TequilaCon 2005
The plans were made months ago, it seemed, and I became more impatient with each passing week. I had somehow cleverly convinced Jill from Egg in Spoon and Brandon from One Child Left Behind that Chicago should play host to our inaugural TequilaCon.
But little did I know the stress that would accompany this invitation: What would we do? Where would I take them? How much would we drink? Would I recognize them from their pictures? Would they feel betrayed to learn I was really a middle-aged Asian man?
I looked at this as a sort of social experiment – finally meeting people I had come to know only via the Internet. It was like match.com, except that instead of learning that they loved the Cubs and long walks on the beach, I came to know them through months of beautifully crafted and wonderfully humorous essays on their respective blogs. And as an added bonus, I would also get to meet Brandon’s mythical wife, Alex, whose Transylvanian accent has grown familiar to those who frequent his site.
But most importantly, there would be much tequila and photo-documentation. So, I suppose in that respect, this would be a lot like my match.com experiences.
The obsessive planner in me fought hard not to over-structure the weekend. I wasn’t quite aware of how obvious a personal trait this was, until minutes after meeting Jill, when I rattled off about 30 different things we could do, at which point she said, “You really like lists, don’t you?”
Yes. Yes, I do like lists. In fact, I like to:
• Make them
• Read them
• Cross them off
• Highlight them
• Rewrite them
• Bullet them
• Throw them out
• Make new ones
So while respecting the pre-established boundaries of “What Happens in Chicago Stays in Chicago,” I offer up this list of brief vignettes from our weekend with the aforementioned photo-documentation.
Scene 1: Sitting around a table, perusing the menu at a tequila bar.
Jenny: “So they have something like 80 different types of tequila here. And they’ll throw you out if you order Jose Cuervo.”
Jill: “I was at this one place in Atlanta that had shots of tequila for $100 each. I wonder if they have that kind here.”
Brandon: “$100? Dang. I wonder if they’d take $30 to let me just lick the shotglass.”
***
Scene 2: Hiding in foyer of Wrigley Building to escape the torrential rain that started three minutes after we disembarked from our architectural river cruise.
Jill: “See… I told you I was funnier in writing!”
Jenny: “Sadly, I thought I was funnier in person.”
Brandon: “When did I say I was funny?”
Alex : “I theenk you are all just trying too hard.”
***
Scene 3: Dinner in Lincoln Park with Jill, Brandon and The Romanians (Alex, Alex’s sister Cristina, and Cristina’s friend)
Cristina: “So I’m teaching class and this leetle boy comes up to me and says, ‘You’re from Transylvania? You know, I can tell by your pointy teeth.’ So then I’m like, ‘Ohmigod! Do I really have pointy teeth?’ I guess maybe I do.”
Jenny: “No, you don’t have poi-“
Cristina: “You know, it’s like in America there are only two things you know about Romanians, and that’s Nadia Comaneci and vampires.”
Jenny: “Nadia Comaneci was a vampire? No wonder she had such good balance.”
***
Scene 4: Sitting at a coffee shop reviewing photos on my digital camera.
Jenny: “Wow. Half these pictures came out really blurry. I really need to learn how to use this thing. And what the heck is this a picture of? Who took this one?”
Jill: “Uh, yeah, that would be when you took a picture of the back of the cab driver’s head.”
Jenny: “I did? Oh, that’s just unfortunate. I should never be allowed to operate high tech equipment after two glasses of wine and two tequila cosmopolitans.”
***
Scene 5: Sitting in Millennium Park, under the shadow of the giant bean, drinking Jameson & ginger ale and Johnny Walker Black & soda
Jenny: “So do you get a lot of trackback spam? God! It’s driving me nuts ever since I moved to Movable Type. And I swear, I have to block like 50 new IP’s a week!”
Jill: “No, I don’t really get any, but I use Haloscan. They’re pretty good. I’m still trying to clean up my design and make it more user friendly. I was thinking of switching to a new host, but Blogger’s been really good to me so far.”
Brandon: “Yeah, I was having a lot of problems with my server because I was always going over my bandwidth, until I switched over to hosting my photos on Flickr. Now I have no issues at all.”
[reflective pause]
Jill: “My god, we are dorks.”
Jenny: “Yeah, but no one else needs to know that.”
Filed under: TequilaCon on September 27th, 2005
September 27th, 2005 at 1:18 am
i strive to reach your level of dorkiness, but of course by the time i get there, you’ll be long gone. so, thanks for the pictures. (sniff)
September 27th, 2005 at 1:31 am
You captured everything so well, including Alex’s subtle accent. Which isn’t the easiest thing to do. But not nearly as difficult as trying to capture the many, many voices that Jill seemed to possess.
I never knew Scottish was so loud.
September 27th, 2005 at 2:33 am
Man, I love lists too. I make lists of lists. Only list makers know how a good list can ease incredible tension and anxiety. I like you better all the time!
September 27th, 2005 at 5:47 am
TequilaCon 2005 sounds like it was a blast. I wish I could have been there. I have never met a Vampi…I mean Romanian before. Maybe next year, you can open the TequilaCon doors to the blogging public?
September 27th, 2005 at 6:20 am
J: It takes a lot of practice, but if you spend 12 straight hours talking about nothing but writers and blogging, you’re well on your way!
B: I wouldn’t even ATTEMPT to capture the Woman of 1000 Voices in writing. But my favorite is her South Carolina accent, because that’s the one I always imagined she’d have. I am, however, considering doing an entire series on just Cristina. She fascinated me – it will be called “Romanian Idol.”
A: Only another list-lover can appreciate our kind. And just so you know, the phrase “Asia’s so cool” came up almost as much as “Where’s the bathroom?”
S: We actually discussed pooling our money to purchase two floors of an apartment complex by the lake as sort of a blogger commune, so if you’re interested, send me your check asap!
September 27th, 2005 at 8:36 am
Too fun, Jenny….
Which reminds me, I can’t wait to meet you in November/December if you are still up for it. You don’t have to worry about making a list to entertain me – you just have to entertain me.
Kidding.
Not really.
Seriously, though, I’ll be working most of the week so we’ll probably only have one night together and it can be as alcohol laden as you like. Sigh.
September 27th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
A list of reasons why I should probably receive counseling regarding my childhood obsession with Nadia Comaneci:
1) I watched the made-for-TV movie “Nadia” millions of times, even after my dad accidentally taped over the first 20 minutes.
2) I turned my family room into a gym, with the couch doubling as vault and balance beam.
3) I made my mom serve Romanian food at my eigth birthday party. Other kids’ parties had pizza. Mine had some kind of soggy cornmeal dish. Apparently what we needed was tequila.
September 27th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
80 different types of tequila exist? I had no idea.
September 27th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Not quite dork status. The tequila part mitigates the techno blogger babble. maybe somewhere in the geek or nerd spheres. To attain dork the con needs talk of cartoons, comics or video games. (though you can go way past dork with manga or animie talk. also collectable figureines mint in the box).
September 27th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
J: I think we’ll skip the architectural cruise in December, and head straight for the scotch & soda!
C1: You’re an odd one, Cheryl. I like it. I think I’ve seen that movie – are her feet bleeding at one point? Or is that some dancing movie?
C2: I stand corrected – there are actually 85 types of tequila at that bar (I just double checked the website). I hope to someday work my way through all of them.
R: If only someone would make an action figure of a blogger, then I could reach the ultimate dorkdom.
September 28th, 2005 at 10:39 am
“Yeah, but no one else needs to know that.”
Yet, now we all know. And can commisserate because each of us are dorks as well. I proudly proclaim it. I should add it to the header graphic on my blog.
Ooooohhh, you were drinking under the bean? I gotta try that. I would think that drinking and staring into your distorted reflection in the bean must be somewhat surreal.
September 28th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Nadia’s arm bleeds toward the end of the movie when she insists on competing despite her injury in order to prove to Bela that she’s a team player. There’s a close-up of her ketchup-smeared ace bandage.
September 29th, 2005 at 9:01 am
OMG, how did you remember everything so perfectly? What happened in Chicago stays in Chicago because my brain is like a sieve. (Do you have some sort of photographic memory in addition to being a photographic wonder? Fab pics sister!) I mean, I remember. . . kind of. . . but it’s so fuzzy. Too. Much. Tequila. Which may also be responsible in part for the Scottish loudness. Well, the Tequila and the fact that in my head I’m always shouting over a battle scene.
You are a delight and I can’t wait for TequilaCon 06: Bali!
September 30th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
I am oh so jealous of the tequila and the Chicago and the new friends.