2005-10-25 - 11:37 p.m.

La Jolla, CA.

No, me neither. It’s kind of a posho seaside town that is pronounced ‘Lahoya’, which sounds like the name of a Jackson sister that never quite made the big time. It’s mostly older people and middle-aged men smoking cigars you could row a boat with and women who look like they would wear full make-up and heels down to the beach, but it’s a suitably sleepy place to convalesce after the weekend.

I mostly spent it putting the ‘alco’ into ‘Journalcon’. I’d never been to ay kind of con before, though now I understand how big a part cash bars play, that could all change. Understand that I only knew two people going into it – Jessie Biensoul and Kevin AC Nightmare – and so allowances have to be made for the use of some kind of crutch, though given the rate of first night cocktails, I was being powered along in more of a top of the line, cognac-fuelled motorised wheelchair.

But everyone was friendly, even to reserved British boys, and soon enough I was in a bar at 1am watching a hillbilly perform magic tricks for shots of vodka. It doesn’t get much better than that. For some reason, his wife (and sister?), who had seen it all before, wasn’t impressed and kept trying to talk French to distract us, though her declaration of “A’hm ahff to the BOO-dwar” would have been even more impressive if she had actually meant bedroom and not bathroom.

After amounts of sleep not witnessed since the previous week’s InsomniaCon, I was at my first seminar addressing the attendees with the introductory telling of two truths and a lie about myself, which felt a bit like standing up at an Untruths Anonymous meeting. I went for a bodily functions motif – I have stopped producing natural tears, I have to have my ears syringed every 6 months and I have one less saliva gland than I was born with. Thank blimmin’ crikey the second one is a lie as I can’t abide earwax.

Then came award-winning readings, which would have been great if the people involved hadn’t been able to write me into a cocked hat (if you can believe it with mixed metaphors like that).

I slept off my residual jetlag, which to the inattentive layman may have looked like a stubborn hangover. Luckily, the evening’s main activity had the pre-requisite of a few stiffners – singing in front of a roomful of strangers (who were thankfully less strange than they had been).

Karaoke, as well all know, comes from two Japanese words, “Kara”, meaning “empty”, and “oke”, meaning “your head of ideas about retaining any semblance of dignity”. Actually, some people performed jaw-droppingly well, notably Ms Biensoul and her Gangsteahca Rap, Jen TranceJen and Mr Monty, who wins ‘Best De-pompoous-ising of a U2 song”. Honourable mentions have to go to Mr Pratt, Meg Seafoam and Jake Chauffi for services to public displays of melody.

Sunday: sad faces, as laid out in the schedule.

Two things really struck me. First, the amazing diversity of the attendees, which ranged from soul-singing ex-clowns to penguin-impersonating rocket scientists to, oh, I don’t know, Baptist-hectoring punk mums.

Secondly, the genuine warmth shown not just to people who had recently (and not so recently) been through real shit-kicking times that I can’t even imagine, but to those they’d never heard of that only joined up at the last minute. I won't list names as I am bound to miss someone out, but I truly enjoyed meeting all of you, and everyone involved did a tip-top job.

Someone should organise something like this in the UK.

Not me, obviously.