Writer's Conference: Day 1

I'm at the Desert Nights Rising Stars conference until Saturday night.

Just getting here has already been an adventure:

1. It's Girl Scout cookie season, and my family has ordered a packing crate of cookies. I picked them up yesterday, two hours before I had to leave and spent another hour sorting and re-packing them for the trip. I was originally going to drive myself, but there was no way I was going to be able to schlep a 50-pound crate of cookies along with my other luggage, so the Pirate very sweetly offered to drive me. I swear, he's too good for me.
2. We got to the airport and I was going to do curbside checkin, but the very sweet skycap told me that I'm on the list. Yes, apparently, I'm a terrorist. My mother is convinced it's because I have a habit of leaving rude notes for the TSA in my checked baggage, telling them things like "I've rubbed my dirty underwear all over everything in this bag. Have fun!" There are some folks who'd pay good money to sort through my dirty laundry. Oh, wait. I mean that there are some folks to whom I have to pay good money to sort through my dirty laundry. Anyway, long story short, I got to talk to a kindly TSA agent who told me nothing of use (no, they can't tell me why, when or how my name got on the list, but I might be like 30% of passengers on "the list" who have names that happen to match those of actual terrorists or terrorist groupies or terrorist sympathizers or some such). They gave me an often-copied piece of paper that tells me to contact the TSA with a whole boatload of information to get my name off "the list," which will take 6 to 8 months.
3. I got into the airport and started pacing. It's a 2-hour flight and I wanted to get a little exercise while I could. I was paced by a cop on a Segway. I don't know if you've ever seen a Segway, but the little platform on which you stand is a good 8-12 inches off the ground, and even with that platform, the cop was barely taller than I am (I am 5' 7"). The entire "Toulouse LaCop" image was completely ridiculous, but having already been branded a terrorist, I decided that now was not the time to push my luck by pointing and laughing at a guy with a gun.
4. As I was pacing the terminal and listening to "Augustus," a biography of Augustus Caesar, I happened to walk as far as terminals A1-A and A1-B, the international terminals. They're newer, rarely-used and cleaner-looking than the rest of the San Jose airport. There was one other guy in the terminal, standing there talking on his cell phone. He was obviously looking for some privacy, as the minute I stepped out of the long hallway and into the football-field-sized room, it became too crowded and he left. I walked to the far end, hearing one of the white courtesy phones start to ring. The sound of a phone ringing in a giant, empty room is a very lonely, creepy sound, and the creepiness was only made worse by the fact that as I drew abreast of the phone, it stopped ringing and the silence was even louder.

The plane ride was uneventful, I got to bed at a little after one and was here at the conference bright and early at eight this morning so that I could be sure of getting parking. I've laid out my schedule, which says that I have tonight off, but otherwise I'm here until 9:30 every night. *sigh*