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I never want to be pregnant again. I already have a child. This just happens to be the year he's decided to go live with his dad. The year he's decided to do this, all my friends are getting knocked up, instead of helping me pound back shots of tequila in downtown clubs.

It started with my friend E. She called me one day and said, "I have some news for you!" I already knew what it was. She had been married a year. And the law of deduction states that when someone who's been recently married says they have news, it means they're pregnant.

"You're pregnant?" I said.

"Shut up! How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," I said.

I was happy for her.

A few days later, my friend E2 and her husband were out to dinner with me and my husband. It's what Dave Chapelle calls a "neutered date."

"We have news!" they said.

"Congratulations!" I said. "You're pregnant?"

A few days after that, I went to a local farm with my friend Z. We were watching my friend Z's toddler play with a sand truck, while a punk rock chicken strut her stuff. That's when my friend Z. said, "I'm pregnant."

At this point, I was going to explode.

I dropped my friend off at her house and she insisted I keep her son's car seat in my car. I drove off, and now, every time I look back to check my blind spot, the empty child seat greets me.

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I attended my first major science fiction convention in 1993. Steve Perrin, the game master for my weekly Champions game—and coincidentally, the man who wrote Runequest and the ElfQuest role-playing game, as well as being one of the original Wild Cards—received his yearly invitation to BayCon, the Silicon Valley general science fiction convention. The invitation was for "and friend," something that actually isn't all that common in the convention world of today. Steve, recognizing that leaving a bored teenage girl without a Champions game was practically a recipe for disaster, invited me to come with him.

I don't really remember much about that first BayCon. It was a long time ago, and I don't think I slept at all during the convention—easily four days. Four days of sleep-deprivation and poor nutrition will do funny things to your memory. I just remember that I staggered home saying that I'd had the time of my life, and that I absolutely, positively, without question, had to go back the next year.

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