Rosie Goes to See James at Chicago Comic Con - Part 1
Yay - it's the first part of the Rosie Ramble! My writers block became unblocked - lets hope it keeps letting me write...
Rosie Goes to See James in Chicago
Thursday
The start of my 3-3-3-1 tour! (3 weeks, 3 Cities, 3 Cons, 1 James) Not much to report on the first day as I spent it mostly on aeroplanes. Being a tight-ass, I chose to do an indirect flight to Chicago, via Philadelphia, which was fine, but I was taunted by the fact that the direct flight was leaving from the gate just past ours. 7 and a half hours to Philly, a 3 hour stopover and then another 2-ish hours to Chicago. Thank goodness the con was right near the airport and it was easy to get to the hotel. The others were all at the con already as by now it was about 8pm, so I just dumped everything in our room (very nice suite, so a bit like a little apartment!) and went over to join them. Great time of night to get my wristband etc - not another soul in the queue! I also had to get my Creation Experience wristband (The experience? Being ripped off…) and the guy was adamant that he had to put the wristband on me tightly so I couldn’t take it off as if I could, I would be able to - Gasp! Shock! Horror!) - give it to someone else!! I was going to leave it til later as he was making such a fuss and then realised that photo ops were after James’s Q and A so it wouldn’t be in the way for them, so I said he could put it on me anyway. He did - and as I walked away I had absolutely no difficulty slipping it off over my hand….!
The main hall and dealers room where pretty much everything was located was absolutely massive - like an aircraft hanger! Located the others though - which was pretty easy as they were standing by James’s signing area! - and so having found out the important information and locations, we went out to have Chicago style pizza, which is yummy! Back at the hotel, I checked out the sofa bed and decided my back couldn’t take it for any length of time, so Ali had that and Magie and I had the 2 beds. I jut zonked out pretty much once I got into bed!
Friday
I was awake before the others, so slipped out to take advantage of the free breakfast supplied by the hotel. When I got back, the other 2 still hadn’t moved. But that was fine as the con didn’t open until 12 the first day, giving us plenty of time to get organised. But even though it was Friday, the quiet day - the line for the 4 day passes to get in was huge. We joined the line up and when we got into the hall alongside the massive hanger-sized one, realised that the queue went up and down in a long snaking lines, covering most of the first half of the hall. The amazing thing was (took about 20 minutes for us to get in) that there was just as many behind us when we went in as when we started. And yet, the huge hall seemed to mostly absorb pretty much everyone! It never felt very crowded on that first day.
We went straight to James’s autograph line and he had quite a few there already. I went down to Froggy’s and bought my photo ops before coming back to join the others. The line was formed round from where James would be sitting (alongside Claire Kramer and Nick Brendon) and then had its own little zig-zag barrier-controlled line. I was just round the first corner of this, though I could have really done with being a bit further up, as I hoped to be able to get some pictures of James arriving as we were standing behind his curtained-off booth and that was where he was going to go in. So we waited and chatted with Peg and Marlene and greeted everyone as they started to arrive to join the line - so many people I know now, its lovely!
And then we saw Steve coming and there was James right behind him. Black t shirt, jeans and his hair all slicked back. And his right hand bandaged up - that was the most obvious thing. We all called out Hi and James stopped as he heard us and then came over to hug Amy Sue, then Patti and Magie - I wasn’t close enough (curses!) before he went in to start signing. I got a couple of pictures.
As the line went down past the side of the booth before turning and going back towards James, as we went past, we were able to sneak a few pictures through the gaps in the curtains! (and say Hi to Steve who was sitting right there)
There were 9 of us in the group and we decided in the line to sing James Happy Birthday when we got there. I was at the back and there wasn’t a lot of room to come forward, but I tried and we all sang to him, and he was really surprised and touched. It made him well up a bit too which wasn’t the intention at all!
Can’t remember who was in front of me, but James was talking to them about his hand and saying he cared too much, but he was just laughed at by everyone now “You did it again!”
And then it was me. James smiling at me in recognition “Hey Rosie - How you been?”
(I was almost stumped as I’m supposed to ask him that!) “Not too bad thank you honey. Did you enjoy us singing to you?”
There was a pause as James was processing what I said (MUST. SPEAK. SLOWER!) as he was signing and then he asked “Did I enjoy what?” and leaned forward with his head turned so he could hear me. So I repeated it.
“Oh my God!” and he put his (bad) hand over his mouth “Did you see me? I was about to cry….!”
Me: “Aww - honey…!”
“I guess I’ve had enough birthdays where it’s gone by without being noticed and so when people start singing me happy birthday I’m just completely blown away. I’m going to cry right now! - Bleah” and he stuck his tongue out and waved his hand in front of his face to try and cancel it.
“Oh no, don’t do that!”
“Oh Christ! Embarrassing!” and he stuck his tongue out again in another “bleah” gesture. So I moved on
“I have birthday wishes from several people besides me. Nicky in Holland, who gave you that” and I plonked the first gift down “and - hang on, they are in my pockets somewhere…” and I produced the second gift and added that to the pile and then was rooting around for the third one as James was laughing his head off! I finally produced it and said I had had to bring them all with me and they were all from Nicky (he looked very pleased but didn’t unwrap any of them) and then added “And Bev in Perth, Australia says happy birthday and also so does Charlotta in Sweden. As do I.”
James laughed and looked very touched - held out his hand to me - the bad one and so I hesitated to take it saying “Which hand?” and he changed to the left, took hold of mine and kissed it with an audible “mwah” - except he pretty much missed mine and kissed his own!! Ah well - the intention was there!
Then I gave him the two Arcade Fire CDs as his gift from me, his face had started to light up already when he saw what they were “I saw Arcade Fire and I was pretty much - whoa! They’re my favourite band!”
“I know, cos you told me about them!”
“How do you like them?”
“I got Neon Bible as you said about it…”
“Yeah!” James was all forceful
“…and I’ve been listening to it and then I got you those - EP and a single - you probably already have them.”
“I don’t. I don’t have any. I don’t even have Neon Bible right now as I threw my ipod in the toilet by mistake! So I have no Arcade Fire at the moment…”
There was a pause I was looking at him in astonishment and then said “Oh my God! How did you…? And then we both cracked up laughing instead with me saying rather helplessly “Oh dear” as I couldn’t think what else to say to that.
“My life!” said James, still laughing and there wasn’t anything else I could say, so instead I asked “How’s the Smallville filming going?”
“It’s going so well” James looked up giving me a very genuine smile
“Apart from that” I replied, indicating his hand.
“Ah - this is nothing” James dismissed it “The director is in love with me! He’s and old-time guy that used to work with Alfred Hitchcock - a Frenchman named Geneau (I’ve no idea how to spell that!) and he has just been getting happier and happier every day until everyone is going “Geneau? What the-? What are you-?”” James is doing all these wonderful faces at me and I was laughing and then he said in a French accent “It’s going to be a great episode!” and then with his arms straight up in joy “It’s gonna be really good!”
“Oh cool!”
“I’m not giving up until I’ve given them the shots”
It was time for me to move on so I said “I’m so glad you’re here” and James held out his left hand “and a gentle shake of hands!” which made him laugh, and we clasped hands, let go and then clasped again, with my hand round his fingers this time and we both squeezed as we grinned at each other and I said “Happy Birthday honey”
From there (after attempting to take a few shots when the stewards would let us!) we went to the photographs (though possibly we had lunch first- I tend to be fairly blank on the non-Jamesy bits of cons!) there was a good few people for photos, but as ever, the line moved fairly fast.
I was having 3 photos as usual. Approached James with the standard ear to ear grin on my face and said Hi and got “Hey Rosie, good to see you!” in reply. James gave me a quick hug which I returned and then we turned towards Froggy for the first shot - I wasn’t going to bother trying to do anything special - its often easier to just let the first one be a standard arms round pose. But it ended up much cuddlier, both of us with both arms round each other, and the edge of my forehead against James’s cheek.
We weren’t really saying anything much - I was just grinning away, as ever delighted to be in James’s company for however a brief time. For the second pose I said I would go behind him and be sideways onto the camera - arms round him and with my cheek resting against his shoulder. He always wears such soft well-worn t-shirts - they feel so nice! Again, I was smiling with delight and James was doing his amused, slightly eyebrows raised look.
Third pose I asked “Is it Ok if I do it like I’m about to give you a birthday kiss on the cheek? - I won’t actually touch!” and he said that was fine, and offered me his left cheek! I had to stretch up on tip-toe to reach as he was tilting his head upwards and I was a bit worried that I might lose my balance and plant more than a kiss on him!! Luckily I just put my hand on his shoulder to balance me, pursed my lips and kept a good couple of inches back and it came out lovely, - James was laughing towards the camera and you can see I’m trying not to break out into a huge grin as I reach up…!
That was my three done for now. We both murmured the inconsequential ‘thank yous’ and ‘see you laters’ and ended up in another brief mutual hug again - which is always special! - before I went out. But I wasn’t finished as we had a group picture still to do and as usual we were going to be last in for that. So we kept on deferring to the back of the line until we were the only ones left.
We knew what we wanted to do, so it was my job to explain to Froggy whilst Magie explained to James. Basically it was going to be like Magie, Amy Sue and I were photo-bombing newbie Ali’s (friend of Magie’s and all round good egg) photo op with James. So they were standing in the middle in a normal pose, Magie was behind James doing ‘bunny ears’ behind his head, Amy Sue was pulling a face - and I was further forward so I was just popping my head into the corner of the shot with a big wide-eyed yahoo grin - you know, like in all the best photo bombings - the idiot that suddenly appears in the frame! James started laughing like mad when he realised what I was going to do and said that it was brilliant! I had to stand quite a bit further forwards of the group and lean in - and Froggy got it just right so that I’m slightly out of focus. Utterly hilarious and just how we hoped!
We all stood round James to say thank you to him in turn and all got a hug which was lovely, and it seemed that Steve was busy doing something across the booth and not hurrying James away, so he was happy to just stay and talk with us which was wonderful! He seemed pretty bouncy and talkative and when Magie introduced Ali to him he greeted her with the words “Welcome to our weirdness!” which made us all laugh as it was so very true! Magie said how happy she was that he was coming to her home town next week and James said he had some great news that was going to make anyone in Toronto very happy - but he wasn’t allowed to tell us any more despite us pleading!
I was standing on James’s right with Ali and Amy Sue in front of him and Magie to his left. Ali said something to James about how much fun she was having and he replied that she would meet some of the best people in the fandom, they were all great - and then added something like “except this one of course!” with a big grin, as he reached over and pulled me into a big hug! Cheeky monkey - he was teasing me! I made some protesting noises “Oi!” - but was mostly enjoying the unexpected hug too much to care. James laughed as we let go of each other and just briefly checked to made sure I knew that he was only having a bit of fun . I loved the fact that he felt able to tease me!
We were talking a bit more and then one of the stewards was trying to get James’s attention - we had to point him out in the end as James was too engrossed talking with us! - the guy just wanted to know if James needed someone to walk with him through the crowds back to his booth. (I can’t remember now if James said he did or not) I immediately put in that we would happily accompany him back and keep him safe - and I do have a rather clear recollection of bouncing about on my toes next to him with my fists up, saying we could surround him and would take on anyone that tried anything!
At that, we realised we needed to let him go, so we all started to say thank you once more - and James hugged each of us in turn again! Just a quick arms-round and a gentle squeeze, but it was lovely - an unexpected third hug for me! It doesn’t matter how fleeting it is - a hug from James is just the best. We were a very happy, giggly group as we came out of the photo booth!
We then split up to go and look around some of the dealers and make our own ways back to the hotel when we were ready. (Magie was going to the Nick Brendan event that evening and the rest of us were going into Chicago) I just had a gentle stroll round and looked at things before I met up with Amy Sue. We were walking past one of the booths and I just cracked up laughing as there was a very normal looking guy sitting behind the table having a serious conversation with someone - but he was wearing a pair of pink fluffy sequined and flashing bunny ears! A few steps further on, I said to Amy Sue “Its no good, I’ve just got to go back and take a picture of that guy with the ears - it was too funny!” so I did. He was Victor Gischler, crime and comic book author and he was delightful. He posed very seriously so I could take a picture of him in the bunny ears…!
Back at the hotel - Magie went off to meet Nick Brendan and Ali, Amy Sue and I drove into Chicago in Ali’s car. We were quite a way from the city - about 14 miles, but had no problem finding our way to the Skydeck - the tallest building in Chicago. It was dark by now, but we had a great time admiring the view from the top with all the lights stretching away and being brave enough to stand on the glass floor and look down! We found a local watering hole for dinner and I was nearly refused entry as it turned out my purse had fallen out of my bag in the car, so I had no ID on me at all. It would have been quite gratifying in a way to be refused entry at my advanced age, but I was hungry! We sat outside in the end with a very warm wind constantly trying to remove everything from the table and plates (even the French fries!) and with a bunch of rather loud obnoxious drunken assholes at the next table that we successfully ignored but didn’t make for the greatest dining experience!
The L-train tracks were right by us on the overhead gantry and I was really excited to see the trains trundling by up in the air like that! I kept on making all these Harry Dresden references too, being that Chicago is Harry’s hometown but they were falling on deaf ears as neither Amy Sue nor Ali had read them at all!
We then got completely and utterly lost trying to find our way back despite following the instructions. And we kept getting loster!! Round and round we went - luckily it was all fairly funny - especially when Amy Sue said maybe we could find a cop to ask the way and no sooner were the words out of her mouth then a cop car pulled up at the cross section we were on! I immediately wished out loud for a million dollars (as per Chandler in ‘Friends’) but that didn’t work either….!
We took several more detours (some twice!) but did eventually get back on the right road. Good thing we weren’t in a hurry to get back for anything as I think we were lost for about an hour so only got back to the hotel just before Magie! We all compared notes and photos of our evening and then settled down to try and get some sleep before our next full day of James…!