Subject: Loy2K: Life is Goooood! From: kor2@midway.uchicago.edu (P. Korda) Organization: *sniff* Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 When I started this, nobody had posted a report. Of course, by the time I finished it, a couple were posted, but who cares about bandwidth, anyway? xxxxxxxxxx Saturday, 30 December, 2000 >Departure and Arrival< Woke up at 8:30 am, packed, watched the news. Went out to run some quick errands, came home, changed my mind about what clothes I wanted to bring, re-packed, then lounged around. I was expecting Mike Kozlowski "around noon," so I made an effort to be ready to go by 11:30. Of course, he didn't show up then, so I sat around, ate a doughnut, sat some more, and finally got a call from Mike that he was "at 47th street." I interpreted this as being literally three blocks from my apartment, so I went downstairs to wait for him. However, Mike had not followed the fast, efficient directions I had given him, but had decided to follow the extremely dodgey instructions Yahoo! had given him, which took him on an extended tour of the Hoods northwest of my area. Luckily, he got here, and I took over navigation. Good thing I did, or we'd have gone on a similarly ill-conceived tour of lovely downtown Gary, Indiana (Motto: "All the nasty bits which neither Hell nor New Jersey would accept."). We avoided that, and got on I-65 to Indianapolis. For those of you who flew directly to Indianapolis, let me tell you: Indiana is really boring, especially in the dead of winter. It's one empty, snow-covered field after another. We pulled into the Days Inn sometime around 4:00. Saw Paul's room, Dragon Fang on the door, and discovered that everybody had "gone to the mall." Great. We went to our rooms. At first glance, mine didn't seem too bad. Then, I went into the bathroom. Oh, the horror. The horror. The bathtub was literally covered with coarse, medium-length black hair, and some unidentified black dirt-like substance. Eew. No shower for me that day. Anyway, I quickly exhaused the few amusement offered by an empty, cheap motel room, and went over to Mike's. Together, we reached new depths of lameness, amusing ourselves with the Catholic religious tract, "Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth," we found in the nightstand, next to the Gideon Bible. I learned that there are three (inferior) alternatives to the Catholic Church in this world: godless secularism, misguided non-Catholic Christianity, and "weird cults." Luckily, before we died of complete boredom, the rest of the crew returned from the mall, and we went over to Paul's room, aka Party Central. I'd previously met most of the people who were there already (in Bill's and Ken's cases, just a couple days before), but there were some new faces for me: Skwid and Tina, Roy Ovrebo, Leah Cole, Dave Rothgery. Also present were Maggie, Madhu, David Scotton, Bill McCarthy, Ken Gerrard, Kenn Cavness, John "Humble" Novak, Paul "The Wonder from Down Under" Khangure, Anne Willick, Pat O'Connell, and Steve Ginter. (Apologies if I'm forgetting anybody.) Introductions were made, we goofed around for a while, incriminating video tape was taken, and then it was time to change and go to St. Elmo's Steak House for dinner. >Gobs of Meat< Drove to downtown Indianapolis (which reminded me a lot of downtown Minneapolis). I'll let Bill tell y'all about making the car-park attendant cross herself. I'll just say that it looked exceedingly odd from my vantage point in the car behind them. The Days Inn party was the first to get there, and we had to wait in the small, cramped bar area until everybody else got there. Eventually, the Loys, Milotas, and Drew and Tashenna arrived and were greeted by all of us. Then the Dilicks got there. Finally, another Ken showed up (I'm really sorry, I don't remember your last name.) The bar was getting really crowded, and the restaurant staff finally concluded that we weren't going to go away, and brought us to our tables. I do feel somewhat sorry for the party of four who got stuck in that room with the 20-some of us. Dinner went off with nary a hitch (on my part at least, the restaurant staff probably felt differently), despite a short period of on-topic book-talk from Drew and Bill, and a near-miss encounter with Drew's Chicken Sandwich Story. We got food, we ate, it was good. At the end of the dinner, Tashenna revealed her Secret Mutant Power: picking out the perfect dessert to end a meal. Unfortunately, St. Elmo's doesn't have chocolate mousse, so we in my part of the table settled for chocolate cake. It took, like, six people to finish it off. (Hey, we were full of steak and potatoes.) The Days Inn Desperadoes returned to the motel for further debauchery. I think this might have been when the bunny ears made their first appearance. (Hey, Thor, you were there in spirit.) A few cans of Whoop-Ass were displayed, and one was even opened, I think. There was some rubbing, some alcohol consumption, a lap-dance or two, I forget all the details. Leah took notes, and there were many photos and some video documentation which will, I'm sure, show up on the Web eventually. Went to bed at some point. After my experience with the bathtub, I didn't want to sleep under the covers, so I cranked the heat, and slept on top. Yeah, the bedspread was probably nasty, too, but it didn't have any _obvious_ nastiness. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sunday, 31 December, 2000 >A Digestible Breakfast< Woke up around 9:30 or so. Didn't shower. Watched the news, then one of the Sunday-morning talk shows. Nothing particularly exciting. Oh, wait, I am forgetting (repressing?) my encounter with the Mutant Biker Maid From Hell. So, I'm watching Meet the Press, or something like that, minding my own business, when somebody knocks on my door. I look out, and see a cleaning cart, and figure it's the maid. So, I open up, and there's a really skanky-looking guy there, in a leather jacket and a Harley Davidson baseball cap. "Arr arr arr-arr-arr," he says. "Pardon?" I ask, thinking to myself, "Oh, geez, this guy's probably an axe murderer or something. I wonder if anybody would hear me if I scream." Meanwhile, the weird guy repeats himself, "Arr arr arr-arr-arr." "I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying." This went on for a minute or so, and I finally figured out that he wanted to exchange my dirty towels for fresh ones. I gladly gave over the towels I'd used, and he went away. Yay. Maggie called around 11:00, saying folks were meeting for breakfast at 11:30. We went to the restaurant near the Days Inn, Papa's Pancake House. Despite what others may have said, it was not to restaurants what the Days Inn was to motels. It was just your basic diner-type establishment, featuring such digestible food as Corn Pancakes (as in kernal corn, not cornmeal) and Cottage Cheese Blintzes. Personally, I settled for the Banana Pancakes. In spite of extreme scariness on our part (including Bill wearing bunny ears AND a Miami Dolphins hat on the morning after the Dolphins beat the local team, and Novak asking for his bacon "charred to black ash"), the waitress managed us all very well. After breakfast, we returned to Party Central (aka Paul's room) for yet more groping, rubbing, and the like to while away the time until it was time to go to the Loys'. I took the opportunity to use Leah's shower, since they never did clean my own. I even got to use her nice-smelling botanical shampoo. So, I got to smell nice for the party, instead of stinky. There was much rejoicing. >The Main Event< Finally, around 6:00pm, we took off for Chez Loy. We passed the Motel 6-T-7 on the way, and we were all well pleased that we weren't staying _there_. The Loys' home is absolutely beautiful. They're amazingly brave people for letting us all party there. Even if I wanted to give a play-by-play report of the MilLoynium Bash, I couldn't. It's all kind of a blur. I'll list some of the highlights, in no particular order: * Delicious catered food. Deb and Mark, give my compliments to the caterer. The chicken-on-a-stick and the artichoke toasty things were especially yummy. * Mark's fabulous autograph shirt. Mark, you should get some photos of that and put 'em on the Web for everybody to see. * Tina's all-pink/salmon/peach outfit. It was the most fashionable outfit I've ever seen at a DFS. * Mark's big fluffy dog, Missy. At first she seemed to have something against all the foreigners, but by the end of the party, she'd made friends with everybody, even Paul. * As always, the amazing, remarkable Deb Loy. * The two recliners in the living room were apparently quite the shit, but I wouldn't know, since Paul and Novak glued their asses to them and didn't leave the ENTIRE 8.5 hours we were there. * Novak giving a foot massage. Yes, I know, the mind lacks the capacity to boggle. * Singing. Not only is Skwid's wife Tina absolutely gorgeous, she has a beautiful singing voice as well. Drew's not bad, either (though I've heard him sing before). I'm waiting for that MP3 of "The Ballad of Rex." * Corn starch. I never knew it had such amazing properties. Thanks to Annette and Tashenna for showing me the nifty properties of cornstarch mixed with water, and super-mega thanks to Bill for the incredible massage. * "Lover's Lane," a raunchy party game Leah made us play. I expect to see photos of all the poses I missed while I was upstairs waiting for my turn. * "Crossed and Uncrossed," a.k.a. "Do what Bill says," a game which involved a spatula, a spoon, and a lot of confusion. * Watching the ball drop and toasting the new year at midnight. * Phone calls from Erica, and from Hawk and Bill Garrett (did y'all ever get Nathan to strip?). Anyway, we partied on until about 4:00 am, at which time most of us got really tired, and headed back to the motel, so the Loys, Milotas, Drew, and Tashenna could sleep. Some of us chatted in Paul's room for a little longer. I went to bed around 5:30, because I was way too sleepy to stay up any longer. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Monday, 01-01-01 Check-out was at 11:00 am, so I woke up around 10:00 to pack. I met Mike near the main desk, we checked out, met Kenn, wondered where Ken was, met some more of our comrades, who were also getting ready to leave. It was suggested that we all go for breakfast before we all took off, and so it was done. We (Me, Ken, Kenn, Mike, Novak, Leah, Bill, Anne, Madhu, and Paul (I'm pretty sure it was Paul; I was real tired that morning)) went to a nearby Perkins' for breakfast food. The waitress there was not as unflappable as the one a Papa's; in fact, I think she may have been new. We actually managed to scare her away when she came to take our order. We all chatted, we observed the very scarey sight of a sleep-deprived Bill McCarthy, and finally we set off for our respective destinations. When I got home, I went to bed and slept for two hours, got up and had some dinner, and then went back to bed and slept some more. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >Concluding Remarks< That was tons of fun. It was great to see all my old friends again, and it was great to meet all the folks I hadn't met before, especially Bill, Leah, Tashenna, and Tina. It was great to meet everybody else, too, although I didn't spend as much time interacting with y'all, either because you're shy and retiring, or just because I was remiss in my mingling: Skwid (a.k.a. Mr. Tina), Jeff, Alex, Dave, non-gay Ken, Michael Reagor, Roy, and anybody else I'm forgetting. My poor memory is entirely due to that Tequila Rose stuff. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. -pam