Windgate by Wyndham Round Rock

Turns out I’m not afraid of being alone in a creepy hotel room. (The ghouls, phantasms, and phantoms have all been accommodating.) This king-sized bed is my element. It’s the lounge filled with strangers that scares me: laughter growing to a cackle, individual speakers cutting through the crowd walla, referencing authors I really ought to know by now. I’m at the front desk checking in. I can’t see them, but I’m casting them in my mind. I just know they’re covered in conversations starters: Clever horror t-shirts, sleeve tattoos that tell stories, and then there’s me still rocking a wallet chain I bought in the 90s. Now I’m looking at the mirror thinking I really should’ve learned to accessorize before I came down here.

After a long flight and a long drive all I want to do is amble across the highway and get me some Taco Bell. Daddy needs his guilty pleasure comfort food and he’s willing to hike through the 102 degree Texas sun to get it… But that wouldn’t be making the best use of my time here. I should be networking, talking fiction, and inserting business cards into hands.

I’m going to assume that fleeting moment of social anxiety is a natural part of con and that the only remedy is fear aversion therapy. So. Here. Goes.

Minneapolis International Airport

It’s been a while since I’ve found myself biding my time in an airport lounge hours before a flight. The last time was in the early aughts, back before there were complimentary charging stations, free Wi-Fi, and touch screens drilled into every flat surface. Back when a book, a Discman, and a beer were your only distractions. Now everyone is plugged in, multitasking on multiple screens: dual wielding tablets and laptops, smartphones and smartwatches.

I’m one of them, typing in my awkward little chair, cutting out the boarding announcements with my giant head cans, and scrolling through Paul Tremblay’s t-shirt collection on Instagram. I went to my gate without setting foot on the moving walkway just so I could check how many calories I burned on my Apple Watch.

I’m not saying that if it weren’t for all these screens the frequent fliers would lean over their dividers and start getting to know one another. There’s just something to be said about being trapped with your own thoughts for several hours. There’s a mandatory meditative quality. Boredom has a way of forcing the imagination to surface.

Maybe we’re all maladaptive daydreamers, scared that too much time to ourselves will have us looking back on our lives wondering what could’ve been. So we lean into our connections. We keep things real, stay in the present.

There’s something to be said for indulging in fantasy, cartoonish, spooky, outlandish fantasy (even if you’re not a writer). The imagination is a muscle far too many people let atrophied.

That said: my flight boards in a half an hour and I’m going to get myself a drink.

See you in Austin.