I awoke this morning in an Alternate Reality…and as I've learned, you have to be careful with those Alternate Realities. They can be very pleasant places to be when your Real Reality isn't comfortable or when your mind is playing "What If?" on you. Trouble is, it's easy to confuse the two and no matter how good that Alternate Reality may feel at the time, you ultimately have to live in your Real one and make the proper decisions as to what to say and do in it. I have seen a lot of people make the wrong choices in their Real Reality because they thought they were still in their Alternate one.
This morning's Alternate Reality found me in a hotel room in San Diego, awaking to think, "Last day of Comic-Con." I looked at my bedside iPhone, which was actually located in the Real Reality but existed in the other one as well, and I thought, "Wow. The convention went by in an eye-blink" and since it was 8:30, I had ninety minutes to get up, clean myself, get dressed, get something to eat and hustle over to the convention center to host the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at 10 AM…
And then I remembered I didn't have to do that, I wasn't in San Diego, I did this year's Jack Kirby Tribute Panel weeks ago and they put it online last Friday…and the convention wasn't ending today any more than it started last Wednesday evening. That's a nice thing about Alternate Realities. You can call them off at any time. I didn't have to get up just then.
And in that Alternate Reality, today doesn't have to be the last day of the con. I can extend it as long as I want. Maybe I'll keep it going until this f'ing pandemic is really and truly over and we can all head down to San Diego for real. Comic-Con International 2021 is scheduled to start 359 days from today.
The virtual, online version of it seems to have been about as successful as such a thing could be. As I can't write here too often, the folks who run Comic-Con are really sharp and good at what they do.
In a world with no COVID-19 pandemic, I would have enjoyed the hell out of a real Comic-Con this year. In reality, I was so glad not to have to leave my house the last few days. The stress level outside is off the graph and even in here, there are too many things to think about which I try not to spend too much time thinking about.
And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get down to Room 6A for the 11:30 Cartoon Voices II Panel and…Oh, wait. No, I don't. I can stay here and work on a script or I can even go back to bed. In Real Reality.