My only picture in this entry

Ken told me that, with a press pass, people at the Hudson Valley Comicon would let us do anything we wanted.

What I wanted to do was stay home and grieve for Jareth while Amber was at work. I had felt like a recluse while Jareth was suffering, for the most part, and did not feel the need of this lifted in the aftermath of losing him. I was not ready to see anyone or do anything taxing, but I had already invited Kristina and Hollyandken to a quiet street festival in Red Hook. I would only have been a few blocks from my apartment if I needed to escape to my hermitage. Going to a geek con was too much, even if I were going socially and not to work. (At this point in my life, I am unlikely to go to a geek con unless I am a panelist or selling my books.)

I agreed to help Ken anyway, because the other option was to go to this fair on my own, which I was unlikely to do for long. I have never done sound or lighting, as Ken requested in exchange for the pass. I did not know what this would entail and didn't bother doing any research. I was uncertain that Ken wanted me there to be useful, or only as moral support. He must know someone more capable of this task than a writer.

Outside the convention, I tell people in the staff t-shirts I am press, pointing to my camera bag as though this proves it. I say this with authority and they don't question it. They bounce me from one to the other until I am at the registration desk, skipping past a line of a hundred people in costume.

(c) Ken Pond

I try to get a pass. My name is not on the list. A woman, waiting in line, shoves me aside, saying, "I was here first!" And she was, but I am not in the line to buy tickets as she is. I would not pay to be here. The people behind the table tell her this.

She backs off and hates me for it.

I message Ken that my name is not on any list. I harbor a small hope that they will decline to let me in and I can go home. There are still hours left of the Apple Blossom Festival. Fried dough and my quiet apartment would soothe a futile drive to Poughkeepsie.

Ken comes over and tells the people at the table that I am doing sound for him. They immediately give me a pass without another question, without consulting a list. Press passes seem to be a communicable disease.

When I get to the booth to drop off my stuff, I notice it is a child's pass and return to get the right one, earning further hatred from those in line. They have been waiting for almost an hour for entrance while I skipped in within four minutes.

Ken runs me through what it takes to record audio. I put on headphones. I hold a box. I point it at the thing making noise. I make sure the sound stays in the green on the meter.

Maybe he didn't need someone more qualified.

(c) Ken Pond

We go outside the con to record the line. I don't know why he is having me record audio of this, but I do it. At the front of the line, I see my brother and tap him. Ken asks why I did that. I point out that he is my younger brother. He seems confused by this, seeing no resemblance.

Ken thinks I am so distinctive a character that one could recognize me at a distance, even by my gait. I don't know what this means and wonder if I need to be self-conscious of the way I walk, but the idea of that alone seems exhausting. I don't think I seem to distinctive, more likely to melt into a crowd. Once, a girl who was interested in me told me I wasn't attractive until she got to know me, which she meant as a clumsy compliment.

We stand outside as he smokes, asking if I do so he can offer me a cigarette. He tries to talk to me about my story he is adapting into a film. He thinks it's great, but also that he will need to interrogate me to rework it for film. The story is hilarious, but it doesn't have the filmic core he needs. He also says he wants me to cast my girlfriend. I explain that Emily, though fine with my story being a short movie, would not want to be involved and we are fifteen years too old for our parts. Ken corrects that he means he would want me to cast the character of Emily, not actual Emily. I show him pictures of the genuine artifact, whom he pronounces too soft and sweet for the character of a martial artist animal control officer, even though she was one. Reality cannot compete with art.

Ken halts people in impressive, or at least attractive, cosplay, telling me to keep the light as a forty-five angle to their face, both from the side and up. He explains to them that he is doing this for Dutchess Community College, which is unnecessary. We don't have to explain ourselves. We have professional equipment and press passes. We are not charging them, unlike some at the convention. No one would mind having great pictures taken of them, particularly since he is putting them online for free and tells them to do what they want with them.

(c) Ken Pond

He hands out one of the slips of paper on which he has printed the URL. The girl calls into question Ken's credentials if he doesn't have real cards. Ken is a better person than I am, because I might have deleted the pictures of her for spite.

Ken's pictures all look excellent. I am jealous, wondering whether it is the camera, the kick light, or his talent. Why not all three?

Ken is not interested in photographing or recording the paid guests, just the convention goers. In his shoes, I would have pictures of every guest above a certain fame threshold in hopes they would link to my portfolio. At the level of fame I do have, I lavish attention and reposts on people who quote or photograph me.

I don't care about the guests' fame, since they are only people who have earned acclaim or notoriety. I don't know the caliber of guests one should expect out of a convention of this size. A mini-reunion of a kiddie sketch comedy show from the nineties doesn't seem like much of a draw. Some actor from a later season of Walking Dead who wants $50 to take a picture with him and another $50 to sign something, and so sits alone in his booth, doesn't thrill me.

Gilbert Gottfried, who is the one whom I would consider a household name, looks small and tired behind his table. I want to give him a hug and a cup of coffee and ask if he is okay, but this would come off as peculiar, even with a press pass. What can his life be these days? Maybe it is an off weekend for him, but he still fulfills the obligations his agent makes for him. I tend toward exhaustion at conventions and I am decades younger than him. He can't be blamed.

The man who runs the con is excited to meet Ken, and wants to impress us. Does he not realize we are press only to the extent that we have passes with the word on them? That we are not working for a newspaper or magazine? He gets us a free picture in front of a Star Wars backdrop, in which Ken later say I don't look completely uncomfortable.

This is the only time our press passes do anything for us, beyond permit us free admission. Anything we got after is because Ken has a camera and I toddle after him with the kick light or sound box.

It is tiring to walk around the Astroturf of this convention space in a Gold's Gym. I wish I had my own pictures, but there is no question what Ken gets is better. I will defer to art.

Ken stops a young woman to ask if he can photograph her.

"Make me beautiful," she asks nervously.

"God already did that," I tell her, angling the light per Ken's directions, "we are just taking a picture."

When she leaves, satisfied by the photograph where she is giving both an honest smile and blush, Ken comments how smooth that was. I would want that sort of a compliment in the face of my self-deprecation.

I tell Ken the truth. I have a long history of being an adept flirt, though monogamous marriage has narrowed the need. Now, I want to pay people honest compliments without further expectations of the interaction.

"You can look," Ken tells me, "just don't touch."

I am not sure Ken knows that he doesn't need to try Man Talk with me. Some of the women are attractive, but I don't need to comment. They are half my age. I want more to discuss the themes of World War Z with them, not charm away the few strings keeping their cosplay intact. I am long since too old for them to be more than precocious children.

When we return to the table, Ken shows pictures to Holly and talks about how beautiful the women are, so it is possible I am misreading him. Holly remarks about the loveliness of one girl's face, the strength of her jawline. She doesn't mind his appreciation of other women, as some would.

I relate an anecdote about Amber working No Such Convention when Sandeep Parikh from The Guild asked her to have a drink with him, but only after checking that she was of legal age for his continued flirtation. (She declined because conventions take a lot out of her and wasn't interested in leading him on.)

Ken says that he understands Parikh's caution, that my wife is childlike and he wouldn't assume, even at thirty, that she was in the age of majority.

By proxy, he is calling me a pedophile.

"I would have to try hard to sexualize Amber," he says in defense.

"I know I do," I reply, raising an eyebrow, and the topic fades.

I tell Ken that I am going to confront Sonny Strait, who once left sarcastic accusation on my Facebook status when I announced the publication of We Shadows, as he had a comic titled that. I told him then that titles are not copyrightable and I couldn't be ripping off something I did not know existed. (And, though I still haven't read his comic nine years later, I know enough that our premises are worlds apart.)

I meant this confrontation only as a funny bit, because I have nothing against Strait and was pleased to meet him. It is one of those coincidences, less onerous than Armageddon and Deep Impact coming out close together. I wanted to introduce myself and talk a little.

Ken wants to film the interaction, which changes the dynamic. It prevents my backing out, for one. For another, it makes a private joke into a public performance. It requires a different headspace.

It may work to my favor, since Strait seems in good humor about all this when he sees the camera and we end up having a good, brief interaction. Then he jokingly chokes me without asking so Ken can take a picture of us, which startles me. One should give a warning about that sort of thing, "I'm going to throttle you but not really."

(c) Ken Pond

Near the Dutchess booth is that of Wendy and Richard Pini, the married couple behind Elfquest, a comic about alien elves that has spanned decades. Amber assures me that they are much better than this description makes them sound, though I have only read a few pages of one. In high school, I understood the primary virtue of the comic being that one could sometimes see bare elven breasts.

Amber gave me a few of the collections to have autographed, these because she has had every other volume signed at one time or other.

The fan before me at the table shivers before the Pinis, who bear this well. This comic helped her through hard times and inspired her to start drawing comics of her own. I don't know what it is to be that stunned by meeting a celebrity. I don't know what it is to be on the Pinis' side of the table.

When I speak to the Pinis, I am far more relaxed that my predecessor. I almost apologize that the level of energy has ebbed now that we are alone at the table.

They are happy to sign. I explain these are for my wife, Amber, who was named for their character Ember, except Amber's father decided to make it a fractionally more normal name. Wendy says they have met many Embers. Richard pronounces it a "vowel movement," earning a fond eyeroll from Wendy.

When I say that Amber did not take my name upon marriage but abbreviated her surname to something that seemed even less like a real name, Wendy Pini crinkles her brow and says that she thinks she knows Amber. When I relate this to Amber later, she finds it baffling and hilarious.

We return to photographing, as Ken is tired of video. I stand to the left of a girl, holding the light, and see a wide scar where her head meets her neck. This was not surgical, nor would it be easily accidental. I almost, without thinking, ask if she would prefer that I light the side of her that would hide the scar's prominence, but it seems horrible to ask, even though I would mean it as compassion. Ken says he didn't see it, so it may not register on the picture.

(c) Ken Pond

Coley, whom I knew well decades ago, and who I wish I knew better now, walks by in what Ken describes as a Victorian Star Trek uniform. I suggest we should photograph her, since it is a better costume than many here and I want the excuse to speak with her.

I tell Ken that we twice dated as teenagers. Much as I wish I had declined a few first dates that turned into month-long relationships, I wish Coley and I had a more significant interaction than we did, and that it ended better.

Coley introduces me to her friends in the Apocalips cast as the reason that Rocky Horror Picture Show came to Dutchess, as she joined a RHPS cast in hopes of getting close to me again and happened to get cast as the Janet to my Brad. I deflect this. Rocky Horror is her baby, but I am fond and flattered that she would want to give me any credit when it all boiled down to wanting to date me again, twenty years ago. Being around her even in this limited context makes me happier and less tired than I have been all weekend. I should have been a better friend, rather than being jealous and sullen after she moved on.

Coley says that she tells people she knows me, her author friend. Her ex was an author, too, though of books on dark magic. Still, admiring my work might be the quickest way into my heart when I already want you to like me. I give her a quick hug, assuring her how much I like her for saying that.

Ken starts talking up my story to a woman from the Rocky cast. Though what Coley said warmed me, listening to people discuss my work is uncomfortable. If oysters were capable of cognition, this might be how they felt about people describing their pearls. "Oh, it's nothing. I had something inside me that irritated me, so I covered it in lacquer until it bothered me less. You can have it. It isn't more then lustrous sand taking up space in me."

Ken walks away soon after this. When he is out of sight, I grab Holly by the shoulders. "What does he want from me?"

She doesn't know what I mean.

"He is being too nice. What is that about? I must assume he has an agenda. It isn't for my writing or ability to angle a light at someone's face. So, what is it?"

She thinks he has no agenda, that this is how Ken is. It seems suspicious. He puts in too much effort for it to be innocent.

Before leaving for the day, I buy Amber a knitted cactus and an enamel Jareth the Goblin King pin. After I buy the latter, I reconsider if it is wise to give it to her in memory of our cat. The night before, she came home weeping because she felt she had made the wrong decision in putting him down and there was never going to be anything she could do to change it. I held her, relieved in a sense that I was not the only one nursing within them the great tragedy of his lost, watching it explode out of them in sentimental irrationality. I no longer had to assume she was being brave and reserved for my benefit.

Soon in Xenology: Social Justice Wiccans.

last watched: Angel: the Series
reading: Candy Girl
listening: Damien Rice