I’ve posted only a few times in the last months, which is an indication of how exciting my life has become. I bounce between two poles, Pain and Duty, and I don’t much care to write about either. Pain is always there, and Duty isn’t even interesting— it’s mostly being obliged to do stuff that doesn’t matter, that will be forgotten in days or weeks or months. The tasks are meaningless, which means there’s no sense of accomplishment on completion, just a sense that I’ve dug my way a little farther into Bullshit Mountain.
I’m guessing my energies are divided into Pain about 45%, Duty another 45%, and 10% something else, which might be time spent reading a book or magazine, or watching TV while sipping Oban 14, or (on my lucky days) hanging out with friends.
(For the sake of making the sums come out right, I’ve ignored the days when I’m dealing with both Pain and Duty, but they exist, too.)
So basically my summer sucked. I blew out my knees, I had eye surgery, I had to cancel my trip to Scotland and Worldcon on account of not being able to walk very well . . . and I’m sure I’m forgetting other horrible things. I was limping around in a cloud of depression while carrying pointless paperwork from one place to another.
So imagine my surprise when Kathy suggested that we blow off Duty and take a little vacation in the Finger Lakes District of New York, followed by attendance at World Fantasy in Niagara Falls. I’d been intending to go to WFC all along, and though we’d talked about the Finger Lakes we pretty much figured they were out of the frame for 2024. But my gait and balance had improved, and Kathy was as desperate to escape our cloistered life as I was.
I’d never been to the Finger Lakes before, though Kathy knows the area well, having got her degree at Cornell and having worked in Rochester for a few years. I know the area mainly through Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, which I read when I was a kid.
(I confess our ambitious timetable left me a little apprehensive. I wasn’t sure I was up to the physical demands of a lengthy trip, but then I reflected that the trip would be by automobile, and if I couldn’t do a lot of walking I could at least view a lot of beautiful country from the car.)
So we flew to Buffalo, picked up a rental, and drove to our B&B outside Letchworth State Park, where the Genesee river cuts through a gorge called “the Grand Canyon of the East,” a name that only works for those who have never seen the actual Grand Canyon. The gorge isn’t the grand canyon, but with its waterfalls, sheer cliffsides, and autumn foliage, it was spectacular enough.
Next was Corning, home of the Corning Museum of Glass. A ticket is good for two days, because its takes that long to see it. Kathy viewed the old museum thirty years ago, and said it was devoted mainly to historical glass (from pre-Egyptian times to the present), but the new, larger building has many galleries of contemporary art glass, all of which is spectacular. (I’ll be posting photos later.)
The museum had wheelchairs available, and I borrowed one. (Not because I can’t walk right now, but because I’ve lost so much conditioning that I’d have a hard time spending the day on my feet.) Kathy ended up spending a lot of time pushing me up ramps. Otherwise I negotiated the museum pretty well on my own.
Next up was Ithaca, which we reached in pouring rain. Kathy got her astrophysics degree at Cornell, so she enjoyed showing me her old hangouts and telling stories about Carl Sagan and his red Porsche. (All in the pouring rain.) I explored the labyrinth under the Ag Building in order to view Nabokov’s butterfly collection— I’m guessing butterflies were classified as agriculture, for some reason. (Pictures later)
From Ithaca we took a longish drive to Cooperstown, the weather gradually clearing the day progressed. I’m guessing we were the only visitors not to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, though I would have viewed it if there’s been time. As we had only half a day, we spent it at the Fenimore Art Museum, which has a very comprehensive collection of American art (plus the work of one British graffiti artist, whose rats frolic along the wainscot).
Then the long drive north along the shores of Glimmerglass Lake (Fenimore Cooper’s name for Lake Otsego, mentioned in The Deerslayer and other novels). Then we ended on the toll road west to Niagara Falls, where we checked into the Sheraton, an absolutely dreadful hotel for a convention. (No bar, for one thing, and only one restaurant— it served liquor, but was rainforest-themed, with audioanimatronic apes and elephants, and it closed at 8pm.)
We did one last tourist thing (Old Fort Niagara), and then settled down to having fun with our friends. World Fantasy was smallish compared with pre-COVID times, and it took place on the same weekend as New York Comicon, where most editors and agents went. Still, I enjoyed the company of Joe and Gay Haldeman, Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, Mary Anne Porter, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Klages, Pat Murphy, Ginjer Buchanan, Mary Anne Mohanraj, James Patrick Kelly, Rick Wilber, Eileen Gunn, Scott Andrews, Fran Wilde, Martha Wells, Lauren Teffeau, Nina K. Hoffman, Dave Smeds, Sarah Felix, Jeffrey Ford, Susan Forrest, Rosemary Claire Smith, John Kessel, and a Great Many More!
My present life is rather isolated and the chance to talk with friends live! Face-to-face! In person! came as an immense joy.
The last day I took a walk with Ginjer Buchanan to Niagara Falls itself. I managed the three blocks to the park without too much pain, but the park was large and involved more walking than I liked. Walking back was trying, especially as I was getting hungry and wanted lunch. Every single restaurant on the route was closed in the off-season.
(Pictures to come of the falls themselves.)
The flight back was a flight. Since then I’ve had three more weeks shoveling Bullshit Mountain. (I started this post just after I returned, and finally found the time and energy to finish it.)
So now it’s back to Pain and Duty, but I try to remember that once there was a locality
for one brief shining moment that was known as WFC.
