#sjcc

In July 2015 I got my then romantic partner and his roommate to watch BSG with me so when I found out EJO was going to be at San Jose Comic Con in August, it only took a little bit of pestering to get them on board.

It was a 2-day convention and my always broke ass had to work late Friday night so we were only going to make it for half of the first day. Saturday morning rolls around and the boys are tripping out because our usual drug guy fell through. It was kind of a ritual for us to pick up some uppers anytime we went out of town, and tbh we were all heavily drug dependent back in those days SO you bet we took 2 extra hours to pop in and out of the city to pick up.

Finally dosed and got on our way, hit the usual weekend bay area traffic and arrived to the con at 3pm. We walked in and the line to meet this guy stretched wall to wall and I was immediately intimidated and tried to walk back out lmao. An announcement was made that they were ending for the day at 4, so I felt a lot less pressured to overcome my anxiety yet. Spent that hour in Star Trek collectors heaven though..

Rest of the eve/night we spent doing things GROWN ASS ADULTS shouldn’t be doing like sneaking into mini-golf and climbing trees with bottles of Jack and hot-boxing our hotel room while watching the series finale of Hannibal...

OK so Sunday. This was my day. We were having breakfast at the Red Robin in Morgan Hill with all the white families that just got done with church, the three of us doubled-down on 60 extended (okay this is a pretty big dose) and I’m starting to get anxious again (with or without the drugs it wouldn’t have mattered) like “I’m not/I can’t meet this guy, I don’t know how to approach him or even what to say blah blah blah” and the boys are getting mad at me because I talked about this for weeks (and planned what i wanted to say) and I’m being lame and I’ll be fine..

We show up to day 2, 12pm.. and literally no one is in line and now I am hella freaking the fuck out because literally it is only me that is stopping this from happening. My friend immediately walks up and shakes his hand and chats for a second and comes back and says the obvious that he is a nice dude, and I am like frozen, second hand embarrassment even though nothing bad happened. But my scared ass walks to the exact opposite corner of the building to slowly browse and psyche myself up for this.

so I got sucked in to this guy’s 90s scifi trading card collection, specifically the x-files binders lol and then he starts to make small talk and stuff, he asks what I study. OK I studied Political Science and Religious Studies, and it LITERALLY does not matter which answer I give it always starts something. but I choose the easier one and say politics.. and hooo boy

This fucker just goes off on me, saying shit like how stupid and lazy my generation is and that we don’t work hard, are entitled and have no idea how the real world works (the usual propaganda), and if we did we would be thinking about voting for Trump in the 2016 election (mind you this was VERY early on where Trump was still considered a joke even to the republicans)

Remember I am HIGH AS Shit. I am 2000% extra aware of and feeling the aggressive and hateful energy coursing through my veins from this interaction. Now Im sure he said other things I don’t remember because all I could do is focus on my breathing as to not get manipulated into whatever space this guy was trying to create but I heard a break in his rant, looked up, smiled and said “Thanks for sharing your collection with me” and dipped for the back exit to smoke 18 cigarettes.

Here is where I am letting myself get fucking pissed off, pacing and chain smoking. Neither of the boys are answering their phones. Then I realized how badass I was just then, and proud of myseelf for spiritually blocking out a nazi (again this is before they identified as such and punching them was a thing). I was like if I can handle this asshole, I can go meet Edward James Fucking Olmos no. problem.

I march back in and go straight to his table but then I took a detour to sit in a white folding chair about 20 feet away for 25 minutes first. Eventually one of his security dudes comes up to me and is like “Are you waiting for an autograph?” and I’m like “no, but I do want to talk to him for a minute if that is possible”

The guy asks for my name and we walk up to EJO together and he goes “This is Amy. She would like to talk with you.” And now I am realizing that everyone here is trying to gauge how severe my social handicap is.. but he puts out his hand to shake

“Hi, I am Ed.” I shook his hand!!

“I’m Amy. I just had the most awful interaction with a Trump supporter here so Im a little put off. He kept telling me how stupid me and my generation are and it makes me very grateful that you are a humanist and philanthropist. I’d recently watched the UN Panel and you talked about the invention of race as a tool for genocide and it means so much to me that you would use your voice and influence on that platform to address these kinds of things...”

and I trail off cuz Im about to ramble and shit and I noticed how he was just taking everything I said very seriously, like wasn’t expecting any of that at all. HE pauses and looks back up at me and says how special that panel was to him, that he’ll never do something as important again in his life. Then he asks me where I go to school and what I study, so I tell him and he is impressed with all the creds. Asks me if I am planning on going into politics.

“Not in the public sense. I want to do policy research targeting intersections of poverty, race, and education” And I swear to god his eyes snap up so fast to meet mine, like he is in admiral mode here and I am captivated. Straight in the eyes to me he goes

“We need you. All of us needs you up there doing that, fighting for that, for us. I have a feeling we are about to enter some tough times. I can tell you are special and it takes special people to make things happen”

I said thank you but I am about to burst into tears. I mean we all know this but let me reinforce it.. Ed is such an intense human and I had all 100% of this guy in my presence, overwhelmingly so, and I am mostly shook because he literally had no obligation to say anything. This guy fucking met me 5 minutes ago but he is ready to say that, and I sense he isn’t the kind of guy to just say shit. Also I AM STILL VERY HIGH lets not forget

So I change the subject because that other stuff is getting too intense for me, and I switch over to BSG lol and I ask him about Adama’s tendency to punish himself physically when he feels he has played some role in pain or negativity coming into his loved ones’ lives. He talks particularly about Adama’s alcoholism in season 4 and how he approached it as a combo of punishment and escapism (which let me tell you is..accurate). He finishes up his answer and all of a sudden I fucking blurt out for some ungodly fucking reason

“I love you and Mary, you are so cute together, I hope to meet her too”

Mortified. I am overstepping boundaries. I am dying inside and I can’t believe I got 3 thoughts out before I stopped.

He smiles and giggles and grabs this pic to sign for me for freeee and says “I hope you will too”

Amy- all of my love to you.

Like is that something he would normally sign for someone? Is that something anyone would sign to a random fan?

Anyways he gave it to me, I said thanks and I literally ran out of the convention clutching this picture to my chest and sat down against the building and started crying of the ultimate level embarrassment I could personally possibly be on. My boys find me and laugh at me and I cried the whole way home.

I still get major embarrassment even today just thinking about this interaction, no matter how well it turned out and how much of an impact EJO had on me.