Hey dudes and dudettes. Welcome to Julie's Anaheim Adventure. This year's WorldCon was held right on the doorstep of the happiest place on earth: Disneyland. Did this happiness rub off on my fellow conventioneers? Like totally, man. I had a great time meeting people, partying, pressing the emergency STOP! button on the hotel elevator and spending all my money ordering huge amounts of food and drink from room service. So settle down by the pool, slather on your sunscreen, have the waiter pour you a Diet Coke (this is Southern California, remember) and tune into the party vibe...

This beauty was the first photo taken with my Mickey Mouse camera. (And I mean that literally - we were at Disneyland and I bought a disposable Mickey Mouse camera). I'm the gawky-looking one with the knees. If I look slightly stricken it is probably due to the fact that I'd just come off a roller-coaster ride and my lunch was still circulating around my stomach like washing in a dryer. The other good people in the photo are: Roger MacBride Allen, excellent fellow and bestselling author; Betsy Mitchell, the editor-in-chief at Warner Aspect; Jana Silverstein, editor and lady of many impressive and varied talents (no, those aren't her ears, btw); and Wayne D. Chang, some strange guy we picked-up along the way (okay, okay, he's really the assistant editor at Warner Aspect).






This photo is my entry for "Most Stupid Expression Ever Struck In A Photograph." All I can say in my defense was it was late and my Doc Martens (not shown on screen) were killing me. As you can see, I am driving a Toon Town car and although I'm loathe to say anything bad about Mickey and the gang, its transmission was shot. Nancy Hanger, fellow San Diegan, Highlander author and all-around great lady, showed us around Disneyland with military-like efficiency and continued good-humor in the face of organized mutiny! (Some of us were slow and stroppy and kept lagging behind.)






Aha! I met these three good people on a street corner outside the convention center. Being especially struck with the gentleman in black's turban, I asked him if he kept anything under it. He replied, "Yes, a packed lunch, a photo of my mother-in-law and a Swiss Army knife." I must say, he carried them all well. The lady in green, in addition to being most eyecatching, was carrying a loaded weapon so I wisely said very little and smiled a lot.






This photo is living proof that us authors live the sort of lives that others can only dream of! (-; Yes, it was taken in Target, during a book-signing held directly across from the hair-accessory aisle. It was great fun. The Target staff were friendly and altogether too witty for their own good. The fine people in the photograph are: David Feintuch, winner of the John W. Campbell award for best new SF writer and author of the splendid Nicholas Seafort sagas; Jennifer Roberson, beautiful lady and accomplished writer (her latest book The Golden Key which was co-written with Kate Elliott and Melanie Rawn, is on my to-read list, and has the most smashing cover art I've seen all year); and Ashley McConnell, charming lady, author of Highlander novels, and expert on miniatures and their collecting.





This photo was taken the night of the Warner Aspect dance. The two ladies were both charming and friendly, and graciously agreed to be photographed with "that dazed and sweaty woman in the black dress." (I'd just come from teaching everyone on the dancefloor the English version of the Macarena: instead of rotating your hips at the end in a suggestive manner, we English people shake hands, stiffen our upper lip and cry Pie!). For aficionados of the "Great Thigh-Off" from last year's WorldCon: as you can clearly see in the photo I was warming up for the rematch. Suffice to say my lady competitor was nowhere to be found, and I can only conclude that, like Buster Douglas, she was chicken!





This wonderful photograph completes the set for this year. As you can see, Ashley McConnell and Jennifer Roberson have their mitts on Harrison Ford. I went over to speak with him later, but found him rather stiff and standoffish. He was altogether two-dimensional for my taste; little more than a cardboard cut-out really. I must say, though, that the past eighteen years have been kind to him. He's hardly aged a day since Star Wars!

---