Since most of my readers are in that subset of humans who don't follow the journaling community, get the newsletter, or send in for the free hat offers, I'll start off here by saying that I went to San Francisco this weekend to a thing called JournalCon, a convention for people who keep journals/diaries/personal columns online.  I had a wonderful time and met wonderful people, many of whom I've been reading for years, and some whom I've only recently discovered.

Among those who were in attendance, a post-convention frenzy of mass linking has sprung up.  It's an amazing thing to see.  It's a love fest, and this is because we are loveable people, to be quite frank, and it is with a spirit of generosity and goodwill that the hit counts in the land of online journaling are bringing warmth and fuzziness to hearts all across the U.S. and Canada.  Having not been excluded from this wave of good feeling, I ache with guilt at not following suit.  Instead of naming names and attaching a specific wonderfulness to each, I'm simply going to call your attention to this site, the JournalCon 2002 site, and let you riffle through the assortment of characters who populated a hotel in San Francisco this past weekend.  Click on everything there.  You will have fun.  There's even a forum full of thrill-packed remembrances.  And if you pay attention and have an open heart you will come away feeling as if you have been to a very exciting co-ed sorority party, if there is such a thing.  I have no way of knowing for sure.  I didn't go to college.  

I'm failing to link to the attendees not because I am anti-attendee but because my little girl had another seizure this morning just as we were heading off to school.  So rather than spending the time required to give this entry the hypertextosterone it screams out for, I instead kept a keen eye on her as she spent the day at home.  I fear, therefore, that this post is a compromise of dispatch and vagueness.  But then, hell, what isn't.

Perhaps later if you have questions I will have time to answer them personally instead of sending you off to the main hub of journalcondom.

You might not get a response from me this week because I have some meetings to attend at Amy's school.  There have been some personnel changes this year, as well as new health concerns and, for me and Viv to be comfortable in the knowledge that all involved with Amy's schooling are indeed onboard, sometimes one of us needs to go in and make eye contact while we speak and verify that the words, both spoken and written, have been understood and that there will not have to be any grabbing of any metaphorical lapels.

Another reason I may be more or less incommunicado this week is that while attending the festivities up in the northern provinces I broke a tooth on a pastry.  Luckily, that rear bottom molar retained its filling and the nerve is not exposed.  Unfortunately, the tongue side of the tooth, where the break occurred, now sports a clean curved razor-sharp edge that is shredding the left side of my tongue, thereby reducing it to merely a food guidance muscle.  Those of you who know me well understand how this leaves me feeling like half a man.  My dentist will be glad to see me though, and I hope it will be this week.  He'll numb me up, and since I move my lips when I type, you can bet there won't be an entry that day.  

Anyway, for what it's worth, my sincere thanks go out to all those who successfully organized this event, and to those who attended successfully as well.  As opposed to, say, Chuck...

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