I knew that I was going to get lost. I always get lost. I never have any idea where I am, what I’m doing there or how to go anywhere else. So, on the way to Ad Astra, I got lost.

I took the wrong bus. I even knew it was the wrong bus. But it was there and it was a bus. So I took it. Anyway, long story shot, I eventually found some high ground and was able to spot the hotel. I always give myself a good chunk of time to get lost in. Sometimes it’s enough. Sometimes it isn’t. This time it was.

I signed in and was given my swag. A free book and some buttons. I also received a program and spent the next twenty minutes marking what panels I wanted to attend. There’s some good ones. Then I had a tonic water at the bar and a smoke outside before bumping into Robert J. Sawyer and his wife Carolyn Clink.

He’s a fine writer and a nice fellow and told me that I looked “dapper, as usual.” You would think that, since I hear this every single time I go outdoors, I would have some idea how to respond. But I don’t. So I said, “So do you,” which was basically an insult to both of our intelligences. He looked comfortable. I no longer did.

Off I went to the opening ceremonies.

I told you I can’t take a photo and that’s the proof.

It was hosted by Ed the Sock, who I thought was Gilbert Gottfried’s big brother, and a woman in a red dress. She does have a name and I would call her by it but a red dress simply overwhelms. In the presence of such a vibrant color mingled with female beauty, I’m much more inclined to reverent silence. Or a soft moaning noise.

It depends on the situation.

There was also a beauty from “Beauty and the Geek.” So you know what they do when their reality television “careers” are over. They go to science fiction conventions.

Her presence mingled with Ed the Sock made me uncomfortable. He basically goofs on science fiction “geeks” for the amusement of his audience. (Five retards.) It felt like science fiction is so desperate for attention that it’ll invite the loser bully over to their cafeteria table just to be insulted. This is how science fiction becomes complicit in its own dysfunction and destruction. And I hate that. It depresses me.

While there’s no shame in being pushed around by a woman in a red dress — it shows good taste– it’s just plain sad to see the most important art movement of the last century being pushed around by a sock. Some part of me looks at that and thinks: Maybe you deserve it. And I don’t want to feel that way. I don’t want to think that science fiction is killing science fiction but . . . Maybe it is.