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[Apr. 12th, 2006|06:17 pm] |
Dave and I are home. I'm nursing a cold and jet lag, but here are some photos and some comments and stuff about APE!!
Our flight from JFK to Oakland was one of the most turbulent I've ever experienced! 6 hours of violent shaking, not really my idea of a good time. My dad collected us from the airport, and after a night's rest, and a sourdough-and-avocado breakfast, we were on our way into the city!
We stayed at the Hotel Fusion, right off of Union Square. The weather turned rainy and dismal pretty quickly. We walked around looking for the Apple store, because we wanted to buy an iPod charger, but ended up getting one at CompUSA instead. Then we had dinner at Puccini and Pinetti, and it ended up being pretty awesome for a place that looked so touristy from the outside!
Even though we were feeling rained out and tired, we still felt guilty about missing the Last Gasp party. Luckily Toby Craig called us up, and the three of us decided to go get dessert. Brilliantly, we discovered that we were only a block away from the Powell Street muni station, which is only about 10 stops away from my favorite, favorite place to eat in the city: The Crepevine! (Crepe Encounter Number ONE.) I make no apologies for frequenting this place any chance I get. Luckily, Dave has been a devotee, too, since we ate here during our first San Francisco trip together 3 years ago. We split a strawberry crepe, and Toby got one with bananas and caramel-rum sauce. So good!
After a somewhat rocky night's sleep (our bedsheets felt sort of like scratchy paper), it was time for the con!
Vera gives me an awkward hug. I was so happy to see her and Jen Wang! We had a green team moment!
I spent pretty much the whole APE weekend sketching in books at my table. As a guest of the show, my table was right up front and in a wonderful location! The turnout was great and it was great to meet so many fans and re-connect with so many old friends, and people who I only see once in a great while at events like these.
...Friends like Mia MacHatton! Yay!
Dave was lookin' good in his stripey shirt!
These girls were awesome! They came to APE just to meet me and see my panel.
Saturday evening we had Crepe Encounter Number TWO. Patrick Farley suggested Ti Couz, and I'm glad he did. A group of us enjoyed buckwheat crepes, simple green salads, and sublime pear and chocolate dessert crepes. My dinner crepe had a filling of organic tomatoes, caramelized onions, and swiss cheese. YUM!
Daniel Merlin Goodbrey checks out Erika Moen's comics on the 'puter while we wait for dinner (Erika can be seen in the background).
Some of us played UNO.
Vera kicked everyone's ass! It was her set of cards, maybe that had something to do with it?
Instead of continuing on to the wild swingin' parties, we opted to turn in early. I was already showing the signs of a cold, and we were dead tired. Cons do that to me, sadly.
On Sunday I had a Spotlight panel. I had never done one before, and I was nervous about doing a panel with nobody but myself doing the talking! Luckily, Dave agreed to help moderate it, and he also ran my 'slideshow'--a set of images we put together on his iPod. The panel ended up being tons of fun!! My whole family was there, and so were a bunch of my friends. Just seeing them all in the audience was so wonderful, and they even kept the Q&A rolling right along! Thanks so much, everybody!
My mom also showed up with three pizzas, from my favorite childhood pizza place. Too bad we had already bought ourselves lunch! I ended up ditching my boring packaged salad in favor of yummy Toto's pizza, and since we had so much, we were able to share with our friends.
Blurry!
The Flight table, mobbed as always!
It's Debbie Huey! And her table, which is always so cute and tidy-looking!
A bunch of the Girlamatickers got together and did the table thing, right across from us! That's Leia Weathington, the side of Lisa Jonte's head, Leigh Dragoon, Joanna Estep (not a Girlamatic artist, but we love her anyway), and Shaenon Garrity.
My book did really well, I think! I sold a whole bunch of copies.
Dig the shirt.
Leia in an Astronaut Elementary shirt!
My brother and I ham it up.
Ted Naifeh was our neighbor! Actually, Oni Press was our neighbor. But still!
Sunday evening, although attempts were made to have dinner with folks, Dave and I ended up striking out on our own for dinner. We gave up trying to avoid the impulse, and just went back to the Crepevine for Crepe Encounter Number THREE. This time Dave ordered his favorite, their chicken veggie soup, and a Safari Cooler, while I had the mixed green salad, roasted potatoes, and tea. We split another strawberry crepe. Out on the street, waiting for the N Judah, we ran into Neil Babra! And his friend Kunal! Who had been hanging out at Naan N' Curry, just a few doors down from us! Small city. The train came while we were talking to them. We had to play train switcheroo, but getting back downtown was still easy. It pays to be an ex-local to a city, when it comes to navigating the underground by night. Wow, that sounds sinister!
Monday, my first order of business was lunch at Shangri-la, another one of my oldest, favoritest restaurants ever. Since my family was mostly vegetarian for most of my life, and this place was local to where I grew up, we ate here often. I had to take Dave! He was very impressed by the pinapple our sweet and sour 'pork' was served in. It was good (the sauce was the best part), but you see those string beans there? PURE FOOD HEAVEN. No joke. That, plus my noodles and potstickers and tea, and I was in a serious food coma. This place is wicked cheap, too.
Then we ran around Sutro Park, which overlooks Ocean Beach and the Great Highway and Seal Rock. It was a glorious day!
If you chew on the stems of these yellow flowers, they're super sour and awesome! Don't worry, I've been doing this since I was two.
The park has this awesome castle-thingy.
That made us hungry again, so we made our way back up to the Haight for...
...Crepe Encounter Number FOUR. Crepes on Cole, yet another old haunt from my youth. San Francisco has a ton of creperies, can you tell? I wouldn't have it any other way.
The weather was turning cloudy by that point, so we went and spent a gift certificate I had at Amoeba Records, and then drove over to the East Bay to visit my grandma in her nursing home. Then we drove back to Pleasanton, for one last evening with the family.
And, d'aww, here is my family!
Dinner! You can't accuse my family of not feeding us, boy.
Oh, their dubious plan was to feed us and then make me sign about 80 copies of my book for various family members and friends. So I was up kinda late.
Our flight home on Tuesday was actually perfectly quiet and uneventful, just the way I like my flights. The lady sitting next to me had a pug in a bag--lately we've seen a lot of pets on flights. I'm lucky and don't really have animal allergies, but it seems like the kind of thing you should know about before getting on a plane. We landed at JFK just as Scrubs was winding up, and soon we were back in Astoria and totally exhausted!
Everytime I visit SF, I eat my weight in food about 20 times over, it seems. If I stayed longer, I'd just eat more good stuff. it's just ridiculous. It's a good thing I only go back a couple of times a year!
So, that's it! Yay for APE!
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