And that has made all the difference.
Taking the rails less traveled by (Waiting for my train to San Diego Comic Con!)
Thursday, July 21—Union Station, Metropolitan Lounge
I am off to my first Comic Con for book signings and panels. I live in Los Angeles, and Comic Con is in San Diego.
I had planned this week’s post to be a little frenetic. I am at San Diego Comic Con 2022, and I had thought to relay a blog about all the goings on at the convention, all the cool writers I met, and stuff I’ve seen.
But instead, here I am, at Union Station in Los Angeles, waiting for my train.
Yes, train.
My publisher, Tor, had first booked me on an airplane. However, a plane might be the least convenient way to get from Los Angeles to San Diego. Considering the time it takes to fight rush hour traffic, then airport traffic, then TSA lines, it might actually take more time to fly than to drive.
And, taking a Lyft home from LAX via the LAXit lot is worth an entire post all its own. OMG, the humanity.
Many thanks to LAX! Some of my next book takes place in a sweltering featureless wasteland of unending resignation and despair--and the LAXit Lot (where passengers are exiled to fetch an Uber or Lyft) was the perfect place to research that setting.*
But I didn’t really want to drive either. That’s a little too far for me to drive, and I didn’t want to deal with LA traffic and goodness knows what traffic was being caused by Comic Con.
Also, there’s this whole stretch along the way where there is no bathroom, and nope. I’d rather not deal with that.
And so, my happy East Coast friends at Tor suggested an East Coast solution—why not take the train?
Why not? OMG, duh. The train!
The train? It’s not something I usually think about. But of course—Union Station is beautiful, much closer to me than LAX, and no TSA. Plus, the Pacific Surfliner—the train from Los Angeles to San Diego—offered three hours of Wi-Fi, a comfy seat, and beautiful views.
So, Tor booked me on the Pacific Surfliner, and with the cost savings, they even upgraded me to business class.
So, I am taking a train!
✨🚂✨
LAX can be a beautiful airport, but it’s been almost constantly under construction, and usually so crowded and backed up. It’s kind of unpleasant.
Union Station? Gosh, people go there for concerts and weddings. There is no way I would ever want to get married at LAX.
So, right now, I am at LA’s Union Station. I have my ticket, and my luggage was checked for free. And nobody asked to body scan me, X-ray me, or pat me down and run their hands up my leg.
Because baggage is free, I decided to splurge on access to Amtrak’s Metropolitan Business lounge. It cost less than a checked bag at the airport, so I felt I came out ahead.
✨🚂✨
As I wait, I am in the Metropolitan Lounge, at a clean table, with a complimentary soft drink and chocolate chip cookie. I have been at my laptop for an hour and a half, and have not heard a single blaring PA announcement, not a single warning to “contact security immediately, if I notice an unattended bag," no bells or beeping… There isn’t any of that.
A splurge--but less than the cost of a checked bag.
I had to go to the bathroom, and the person at the next table said of course he’d watch my stuff. When does that ever happen at the airport?
And oh my gosh, it is so quiet. Not silent and stifling, but quiet where it is possible to use quiet voices. And when people can use quiet voices, it lets the rest of their bodies be quiet, too. People are talking with each other gently, happily, which is something that I rarely see at airports.
A family is going to Kansas City. An older couple is going to Albuquerque.
The girl with the blanket is very excited. Ask where she is going, and she looks at her mother and says that she doesn’t know—it’s a surprise. Later, the mother tells me they are going to Albuquerque, too, and this will be the first time her daughter will connect with her family and her ancestors.
“I’m Navajo?” the daughter says.
“Yes, you’re Navajo,” her mother says. “And you’re going to see all sorts of places and people when we get there.”
“But where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise!”
And later, when they go to their train, and I go to mine, the mother and daughter wave.
“Say bye to our friend!”
Tomorrow, that girl will be in Albuquerque, beginning a trip that she will remember forever. It’s a story that but for a chance encounter, I would never have known, and for that I am grateful.
I think of LAX, so grateful at not being there. So much about flying that has nothing to do with flying. There is security, fumbling for IDs, all the blaring announcements, along with fancy stores selling noise-cancelling headphones to mute those announcements…there is TSA and other staff and so MANY people.
Trains and planes are not the same thing. I have heard enough train stories to know that not all trips go as smoothly as my own. And I do not for a moment think that airport security is unnecessary. But I do wonder how much of airport unpleasantness is there because we have assumed that is the natural and necessary way to guarantee safety.
✨🚂✨
As I board the train and we get on our way, I wonder how about all the commotion that we have accepted as part of the traveling experience. How all the delays and traffic and security have nothing to do with going to a station or airport or depot to get on a vessel that takes you where you want to go.
See all the crowds and security and commotion? Nope. Me, neither.
As we begin our trip so San Diego, to Comic Con, there will be stories and movies and games—and tales about alternate realities and futures that are speak to us because they are faraway and epic and vibrant and magical and fantastic.
But as a writer of some of these stories, I think of a girl and her blanket with her mother waiting to show her a destination—one that that will be easily as epic and magical and vibrant and fantastic, but will also be gentle and caring, as welcoming as home.
I think of all the necessities we bring into the worlds we build, and how much of it goes unchallenged, just because it’s always been that way, or it’s obvious, or a necessary evil. Dystopia can be an important plot device or setting where needed, but I need to take care that dystopia does not become an unquestioned default—an inevitable cost of living.
That girl, in a quiet train station with her mother. That is a story that I want to hold that tight in my heart, so in whatever I write I can remember the quiet place where people can sit and have a cookie, breathe.
So my readers and stretch their legs and wonder, when I wake up tomorrow, where am I going to be?
Off to Comic Con in the most beautiful way.
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Next Week, more from San Diego Comic Con (Face Masks, Fantasy, Found Family, and Phlegm)
*Cover and all photos my own!