. You can use a U.S.B. keyboard with a Dynavox. Mom could still type 60+ words a minute. So she didn’t slow down that much actually at first. The problem was that you couldn’t map any key on the keyboard to be speak or clear. So she’d have to reach over to the touch screen to make it say what she’d typed. And then she’d have to reach over again to clear it so she could type her next sentences.

Even so, she talked slower than she used to, but was still just as wordy as ever. For instance, Mom would still preface her statements with To answer your question … followed by the answer, rather than just answering. I constantly battled with having the patience to wait for her to get through her wordiness with a slower mode of communication. Not everyone had the patience. Having visitors over would be difficult because while they waited for mom to type something, they would continue the conversation with other people in the room. By the time mom pressed Speak, the conversation would have moved on.

As mom lost the use of her hands, it became more difficult for her to type. Again the A.L.S.A. helped out, this time with buttons and switches and a giant trackball. Instead of typing, she would use the trackball to click on stuff on screen. It was slow, but the Dynavox has built in word prediction, something like what cell phones do.

The A.L.S.A. actually helped out with two Dynavox machines. While they are pretty sturdy, they don’t stand up to repeated abuse. Mom’s Dynavox got dropped a few times. Eventually it stopped working. Once when the U.S.B. port was damaged. Another time when the screen stopped responding. Both times the A.L.S.A. had a second machine for mom to use while the original was getting repaired.

At $7500 a pop, that’s a hell of a lot of help. Mom had pretty good insurance, but they didn’t cover communication. Speech aids were specifically excluded. Most A.L.S. patients don’t have insurance coverage for A.A.C. Without the A.L.S.A., they’d be S.O.L.

This is one of a number of articles I’m writing to bring up awareness about A.L.S. and to encourage donations to the 2009 Walk to Defeat A.L.S. I’ve set up a donations page to collect money, where donors can claim one of over 100 books as a thank you gift. If you don’t have the money to donate, you can help by publicizing and linking to that page. I’ll be giving away a signed book by Elizabeth Bear for those who help publicize the drive (and more prizes will be forthcoming). More information on that offer can be found here.

Bulbar onset

The two most famous cases of A.L.S. are that of Lou Gehrig and Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking’s illness is somewhat atypical for A.L.S., in that most patients with the disease have a lifespan of 2 to 5 years after diagnosis. Longer lived patients survive 10 to 15 years. If indeed the underlying disease is A.L.S., Stephen Hawking is the longest surviving patient ever.

Lou Gehrig’s performance as a Yankee started declining in 1938, mostly his power at the plate. By 1939 he was having problems running the bases, fielding balls, and connecting with pitches at all. After 2,130 consecutive games played, Gehrig benched himself. Weeks later he went to the Mayo Clinic where he was diagnosed with A.L.S. Two years later he died.

Stephen Hawking first noticed symptoms when he was rowing. He didn’t have the strength he previously had, and then he started falling down. Over the next 40 years, he has gotten progressively worse. At this point in his life, he uses his cheek to control his speech A.A.C. device.

The first symptoms of A.L.S. that mom noticed were that her tongue and throat felt odd. Not loss of strength in her arms or legs. We (her family) started noticing that she slurred her words, and my brother and his wife talked mom into seeing a doctor. She got her diagnosis in March 2007 and lived 18 months afterward.

The prognosis for a patient with A.L.S. can’t be determined with specificity. Some patients live longer than others, and the reasons why are largely unknown. In two visits to the A.L.S. clinic at Virginia Mason, the doctor there refused to even speculate. For one, he thought knowing lowered the morale of the terminally ill. But the main reason was that there just isn’t any way to predict.

One thing that is known is that people with bulbar onset A.L.S. tend to have symptoms that progress faster than patients with limb onset. Bulbar onset is when the first symptoms show up in the function of swallowing. The medulla oblongata is also known as the bulbar nerves. They control the muscles that effect speaking and swallowing. Typical limb onset A.L.S. affects all the limbs first, sometimes progresses to the bulbar nerves, and lastly affects the diaphragm. For some reason that generally seems to take longer. Bulbar onset affects those nerves first, followed by arms and/or legs, and finally the diaphragm. In mom’s case, the decline in her breathing came concurrently with the loss of function in her arms and legs. And the prognosis, rather than the 2 to 5 years that most limb onset patients might expect, is 18 months to 3 years. Mom’s illness fell at the short end of that range even.

Bulbar onset has a whole different set of challenges than limb onset. Communication and eating are the first set of concerns for bulbar onset patients. Mobility and strength are prime problems for limb onset patients. Mom didn’t lose enough strength in her legs for that to be a serious concern until the last few weeks she lived. Another patient we knew didn’t lose the ability to talk or swallow ever. Because of the differences, in the early stages the same disease doesn’t even resemble itself.

2009 Walk to Defeat A.L.S.

As most of my friends know, last October my mom died from Lou Gehrig’s disease, officially known as A.L.S. I moved to Bellingham for a year to help take care of her. A.L.S. is an ugly illness. While patients with A.L.S. don’t typically experience a lot of pain, they do lose independence and quality of life. Mom had to eat through a tube, wear a brace to hold her head up, and talk with a computer. I heard that computer so much the last year that I don’t remember much of mom’s actual voice.

My part to see that as few people go through this as possible is to support the Evergreen Chapter of the A.L.S. Association. They fund research into A.L.S. and lobby on behalf of patients. For those who are afflicted, including mom, the A.L.S.A. was a lifeline of support. That computer? Provided by the A.L.S.A. Her hospital bed? Provided by the A.L.S.A. When the family first met with hospice, Mary from the A.L.S.A. was there. When mom saw specialists at Virginia Mason’s neurology center, Mary from the A.L.S.A. was there.

The A.L.S.A. holds the 2009 Walk to Defeat A.L.S.A. in Bellingham in September. Until then, I’m going to write a lot about A.L.S. to educate and to get people to donate money. My family has a team, and I’ve set up a page for donations.

If you donate money, I’ll give you a book. I need shelf space, so why not solve two problems at the same time. Books aren’t just the crappy books either: advance reading copies, autographed copies, hardcovers. Here’s the list of books. More information about mom, how to donate, and how to get your book at my walk page.

Coconut Pie

This recipe comes from Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook, which I picked up for free outside Michael’s Books in Bellingham. It worked out pretty good, though I might do something slightly different next time. Instead of coconut flakes, I might use shredded coconut. Since coconut doesn’t soften too much during the cooking, it resulted in kind of a crunchy/fibrous texture. That was minor though. Turned out to be an excellent pie, and pretty easy to make.

As always, recipe is how I made it, not exactly how it appears in the cookbook.

unbaked 9 inch pie shell
4 egg whites
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sifted confectioners sugar
1½ cups flaked coconut
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter

Combine 2 egg whites, nutmeg, salt, vanilla, sugar, coconut, milk, and butter.
Cook over hot (not boiling) water in a double boiler for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens slightly.
Let cool to room temperature.
Beat 2 egg whites just until stiff (but not too stiff). I’ve never been able to beat egg whites to stiffness anyway, so this wasn’t a problem.
Fold beaten egg whites into coconut mixture.
Pour into pie shell.
Bake at 450° for 30 to 40 minutes, or until filling is firm in the center.
Cool and let it set.
Put pie in refrigerator overnight and serve cold.

No pictures of my finished work this time.

Poolside Pie Night

Saturday was Pie Night. It also was my birthday, though I didn’t post that. I haven’t been particularly enamored of making a big deal of my birthday for a few years. I’m not a particularly holiday-ish kind of person, and I only like being the center of attention in special circumstances. I scheduled Pie Night for my birthday mostly because it was a convenient weekend; the 4th would have sucked to host Pie Night. A few people noted it was my birthday and brought gifts, which was very thoughtful of them.

Pies I made were a coconut pie, apple-cranberry pie, pear-ginger pie (with lots of fresh ginger), cherry pie, a pork-cranberry pie, and corn pie. All of them turned out to be tasty. I didn’t like the corn pie so much, but that was more that I like corn tasting somewhat different than it turned out.

Ellen brought a raspberry custard pie. Mike made a key lime pie. And Carrie brought a crab pie and another savory pie, which I forget the contents of. Very tasty all of them.

People who came by, that I remember: Erin, Walter, Ellen, Nisi, Jason, Kim, Mike, Allyson, Darren, Sara, Ron, Sara (a different Sara), Daidre, Keenan, Katie, Carrie, Amanda, Jeri, Gord, Chris, and Michael. Dawn and Manda didn’t make it but stopped by in the morning to hang out and help me clean up.

I’ll post a couple of the pie recipes later.

Pie Night Reminder!

For those who are the type who need reminding, Pie Night is this Saturday at 5pm at my place, 2301 Fairview Ave E in Seattle. If you haven’t already committed to coming, now is the time. I do need to know an approximate head count so I can make enough pie.

If the weather is nice, Pie Night will be held in the pool area overlooking Lake Union. You are welcome to take a dip if you are so inclined.

If you are an alcohol imbibing type, bring something of that sort. Since I am a non-drinker, I hate to pick out the alcohol for the drinkers. Pie is welcome, but not required; I will make enough. Cake is not welcome.

Why I host Pie Night

Well, you might have gotten the hint that I was sort of messed up as a kid. I didn’t exactly turn out all right, and someone asked me what I am doing about that. The answer is, a lot of things, and not enough. Not yet.

Which brings me to the title. I wanted to be the kind of person who hosted parties. As a teen, I tried to throw a party when my parents were gone once. Complete failure. No one came besides Jason and a couple of people I can’t remember who. I can’t remember trying again until the first Pie Night in 2002.

It’s pretty simple. Pie Night was and is my attempt to be the cool popular kid in high school and college who threw a party and everyone wanted to go to his parties. Instead of playing not to lose, like I did for years, I made a stab at being popular.

I stacked the deck in my favor by having it be a little different. Other people threw parties with alcohol or art or music or whatever. No one else had pie. It would be different, and who doesn’t like pie? I’ve jokingly referred to Pie Night as buying friends but it’s not really a joke. I’m hoping people will like me because I’m doing something in which they like to participate.

Have I mentioned the first pie night was a failure in that regard? I was certainly popular with people Jason cajoled into coming. I wasn’t so successful at convincing them on my own. But I was new at it and I learned. If a person does anything long enough, they’ll get some notice for it. Pie Night is over 7 years old now.

That’s actually sort of important. Becoming a person different from who I was takes time and practice. Pie Night isn’t the only thing I do to change who I was. Some of them I stuck to. Some of them I gave up prematurely. Pie Night has been pretty successful.

Thinking about my father, or lack thereof

Yesterday was Hallmark Father’s Day. Nisi Shawl’s post about her father got me thinking. Crying actually. I cry easily at sad things. Losing mom last year exacerbated this tendency in me that seemed to be getting more pronounced as I got older.

I felt the need to write about my relationship with my father, but after writing the following, it’s inadequate. My memory is spotty and jumbled by years of emotional tumult. So take it as a confused mental image more than anything else.

I grew up without a father.

My dad died in December 1972 after what I understand to be an ugly battle with cancer. I was 2. My brother Dan entered the world the following month, January 1973.

I’ll never know what kind of father he would have turned out to be. Probably pretty good. But it’s a big what if.

In 1975, mom married my step-father Andy. He wasn’t and isn’t the father I wish I had. I call him dad, and father, and it’s somewhat more than convenience for me to do so. Where exactly he fits and what a good definition for my feelings for him are pretty hard to describe. Properly, it isn’t dad. But it isn’t not dad either. (Oh, how Zen of me!)

I never felt like dad treated me like one of his kids. I felt like he treated Elaine, Matt, and Joe as his favorites because they were his kids. They got to do things I didn’t. I got punished more severely and for stuff at a lesser threshold of badness. Worse, he was mildly physically abusive to me.

I remember him coming into my room once, very angry. He had his belt off, and he meant to give me a thrashing. The proper way for me to take a spanking was to submit meekly. I didn’t that time. I scrambled off the bed as he hit me with the belt to try to slide underneath the bed, or over my brother’s bed. I didn’t get away. He grabbed me and held me and hit me with the belt quite a few times. Maybe a dozen. I don’t remember exactly, as it was a long time ago. I think I was 12 or 13. He was very angry and taking it out on me.

One of his favorite punishments was to make me kneel bare-kneed on gravel or our asphalt driveway. It doesn’t start off as too painful, but after just a couple minutes it hurts quite a bit. After 30 minutes, it’s excruciating.

I didn’t get punished for no reason. He didn’t get drunk and start hitting, for instance. It’s just that I got punished hard.

I never received a word of encouragement from him. He made fun of me for chewing my nails. He made fun of my hair. I didn’t have to work on the farm, so I had it easy.

When I was 14, I lived with my paternal grandfather for a year on weekdays. Weekends I stayed with mom and dad. Friends and family were told it was because taking Metro to Seattle Prep was easier from where Grandpa Weiss lived in Broadview. I think I even pitched it that way to mom. But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that as I hit adolescence I became both more angry at dad and more scared of him. It didn’t work out after that year though. When I moved back, things were different with dad. We still didn’t get along. But he never hit me after I started high school either.

To be clear, there are some people who suffer horrible abuse at the hands of their fathers or whatever substitute passes for father in their house. What my dad did to me was minor in comparison to the psychological and physical scars that I’ve seen on some kids. Nevertheless, what I experienced, no child should experience.

What do I wish I had for a father? I totally would have liked Ward Cleaver or Mike Brady. Sure it’s not realistic, but that’s about all I knew besides what I had. I didn’t have very much contact with other dads. Holidays with uncles. Getting the occasional ride home from someone’s dad in Cub Scouts.

That’s not completely true. I had one other model for what a father could be: John Sloane. He’s pretty awesome as Jason’s dad. John does everything a dad is supposed to do. He even did a few dad things for me. For instance, when I needed someone to help me learn how to drive, Mr. Sloane Senior took me out to practice driving. My dad refused to get in a car with me in the driver’s seat.

Anyhow, I really don’t have first hand experience for what a father is like, day in day out. Among other things, when I become a father, that could really bite me in the ass.

Years ago, he married a woman with two kids when he hadn’t even had a good role model for a father himself. A few months after that his first child was born and two more were born before he’d been married four years. Married four years and five kids in the family. More or less he was in over his head. He did what he knew.

My dad couldn’t read up on how to be a good father. His reading skills are elementary. He only got as far as the 8th grade. He’s not a person to ask advice. He couldn’t see how what he did would hurt me. He thought he was curbing my bad tendencies and setting me on the correct path.

Tomorrow I will drive to Lynden to bring a check to dad. I’ll also be signing some paperwork that puts me and my brother in control of dad’s house. Mom worried that someone would try to take advantage of dad. So rather than leave everything to him, Joe and I are trustees. It’s for his benefit.

A quarter century after I moved out of the house for a year because of this man, I am in charge of seeing that he is okay. And I am fine with that.

Andy has good intentions. He’ll help you out if you need help. His next door neighbor has multiple sclerosis and can’t drive long distance without pain, so dad drove him an hour each way for a doctor’s visit. He was mom’s primary caregiver, even when mom was not nice to him and criticized every little thing he did. He loved mom. He’s a doting grandfather as well.

Once I was an adult (i.e., mid 20s), our relationship changed for the better. I wasn’t an angry kid, and he didn’t feel like he was responsible for me. We don’t have a lot to talk about, but we don’t have anything to argue about either.

How he raised me is a thing of the past. It’s not that I’ve forgiven. I’m no longer actively angry, just sad about this hole in my life. It’s hard to describe how I think of him. He’s both the person who hurt me gravely years ago, and the man who loved mom and treated me well as an adult. Kind of a cognitive dissonance, and it actually helps.

He’s not my father, and yet he is my father.

Summer Pie Night

Pie lovers! Your time has arrived. Or will in a month, because the next Pie Night will be Saturday, July 11th, at 5 p.m.

What is Pie Night? It’s pretty much what it sounds like: all pie, all night long. No cake. No cookies. Now, it’s not just dessert pies; we have a few savory pies as well in case your mother would get upset for skipping straight to dessert.

Is it required to bring a pie? No. If you’d like to bring pie, please do, but it’s not required. If you do decide to bring pie, please take the effort to make it yourself. No store bought pies. Buy the crust; buy the filling. But assemble and bake it yourself, please.

Are children welcome? Yes, if you don’t mind them hearing naughty words and discussions.

What can you bring besides pie? Ice cream. Beverages. Friends. I have a large supply of plates and utensils, so those are not needed.

Is an R.S.V.P. necessary? Please don’t be flaky. I need to know how many pies to make, so do please let me know if you’ll be attending. Commenting on this entry is sufficient, or add yourself to the Pie Night event on Facebook.

Image Up close with a lovely lemon pecan pie by kat selvocki used under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 2.0 license.

Wiscon 33 Experience

secret-passageway

Why Wiscon?

I haven’t even left Madison. I intended to wait a few days after
returning to Seattle to write about my Wiscon experience. I’m sitting
in Michaelangelo’s coffee shop, where I intended to read some of the
books I bought. I sat down, pulled Feeling Very Strange
from my backpack, and then just looked at it. All I’ve got going
through my head is my experience, and I don’t think I can read. So I
write instead, though this won’t get published until I get home.

I decided to attend Wiscon after the kerfluffle last year over
what I wrote about Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged.
Some commenters on Abercrombie’s blog accused me of … well,
I’ll just quote one:

Mr Rat sounds like he’s been brainwashed by the feminist
lit department at his university, who read oppression into every
interaction between men and women.

I thought this was quite amusing. I’ve never taken a feminist lit
class. Ever. I’ve taken only the Intro to the Canon type of literature classes,
and I don’t mean the feminist canon. I attended the University of
Idaho. Idaho! In the center of the whitest Congressional district in
the U.S. at the time. A state where the women’s groups that get any
attention are headed by Phyllis Schlafly. This was after attending
high school run by the Catholic church and only a decade away from
being an all boys prep school. Don’t even get me started on my
elementary and junior high education! There I was taught that
dinosaur fossils were planted by the devil’s minions to trick us.

The point being, no one has ever indoctrinated me in proper or
even improper feminist theory.

But afterward, I thought perhaps I should learn more. I subscribed
to Feminist SF – The Blog!. My friend Kim planned on attending Wiscon
last year and told me about it, encouraging me to go. Last year I had
mom’s illness and impending death to deal with, so I didn’t. Kim
attended and returned with awesome things to say about it. Earlier
this year, I decided to go.

Introversion and Culture

I’m not the most extroverted of people. A fair number of people
seem surprised that I am shy. I can fake outgoingness sometimes. The
best comparison I have to the trepidation I felt about Wiscon is my
experience going to India. I was stepping into a foreign culture. It
had values about which I was not familiar. It had unwritten rules
about which I was completely unaware. I went by myself, without a
protective posse. I stood out as not being part of the locally
dominant culture. All these things worked against me in India, and
all of these elements were present to some degree with attending
Wiscon.

I did two things (at least) though to make things easier on myself. My
first tactic I chose consciously. I would not open my mouth to
express any opinion in any panel programming. Questions were fine.
Requesting clarification I thought was safe. But I decided against
expressing any sort of opinion.

This goes back to something Nelson told me 15 years ago. Your job
is just to listen right now. It was a different context, but the
issue was the same as now. I am an opinionated guy, and I have an
instinctive reaction to spout my opinion to any and all who come
within earshot (or read my crap online). Regardless if I was asked for my opinion. Regardless
if I have any background information. Regardless if I knew the
reasons why other people had their opinions. I’m better than I was nearly half a lifetime ago, but I’m still pretty bad
about it.

That’s the intellectual reason to keep my mouth shut. It’s valid,
but the driving force was emotional. I fear being wrong. I fear being
attacked. I fear getting jumped on. My fear is not rational. Others
may have a perfectly rational fear of attack. I do not. I have lived
and learned from every personal attack. I’ve thrived even. Yet every
time I write something negative about a book or express an opinion
online, the pit of my stomach drops before I press publish.

The second choice I made was not conscious. I didn’t shy away from
controversial panel topics to attend, but I did avoid those with the
most inflammatory descriptions. The first panel I attended tackled
the topic of the portrayal of the working class in speculative
fiction. I’m really no longer working class, but I still identify
because I grew up in a working class family. I picked mostly
literature related topics. I picked topics with panelists whose names
I knew.

RaceFail floated as a prominent issue at Wiscon. The people
who were the most involved in RaceFail discussions on blogs were
either names I didn’t know well, or didn’t come to Wiscon. Writers of
color (i.e., those with the most at stake immediately in RaceFail)
that I’ve read and who were at Wiscon included Nnedi Okorafor and …
Nnedi Okorafor. And although RaceFail directly concerns literature,
discussion about RaceFail is one level removed from books. Keeping my
panels directly related to literature kept me one level away from
RaceFail discussions. I did attend one panel on multiculturalism and
thought it was great discussion, but I doubt it would register much
controversy compared to other rooms.

I don’t believe it was an accident that the things I consciously
thought about when choosing panels led me away from scary stuff. If I
go next year (and I’m leaning towards attending) I think I will
examine the choices I’ve made to make sure I’m not avoiding difficult
topics. Or at least if I am avoiding them it’s a considered choice.

I’m not sure whether my panel choices was a good thing or not. One
one hand, I didn’t freak myself out about a topic that won’t be
resolved for quite some time anyway. On the other hand, I learned
about 5% of what I could have learned. Had I thought more I might
have chose different.

Social interaction

People come back to Wiscon from all over the United States and the
world year after year. It’s not just a place for discussion of
feminist topics. It’s a place where people of like mind return for
fellowship or sisterhood (to use both gender loaded terms). It’s an
environment that can strengthen people’s resolve before returning
home to fight battles alone or in smaller groups.

There’s a drawback to that though. For the non-outgoing, there
isn’t a lot of support for integrating into the community
particularly in the first day or so, at least as far as I could tell.

Returning attendees eagerly embrace their friends from previous
years, rejoicing at the end of the interruption of their camaraderie.
Groups of friends unload their belongings and decamp to food or other
activities, leaving the less connected behind. I’m sure not everyone
experiences this, but I know I did and several people I talked to
related similar experiences for their first time attending.

Friday night I attended the First Wiscon Dinner which seemed to
have no support other than a line in the program guide. Ostensibly an
event where a few experienced hands would welcome first timers to
acculturate us, instead 25 of us newbies stood around at the
designated meeting point wondering what the plan was supposed to be.
We eventually split into three groups because the word from the
Madison local newbies was that close by restaurants wouldn’t be able
to handle large groups. I quite enjoyed the small group I dined with,
and chatted with a couple from my group throughout the convention.

I didn’t hide out in my hotel room. I purposefully planted myself
in the hotel lobby during breaks and periodically introduced myself
to people. None of those conversations lasted long nor did any of
those folks return to conversation with me a second time during the
first couple of days. I wasn’t dismissed, but I didn’t feel any real
engagement either.

The first time someone initiated conversation with me was Sunday.
M. Rickert engaged me in conversation Sunday morning, sensing I was
bewildered and not pulled into the thick of things, sharing her first
Wiscon experience from a few years ago. I don’t know the causes,
whether our interaction was the key or something else was working,
but I subsequently hooked into conversation with people better. Lunch
with Liz Henry and C-ko (C-ko being the one person I knew) and a
dessert table oddly magnetized to Seattleites for the guest of honor
speeches. Maybe I just felt more comfortable by that point.

Authors

One big reason to go to Wiscon was to find more good literature that I didn’t know about. I bought books and I got to meet some authors.

Though probably working off bad assumptions, I didn’t chat too
much with author panelists. I know they are real people. Most have
day jobs. But I still have them on somewhat of a pedestal, and I
didn’t want to turn into a fanboy in the hallways. And neither could
my puny brain come up with reasons to chat with them or with other
panelists. In retrospect, the panel topic would have been a great
icebreaker for me to chat with any panelist. Though in most cases I
couldn’t have chatted coherently on the panel topics immediately
afterward anyway, even just to ask questions.

SignOut on Monday is kind of the designated fanboy event. A fair
number of the authors in attendance set up at tables so folks can get
their books signed. I bought a dozen or so books by authors who
attended and got them signed at SignOut: Geoff Ryman, Ellen Klages,
David Schwartz, M. Rickert, Nnedi Okorafor, John Joseph Adams, Carol
Emshwiller, and Nisi Shawl. In most cases I chatted a bit
with them as well. Other than guests of honor Ellen Klages and Geoff
Ryman, most didn’t have lines of more than one or two. Of course, all
were friendly. I knew this, but I still have a twinge of surprise. Cue Bart Simpson: I will not put authors on pedestals. I will not put authors on pedestals.

I made a point to pick up something by M. Rickert to thank her for chatting with me Sunday.
That turned out to be Feeling Very Strange, an anthology of slipstream stories. I’ve never read much slipstream though.
I chatted with David Schwartz and M.
Rickert (sitting side by side) talked with me about the genre. I tend
not to like literature I don’t understand. Slipstream is designed
around cognitive dissonance; by definition it will be hard to
understand. But I wanted to try it out because I hadn’t done so
before, and M. Rickert writes slipstream. I may get
something out of it, but I’m pretty sure the pieces that don’t work
for me really aren’t going to work for me.

At the Sunday night Tiptree Award ceremonies, Nisi Shawl received,
instead of the traditional Tiptree chocolate, a pie. I thought I
recognized a kindred pie aficionado, so when I got her to sign Filter
House, I asked her about the chocolate replacement thing. Turns out
she gets migraines from chocolate, and thinks pie is the best thing
ever. So I mentioned my own predilection for pie and how I made
friends through Pie Night. Her response: Where? Can I come? I knew
she lived in Seattle, and kind of hoped she’d want to come. Fanboy me
emerges. To tell the truth, I haven’t yet read anything she’s
written, but she seemed like one of the nicest and most thoughtful
people on any of the panels I attended. So I wanted to get to know
her. Hopefully she’ll actually be able to come to the next Pie Night.

Geoff Ryman also impressed me. I’ve only really read his story
V.A.O. before. I’m fairly familiar with his Mundane Manifesto and the
movement he’s trying to start. I appreciate the stance, but I enjoy
non-Mundane SF too much to stick to stories that fit that mold only,
as he has advocated at times. I attended one panel he was on, and had
him sign a book at SignOut. Despite having only the limited
interaction, when he ran into me on the streets of Madison this
morning, he stopped to chat with me. Nothing substantive, but I was
nevertheless impressed. There are a lot of people at Wiscon and not
all of them can register on a person’s consciousness.

Wiscon Programming

I’m not normally one to gush
about anything, but the panel topics were chock full of substantive
discussion. Sure, a few of them were fluff, and I enjoyed those of
that ilk that I attended as well. In most time slots I circled at
least two or three possible panels. Each panel had enough content to
generate at least one separate post. Some had enough for two or
three.

Not being a con person, I don’t know how much Wiscon’s panel
selection/assignment method differs from other SF conventions. Panels
have a mix of professionals and fandom. Any attendee can put their
name in the hat ahead of time to be on panels. I don’t know how the
programming committee selects folks, but it seemed to work out well
for the most part. In only one case did it seem like a panelist was
outclassed by the material and the rest of the panel.

In a couple of cases, the moderator could have done a better job
leading the panel. Some kind of just were there, and their panels
tended to ramble more. A couple panels had members who just had to
talk. The moderator for one of those never showed. In the other case,
the moderator was the person who dominated the discussion. Neither
person ruined the panel, but I would have liked to have heard more
from some of the other panelists. Three moderators were outstanding:
Fred Schepartz on the working class, L. Timmel Duchamp on book
reviewing, and Jesse the K on feminist/leftist SF book groups.

Next year?

I can’t say I’ve found my tribe yet. I don’t bond deeply, quickly
enough to make that assertion. I have found kindred spirits and
content that serves my intellectual craving. I felt fulfilled like I
haven’t in a long time. There’s something about engaging in deep
discussion that I enjoy. About books no less. I read a lot. It’s hard
to find people who read as much or as widely as I do. Wiscon is full
of people who outclass me in that respect. Full of people who
outclass me in a lot of respects. That’s stimulating.

Next year’s Wiscon guests of honor or Nnedi Okorafor and Mary Anne
Mohanraj. I really liked Zahrah the Windseeker, Nnedi’s
young adult novel. Her manner inclines me to turn into a fanboy.
She’s nice, and incredibly positive. It took a couple minutes of cajoling to get
her to say she didn’t like Twilight. To paraphrase her: I don’t like tearing down
authors who are just doing their thing.

I haven’t read Mary Anne
Moharaj’s fiction. Mary Anne wrote
a couple of thoughtful pieces for John Scalzi’s blog that made clear to me
some of the issues of RaceFail. I hadn’t mentally connected her to those pieces
until this morning.

Both guest of honor selections make me want to go next year.

Photo Wiscon 32 by Liz Henry used under a Creative Commons By-Nd 2.0 license.