Seven Days To VEGAS!!!

August 3, 2007

SEVEN DAYS AND COUNTING!!!

Wahoo!!! A week from today, God willing, I will be winging my way to Las Vegas. When I lived there in the 70’s we called it Lost Wages because it was almost entirely a gambling town, but now it has become a play land for all ages and you don’t even have to step into a casino to have a lot of fun…

I’m getting calmer and calmer as the big weekend gets closer. It’s going to be all right. I may even leave the outfits I bought for the occasion at home and just wear jeans – that would help me relax and interface with De’s fans better. Getting all gussied up is, and always has been, unnatural to me and I don’t need my own “alien-ness” that day to trip me up! It’s a relaxed, fun crowd – there’s no need to be dressed like I’m in church or at a banquet or out to make a deal with a Fortune 500 company, ya know? Hey, what a revelation… and I feel better already!

What was I thinking when I thought I had to dress up, anyway?! Just ‘cause I did at the earlier conventions doesn’t mean I have to do it again… I am a free to be just who I am in Vegas!

Ooh-whee, ooh-whee… just get me there in one piece and on time, Lord!

I always fly in the day before a convention because it leaves lots of times for airlines to be delayed, re-routed, inspected… so far there have been no delays or re-routings, but one never knows in these days of terror threats and attacks. Al Qaeda will never keep me from flying or doing anything else necessary to go where I gotta go and do what I gotta do, but they do make things “interesting” (as in the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”). I liked the “boring” old days better… before 9/11. But we’ve been blessed (here in the US) to have not felt many repercussions before 9/11. Many of the other countries are all-too-well aware of the evil in the world and have been exposed to it in many more instances (owing to proximity, I guess, because IF Al Qaeda could get to us earlier, there is no doubt they would have).

Isn’t it awful that we are heading to a wonderful convention that is so much about IDIC (infinite diversity in infinite combinations) and yet we have to arrive at the airports and be scanned and remove our shoes two hours early because of the zealots in this world who think diversity is something to be routed out and destroyed?

It’s ironic… and very, very sad.

I’m glad that when De was flying to conventions he didn’t have to jump through any of these pre-flight hoops or wonder, in the back of his mind, whether terrorists -- or our own nation-loving, dedicated airborne fighters -- might blast us out of the sky should terrorists again stake a claim inside an airliner bound for the same place he was… It’s not much fun to fly anymore. I do it to be a blessing to De’s fans and to piss on Al Qaeda’s attempts to terrorize us enough to keep us from enjoying travel and sharing love, but it’s certainly not the pure pleasure it used to be. One has to be sure we have a will in effect anymore (as we all should anyway!) just to take a plane anywhere!

The bastards.

That’s my political statement for the day and the last time I mention this niggling concern.

It’s funny, the human race. In the weeks before taking a cruise to Alaska some a couple years ago, there was a significant upsurge in conversation about ship wrecks, culminating in jokes like “Shall we watch The Titanic or The Poseidon Adventure now?” Then when we got on the ship, we didn’t think ship wrecks even once! I guess once you make the commitment you say, “It’s all in God’s hands. Knowing that, I am secure.” And away you go!

I guess it’s our way of saying, “Here is the risk… here is the likelihood it will happen… Let’s go!”

That’s the way life should be lived every day – with the LET’S GO winning out in areas where what we plan to do will bless others – all others – to its full potential.

I was twenty two before I ever “risked” hugging someone and really meaning it – and that’s because I received a hug from somebody who really meant it but had no ulterior motive other than to bless. (De hugged like that, too!) Since then I have probably hugged 4000 people and in only two instances was it misinterpreted as a “come on,” at which time I back-pedaled and apologized for the miscommunication and all was well. So I wonder how many others fail to bless with a hug because we are afraid it will be misinterpreted… This reticence has to stop! This world needs hugging – it’s under attack by powers and principalities. The Hug Brigade needs to disperse in all directions and hug as many people as it can!

(Proviso: Don’t hug little-known people when you are alone with them. I wasn’t alone when I hugged the two mentioned above, or things could have gone awry very fast!)