Jason and I attended our first San Diego Comic-Con 13 years ago, but when we went in 2023, we hadn’t been since 2019, the last time it was held before COVID shut it down for two years. So, we weren’t sure if lingering crowd evasion would diminish the number of attendees. Then, just days before it started, SAG-AFTRA joined the Writers Guild of America strike. As a result, A-list actors, a massive draw for San Diego Comic-Con, canceled appearances making what to expect at the con even less certain. In the end, all this commotion may have deterred some, but it didn’t fundamentally change our con experience.

Attendees at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023 seemed fewer than normal, but was that due to the strike or the remnants of COVID? Hall H, which holds over 6,000 people, is often the center of the event as its panels feature the biggest stars. At one time, we devoted many hours to waiting in the lines to get into that room, until they became overnight affairs, and we simultaneously realized we don’t find most celebrities that interesting. We’d rather turn our attention to the real stars of the universe, the ones in space, and the scientists that study them. Fortunately, Hollywood’s turmoil is an Earth problem, and it had no effect on the presence of the people who focus beyond the confines of our tiny globe.

Before I move onto the details of the panels hosted by those space rockstars and others, I’d like to mention the key problem with attending con panels not headed by celebrities. Sometimes these non-star panelists act like they are speaking to an audience of rabid fans eager to hear all their personal tidbits with how long they spend relaying stories or credentials that have no bearing on the published topic. These individuals need to have a come-to-Jesus moment and realize that they aren’t Brad Pitt or Timothee Chalamet. (Take your pick of the heartthrob most relevant to your generation.) No one wants to listen to 20 minutes of boring backstory from some unknown person; attendees come to hear about the subject the presentation is supposed to be about. Keep this complaint in mind as it is relevant to my panel discussion below.

The first panel we attended was Comic Creation: Ask the Pros. Am I planning on designing a comic book you ask? No, but I was planning on attending the panel that came after this panel. Actually, it ended up holding my attention. The synopsis? People want a direct line to creators right now making crowdfunding an excellent way to go if you are attempting an artistic endeavor.

Our next panel, Exploring the Science in Science Fiction, featured my favorite kind of people, scientists. This group of aeronautical engineers, atmosphere experts, and specialists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were passionate and funny as they discussed what is scientifically correct and amiss in sci-fi. What does sci-fi science get wrong? If you got sucked into space, you would not freeze instantly. Without an atmosphere, freezing is an impossibility not an inevitability. However, you would go unconscious in about 10-15 seconds. How could you improve your chances of surviving? Exhale to keep your lungs from exploding under the vacuum. Also, there are way too many asteroids in sci-fi space. Space is mostly empty.

It’s Alive Jim! Evolutionary Biology in Star Trek was our next panel. It included a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and a biochemist. These scientists debated which Star Trek aliens would be considered parasites. They also covered these burning galactic inquiries:

Q: How likely is it that organisms from different planets would all be humanoid?

A: Unknown, not enough data points.

Q: Could there be silicone-based aliens instead of carbon-based ones?

A: Not likely.

Q: Could Vulcans have green blood?

A: Absolutely, we see this on Earth often with insects. It just means blood proteins are bound to copper instead of iron.

Q: What life form is most efficient?

A: Worms are the most efficient life forms. Evolution leads to worms. Life forms that can waste less energy on entropy are the most successful… and that is worms.

In case it wasn’t obvious, we absolutely loved both these science panels that paired our fictional loves with gaining non-fictional knowledge.

The next day, we missed three panels we wanted to see due to crazy lines, rescheduling without notice, etc., but we made it to Girl vs. Boys vs. None of the Above after some time in a packed exhibit hall. This panel was aimed at discussing pop media and how well it currently represents gender expression and sexual orientation. I appreciated the young people on this panel willing to share their viewpoints. They made a lot of thoughtful comments about media only showing the sadness of the LGBT community not the joy or focusing on sexual identity/gender expression as the primary issue facing members of this group instead of portraying it as just one layer of complicated lives.

After another hour in the exhibit hall that afternoon, we went to a couple more panels. The first was Super-Smart Superheroes and Supervillains. This panel was hosted by Mensa, and all the panelists were members. Not familiar with Mensa? Mensa is a high-IQ society. To be eligible to join, your IQ must fall within the top 2% of the population as proven by a test. There is a big difference between an extremely intelligent person and a person who needs to prove they are an extremely intelligent person. The distinction? Ego. The Washington Post aptly stated it this way, “Mensa is not just a society for highly intelligent people; it is a society for people who want to belong to a society that tells them they are highly intelligent.”

While there were some interesting points made during this panel, for instance all villains are the heroes of their own story, it felt like the main objective was to stroke egos. This was apparent when the intros for the panelists took 12 minutes. With only 50 minutes to cover the topic, the panelists wasted nearly 25% of their time laying out in depth their amazingness and accomplishments. Yuck.

Additionally, many of the panelists seemed eager to prove they were the brightest person in the room by talking way too much or trying to sound like experts on everything. In contrast, the scientists we encountered the day before were just as smart (if not smarter), but they seemed passionate about science not themselves. So, while this panel had some intriguing moments, I think I’ll pass next time.

Afterward, we listened to the last half of the Deja Who: Multitasking Actors in Doctor Who. It wasn’t a bad panel, but the Q&A was monopolized by one audience member relaying stories not questions, and not particularly absorbing ones at that.

That brings me to my minuscule advice for panelists and attendees to make conventions as productive and engaging as possible: Panelists, stay on topic. Audience members don’t need to hear your full resume or life story. Attendees, don’t spend Q&A time rambling on about something no one else in the room cares about.

That concludes our con details, but what was our general mindset? As in other recent years, there was no manic urgency to our convention activities. We didn’t have our hearts set on attending any specific panels. If one was full, we just pivoted to another. This made SDCC much less stressful, though sometimes tiring. Changing course on panels often means weaving through mobs from one inconvenient spot to another inconvenient spot.

This mellowing allowed us to spend remorse-free time outside the convention center. We did runs and ate delicious slow-paced meals down by the water and shopped in the Seaport Village. Cali Cream Homemade Ice Cream became an evening ritual. FYI, the best flavor we tried was Graham Central Station with its chocolate-covered honeycomb.

We’ve altered our methods and views about San Diego Comic-Con over our years of attending. While we continue to have an appreciation for the nerdy ambiance, frantic fandom has been replaced by a steady interest in learning from experts and finding unexpected geek heirlooms in the exhibit hall. Therefore, the loss of the A-list didn’t faze us as we prefer the let’s-just-C-list anyway.

For many, birthdays are a mixed bag as no one wants to be reminded of their slow, daily crawl toward senescence. I say, who cares about approaching senility, let’s start the party! Despite that attitude, my birthday falls amid much summer hecticness, which means it gets overlooked by most. However, my fantastic hubby and some of the other terrific people in my life more than make up for anyone else’s lack. Here’s how Jason and others compensated in 2023.

Due to the proximity of our birthdays, Jason and I decided a couple years ago we’d alternate which of us gets a birthday gathering with friends each year. Nevertheless, he immediately escaped from that plan by instigating a small outing with a few buddies to Red Door Escape Room in honor of me in a year that was supposed to have no such honoring. That boy! We did a double breakout with Once Upon a Time, the location’s second-easiest room, and The Gift, its second hardest. We got out of one but not the other. Our defeat wasn’t altogether a skill issue though, a key that was supposed to drop out of a cuckoo clock at one point got stuck, a fact we were not aware of, halting our progress. Our game master failed to notice this as our time diminished. Sure, I’ll blame it all on that.

The birthday celebrations proceeded with Jason and I enjoying a dinner at Bambara, which had recently reopened after a remodel and menu switch. I won’t say no to baked Alaska! That brings me to my actual birthday.

On my birthday, Jason made me chilaquiles for breakfast. Then, continuing our gluttonous trend, we stopped at Caputo’s Market and Deli for lunch on our way to hike Mount Van Cott. Mount Van Cott is short for a Utah peak at 6,351 feet. Normally this would be a downside, but with snow lingering in the higher elevations after our robust winter, it was a plus. Mount Van Cott is located just beyond the University of Utah and was named for Lucy May Van Cott, the first Dean of Women there. Given this mountain’s proximity to Salt Lake City, you’d think it would be crawling with people, but we only saw four humans at a distance during our climb.

Did we like the hike? Yes, with some reservations. The many trails crisscrossing and circling the area made staying on the correct path tricky. We arrived at Cott’s apex with the help of some online GPS maps. The route we ended up taking wasn’t what we’d planned, but it got us there with four miles of hiking total.

That night, my sister and some of her family came over for Thai takeout. Besides all that, which should have been enough festivities for even the biggest birthday divas, I had a celebratory lunch with a friend the day before my birthday, and, following my birthday, I had two more. One of these was at the park, a beloved tradition that began during the height of COVID and has outlasted that uncertain time.

Birthdays can become demanding, even for the gastrointestinal system, and the timing of mine increases that potential. However, good food, beautiful scenery, outdoor moments, brain-stimulating activities, and hanging with friends will always be appreciated no matter how decrepit I get.

With Muir Woods National Monument just half an hour outside of San Francisco, it was amongst our top priorities on this trip. It became our focus the following day when the weather report showed a big sun instead of a little sun in the forecast.

Redwoods are the longest living things on the planet and can survive for over a thousand years. The redwood groves protected by Muir Woods are humbling and awing, but the trail system that forms a tangled web through the heart of them is fairly confusing. We hiked four miles at the monument. On one trail? No, six. To loop back to our starting place, we did sections of Bootjack Spur, Camp Eastwood, Lost, Fern Creek, Canopy, and Redwood Creek. If you want to get off the main trail in Muir Woods, make sure you download or take a picture of the map. Without a map, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll end up on some wrong path. It seemed many of the perplexed trekkers we passed had done just that.

Please note, Muir Woods requires parking reservations, and those reservations have arrival times. We went in the middle of the week and made our reservation three days in advance. At that point, the slots between 10:00 a.m. and noon were already sold out. Visitor limits mean you can actually experience nature in nature, but they also mean you must plan ahead.

Since Muir Woods closes at 6:00 p.m. for unknown reasons, we decided to take a detour on the way back and use a little more of the available light. We ended up utilizing almost every minute of it. We went to Muir Beach in Golden Gate National Recreation Area on a whim and began a trek along the Marin Headlands to Pirates Cove, a forgotten pocket of beach snuggled against a toothy span of rocks. In total, we hiked 3.6 miles across chaparral-covered hills which plummeted to a sharpened shoreline in silence punctuated only by the haunting warning notes of nearby buoys. The vastness of the Pacific Ocean flooded out below us uninterrupted by the horizon. This trail was supposed to be heavily trafficked, but we only came across a few walkers. We were shocked such isolated beauty could exist so close to a bay populated by nearly eight million people.

In case you are curious, according to legends, Pirates Cove was actually used by pirates. Bootleggers in the 1920s reportedly utilized its cover for their spirited smuggling. Can I confirm these accounts are more than myths? Nope.

Our last day in San Francisco also happened to be Jason’s birthday. In our original plan, we were supposed to see Harry Potter that day. Instead, we started out with a walking tour of Chinatown. The tour was a great introduction to the history of the area and its current residents. We learned about ancestor worship, tried salted egg potato chips, ate Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory cookies, and discovered a bit about traditional Chinese medicine. By the way, fortune cookies aren’t Chinese at all but were the creation of a Japanese American. Also, fresh off the griddle they taste mighty good.

After wandering around Chinatown and eating some dim sum for lunch, we headed to the Musee Mecanique. The Musee Mecanique is a coin-operated arcade dedicated to antique, automated machines. Its collection of over 300 devices includes music boxes, photo booths, peep shows, pinball machines, videogames, and player pianos. Some of these apparatuses are rare finds that date back over a century.

And that’s how our trip ended, with player pianos belting out a grand finale to our coastal escapades.

Beyond the cancellation of the musical, how did COVID-19 impact our vacation? We were forced to change our plans frequently due to lingering closures. That led to some chaos and some of my favorite parts of this outing. We lamented that we weren’t going just a couple weeks later since full openings were expected as companies rehired employees and COVID concerns waned. Unfortunately, what started out as a hopeful summer we expected to fill with everything we’d missed for 15 months turned into agonizing deja vu as the Delta variant gained momentum. In the weeks after our visit, San Francisco moved toward more closures, not less. Instead of being the trip that was a little too early, it was a tiny island of near normalcy breaking the long span of continuing pandemic.

San Francisco was full of paradoxes on this visit. Little parklets, street-side additions built to allow for safer dining space, were everywhere. They illustrated the city’s resilience and adaptability, but the many established and loved places that were boarded up spoke to its fragility. San Francisco had struggled over the last 15 months and was trying to resuscitate itself. Regrettably, it was clear from the lack of hustle on the streets that the area was still getting only a fraction of its typical 25 million visitors, and any adaptations would be somewhat futile amidst the ongoing spreadable threat.