I guess I should offer some explanation for why the hell I was in California to begin with. My company was doing a massive training of about 150 interviewers for this monumental survey about medical care and costs and stuff. It's actually kind of interesting, but not interesting enough to spend time talking about it here. The point is: two-week long training. I was going mostly because I'm new to the project and it's the best way to get a handle of things. And to help out with a few things as long as I was there. Luckily for me, I only had to be there for the first week.

Okay, so I didn't actually go to LA until the 10th. But on the 7th there was a story on Google's news page about how iPod Shuffles were going to be marked down, because they're probably going to be discontinued. I thought, "Interesting. But I shouldn't. But. Hm."

I will spare you my wavering, but the factors were 1) my Palm will play MP3s, but 2) the battery life is pretty limited and 3) I've got one memory card already full of music, and was planning to buy a second for my plane trip. And the 512 MB Shuffle wasn't that much more than a memory card would cost, plus the battery would probably last for the whole trip. So after pondering that all day, when I got home I went to the Circuit City site (since there's a store within a few blocks of my place) and ordered one for pick-up.

Ten minutes later they called to say that the website was wrong and they didn't actually have any in-stock. But! They were expecting to get a truckload of stuff the next day, including 5 more Shuffles. "Fine," sez I, "I'll pick it up after work tomorrow."

So after work I stopped off at Circuit City. Where they took a very long time to tell me that the truck hadn't come yet, and so they didn't have any iPods, and they might have them on Thursday but I should call first to make sure.

Hmph.

On Thursday I only worked a half day, since my flight was early on Friday. Around lunchtime I tried to call the Circuit City store. And I wandered through their phone menu for a while, and was completely unable to ever speak to an actual human being. Really, really unimpressed with their voicemail. At some point I thought, "Well, I'm already at work. There's another store a couple of miles down the road. Let's see if they have the Shuffle." They did. I tried calling them to make sure they really and truly had one, but of course they use the same system so that was a waste of time. I cancelled my order at the first store, re-ordered it at the second store, paused to wonder why the first store couldn't have just done this themselves, and went on my way. I got my Shuffle. Finally.

Next stop was the Book Alcove, because I needed reading material for the trip. I got The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, because I'm a suck-up, and Deathbird Stories and Parade's End. Yeah, I have a copy of Parade's End, but the cover's fallen off because it's a paperback so I was due for a replacement. As it turned out, the copy of Deathbird Stories was also falling apart. But it lasted me the trip, and I have that in a big hardbound collection. I think I paid $1 for it, so that's fine. Anyway, as a result of my shopping I had a novel I hadn't read, a giant tetralogy that would definitely last the week, and short stories in case I wasn't in the mood for a novel. And, okay, about 6 books on my Palm, just in case. I didn't have to resort to that as it turned out.

The shopping extravaganza wasn't over yet: next, I went to the mall where I was going to get an eye exam and new glasses. This wasn't exactly in honor of the trip -- I've been way overdue for an exam, and the lenses in my old glasses were scratched all to hell. But I procrastinate. And I wanted to go with my friend Kelly, so that she could help me evaluate new frames since, without glasses, all I see in the mirror is a vague blur.

The eye exam was really neat, because the optometrist had many gadgets. They took photos of the insides of my eyeballs, and did the glaucoma test, and there was also a "field of vision" test which was like a video game. A dull video game, but on the other hand I had to wear an eyepatch to do it. I resisted making pirate jokes. With difficulty. The test consisted of looking into a gadget, and clicking a button whenever a tiny light flashed in various places. It would have been better if clicking the button also made some kind of exciting "pshew" noise, but oh well. It turned out that even though it had been 3 years since my last exam, my prescription had barely changed, so it was nice to know all the computer time hasn't been destroying my eyeballs. Plus, that meant I could keep on using my old sunglasses and not pay for new ones. The bad news was that the doctor said that when I get into my 40s I'm probably going to start needing separate reading glasses. Boo.

After all that I went out and found Kelly, and we tried on a bunch of frames. We learned that the new trend is for lenses to be very, um, narrow? Top-to-bottom, I mean, not side-to-side. So that was a little annoying -- I'm okay with having the edge of the frames in my field of vision, but I'd like to be able to look down and still have things in focus. Eventually we found a pair that met my various criteria and looked decent on me, and while they made the new lenses I watched Kelly do some shopping (I was shopped out by then), got dinner, and picked up my new glasses. Yay.

I went home and started doing laundry and packing. And watched some DVDs while doing so, and called Allyson to chat and go over plans to get together and frolic and gossip and have dinner with Tim Minear. As one does. More on that later, obviously. My flight left Friday at 7 AM, which meant I should get to the airport around 5, which meant I should leave for the airport around 4, which meant that it made sense to just stay up all night. Well, that's what it meant to me. I'd asked for an early flight intentionally, because I've found it's better to pull an all-nighter and then sleep through the flight as much as I can. The cool part was that my company would pay for me to take a cab to the airport, so I didn't have to drive & pay for parking, or take the shuttle which means adding another hour to the travel time. Neato.

So after a nice taxi ride, I got to the airport around 5 AM. Where I was so early that curbside check-in wasn't open yet, and neither was the United counter. There was a huge line of people waiting at the counter. Sigh. However, since the line wasn't moving I wandered around a little, and when I came back I saw people outside and realized that the curbside check-in had just opened, so I was able to sneak outside, hand over my luggage, and bypass the line. Yay. A similar thing happened when I went through security; the line was moving along reasonably well, but a TSA person suddenly pointed at me and told me to come over. I thought for a second that I'd been singled out for some crazy random search, but actually they were opening up a new queue just for me. Well, not just for me, but I got to be the first person in the new line. So clearly my travel-fu is mighty.

Blah, blah. Got to the gate (way early, obviously) had some coffee, listened to my iPod, started reading Moon, got on the plane, and napped through most of the 5-hour-flight. I did wake up every hour or so, but just long enough to go "Urg? Meh. Zzz." and go back to sleep. Oh, and I finally listened to the podcast commentary for "Black Market." I may have drifted off during it a few times, so I'll have to give it another listen while I'm fully conscious, but the parts I heard were definitely amusing.

And thus I arrived in Los Angeles. I would like to say that LAX is a lovely airport. But that would be a lie. Here's my main objection: I got off the plane, and looked for a bathroom. At BWI, there are bathrooms at the end of every row of gates. At LAX, not so much. I saw signs for the bathroom. I followed them. And followed them, and followed them. I found the freaking luggage turnstiles, and still the bathroom signs insisted I had to keep going down one more hallway. Seriously: the only bathroom in the airport seemed to be the one right by the exit. And it was closed for cleaning, so I had to wait another ten minutes before I could finally use it. What the hell?

After that, I got my luggage, found the shuttle to the Marriot, and arrived at the hotel around 11 AM. My room was super nice. I had a balcony! And two beds, which was convenient since I'd suggested that Allyson could crash at the hotel after chauffering me all over on the following Friday. Then I changed clothes and wandered downstairs to scope out the hotel and find my co-workers. My goal for the day was just to stay awake until bed-time, really. So after I'd cleaned up a bit and unpacked, I wandered down to find everyone else I was working with. Most people had already been there for a day, because they were setting things up. The hotel has one floor that's basically all conference rooms, plus a big ballroom. We were using five or six, mostly in one corridor. We also had one room as a sort of office, so that's where I headed. Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with, "You have to think of a name for your bean."

Granted, I'd had about 5 hours of what barely qualifies as sleep, but I think that would have been confusing in almost any circumstance. It turned out that earlier that day someone had been reminiscing about Mexican jumping beans. And naturally, this had led to them ordered a box of jumping beans for the Bean Olympics. Because this is what happens when you have a lot of stressed, jet-lagged people working together for far too long, I guess. We had a couple of meetings and did work-stuff and then there was a nice buffet dinner for us, which signaled the start of the attempt to stuff us silly all week.

Although I would have been able to sleep in a bit on Saturday, I awake just after 8. With my throat feeling raw, like I had a cold coming on. Wah. After drinking some water, I loafed in bed a little, finally got up and had some coffee, and then loafed around some more and finished Moon. Wandered downstairs, where we had sandwiches and then I helped out as the trainees began turning up for registration. After that I just tried to help out and run errands and so on. Everything wound down around 7 and we got pizza. Then Marcia and I went on a run to the store to pick up necessary supplies for the week like, y'know, stuff to eat for breakfast, and crackers, and a supply of Mother's Cookies to take home, and of course booze, and then it was back to our rooms to rest up for the next day, when training would begin.

I will spare you the details of the actual training, so this will actually cover the 12th to the 15th. I will mention that until Wednesday I was awakened early each morning by the fact that it hurt to swallow. It wasn't a cold, it was just the low humidity. Plus hotel air. I started opening my windows whenever I was in my room for more than five minutes, because while the air outside wasn't that much better, I figured it couldn't hurt. And I drank lots and lots of water. The whole thing about Angelenos always carrying around bottles of water made a lot more sense to me by the end of the week.

Which is nothing compared to all I ate. See, this is how it worked. Every morning there was a breakfast for all the trainees & staff. Which I never went to, because I've never been that big on breakfast. However, I could not escape that easily, because the hotel staff would also set up a little buffet in our office. With danishes and bagels and fruit and eggs and coffee and juice. So if I got down there before 8:30 (when the training started) I was unable to resist having a bagel. I mean, it's one thing to go out of your way for breakfast, but it was just sitting there. With cream cheese and jam. Mmm, bread.

Oh and did I mention there was a Starbucks right in the hotel lobby? I didn't, did I? Well: there was a Starbucks right in the hotel lobby. By day 3 I was handing over $4.33 before they could tell me how much the Venti Mocha cost. Mind you, I would just get one in the morning as I headed downstairs. It's not like I was getting several each day. I don't have a problem! I can stop any time!

Then there was lunch. I did not go to lunch every day, because after the first day I realized that at the rate things were going, by the end of the week I would be unable to fit into my clothes. Almost all of the lunches consisted of some kind of chicken, but there was also always a salad, and veggies, and rolls, and some kind of yummy desert. The first day I thought, well, since I had this huge lunch I can skip dinner, but we kept going out for dinner because it was either that or sit around in our hotel room. So, not so much. Plus, eating a big noontime meal basically puts me to sleep. It doesn't make a good impression on the trainees to be nodding off while one of your co-workers lectures. So, yeah, I think I went to 3 of the lunches total.

And then, every day around 3, there was a break and outside each of our training rooms was a little set-up with soda and coffee and some kind of snack. One day it was chips and popcorn and candy bars, one day it was tacquitos, one day it was nachos. And twice it was giant soft pretzels. I love hot pretzels. Love them. I swear, between the bagels in the morning, the rolls at lunch, and the pretzels in the afternoon, I think I ate more bread than I usually do in a month. And I'm not a crazy Atkins bread-avoiding person. But wow.

For dinner, we were on our own. Technically. A couple of times I went to Latitudes (one of the hotel restaurants) with some co-workers. One night I went to a place in Manhattan Beach with some co-workers. And there were a couple of pseudo-happy-hours in one of the trainer's rooms, where we all brought whatever snacky foods we had picked up, and just sat around and gabbed and drank. That was fun.

And the jumping beans arrived on Wednesday. They took a while to warm up, but I must admit that it's very surreal to see a handful of beans start to shudder and twitch. Surreal, and just a little creepy. The Sci-Fi channel should consider doing a movie about killer jumping beans. They came with a little card that explained that the larvae inside the beans are trying to move to somewhere cool and dark when they jump. So basically, we were torturing them for our entertainment. Yay!

The group of trainees I was with was finished up their training on Wednesday, so I could actually sleep in. Although I woke up before 9 anyway. I did have other stuff to do, but it was nice to make coffee and putter around a little before I headed downstairs.

And that's when I learned something marvelous. I was sitting in the office downstairs, doing something, and the woman who was our coordinator with the hotel came in. She was talking about various work things, and then mentioned that things might get a little odd because there was going to be a Doctor Who convention at the hotel.

I think I wheeled on her and said something like, "Here? This weekend? At this hotel? Here?" Followed quickly by, "Ah ha ha ha ha! This is the best thing ever!" Yes indeed, the Gallifrey con was at our hotel. On the same floor we were on. Craziness! Naturally, I rushed to look up the con info. "Tracy Scoggins is going to be here!" I gasped, to people who didn't know or care who she was. "And Leela! Oh my god, there's a panel on the Whedonverse!" Eventually I just giggled quietly to myself because I was pretty much the only geek in the room. But luckily Marcia came in, and when I told her she just put her head in her hands. Which was a pretty good reaction, I thought.

Despite the fact that I slept in for maybe an hour more than usual, I could not fall asleep that night. I was tired, just couldn't sleep for some reason. It's possible my body was rebelling against the regular hours I'd been keeping. I ended up watching Jackie Brown (which I liked more than I did when I saw it the first time, probably because I knew how long it was going in). And then I watched The Accused, which certainly is a Lifetime movie, and then I kind of drifted in and out during an episode of Lost World. Which is a pretty good show to drift off, too, honestly. I did wake up a little as it ended, because the announcer said something like, "Next on Angel, Angel tries to prevent the end of the world." And of course then I had to try to guess which episode it was going to be, because the world didn't almost-end too often on that show. Relative to Buffy, I mean. So imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be "Happy Anniversary." I went back to sleep. For a couple of hours. Ugh.

Friday I had to run a couple of demos, which isn't interesting to talk about so I won't. However, Allyson and I had Big Exciting Plans for the evening. She was going to leave work a little early, drive way the hell down to pick me up at the hotel, and then drive way the hell up to Hollywood, where we would have dinner with Tim Minear. Neat! Apparently if you spend a few years relentlessly mocking someone's work, they'll buy you dinner. Doesn't make much sense to me either, but they do things differently in LA. Then Allyson and I would come back to the hotel, have a slumber party, and then we could frolic a bit the next day. And by "frolic" I mostly mean "lurk around on the convention floor."

Little did we know what fate had in store. [Dramatic chord.]

For starters, it rained that afternoon. Not much, really, but it's LA. I'd finished my work and was sitting out on the balcony when it started drizzling, and I thought, "Oh, yay. Moisture in the air!" And about ten seconds later I thought, "Uh oh; the traffic." And then Allyson was delayed at work, so she didn't leave until almost 4. And so she got to the hotel around 6. We got some much-needed coffee, but then we had to hit the road again because we were supposed to be in Hollywood by 7 for dinner. So: Allyson's a saint. When we were getting close, Allyson called Tim to say we were nearly there. And then Tim said he couldn't join us. Wah. He was a tad stressed because he's working on a new pilot, and there were meetings the next day, and there was general sadness. Particularly since Allyson had done this trip back and forth for nothing. At some point she told Tim about how there was a sci-fi con at the hotel, and that the Whedonverse panel had a description like, "What are the people from Firefly doing now?" So she asked, "Can I tell them what you're doing? Can I say you're doing laundry?" Then she put me on the phone, and actually just then we were passing Tim's house so we all shouted "HI" at each other like maroons. Tim was apologetic and said he might be able to meet for coffee or something on Saturday if I'd still be around. And then Allyson could drive some more! Yay! So with tentative plans for Saturday, we went to Allyson's apartment since we were basically there already.

I got to meet Ruby, Allyson's cat, who stayed very far away from me but didn't actually hide under the bed. According to Allyson, this is impressive for Ruby. Allyson's place is small but very cute, with lovely high ceilings and an arched doorway and a pink kitchen. After a few minutes to recover from the driving, we walked down the street to this completely awesome French restaurant. The food was fantastic, and cheap, and the waiters checked on us every 10 minutes. I scarfed down a giant piece of salmon and salad and we argued about Warren Ellis and feminism and politics and probably lots of other stuff. We did a lot of arguing, actually, but all of it was fun. And then I had a piece of cake that was basically solid chocolate, and after a few bites I realized that ordering it had been a terrible mistake. I hadn't really eaten all day, which is why I was starving, and so inhaling this incredibly rich meal was not the best decision I've ever made. Basically, my stomach felt like it was full of lead. No more cake for me. Which was sad, because that was good cake. But ugh.

We went back to Allyson's, and I tried to sit quietly and let my body concentrate on digestion. After 20 minutes or so I felt much better, and we both checked email and gossiped a bit, Allyson packed an overnight bag, and then it was time to hit the road yet again, and get back to the hotel.

The traffic was much better by then, so it wasn't quite so grueling. When we got there, Allyson was understandably exhausted, so she went to bed. I wound up watching Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil (individual parts of it seemed better than the whole, somehow), and then went to sleep myself.

As promised, we got a decadent room service breakfast. Allyson called Tim, who said he could squeeze us in before a meeting that afternoon. They decided upon a Smoothie place in their neighborhood. Which meant another drive across town!

We didn't have to leave for a while, so we roamed downstairs and looked at all the schedules for the con, and people-watched. After a while we sat down on the patio-ish thing outside. And I saw Tracy Scoggins! I pointed her out to Allyson, who of course didn't have any idea who she was. I think I know one person who'd be mildly impressed by the sighting, and that's partly because he really likes saying "Scoggins!" But if you're interested, she looked amazing. And a bit later there was a woman strolling outside while talking on her phone, and at first I noticed her because she had a neat skirt. And then a couple of little kids and their parents wandered over and had their pictures taken with her. From looking up pictures after I got back, I think it was Louise Jameson. And there was also a very nattily dressed man who was clearly Someone, but I still can't identify him.

And then it was time to get back in the car. But it was daytime, at least, so I could actually see the Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory. From a distance, I mean. After being trapped behind several buses for a while, we finally got to the Smoothie place where we were meeting Tim. Which is when the miracle happened. We pulled into the parking lot for an L-shaped strip mall on a corner. It was small, and packed, and there were SUVs double-parked and all that. But as we drove in, someone was backing out of a space. That was not the miracle. We waited for the car to back out and leave, and it did, and then before we could pull in someone swooped in from the other parking lot entrance and smoothly pulled into the space. And then we cried, "Noooooo!" And then the interloper (who I'm sure hadn't seen us waiting for the space because of the aforementioned SUVs) looked up at us. And then he backed out of the space and let us take it as a choir of angels sang beatifically. It was pretty amazing. My theory is that he happened to look up, saw the devastated expression on our faces, and decided that we must need a smoothie really, really badly. Alternatively, he was a tourist and thought we might be armed.

So we went in, and Tim turned up and gave me a hug instead of punching me in the face or anything. After smoothies were gotten, we sat outside and chatted about his new show, and why he was worried about the fact that he couldn't direct it, and why the hell I was in LA. We talked about The Inside, and I agreed that, much like Wonderfalls, it got better in the later episodes. Although maybe not to the same degree. I'll talk more about The Inside over in the MediaLog soon, I promise. And Tim said I should write a book, and I pointed out that I have absolutely no idea what I would write a book about. Allyson later said that she'd written a book largely because he wouldn't stop nagging her to do it. That was my little ego-gratificaton moment, and to counter-balance it I'll follow it up by mentioning my Incredible jerkitude. Because at some point Tim turned to me and said, "Oh! What did you think of Serenity?"

You must understand that my friend Mugga asked me that a while ago, and my response was a horrified, "I didn't see it!" And it's hard to convey in print the exact tone, but imagine the way you might respond to, "Hey, what did you think of last night's episode of Yes, Dear?" A tone with a certain amount of, "What must you think of me to believe that I might have watched that?"

So, yeah, you can see what's coming. My automatic response to Tim was, "I didn't see it!" in exactly that tone.

To his credit, he just laughed. I mean, it's not that I think I would have offended him considering all the stuff I said in the recaps, but yeesh.

Oh, and we talked about his script for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and and he described the first few minutes, which sounded hilarious. But soon enough Tim had to be on his way, apologizing again for not being able to hang out longer. Because when you think about it, he should cancel business meetings to hang out with some twit from the internet. His priorities are all out of whack.

After that, we went to Allyson's and watched a very amusing little 15-minute DVD Tim had made that illustrated how important a director can be to a show, and then watched "Out of Gas," because I hadn't seen it and Allyson felt I should. It was well done, but damn, those were some pretty stupid space pirates, weren't they? Jayne's still funny, though. And then Allyson had to check some things online, and we wound up semi-watched an episode of Voyager because nothing else was on. We made a run to the store to get some more Mother's Cookies, and Allyson considered committing violence against USPS employees for failing to deliver notes from her agent, and then it was time for one last crosstown drive to take me back to the hotel. (Well, okay, for Allyson it was the second-to-last crosstown drive, because she had to go home again afterwards, but I'm telling this yarn.)

Back at the hotel, we said our goodbyes, and then I went in and had dinner with Marcia and told her my tales of adventure. And then, y'know, I packed my bags, watched Scream, caught the shuttle to LAX, and went home. Ta da!

Today I got up early and went to Bed Bath & Beyond. Where I got a tray to put on the ottoman so that there's at least a chance I won't spill a drink on it immediately.

And I got a trash can frame that goes inside a cupboard.

I'd been eying something similar that was a little nicer, but this one was half the price, and it's just a freaking trash can. And then I came home and installed my spiffy new blinds.

So I feel accomplished. The end.