It’s been sad to watch BayCon happening and to not be there. Last year, I traveled to BayCon and got to meet my publisher and a bunch of the other authors with Water Dragon Publishing. This year, I decided I couldn’t attend because they no longer required masking.

Due to my health conditions I need to cautious of respiratory infections. Up to now, I’ve only attended conventions where masking was required. (Except for Rhode Island Comic Con early in the pandemic, where I ended up getting the respiratory infection that put me in the hospital.) Unfortunately, ReaderCon, which I’m attending next week, may be the last convention where full masking is required. I decided to attend WorldCon in Glasgow in August before their COVID policy had been established, but they adopted a policy of “masking recommended”) and I suspect that is going to be the trend going forward — until we have the H5N1 pandemic or something.

So I didn’t go to BayCon this year. And now I’m watching my fellow authors attend and feeling sad that I’m missing out.

Partly, I’m just remembering the wonderful trip that my son and I took to drive all across the country. That was amazing! We saw so many wonderful things and visited a lot of people along the way.

I do have WorldCon coming up in just a month. That’s going to be exciting, although I’m not really looking forward to the trans-Atlantic flight. And all of the rigamarole of crossing an international border. I still remember the misery of going through the hideous check point at Heathrow. It was in a gymnasium-sized room with a line that snaked back and forth 8 or 10 times until it reached a line of booths. We spent at least an hour shuffling back and forth across the room until we finally got to the booths. It was horrible.

I learned a long time ago that I have a lot of inertia. When I haven’t traveled for a while, I don’t want to go. I’m comfortable not going anywhere. But, once I start traveling, I’m happy traveling and then I don’t want to stop. So I know that once I start going, I’ll have fun.

That said, it’s hard watching everyone enjoying themselves at BayCon and not be able to be there.

Oh, well. There’s always next year.