Andrea worked at a bakery restaurant, under the convention hotel. At first it was fine, waiting on the conventioneers. But then you start to dread them. I mean absolutely. You're like, no, not another convention. They just flipped me out. I was just listening and watching them and getting them their croissants and their coffee. Fact is, when people are together with others of their own kind, they act differently. This thing happens. I mean you're so focused into this one aspect of your life that you just absorb into that whole facet of your life. You become that facet of your life. You become that facet of your life, yeah. If one Mary Kay saleswoman walks up to your bakery counter, you don't think twice about it. But 90 of them, that's something completely different. And so there's just like this excitement. They're like really bubbly. And they've got all this bright colored make-up on-- pinks, blues. Oh, of course. Because they're in the convention with their peers so they have to impress each other. Oh, yeah. It's not like they're undercover, like we can go to a convention and not wear make-up. I mean they were made up to like the nines. I mean it was crazy. So I'm just looking at them in line and I had never seen more make-up in my entire life. But they were just covered. And just the most awkward-- I mean everything looked like it was a mistake. Just the most awkward, strange colors. And just things I would-- Oh, Andrea, that just goes to show how far from the light you are. Just how far you are from the Mary Kay way. I know. Math teachers make me particularly nervous. Because math is my nemesis. I'm awful at math. And I thought OK. You're working the bakery counter. They can't hurt you. They're not going to quiz you. You're not going to have algebra-- no. I tell them their amount. And then they give me the money. And I'm sitting there trying to figure it out. And all of a sudden they're like, well, wait, wait. Let me give you $0.05. And then you can give me this back. And they like totally-- by the end of the day, my drawer was totally off. Because they just blow my mind at the last minute. Plus, I hate math. Then I'm getting like really nervous. I'm like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I having flashbacks from seventh grade, failing math. And I'm like, I can't do it. I just can't do it. Was that the worst they did? Did they do little math tricks with the change, like oh, that's a prime? No. Well, from WBEZ Chicago and Public Radio International, it is This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, invite a variety of writers and reporters and performers to take a whack at that theme. Today's program, Conventions, and who we become when we attend them. Act One, Dark Shadows. What happens when 2,000 people come together who have nothing more in common the fact that they watch television. Act Two, Dish Out Of Water, in which Dishwasher Pete brings us the story of a lowly restaurant employee who attends the national convention designed for restaurant big-wigs, his own bosses. Act Three, When Worlds Collide, a story that starts in a convention center where two different conventions happen to be taking place, where two different people from different worlds happen to meet, and what happens next that takes them far from the convention. Stay with us. Act One. Well, it was Katherine who really wanted to go to the Dark Shadows convention. Katherine was the one who was the fanatic, at least that's what John says. It filled something in her. It was almost like she was an empty glass and Dark Shadows filled her glass. Whatever was missing in her life at that moment, filled her glass. And she could watch it continually. And would laugh and roar and got so involved with the characters. How many would she watch? Let's just get that fact out there. She would watch eight hours a day. Eight hours of Dark Shadows a day. Eight hours a day. Approximately eight hours a day. Damn. Eight hours a day, every day, of the slowest, creakiest TV show ever. Dark Shadows, you may recall, is the Gothic soap opera that ran from 1966 to 1971. The main character is an avuncular vampire, named Barnabas Collins. The story line shifting from the 19th century to groovy '60s America at its most mod, kind of Wuthering Heights meets Austin Powers. Eight hours a day of it, 1,275 episodes in all, beginning on a train. My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning. A journey that will bring me to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea, high atop Widows' Hill, a house called Collinwood, a world I've never known, with people I've never met. Dear Katherine, it's now 3:00 o'clock in the morning and I'm on an Amtrak train, heading towards New York. I think right about now I'm in Syracuse, Ohio. I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about how this was all your idea to go the Dark Shadows convention. True, I introduced you to the show, but you were the one who really took it to heart. I feel like I'm going on a journey somehow. A journey to meet people that, I don't know, maybe they'll have something in common with me. When she said she wasn't going to go, I had to think, do I really want to go to this convention? Is this something I still really need to do? And I thought about it. And I thought, I have been thinking about going to this convention since December. It's August now. I have been talking about going to this convention. It's been like on my calendar. I've been preparing. I've been buying clothes for the convention. I've been saving money that-- like I've been eating Ramen noodles for lunch. And I'm going, of course I'm going to go to this convention. Even though the show is just a show to me, I really want to go. I want to talk about Dark Shadows with other people that like Dark Shadows. Regular listeners to This American Life may remember last Halloween, producer Nancy Updike and I visited John and his friends, [? Thax ?] and Erica during their weekly ritual of watching Dark Shadows. And I'm here to tell you, after I re-watch several hours of this, it's boring, it's slow, the acting is terrible, the plot lines are preposterous and apparently take months-- sometimes years-- to resolve. But it's live TV. And it's got that feeling. And if you watch long enough, you can see people forget lines, scripts are left on beds during scenes, prop guys get caught on screen. You can see them through doorways. Flies settle on the actors' faces. And this is part of what John and his friends love when they watch. John watches six hours a week, taped off the SciFi channel. You notice the littlest things you wouldn't notice in a regular show. Like we noticed tonight that people have stopped knocking on the door three times. They're now knocking on the door four times. I'll go out the back way. No. No, you won't. You'll stay right here. They'll make me go back if they find-- [KNOCKS ON DOOR] So ?] John thinks they had a lengthy meeting deciding that you have to have four knocks instead of three, to spice up the plot a little bit. It's more exciting. Like the new director said, we've got to get rid of the old ways. Things are going to change around here. No more of this three knocks stuff. Oh, Glenda. It's happening again. So John goes to New York, on the train, alone, to a convention hotel on Times Square. Katherine doesn't go because she got a job, which tends to cut into people's Dark Shadows habit in a rather major way. I'll be honest, I was really petrified because I was alone in New York. I don't know anybody. And there are probably about 400 people all waiting in line to go into this banquet hall to start the ceremonies, the opening Dark Shadow convention ceremonies. And I'm walking around. And I know that everybody here, I can walk up to them and start talking about Dark Shadows. But I don't know if I want to at this point. And the last time I'd actually remembered that feeling was 10 years ago, when I had first gone into a gay bar by myself and felt like this was something I had to do by myself. I was all alone. And there I was, like in this room with people that we all had something in common. And you just come out? I had just come out. We all had something in common. I knew that all these people, we had a similar life experience. We have one thing in common. We have one thing in common. But, for example, with the gay bar, you can't just walk up to somebody and say, so you're a homosexual, too. Me too. Testing. I'm now at the convention. And-- hold on. You use that word. Not yet. Right now, I'm in the grand ballroom at the Marriott. It's opulent beyond belief. There are four large chandeliers. And there are probably about I'd say a little bit over 500 people here right now. And they're doing a retrospective on some of the Dark Shadows actors who had passed on. It's just funny. There are 500 people sitting in this grand ballroom watching TV. Not yet. That's how Humbert makes his vocabulary. We all go into the ballroom to watch TV. What? That's the opening ceremony. So it's 500. And there's a little tiny TV on the stage. No, no, no. This is huge. The TV is huge. Oh. It would be like-- There's a little black and white 12 inch at the front that we all gather around. Because when you think about it, it is a convention about watching TV. Yeah. And I hadn't thought about that until that exact moment. I was going that to sort of talk to people. Then it occurred to you, I'm here to watch TV. I'm here to watch TV. And I'm here to talk to people about watching TV. Even terrifying, perhaps. The other thing I was there for was to watch-- this was so amazing. People make Dark Shadows videos. They make their own Dark Shadows videos. You mean like using footage from the original-- No, no, no. They create new Dark Shadows videos. New Dark Shadows episodes. They make new episodes themselves? Right. They make new episodes themselves. Like they get costumes and build sets? Oh, my god. There was this one thing. It was amazing. It was a parody of the show. But a parody like if you watched it right now, you would go-- I mean it could be funny. But it's all inside jokes. If you watch like Dark Shadows, it's the only way you would think this is funny. But it was so elaborate. Like they had completely rebuilt the set of like Barnabas's drawing room, completely. And then like another set was in a graveyard. And they had completely done the graveyard. This one man played three different characters. And it was edited like it was completely professional. I mean they must have spent like a ton of money. They had gotten one of the original cast members to come and be in the video. It was so incredibly elaborate. And it was like 45 minutes long. And it was good. And then it was like to think I'm sitting there going, this is really good. Your outfit, at this point? Well, I had put on my red burgundy, crushed velvet Pierre Cardin jacket that I had gotten at the Salvation Army for $5.00. It had like a little water spot on the back of it. I had put on my rhinestone brooch, that looks sort of like a flaring sun, with this big, huge rhinestone-- Right in the middle of your collar. Right in the middle, which I had pinned to my silk shirt and black pants, and my shoes, which were Quentin Collins shoes from the 1960s show. I mean I found these-- John was the only one there who dressed up, at least the first day. Everyone else was in shorts, summer clothes, casual clothes. Which makes a person wonder, am I the weirdo? John would get on the elevator wearing his convention name tag, with non-convention hotel guests. And they would look at me. Then they would look at my badge. And then they would look at me again. I felt at that moment, I'm like, I'm the weirdo. I'm the weirdo in the elevator. I'm at a Dark Shadows convention. This feeling may be more extreme at a the Dark Shadows convention, but frankly it is common to any convention. Standing on the elevator, with your badge, separated from the rest of your tribe, surrounded by civilians, it's easy to feel like a freak, even if you're just a math teacher. But there are freaks and there are freaks. John, for example, would not get in the 800-person, five-hour line to get autographs from the stars. On the other hand, in three days, in the world's most exciting, vibrant city, he never left the hotel. And then he want to this panel, where all these issues were resolved. Stars from Dark Shadows were there, answering detailed questions from the audience. But this woman gets up at this panel discussion. And she has a pre-prepared statement. And the statement is-- it was like, I want to thank all of you for all the joy you've given me through my years. And she said, when I watch Dark Shadows, I want to take the high road. I want to think of the things Dark Shadows has given me. How it's taught me to forgive, how it's taught me the joy of friendship, how it's taught me that you need to go on from bad situations. And then she said, and most people will listen to this and they will think that I'm a crackpot. And if I'm a crackpot, so be it. And then she screams into the mike, Dark Shadows lives. And you see this like look on all the actors' faces like, fear, like a little bit of fear. But it dawned on me, this was like the statement that I had felt, that I had been feeling a little bit. And here she is standing up in this room full of people and proclaiming, I am a crackpot. And I was thinking, well, I'm sort of a crackpot too. And here she was. It was sort of like the alcoholic getting up at the alcoholic convention, saying I'm an alcoholic. And I thought, I laughed at it. And I was just like, god, this is what this whole convention is about. We're like all these misfits. And at this point, I was feeling the sense of community. And I was feeling in the sea of crackpots, I'm a crackpot with them. I'm brother. I am with you. But John, I mean but you sort of saw her as being nuts. Right. But you thought she was speaking for you when she said that? I felt an empathy with her. And just not that I'm going to be the one going up there screaming, I am a crackpot. Dark Shadows rules. No, you've chosen to say it to 400,000 people over the radio. Oh god, I'm going to pass out. Dark Shadows rules. I've said it. I've said it, Ira. Do you want to say it louder, John? No. You can. I don't want to say it any louder. I don't want to say it any louder. Do you want to stand up? We can-- No. I don't want to say it. That's OK. I've said it. That's all I want to say. Recently, I spoke with Chris Crowley, the facilities manager at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, of the biggest convention centers in the world. And he told me there's a kind of life cycle to conventions. They happen in predictable phases. First day, everybody is disoriented. People get lost. People are still individuals. They're not a group just yet. The second day, people start to group and begin to bond, form those little packs of people. And by the third day of the convention, there's definite friendships that are made and groups of people that are following each other. And you start to recognize who your peers are. And they create their own little herd mentality, if you will. And all of this happened to John. On the first day, he didn't want to talk to anybody. He felt like a loner. By the second, he found some friends at the volunteer desk and the costume ball. And these people seemed like they were pretty fun. So some of the people I had talked to during the day, I said let's all go back to my room. I've got two bottles of Merlot. And let's all get drunk and talk about Dark Shadows. But then sadly, John discovered the inevitable third phase of any convention. He got sick of it. In this case, too much TV, too much merchandise, too many pictures and videos of Dark Shadows, going everywhere, all the time, too much sharing. He woke up the morning of the third day with a cheap wine hangover, never wanting to talk about Barnabas Collins again, or at least for the foreseeable future. He had to force himself to go downstairs to the final banquet, which he had already paid $45 dollars to attend. And this other guy was sitting next to me. And we talked a little bit about the show. And it was like he started talking-- I mean he was from Long Island. And he asked me where I was from. I said Chicago. And he said he had gone through Chicago. And he changed the subject to sports and about the Bulls. And I don't talk about sports, ever. I don't know anything about sports. I don't even follow the Bulls when the championships are going on. Which actually is very, very hard. It's like trying to ignore Christmas, if you live in Chicago. It's everywhere. And I found myself sitting with this person at this convention, talking about the Bulls, talking about the Bulls in Chicago. In your normal life, if somebody were trying to talk to you about sports, you would be thinking to yourself, I wish I could be talking about something like Dark Shadows. Right. And there I was, I was engaging him in talking about the Bulls. And I was saying, when you were in London, did the Bull's championship go on? Where were you? Are you a Bulls' fan? And I was changing the subject. Then we talked about the Cubs. I don't talk about the Cubs. When John Connors got home after a 24-hour train ride, he opened the door and heard the click of his video machine. He had recorded six episodes of Dark Shadows. The day he returned, he said he wasn't sure if he'd be able to watch them. As of today, three days later, he's watched five. I'm a dishwasher. And having worked in restaurants for over a decade, it would only make sense that I attend the National Restaurant Association's annual gathering. But it's not an organization that welcomes restaurant employees-- quite the contrary. That's Dishwasher Pete, writer and publisher of the zine Dishwasher, an original and funny account of his life as a dishwasher, traveling from place to place, on a small mission to wash dishes in all 50 states, plus whatever other dish washing stories and topics he feels like writing about. He's visiting the National Restaurant Association, which is made up of restaurant owners, managers, and suppliers. They are a force to be reckoned with in this country, especially in Washington, DC, important opponents of the minimum wage and Bill Clinton's national health care plan, a few years ago. The National Restaurant Association's political ally, Newt Gingrich, has stated that their lobbying was instrumental in defeating the health care proposal. So if this group that works so hard against the interests of me and my restaurant colleagues were going to hold a pow wow, I felt it my responsibility to be there. Riding up the escalator into the middle of Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center, I was immediately overwhelmed. On display was everything imaginable concerning the food service industry, every sort of cooking and serving appliance utensil, food products, menu designs, everything. Each booth was highly specialized. If they didn't have an impressive array of napkin rings, then they were peddling theme outfits so a restaurant's staff could dress up like pirates or clowns. I'd come expecting to find groupings of restaurant owners, smoking their cigars, rubbing their bellies, and exchanging tales of how they'd stuck it to their employees. So where were they? In the meantime, there was something on my agenda, something that's always on my agenda-- free food. Plenty of food products were available for sampling. I nibbled my way along, a hunk of chocolate here, a veggie burger there, waffles, chicken tenders, stir fry, jelly beans. This part didn't seem so bad. That was until I arrived at one of the booths giving away free beer. There was fierce competition to reach the bar. Being jostled from both sides by guys in suits was a bit unsettling. I hadn't planned to be so informal with these people. I came to the show to be inconspicuous and to inspect, not to socialize and rub shoulders with folks who might otherwise be my boss. After I was finally served, I stood back and watched the boss types push and shove their way to the free beer. I turned and watched another crowd of boss types clamoring to receive free plastic key chains at another booth. This, to me, was weird. I had expected that with this many boss types in one hall, the air would be thick with authority. Instead, these authority figures were giddy over receiving plastic trinkets. It was disturbing to see all these boss types away from the restaurants, like being in the sixth grade and seeing your teacher walking down the street, holding her boyfriend's hand. It's just something I don't care to see. But while the gathering of the boss types seemed rather innocuous, I assumed the capitalist parade would be in full swing as I headed to the convention's keynote address, given by Republican Senator Bob Dole. So we shouldn't forget for a moment that we live in the greatest country on the face of the earth. By the time I took my seat at the back of the room, Dole was well underway. I listened. I became confused. I think Dole think was confused too. He was supposed to be giving the keynote address to a group of restaurateurs. Instead, he gave what amounted to be a campaign speech, as if he were still running in the election that he had lost last year. And we shouldn't forget for a moment, the people who came ahead of us made sacrifices for us. I was desperate for any morsel related to restaurants to come from Dole's mouth. It never came. I began to sense that Dole wasn't quite sure where he was. I had assumed he was yet another political lackey of the National Restaurant Association. But now, he seemed more like the grandfather at a family dinner who babbles incomprehensibly, while the rest of the families is too polite to draw attention to it. As Dole droned on, streams of people, apparently having heard enough, headed for the exits. Then Dole took questions from those remaining. I had hoped to ask him something like, hey man, why are you and the National Restaurant Association always trying to keep the dishwashers down? But in each of his responses, as he drifted away from the question, I realized I couldn't ask a snot-nosed question of this absent-minded old man. Thinking instead, maybe he could provide some grand fatherly advice. Mine was the last question. Hello, Mr. Dole. I'm here at the National Restaurant Association Show. And I was wondering if you had any words of advice for the dishwashers of the nation? Just keep washing them, would be my advice. Thank you. I was excited because mine was the only question he actually answered, just keep washing. At first it seemed like a good-natured slap on the back, thumbs-up piece of advice. But as the band played on, Dole's words kept going through my head. Just keep washing. Yep. Just keep washing. Day after day, just keep washing. Week after week, month after month, just keep washing. Year after year, after year-- what the hell kind of advice is that? While Dishwasher Pete searches the National Restaurant Association for traces of the American dream, one that Bob Dole would actually improve of, that's in a minute from Public Radio International, when our program continues. It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program of course which we choose a theme. Bring you a wide variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's program, Conventions. We are in the middle of Act Two, Dishwasher Pete, a real live dishwasher, at the convention of the National Restaurant Association. Working as a dishwasher, I'm often told, start here and someday you may own your own restaurant. Bosses tell this to dishwashers all the time. And if that's true, that meant I surrounded by tens of thousands of former dishwashers at the restaurant convention. Do you have much experience washing dishes yourself? I can't say that I have. Only at home. You haven't done that in the past? No. It's really not that effective. Dishwashers are invisible to most restaurant customers. But why was such an important part of the industry being ignored at this gathering that celebrated every aspect of the restaurant world? I set out to find some of my fellow dishwashers. I stopped passers by, asking them if they'd seen any dishwashers walking around. I received one negative response after another. One restaurant owner snidely told me she wouldn't think of bringing her dishwashers to the show. But then I realized there was one place I was sure to find some of my dish brethren. Like a moth to the flame, I headed straight for the Hobart display. As the largest manufacturers of commercial dish washing equipment, Hobart is legendary amongst those of us who wash dishes for a living. Their model dish machines would surely be staffed by real live dishwashers. Hobart's display was quite a spectacle, buzzing with activity, with free beer, and dozens of chirpy sales reps wearing matching bright blue shirts. I half expected there to be bikini-clad women, lounging atop their displayed dish machines. But my hopes for finding dish washing camaraderie didn't pan out. First of all, there were no dishwashers operating the machines. In fact, the machines sat idle. And I didn't find much kinship with the Hobart sales force. Hobart's Barry Baylock showed off their new sink, the TurboWash, that circulated water to enhance the soaking of pots and pans. With a dish machine you've got to have somebody to man it. With this, you don't. So you're able to de-staff your kitchen, so to speak. So it's a big labor saver. Yes, it's more expensive than a three-compartment sink, but it's less expensive than having a full-time employee. This shows up every day. A full-time employee doesn't. What do you think about the dishwashers who may possibly face layoffs because of a labor saving device such as this? This does not take a very qualified person. It allows one person to do several jobs within the dish room room activity, instead of having two people to do two separate jobs. So it actually is going to help out giving more job security to the person that is working in that dish room area. Now why would that be? Because they can do more within the dish room. They can operate the dish machine they can-- Both Hobart sales reps that I talked to told me that not only had they never held dish washing jobs, but they hated doing the chore at home. What sort of dish machine representatives were these? To me, they were like surgeons who hated the sight of blood. I left the Hobart display a bit dejected and checked out some of their competitors. The Champion dish machine company's couldn't have been more different than the Hobart display. They were, unlike the mass of bright and chirpy Hobart crew, just a couple of middle-aged guys wearing drab brown suits. I spoke to a guy named Peter for awhile, asking if any dishwashers had visited the booth? None had. As I was about to walk away, he asked if I was Dishwasher Pete? It was kind of spooky. My cover was blown. Peter introduced me to Hank Holt, the president of Champion. He had written me a year prior, requesting a copy of my publication, Dishwasher. I kind of couldn't believe that the company's head honcho would bother to attend such an event. But was even more surprised that he remembered who I was. Dishwasher Pete goes all-- he goes all over the country, washing dishes. And he writes about them. And puts out this little book, every week. And it's funnier than the devil. We wanted to put some of his articles on the web page and send them out some of the consultants, and all that. But we have to edit them. They're a little bit spicy, for some of them. How has the show been going? The show has been fine. We're not overwhelmed with customers. While Hank and I talked dish washing, I snuck peeks over at the Hobart booth. It seemed ridiculous that I had previously scoffed at the Champion guys and thought that I'd find solidarity among the Hobart crew. The Hobart folks now looked like the in-crowd at high school, the jocks and cheerleaders, who were popular, yet shallow. Meanwhile, here were the nerdier Champion guys, who could relate more to where I was coming from, though not entirely. While Hank and I did have a good conversation, we were from opposite ends of the spectrum. He, the president of a dish machine company, me, a dishwasher. I still needed to find an actual fellow dish dog. As the show was winding down, I left the crowds and commotion, descending three flights of stairs, heading deep down into the bowels of the convention center, until I came upon a door. I pushed a button next to the door and moments later, it buzzed open. I wandered through the labyrinth of corridors, peeking around corners and acting as if I belonged there whenever I encountered someone. Then I heard a familiar hum in the distance. How are you doing? How are you doing? All right. So you're the man behind the scenes, huh? You're the man behind the scenes, washing the dishes? Yeah. Yeah. His name was Jesse. And he was working alone in the cavernous dish room, unloading dishes from a huge 30 foot long conveyor belt style machine, just like the ones on display upstairs. Well, do you think there's anything our radio audience should know about the man behind the scenes, down here in the dish room? I've really got nothing to say, except I like the job. It's keeping me out of trouble out there on the streets and everything. It's not hard work. The employers are nice people. They're easy to get along with. As Jesse returned to the head of the dish machine once again to load dishes into it, I felt at ease for the first time all day. I watched Jesse loading the machine from afar, feeling like I needed to speak with him more. That our bond needed to be acknowledged. But then I noticed the clean dishes exiting the machine. And I knew what to do. I put down the tape recorder and got to work. I walked over and unloaded the clean dishes. Dishwasher Pete's zine, Dishwasher, is available for a measly dollar, at P.O. Box 8213, Portland, Oregon 97207. Act Three, When Worlds Collide. This story begins at a convention, well, two conventions actually. John Perry Barlow was at a convention in 1993 for the NeXT computer, the machine that Steven Jobs created after he co-founded Apple Computers. The other convention, the American Psychiatric Association. Our story starts on the border of those two. John Perry Barlow is a former rancher, song lyricist, now head of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He travels everywhere, talking about computers. And that is what brought him to the Moscone Center for a convention in 1993. And I was supposed to be the MC at a Steve Jobs celebrity roast. Uh-huh. And across the way, the psychiatrists were having a seminar or something. Before we even go anywhere, it really does like a when worlds collide sort of thing. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. It was. Because the thing about a convention is that each world is so distinctly it's own-- Right. --world, with its own concerns and its own priorities and its own paradigm. Oh, yeah. And both of these groups of people were so distinct from one another. I mean psychiatrists as a group have a look. NeXT was one of the only computers I've ever been around where the whole notion of design was really important to the product. Right. Elegance of design. And it attracted the strangest kind of hybrid, which was sort of like UNIX weenies by Armani , combination. OK. And describe what the psychiatrists tend to look like? What was there look? Well, the psychiatrists were all the sort of Jules Feiffer cartoon psychiatrists, tweed jackets, slightly rumpled. Right. And no distinct difference between the men and the women really, except for this one person. I was standing outside the entrance to the ballroom, where I was going to supposedly roast Mr. Jobs. And the psychiatrists were all milling around over there, in their corner. And I saw a woman standing with her back to me. She actually looked dressed to be more one of us, than one of them, in the sense that she had this very crisp Armani look from behind, long blonde hair. And she turned and looked over her left shoulder, and looked right at me. And I've never had an experience like this before or since. I mean I've always thought that the whole idea of love at first sight was one of those things that was invented by a lady novelist, with three names from the south. Right. Right. Because how can this work? What's the process by which you would recognize something that profound? Yeah. She looked. And we started looking at each other. And we didn't avert our gaze, either of us for probably 45 seconds. I mean we just locked on the beam. And I felt like I was having an hallucination. I mean I felt like I was hearing voices. It was the strangest thing. And I kind of stepped back and rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what I was going to do about this. You literally rubbed your eyes.? Literally. No. It was an odd-- the whole thing just felt really dreamlike. I was going to say, it's like in a story. It went into this surreal state. Finally, I thought, well, whatever is going on between this person and me, I am definitely not going to let this moment pass without investigation because I haven't experienced this before. So I circled her a couple of times. And then finally I came over to her, and I said, "You're something." And she said, "So are you." And I said, "Well, where are you from?" I assumed that she was part of our show. I thought that actually what she was-- it didn't occur to me that she was associated with the psychiatrists because she didn't look anything like them. And I thought that what she was probably was what is-- I wish there were a better term for this, but the general computer trade show term for this is booth bimbo, which is somebody who stands in the booth selling the incredibly difficult to use software, who's actually a model or an actress or something, who doesn't know anything about the software. But the marketers sort of dangle her out as bait. Right. And then once she's gotten these poor innocent hackers to wander over so they can talk to the beautiful girl, then wham, they get them. Right. Geeks move in. Right. The geeks move in and hustle them off and sell them software. Time honored practice. Right. Exactly. It works. And so I just assumed she must be a booth bimbo because she was much too beautiful to be a computer hacker. Or a psychiatrist. And it didn't even dawn on me that she was a psychiatrist, which in fact she was. But I said, "Well, where are you from?" And she said, "Well, I'm from a little town in British Columbia." And I said, "Well, that's interesting. I'm from a little town in Wyoming, which is kind of like British Columbia." Un-huh. "Where do you live now?" And she said, "New York." And I said, "Well, that's even more interesting because that's where I live." And I said, "Where do you live in New York?" And she said, "19th and 3rd." And I said, "Well, that's not too far from where I live. I'm down at the lower end of Fifth Avenue." And she said, "Where?" And I said "Well, Fifth and Ninth." And she said, "Really? Which building?" And I said, "It's the old Fifth Avenue Hotel. It's 24 5th Avenue." And she said, "Really? Well, it turns out that I just got an apartment in that building." And in fact she had just gotten an apartment precisely two stories above mine in the same building. So there I was with this woman that I had an instantaneous and inexplicable attachment to, who was about to move into my apartment building. And we just went off together-- and actually moved in together, really, literally, a week after we met. So when you're at the convention with her, you just spent all your time together basically? Yeah, from that point forward. And it was a great opportunity for me to introduce her to my world in a lot of its other dimensions, because the Grateful Dead was having a concert in Sacramento one of the nights of these joint conventions. And so we went over and she saw her first Dead concert. And this is a person who would never have been caught dead at a Dead concert. Explain your connection with the Grateful Dead? Oh, I spent many, many years as their sort of junior varsity song writer. There were two song writers. And I was the lesser of the two. And so what did she think of the concert? What did she make of it? She liked it a lot. She thought the Deadheads were fascinating. She thought the music was great. But the other thing was that we were just completely, hopelessly besotted with each other. Yeah. I could have taken her to a dogfight I think and she would have thought it was OK. It was just one of those completely unexpected, acts of providence where two worlds collided and something wonderful came from the point that they touched. Do you think that if you would have met this woman in some other setting, just on the street or seen her in the lobby of the apartment building that you lived in, after she had moved in there, do you think that you would have had this moment quite so powerfully? Or do think that there was something about being at a convention where one is just open to experience in a way that one wouldn't be elsewhere? Actually I think at that moment, she was more inclined to judge things more on the basis of their appearance. And what she mainly saw was a guy in a real sharp suit. The next day when I returned to my normal style of dress, she said, "Wait a second. Is this how you usually dress?" And I said, "Yeah." And she said, "Oh, well. All right." But do you think that if you had seen her just walking into your building three weeks after that, for the first time, do you think this moment would have happened? I think that it probably would have happened anyway. There was something about this particular connection that would have overridden any of the surrounding noise in the data. I mean I felt like I had finally met another member of my tribe, and felt that before I said anything to her or she said anything to me. What happened with her, finally. Well, what happened was-- we had both had the flu. And she was a young woman. I mean quite a bit younger than me. And very healthy. Took extremely good care of herself-- athletic. But we both had the flu. And it had been a real nasty flu. And it had had us both kind of hitting on maybe five out of eight for close to a month. Yeah. And I had gone out to Los Angeles to give a speech. And Tim Leary had gotten some tickets to a Pink Floyd concert at the Rose Bowl. And she was going to come out and join me, to go to this Pink Floyd concert with Tim. That all got bollixed up. We ended up going by ourselves and having a very long, complicated evening, with a lot of waiting in traffic, and looking for our car, and what not. Going off by yourselves, you and Timothy Leary or you and her? Cynthia. And over the course of this evening, we decided that even though we had been sort of the opinion that we didn't want to think about the future that much, she said, "Well, I know that we're not supposed to think about the future. But I think that you and I should have children. And if we're going to do that, I would love to start soon. And if we're going to do that, then we should be married. And how do you feel about those things?" And I said, "Fine. sure. No problem." Anyway the next day, I had a meeting and-- the next day was a Sunday. And I had a red-eye back to New York that evening. And Cynthia was going to go on that. And I said, "Look, you've been sick. And you've got patients tomorrow. And why don't you just take an afternoon flight. And I'll be home to see you before you go off to work." And so she took an afternoon flight. And I took her down to the airport. And gave each other a great big kiss. And she said, "Nothing can keep us apart baby. We were made for each other." And then she just walked onto the plane and went to sleep, took a nap. And it turned out that the virus that we both had, the flu virus, had attacked her heart and had been chewing away on it for the previous 10 days or so. And it pretty well consumed the pericardium. And so eventually it was so compromised that, as she was sleeping, she started to fibrillate and just died. She was two days short of her 30th birthday. And they went to tell her to put her seat belt on coming into JFK, she was dead and had been for awhile. Oh, my god. So this whole episode, from the moment I saw her there in the hallway of the ANA, to the moment where I watched her walk onto the aircraft was one of the really central passages of my life. And after that, everything was different. And smaller. Well, no, not-- actually, I wouldn't say that. In many ways, not at all. Because one of the things that came out of it was that prior to this, I didn't believe in the soul. I mean I think that within us we're two spirits that had always-- I mean, there's really just no way to say this without sounding incredibly sappy. But we were the same soul. And having seen that, that changes everything. Now that you've had this experience with her, do you find that you have this experience all the time, in a smaller form, where you'll meet a group of strangers and there will be one whose eyes strikes you. And you think, OK, I can see a part of this thing.? Absolutely. I mean I feel an ability to attach on a moment to moment basis that is completely unlike anything that I felt prior to that. And I think it's sometimes a little disconcerting to other people, because it's genuine on my side. And people are not used to having somebody just dock emotionally that instantaneously. For one thing, I feel like I can see their souls. Their souls are visible to me. One of the things that happened as a consequence of this is that for a while there, if I stopped moving, the pain got so bad that I couldn't stand it. So I fell into a lifestyle of continuous motion. And that gradually became an economic adaptation. And now I just simply live on the road pretty much. I mean I flew 270 some odd thousand miles last year, just on one airline. God damn. I mean I'm just hearing you say it. It's like you want to die on a plane too. Well, it's a funny thing-- no, I'm not particularly interested in dying on a plane. But I mean that's kind of like-- I really feel like the stratosphere is my church. That's where you feel like you can contact her. Well, kind of. I feel there's something about being up there that makes me feel like I'm closer to her. Yeah. No. I totally understand that. Because it's the last place where she was. Yeah. But it's more than that. I mean last night I was flying here, to Salt Lake from New York. And I looked down, and it was just-- I don't know that I believe in heaven or anything quite like that. But I mean it looked exactly like heaven in the paintings of that period of the late Renaissance, when they really started to get light, and understand how to do light and clouds. Remember that really clear, kind of blue light-- Yeah, exactly. --with pale, clear blue. There were layers and layers and layers of different colors of clouds. And they were all catching the sunlight in golds and blues. Yeah. And I thought what a great life it is that puts you in this unbelievably holy environment on such a regular basis. For me, there would be the additional thing-- and I wonder if this is for you too, I mean maybe this has worn off now, because you fly so much-- but I mean every time I would get on a plane, I would just think, OK, this is her setting. You know what I mean. It's like-- Oh, yeah. This is where I left her. And she could be in any one of these seats. Oh, yeah. It would be very hard for me to not be picturing her in one of those seats, and just sleeping. Yeah. No, I mean-- she's there. Even now? Even just-- No. I mean as I say, it's not something that goes away. As far as I can tell us, it's a permanent fixture. And that's OK. I mean I'm glad to have it. But anyway, it was a hell of a convention. I mean I'm sure glad I went to that Steve Jobs celebrity roast. Our program was produced today by Nancy Updike and myself, with Alix Spiegel and Julie Snyder, senior editor Paul Tough, contributing editors Jack Hitt, Margie Rochlin, and consiliere Sarah Vowell. You know you can listen to most of our programs for free on the internet at www.thislife.org. This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International. WBEZ management oversight by Torey Malatia. No, I don't want to say it any louder. I don't want to say it any louder. No, I don't want to say it. It's OK. I've said it. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week, with more stories of This American Life. Dark Shadows lives. PRI, Public Radio International.