I really do remember what passed for my youth (it’s like a politician’s “youthful indiscretion” of smoking dope – when he was 38. It’s an elastic measurement of time) that I really was able to throw a sweatshirt on, grab my keys and go somewhere. I was never a real adventurous sort, mind you; I’ve been only as far as Bermuda (where, when you landed they asked where you were staying and checked the hotel lists because they didn’t want scruffy types sleeping on the beaches, so I was informed. By someone.) and I never learned enough self-defense to feel comfortable hitch-hiking. So I never took off for Europe with a backpack and no plans, or traveled the mountains of Sikkim to find tea and wisdom. I did go places more than once without a reservation for a place to stay; in one case, ti was an out-door festival and you brung it with you. But another time, I just figured I’d wing it.

Winging it is acceptable in a lot of situations. In those times there were two huge differences. I wasn’t so disabled and I had a car. In fact I had a hatchback, which, believe me, in an emergency makes for a quite reasonable living space. But even then, I don’t recall ever actually sleeping in it. I worried about waking up and suddenly sitting up and whacking myself unconscious on the car’s low ceiling (sort of like bunk beds only lower). I remember sleeping on the ground one night at the bluegrass festival; the next night, well um, I met this guy, see….

The other time was during a trip to Lenox, Massachusetts, down the hill from Tanglewood. There was a performance space, an outdoor stage with a natural amphitheater and I went to concerts there. It probably was the Baez concert, or maybe the Mary Travers show; anyway I was there in the afternoon and was going back the next day. Struck up a conversation with a woman my age who, it turned out, was a summer student at Tanglewood or something like that; an arts program, a theater program nearby, something. They had dorms and a barn and I stayed with her that night, on the floor of her dorm room or something. It just was that way. You could. I could. It wasn’t really risky; sure yeah of course she could have turned out to be a homicidal maniac but what are the odds. I’m here. And she shared her food with me too.

So I’m traveling to Bouchercon tomorrow and having huge flashbacks to easier times. Last year. No no no. but back when I could sleep on an air mattress and a sleeping bag, as I did in the desert back during “the Disabled American Freedom Rally in 1981. I had a cheap sleeping bag and remember only wondering how I was going to get up the next morning as my feet were ice cubes. But yeah, I really did. Amazing now, huh? That was me.

I started getting ready for the trip two days before I left. Mind you this is a visit to an American city for 4 ½ days. And granted I really am not that neurotic but day one involved gathering together stuff I needed because I’m chairing a convention in a few months and I have a table at THIS convention so I needed my stuff. I needed far more flyers than I had lying around (49, I counted, after finding them in about 4 different places). And I needed show and tell, since people seem to want STUFF to look at. So there’s stuff from the hotel , and maps of the city. There’s some stuff from one of the beneficiaries of our auction. And there are toy space needles and ferries and trinkets. And I’ve got a copy of the program questionnaire (which as I sit here I realized I meant to make more copies of it and didn’t). I’ve got meetings scheduled during the 4 ½ days with the people who are working on the auction and the awards and on some special programming. And I found the little box where I keep the scissors (to cu the membership forms and give BACK the top half with the dates and stuff – the half that too many people mail back. We worked hard on this flyer so the dates and address and place would be on the top part so you could keep it.

I have spent the last maybe THREE weeks on Mapquest, repeatedly trying to orient myself. Why? Because at least five related events (not all of which I’ll get to) are not at the hotel. At least one convention event is not at the hotel. Every single one of these is an issue now. Madison is a very fine city – what I remember of it – but back when I visited it last, I was walking. Seriously walking back in 1989. Not long after Stu and I had gotten together, before we moved to Seattle. Corflu, the fanzine fans convention. Guests of honor chosen by traditional method – names out of a hat and Stu was chosen. God what fun. Watching folks created a human pyramid for the guest of honor chanting “Stu Stu Stu” while Luke made it to the top. Fans don’t often DO human pyramids. Madison. Home of great hats (1990 Wiscon took place during my birthday and Emma Bull (a guest of honor), Will Shetterly, and a bunch of us wandering downtown veering into a hat shop. I have the niftiest blue sequined beret that Emma and company bought me. Golly.) (I think it was The Sacred Feather. Its’ still there.) (go look if you’re a hat person – they’ve got a great website with groovy lids at www.sacredfeather.com) Look at that Red Rider hat, huh?

The complexities of travel when you have a disability are well, what’s the term for things that multiply not just by two but by ten? You know, the the richter scale? Logarthmic? That’s traveling my way.

The convention hotel has a free shuttle for guests to/from the airport. It’s not lift-equipped. The way the law is (this is ADA we’re talking) the hotel must provide me with a ride to/from the hotel. That’s how that works; if you provide a service to able-bodied guests, it must be available to disabled guests. No, they don’t have to buy a lift-equipped van; they can, as an example, contract out (as the “Shuttle Express” folks do here in Seattle. I get picked up tomorrow morning by a “cabulance” paying the driver what I would pay Shuttle Express, as opposed to the horrific charges charged by the private transportation people that run things like “cabulance”) Or they can send a taxi that’s lift equipped. But (and I checked) according to the Department of Justice’s ADA hotline, this is the law. I did sign up for “paratransit” in Madison but there are so many reasons not to use paratransit that I avoid it when I can. I’ve had drivers who don’t now where they are going even if they are employees of the transit district (Chicago – my driver could NOT get us to the hotel) it’s a shared ride service so it can involving going way out of your way (and believe me, after hours and hours of sitting AT the airport and ON the airplane, that can be hell for me.) And paratransit rules usually go something like this “we will arrive and we will wait for you for 5 minutes. If you don’t appear, we’re gone.” You want to guess exactly when your plane will land, how long it will take to get your bag, and whether the paratransit van will still be there for you? I’ve had immense good fortune with some systems – folks who came back for me, vans that waited way past the time they were required to wait, as a courtesy to the out-of-towner who couldn’t control foggy weather in Seattle. But it’s absolutely so nerve-wracking. What if the van isn’t there? Will it come back? How long will I have to wait? What if it can’t come back? What if it runs only daylight hours and I’m coming in at night? IF I know I’m late, I can call but what if I can’t? (I only got a cell phone a few months ago; the last time we had problems, an airline staffer used HER cell phone and did us the huge courtesy of calling the transit people from Sea-Tac to say we’d be an hour late. At least.)

So I called the hotel. And called the hotel. The first guy didn’t know but he knew who did. Except she had left for the day. So I left voice mail. After leaving a second voice mail, I started getting really pissed of. When she called me 2 days later, she somehow had found out I wanted to talk with her but had never gotten the voice mails. I was, meanwhile, emailing everyone I could think of with contacts to Wiscon since they use the same hotel to ask what THEY did in this situation. Apparently this situation – that is, a disabled visitor wanting the hotel’s airport shuttle – had never arisen in all the years of Wiscon.

I tell this person I need a ride. I am not going to quote the law at her, let’s be friendly. Let’s work it out. However, I also have no intention of paying cab fare when everyone else can get a ride for free. See Madison does have a cab company with lift-equipped cabs that are on the streets 24/7. They’re great, I talked with them too. And yes, they are picking me up at the airport. PHEW.

There’s that huge nerve-wracking problem out of the way. So that just leaves all sorts of other things. There’s the one party that is some blocks away. The invite says it’s walking distance but notes that there will be a shuttle available. Heh. Heh. Yeah, right. Of course it’s not lift-equipped. Are the streets pretty accessible? Any construction going on? Anything I need to know? I won’t give you details of that but there’s a GREAT Madison employee named Arthur to whom I owe a debt.

There’s the party that is on the second floor. It’s possible that there is an elevator. It’s also possible that there is no elevator and I can’t get there. No one knows. The person hosting the party does not know for sure and the place where the party is being held has not answered my email. It’s not possible to tell from the web page if the second floor is accessible and it’s been my experience that when people say something is handicapped-accessible, they are often wrong. I could call the place but I’m busy writing this and dealing with suitcases and frankly I’m a bit annoyed that it ends up as my responsibility when I don’t feel it is. There was that hotel clerk in New York, whom we had to physically escort down the hall, away from the computer to prove that room 109 was NOT handicapped-accessible. Some business have ramps and because the ramps are seldom used, they become storage dumps, like the ice cream place in Vancouver, BC. You can’t tell someone you can’t use their ramp if you can’t get into the store because the ramp is blocked by cases of supplies.

I had to go out today and get nibbles so I wouldn’t have to buy the “$5 snack box” provided on my 7 am flight (a box with chips, crackers, cheese cookies and raisins. Which I cannot face at 7 am or indeed just about any time of day. Yum?) Remember to bring a means of taking notes; can’t deal with the laptop because I have to already deal with the suitcase, carry-on and the scooter and I’m traveling alone. Watch me enter the airport terminal dragging my suitcase behind me. Watch me get in line. Watch me try not to knock the suitcase over or ram it into someone as I’m trying to drive the scooter at the same time. The scooter is no problem 98 percent of the time. Unless you are United Airlines staff in San Francisco Airport in which case you are arrogant, stupid and treat disabled people like sacks of flour. You do not talk to them, ask them what they can do (so you bring them in a wheelchair to the front of the van and expect them to climb the stairs) and of course, you lose their scooter and wonder why they are upset because after all, you’ll bring it to them on the next airplane, or just as soon as you find it at the airport. Or maybe you’ll break the basket or forget to reconnect it, which requires lifting the seat off; being able to lift the seat off, and being able to bend and hook up battery connections.) This is all especially fun when you have a connecting flight. Which I do.

I cleaned out a slew of stuff trying to find the right things to bring, remembered to “go on vacation” on the book and CD swap sites so that I wouldn’t get orders while I was away that I couldn’t fill in time. I’ll be back Sunday night but I’m guessing, knowing me that getting out of bed Monday will be an iffy proposition.

Stu printed out everything I needed [fill in dumb explanation involving computers and printers here] even my boarding passes. I have a flight itinerary as well as a convention itinerary that makes me giggle every time I look at it because it involves morning meetings, parties, a panel, dinners, coffee, all of which will be very enjoyable because they’re all with people li like; some with LCC staff and some not – but I’ve never in my life had to print out my convention schedule before. And I’m still missing at least 2 meetings that haven’t been set yet.

TSA announced today that it will let passengers purchase water once they’re through security. This is GREAT news. I can live without my green tea lip gloss goo, but I take 1 ½ Vicodin every 3 hours. It’s just gonna HAPPEN that I’m going to need to take one at some point in the waiting area, or just after getting to the airport, or just after boarding when the crew is busy. It just happens.

So now? (now I really must stop - apologies for the typos I know I did not catch). I still have to actually PACK. This involves laying out far too many clothes and trying to decide a) will I be as chilly again as I seem to be lately (and having cold clammy hands with which to shake hands with all those people I need to meet and talk to is so tacky) b) I’m going to parties that involve cocktails that is to say “cocktail parties” and while it’s a convention and not a New York penthouse high rise publishing party it’s still a publisher having a cocktail party and dear gods do I not own cocktail party clothing. My spiffy new boots didn’t come – my fault for stalling ordering them. I’m guessing I will not have room for any books which sucks because I like getting friends to sign books and usually manage to bring 5 or 6 at least to Bouchercon with me. I refilled my Vicodin today and asked the pharmacist for a smaller pill bottle because I had images of some cranky tired TSA person thinking I was carrying far too many narcotics and pulling me aside to question me, so I got a smaller bottle (which has to have my name/prescription on it so I couldn’t just use any old bottle.)

This does not begin to address the toughest issue of all about this trip. Not the “what time to I go to sleep if the van comes at 4 am” question. I know, I know, why I am I bothering to go to sleep at all? Especially because I’ll sleep 20 minutes at a time, waking up constantly to be sure I haven’t mis-set the alarm and overslept. It’s not the “what am I forgetting” question, the “did I bring enough X, Y or Z. After all, I can buy almost all X Y or Z where we’re going (“Joanie, I think they have legal pads in Berkeley”) and I’ll manage without if they don’t. No, the real critical thing other than socks and cocktail garb and oh man the weather may be nicer here than it is in Madison gimme a break. No the critical issue I have to deal with later, after Stu helps me sort out all stuff on State Street I wanna go to (cheese for everyone!! Lands’ End outlet store!!!, Hats!). But no, I still must face the critical tough decision: which soft fuzzy toys get to come with and which stay home to keep Stu company.

It’s not easy being me, is it?