![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeSo, yesterday I was thinking of people I could tell about my LiveJournal. It seems an ideal way to stay in touch with people one doesn't interact with every day. I sent notes to a few of my friends, and then was thinking about that most wistful category: people I've lost touch with but wish I hadn't. Foremost among these is Beki (Rebekah), whom I haven't seen in about 16 years. I've looked for her off and on, for years, on Google; eventually it will surely pay off.
Beki and I worked together at a book company in Berkeley in the early 1980s. We played D&D together (I remember her elf Fiona, but not my own character). Our families had good times together. I took her daughter to a festival in Tilden Park. She introduced me to Tanith Lee (literally, at a book signing at The Other Change of Hobbit bookstore). I was her guest at a fascinating and special religious ceremony. And then we drifted apart, and after a while her mailing address was no longer valid.
There's much I could say about Beki, but consistent with my policy of attempting to honor privacy, I will instead write about a shared memory, the time we went to a Darkover convention, in early 1983.
Darkover is the planet on which many of Marion Zimmer Bradley's fantasy novels are set, and MZB was the host of this convention, which I think was more properly called the Fantasy Worlds Convention. I remember that I had a throat infection (from stirring up way too much dust at the book company), and before we left, Beki dosed me up good with a fruit drink into which she'd stirred a large quantity of powdered vitamin C. Then off we drove to the convention, which was being held at a hotel near the Oakland Coliseum.
As this was over 20 years ago, there are obviously many details I've forgotten. I saw MZB speak as part of a panel with some women with very New Age names; I also saw Octavia Butler speaking as part of another panel. I sat and listened to Katherine Kurtz read aloud from one of her Deryni novels, in a room no bigger than a modest college classroom. Beki and I spent quite a bit of time with the art and the vendors (and I went back the next day and bought a wolf drawing and a limited edition book on fancy paper containing an MZB poem about the Maenads). There were people in costume, and wonderful music, and musical instruments, and beautiful handcrafts worthy of the best Renaissance faires.
I especially remember the young woman at the registration desk, who was very enthusiastic and personable. Beki chatted with her at some length. At the time, I think she was just a fan; perhaps she hadn't published any of her own stories yet. Today she's at least as well known as MZB herself. I wonder if Beki remembers meeting Misty Lackey? Perhaps someday I will get to ask her!
* * *
Beki and I worked together at a book company in Berkeley in the early 1980s. We played D&D together (I remember her elf Fiona, but not my own character). Our families had good times together. I took her daughter to a festival in Tilden Park. She introduced me to Tanith Lee (literally, at a book signing at The Other Change of Hobbit bookstore). I was her guest at a fascinating and special religious ceremony. And then we drifted apart, and after a while her mailing address was no longer valid.
There's much I could say about Beki, but consistent with my policy of attempting to honor privacy, I will instead write about a shared memory, the time we went to a Darkover convention, in early 1983.
Darkover is the planet on which many of Marion Zimmer Bradley's fantasy novels are set, and MZB was the host of this convention, which I think was more properly called the Fantasy Worlds Convention. I remember that I had a throat infection (from stirring up way too much dust at the book company), and before we left, Beki dosed me up good with a fruit drink into which she'd stirred a large quantity of powdered vitamin C. Then off we drove to the convention, which was being held at a hotel near the Oakland Coliseum.
As this was over 20 years ago, there are obviously many details I've forgotten. I saw MZB speak as part of a panel with some women with very New Age names; I also saw Octavia Butler speaking as part of another panel. I sat and listened to Katherine Kurtz read aloud from one of her Deryni novels, in a room no bigger than a modest college classroom. Beki and I spent quite a bit of time with the art and the vendors (and I went back the next day and bought a wolf drawing and a limited edition book on fancy paper containing an MZB poem about the Maenads). There were people in costume, and wonderful music, and musical instruments, and beautiful handcrafts worthy of the best Renaissance faires.
I especially remember the young woman at the registration desk, who was very enthusiastic and personable. Beki chatted with her at some length. At the time, I think she was just a fan; perhaps she hadn't published any of her own stories yet. Today she's at least as well known as MZB herself. I wonder if Beki remembers meeting Misty Lackey? Perhaps someday I will get to ask her!