February 23, 1999
Son of the Return of the Curse of Detroit Edison, Part II!
Power outage - take two! Of course, we've had one or two since the last one I wrote about. They're fairly common here, I'm not sure why. So no computer, the phones are quiet... what else is there for me to do but write? Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. I get too distracted from my writing at times - usually by MUSHing. That's a huge distraction for me, and I'm aware of it. I just haven't gotten around to resolving it yet.
Oh wow. The power just came back on. damn, that's a record for shortest power outage ever here. I guess that means sooner or later I'm going to have to get back to work for real, but I want to finish this first.
Of course, the big event in Lisa's mind right now is The Trip to California in two days to meet Brand. I am not quite a nervous wreck. I'm really anxious, and really excited, but not nervous. Not yet. Nervous is being reserved for that time span from the time the plane lands at LAX until sometime after we've gotten out of the airport and have had some time to talk a little bit. I keep playing that initial meeting over and over in head, like I always do. Mentally rehearsing. Trying out different scenarios. Every time I've met someone from online, it's what I've done. I do it for lots of important events, I guess we all do... don't we?
A little movie inside my head:
Setting: LAX, at one of the gates.
Time: A Thursday evening, not too late, not too early.
Cast: Your intrepid traveling journaller, receptionist and layabout, and Brand - grad student and online personality extraordinaire.
From there, the scene unfolds in any number of ways. We're quiet and awkward. We hit it off right away. I'm not what he thought. He's not what I thought. I'm a geek. He's a geek. Everything goes swimmingly and neither one of us can shut up. I hug him. I don't hug him. A band of ragged children with sharp teeth and wearing red caps descend and drag one of us away - wait. Wrong head movie. Oops. Sorry. But you get the idea. Lots of rehearsing going on internally. And looking at my clock, it's about 57 and a half hours until curtain. Oh my. California here I come!
