221B Con thoughts

Gotta admit, I'm not terribly inspired to write an LJ update. But then again, I'm not inspired to do much of anything at the mo'. I'm feeling super lethargic and UGH. I woke up at 5:30 this morning after a beautifully restful sleep, thought about getting out of bed to do some yoga, NOPE-ed all over that, went back to sleep, and woke up at 6:50 absolutely dreading the week. No particular reason, just a whole big buncha fuckitall.

But anyway! I've been home from 221B Con for a week. Time to talk about it.

Despite my loud and charmingly overbearing personality, I am not an extrovert. I am not frightened by crowds and I am not intimidated by strangers. This does not mean I enjoy people, though. Being around people, even people I like, is draining. Making a commitment to spend several days in a row with hundreds of people is a big deal for me. And I'm not gonna lie, two days in I thought I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake and for about four hours I desperately wanted to go home early. A lot of my stress was because the $75 in food I'd shipped to the hotel never arrived. Like, ever (it arrived back at the house the day after I returned--which was a relief). So I was living on the few cans of sardines, dried fruit, macadamia nuts, and a bag of clementines I picked up at the local SuperTarget. Oh, and wine. A lot of wine. And cigarettes, which yes, I started smoking again because NO FOOD and also ALONE TIME and also COMFORT.

But it was mostly all fine and after Saturday's crisis moment I started enjoying myself. I met some good people and am considering going again next year if my glorious and perfect roommates aprilstarchild and pennswoods are able to attend. It was great to finally meet them in person and we got along like gangbusters.

The con itself had some good things and some spectacularly bad things. Good: it was basically well-run and I felt like the organizers cared about me personally (one of them kept asking if my food had arrived after she overheard me talking to the hotel staff). Bad: Members on a panel aren't aware of who else is on the panel unless they make a considerable effort to find out--this is due to some weird privacy issues about which the organizers are inordinately paranoid. This means the panels where participants hadn't made an effort to meet up/talk were meandering and pointless. The costume contest judging was an absolute joke and insulted the participants. I don't think I need to tell you what this means.

What I enjoyed the most about the con was seeing so many people flying their freak flag, not just shamelessly, but with joy. I stood in the Three Patch Podcast suite at one point and looked around at the group of incredibly varied people: people of all sizes and shapes, loud people, conventionally pretty people and people who don't fit society's notion of beauty, people who don't fit society's notions of binary sexuality, just so many different types of people, and each person was so happy that it made the entire population of the room nothing short of gorgeous.

221B Con thoughts

Gotta admit, I'm not terribly inspired to write an LJ update. But then again, I'm not inspired to do much of anything at the mo'. I'm feeling super lethargic and UGH. I woke up at 5:30 this morning after a beautifully restful sleep, thought about getting out of bed to do some yoga, NOPE-ed all over that, went back to sleep, and woke up at 6:50 absolutely dreading the week. No particular reason, just a whole big buncha fuckitall.

But anyway! I've been home from 221B Con for a week. Time to talk about it.

Despite my loud and charmingly overbearing personality, I am not an extrovert. I am not frightened by crowds and I am not intimidated by strangers. This does not mean I enjoy people, though. Being around people, even people I like, is draining. Making a commitment to spend several days in a row with hundreds of people is a big deal for me. And I'm not gonna lie, two days in I thought I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake and for about four hours I desperately wanted to go home early. A lot of my stress was because the $75 in food I'd shipped to the hotel never arrived. Like, ever (it arrived back at the house the day after I returned--which was a relief). So I was living on the few cans of sardines, dried fruit, macadamia nuts, and a bag of clementines I picked up at the local SuperTarget. Oh, and wine. A lot of wine. And cigarettes, which yes, I started smoking again because NO FOOD and also ALONE TIME and also COMFORT.

But it was mostly all fine and after Saturday's crisis moment I started enjoying myself. I met some good people and am considering going again next year if my glorious and perfect roommates aprilstarchild and pennswoods are able to attend. It was great to finally meet them in person and we got along like gangbusters.

The con itself had some good things and some spectacularly bad things. Good: it was basically well-run and I felt like the organizers cared about me personally (one of them kept asking if my food had arrived after she overheard me talking to the hotel staff). Bad: Members on a panel aren't aware of who else is on the panel unless they make a considerable effort to find out--this is due to some weird privacy issues about which the organizers are inordinately paranoid. This means the panels where participants hadn't made an effort to meet up/talk were meandering and pointless. The costume contest judging was an absolute joke and insulted the participants. I don't think I need to tell you what this means.

What I enjoyed the most about the con was seeing so many people flying their freak flag, not just shamelessly, but with joy. I stood in the Three Patch Podcast suite at one point and looked around at the group of incredibly varied people: people of all sizes and shapes, loud people, conventionally pretty people and people who don't fit society's notion of beauty, people who don't fit society's notions of binary sexuality, just so many different types of people, and each person was so happy that it made the entire population of the room nothing short of gorgeous.