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Lack of supervision totals:
I did not get a corset (budget issues; I have their card and my measurements); I did not get a Ganesha plaque (it sold before I got back with money; I did go to lunch in between); I did not get a small Taweret figurine (more on this weird state of mind later).
I flew out to San Jose on Wednesday, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brooksmoses and suzimoses met me at the airport.
So I spent about a day with them; mostly withbrooksmoses, as suzimoses went to work. (Though Suzi and I did have a long conversation about life, the universe, boys, and stuff. And that was very good.) We also had dinner with tiger_spot.
That was all really, really, really damn hard.
While this is being, really, a stunningly sane breakup situation, I still feel deeply fraught about the interactions. And even though my decision to end the relationship removed the immediacy of a lot of the stuff that was there, the stuff's still there; there are parts of me that are still pretty badly hurt, and others that are still very angry. That surfaced a few times here and there.
And it's hard to be near someone I love as much as I dobrooksmoses and not know how to interact, to hit places where no set of available responses feels natural. Everything seemed sort of stilted, except in these small occasional moments where things came out naturally and like-it-used-to-be, which tended to leave me crying quietly.
So they brought me to the hotel Thursday night, and I went up to this huge and spectacularly empty hotel room all alone. Which sort of set one of the major undercurrents of my emotionality for the weekend, that loneliness; it was my shadow, even when I was apparently deeply involved in whatever else I was doing.
So. I kicked around until early afternoon on Friday and then hiked down to the dealer's room to findelfwreck. Who was not where I was expecting her (they had a different spot this year), but was nonetheless findable, so I gave her the button I got for her. ("My hair is this colour because I ate paint chips as a child", joyously acquired from nancylebov.) Ogled the shiny things, including a labradorite pipe which tempted me most mightily despite the fact that I don't, y'know, smoke. (It had blue sparkles in, you see.)
After chatting for a bit I went on a prowl around the dealer's room. I visited the corseter, found a corset that I quite liked, that fit me, and that I could not at the time afford. I have their card and my measurements, and they have informed me that they have a fair amount of the fabric, so I may be able to get it if I save my pennies. I also saw that the velvet painter was going out of business, which was very sad because I've been ogling her gorgeous work for several years, but since I did get the sexy red shirt for the Pomba Gira at effectively half off as a result ... well, the sadness was tempered at least a little. (More tempering would have required getting more than the shirt.)
At seven I went to the Kalama Foundation talk, which was neat. Aupuni Iwi'ula has a very gentle presence; I also recognised what he was doing when he came in as a litany of gods before he got to Pele. I spoke to him briefly after the presentation to thank him for an informative talk, and mildly impressed him by having heard of Kapo.
Then it was off across the building with my drum to the Lenaia, for the first of my 'Gee, let's see how many PCon rituals with a processional I can manage to attend' rituals. Our processional for this one involved some mighty rampaging and the Moose Song (and similar stuff in that genre, like "I used to work in Chicago"), which cracked me up. Also my shirt (the sexy red one) kept getting unbuttoned. :} When we got into the ritual space, I thought I spottedsannion, but he was on the other side of the room, and I was occupied with the need to keep some feeble sense of rhythm and pay attention to the ritualists' cues. The priest running it was very good, in a somewhat frenetic way, but that's what I'd expect of a servant of Dionysos. Barley everywhere, man. (I complimented him on the ritual when I saw him the next day at a nearby restaurant which I had fled to in the hope of finding food more cheaply and more quickly.) There was a fragment of Lysistrata performed which pinged off my lonely ache, and there was wine and ululation. Afterwards, there was extensive Maenad maintenance. keshwyn: I hope they continue performing this ritual, it was well done, so if you ever get to PCon I think you'd enjoy it.
Then the milling around until the Pomba Gira Devotional. It turns out Loren Davidson was minding the door for it, so I wound up chatting with him for a bit and catching up on life while I was watering myself. While getting increasingly crunched in by the crowds.
The Pomba was ... interesting. I spottedlysana doing backup singing and at one point wandered over to say hi (and got complimented on the sexy red shirt). The energies got me unpleasantly dizzy until I started running Iron Pentacle; I'm not entirely certain why that was. Part of it was that I was feeling very unconnected from ways of working with that sort of energy (see overriding loneliness), but also its flavor wasn't something I could work with comfortably. I wound up getting hauled into a dancing-with by some random person at one point, which was very odd and difficult to parse, because dancing-with is an energy exchange that I find somewhat intimate, and doing so with random strangers really quite awkward. I also wound up dancing a bit with elfwreck towards the end, which actually let me unkink my energies a little and work with it; I had been very hemmed in and self-conscious even when I was able to work the energies on my own (with the orixa).
Spent a while trying to make sense of that. Wound up wandering off withelfwreck, confusing Rob most mightily as a result (we wound up going back to my room to talk for a bit more than an hour so as not to disturb and confuse him further). Went to sleep, feeling likely to be extremely sore in the morning; was correct on that account.
Woke up at ten of eleven, missing the 9 am panel on casting lots I had been considering going to, and needing to scurry to get toyezida's Sex and the Black Heart panel, which I had told fyrekat I'd be attending. (We had run into each other the previous evening. I relayed your hello, confettiofstars.) Working with Thorn is always a trip; I have also learned that the sound of her voice immediately improves my posture. I need to drop her an email about my cousin's music; note to self: do that. I don't have much to say about this panel; bits of it cropped up here and there later in the con, but it was continuing with the ongoing Feri work.
I decided that I was way too damn fried for worrying about other stuff, so I resumed prowling the dealers' room for a bit now that all the vendors were set up. (There was a nice little Ganesha plaque that was only eight dollars -- I didn't have money on me at the time and He was gone by the time I got back. I didn't really expect he'd last.) I wound up staring at length at a small figurine of Taweret for a bit there.
Taweret is a protective goddess, guardian of pregnant women and children. Her statue was maybe the size of my thumb and was probably marked with glyphs of someone else's spells. I studied Her for a long time, caught up in this web of readiness-notreadiness and confounded. I know I'm not planning on going off the pill just yet, but there She was, reminding me. I think I'm glad someone bought Her icon before I got back, because I probably would have if they hadn't, and I'm not sure I'm ready to have Her in the house.
I consulted withteinedreugan about my lack of supervision, and then came back down to get the second shirt. On the way I encountered Loren talking to rmjwell, and wound up sitting with the latter for a while talking polyfoo and politics and life and crankiness; I may wind up making a post or two on-topic to alt.poly as a result of it. Then off to the dealers' room, acquire shirt, mill around a bit. I wound up hanging out by elfwreck's table for a while saying, "No, really, I need to go up to my room and hide" at irregular intervals. I did, eventually, go up to my room and hide, but not before running into sannion and talking about life, Kemetic politics, theology, and such.
Then I came down again for the Sekhmet ritual. Which was ... interesting. (Also including a procession, for the record.) And apparently fulfilled my quota for rituals in which I feel vaguely like a Methodist because I'm handed grape juice in a cute little plastic cup. (Last year, this perverse spiritual need was met bylysana's Feast of Age.) It was interesting. A little too Greek for my taste in bits (clear invocation of Isis rather than Aset). It was nice to hear the Daily Rite/Senut prayer in the original Egyptian. There was a part where the majority of the ritualists were chanting the Names of the gods (Greek form) that gave me significant shivers.
Afterwards, I scurried down to queue up for the oracular seidh, which I'd never made it to before. This was another interesting experience. (Also, one of the Asatru present was extremely intimidating.) I was getting bits of the processional down visually well before they were described, which was ... sort of perturbing. I may have to chew on bits of that. The confrontation with the giantess guardian was ... sharp. She asked what we were seeking, and I told her "Wisdom and faith" and kept repeating that to myself the rest of the way. The bridge whose breadth depends on one's confidence was maybe eighteen inches wide for me -- not knife-sharp, but not an easy passage. I sat down well away from the gates into Hella's realm so as not to get tempted by them. I spent a long time honing my question for the seer, and got a very satisfying answer. The bridge on the way out was huge and broad, even before the ritualist suggested that it was wide for everyone.
Seidh got out at about midnight. I chatted withfyrekat for a little and then went looking for sannion's symposium, which I failed notably to find. Then I went up to the ninth floor and looked to see if any interesting parties were going. The absinthe party was too rowdy for my state of mind, so I went downstairs and went to bed.
I had no plans for the following morning, so I slept in and lazed about, and basically did nothing before the Bast ritual except shower and do as many ritual purification things as I could manage in my current state of biology.
Now the Bast ritual was interesting. I always get a little frisson from fragmentary bits of Kemetic ritual; it just hits the sweet spot in my responses, and always has. It was another dancing ritual (with processional preceding); here we get into the Sex and the Black Heart stuff, because this was one of the first times I've hit a really good understanding of the Feri equivalence between life force and sexual energy. The ritual was a celebration of life, and it wound up feeling very erotic for me. Partly this was, I think, because I have an established ritual practice of dancing for Bast, and so there was the strength of relationship in which the energy could flow smoothly. Also, Her place is a safe place for me, where I could unfold; I was moving far more freely than I had at the Pomba ritual, a place full of golden light and sweet scent (I put on the perfume that makes me smell like a girl as a devotional act for Her). I also think that because it was not intended to be a sexual ritual specifically (unlike the Pomba, which struck me as an explicitly sexual ritual that was trying to keep down to a level that wasn't explicit and thus causing me a certain amount of dissonance) it was free to be so, without self-consciousness or pretense.
Also,jadecat9 has gorgeous thighs.
I wound up confirming that Jade was there withfyrekat and then talked with her for a bit before heading off to seek food, which I ordered up to my room. I wound up having a nice little conversation with the server, who was sort of baffled by the sudden descent of pagans on the restaurants in the hotel. (I explained to him about the schedule; he said, "Ah! So I will be very busy until seven!" and was amused.)
I decided to go to the Feri ritual at seven (no processional, just a queue), and was thus wearing my peacock robe. They painted me slightly blue (a streak down the forehead and a fingerprint) which left me thrashing around looking for an iFeri joke. I may make one at some point, perhaps with a silhouette of a peacock. It was an interesting ritual (testing out new ritual technology!) and I spent some time running energy in my meridians doing it, and also dancing in a manner that tried to be reminiscent of how the Peacock God danced for me when He appeared to me in the fall.
Then the Discordian ritual withelfwreck, which appeared to wind up as a Discordian revival meeting. It gets weirder every year, I swear. Prank pulled off to moderate effectiveness (the relevant ritual line was misread slightly; no complete stealth cheesing; people riffed off the joke, however). But seriously. Revival meeting. Yikes.
Got to the very end of Loren's concert, divided my attention between listening to the music and playing with a small child and a beachball. Back to emotional weirdness.
Puttered about for a bit, retreated to room, went to bed. Airport first thing in the morning, and then home. We flew over the house, pretty much, and I cracked myself up by identifying it with fair accuracy.
- Beatles matryoshka
- Psychedelic plaid polar fleece blankets
- A roll of nice cloth that I don't know what to do with (I'll probably do an altar piece with it) that was in the remnants
- red velvet shirt as before mentioned
- another shirt, which should be similarly appreciated by Certain People, as approved by rmjwell
- Strange plant matter
- a copy of Yronwoode's hoodoo magica materia
I did not get a corset (budget issues; I have their card and my measurements); I did not get a Ganesha plaque (it sold before I got back with money; I did go to lunch in between); I did not get a small Taweret figurine (more on this weird state of mind later).
I flew out to San Jose on Wednesday, and
brooksmoses and suzimoses met me at the airport.So I spent about a day with them; mostly with
brooksmoses, as suzimoses went to work. (Though Suzi and I did have a long conversation about life, the universe, boys, and stuff. And that was very good.) We also had dinner with tiger_spot.That was all really, really, really damn hard.
While this is being, really, a stunningly sane breakup situation, I still feel deeply fraught about the interactions. And even though my decision to end the relationship removed the immediacy of a lot of the stuff that was there, the stuff's still there; there are parts of me that are still pretty badly hurt, and others that are still very angry. That surfaced a few times here and there.
And it's hard to be near someone I love as much as I do
brooksmoses and not know how to interact, to hit places where no set of available responses feels natural. Everything seemed sort of stilted, except in these small occasional moments where things came out naturally and like-it-used-to-be, which tended to leave me crying quietly.So they brought me to the hotel Thursday night, and I went up to this huge and spectacularly empty hotel room all alone. Which sort of set one of the major undercurrents of my emotionality for the weekend, that loneliness; it was my shadow, even when I was apparently deeply involved in whatever else I was doing.
So. I kicked around until early afternoon on Friday and then hiked down to the dealer's room to find
elfwreck. Who was not where I was expecting her (they had a different spot this year), but was nonetheless findable, so I gave her the button I got for her. ("My hair is this colour because I ate paint chips as a child", joyously acquired from nancylebov.) Ogled the shiny things, including a labradorite pipe which tempted me most mightily despite the fact that I don't, y'know, smoke. (It had blue sparkles in, you see.)After chatting for a bit I went on a prowl around the dealer's room. I visited the corseter, found a corset that I quite liked, that fit me, and that I could not at the time afford. I have their card and my measurements, and they have informed me that they have a fair amount of the fabric, so I may be able to get it if I save my pennies. I also saw that the velvet painter was going out of business, which was very sad because I've been ogling her gorgeous work for several years, but since I did get the sexy red shirt for the Pomba Gira at effectively half off as a result ... well, the sadness was tempered at least a little. (More tempering would have required getting more than the shirt.)
At seven I went to the Kalama Foundation talk, which was neat. Aupuni Iwi'ula has a very gentle presence; I also recognised what he was doing when he came in as a litany of gods before he got to Pele. I spoke to him briefly after the presentation to thank him for an informative talk, and mildly impressed him by having heard of Kapo.
Then it was off across the building with my drum to the Lenaia, for the first of my 'Gee, let's see how many PCon rituals with a processional I can manage to attend' rituals. Our processional for this one involved some mighty rampaging and the Moose Song (and similar stuff in that genre, like "I used to work in Chicago"), which cracked me up. Also my shirt (the sexy red one) kept getting unbuttoned. :} When we got into the ritual space, I thought I spotted
sannion, but he was on the other side of the room, and I was occupied with the need to keep some feeble sense of rhythm and pay attention to the ritualists' cues. The priest running it was very good, in a somewhat frenetic way, but that's what I'd expect of a servant of Dionysos. Barley everywhere, man. (I complimented him on the ritual when I saw him the next day at a nearby restaurant which I had fled to in the hope of finding food more cheaply and more quickly.) There was a fragment of Lysistrata performed which pinged off my lonely ache, and there was wine and ululation. Afterwards, there was extensive Maenad maintenance. keshwyn: I hope they continue performing this ritual, it was well done, so if you ever get to PCon I think you'd enjoy it.Then the milling around until the Pomba Gira Devotional. It turns out Loren Davidson was minding the door for it, so I wound up chatting with him for a bit and catching up on life while I was watering myself. While getting increasingly crunched in by the crowds.
The Pomba was ... interesting. I spotted
lysana doing backup singing and at one point wandered over to say hi (and got complimented on the sexy red shirt). The energies got me unpleasantly dizzy until I started running Iron Pentacle; I'm not entirely certain why that was. Part of it was that I was feeling very unconnected from ways of working with that sort of energy (see overriding loneliness), but also its flavor wasn't something I could work with comfortably. I wound up getting hauled into a dancing-with by some random person at one point, which was very odd and difficult to parse, because dancing-with is an energy exchange that I find somewhat intimate, and doing so with random strangers really quite awkward. I also wound up dancing a bit with elfwreck towards the end, which actually let me unkink my energies a little and work with it; I had been very hemmed in and self-conscious even when I was able to work the energies on my own (with the orixa).Spent a while trying to make sense of that. Wound up wandering off with
elfwreck, confusing Rob most mightily as a result (we wound up going back to my room to talk for a bit more than an hour so as not to disturb and confuse him further). Went to sleep, feeling likely to be extremely sore in the morning; was correct on that account.Woke up at ten of eleven, missing the 9 am panel on casting lots I had been considering going to, and needing to scurry to get to
yezida's Sex and the Black Heart panel, which I had told fyrekat I'd be attending. (We had run into each other the previous evening. I relayed your hello, confettiofstars.) Working with Thorn is always a trip; I have also learned that the sound of her voice immediately improves my posture. I need to drop her an email about my cousin's music; note to self: do that. I don't have much to say about this panel; bits of it cropped up here and there later in the con, but it was continuing with the ongoing Feri work.I decided that I was way too damn fried for worrying about other stuff, so I resumed prowling the dealers' room for a bit now that all the vendors were set up. (There was a nice little Ganesha plaque that was only eight dollars -- I didn't have money on me at the time and He was gone by the time I got back. I didn't really expect he'd last.) I wound up staring at length at a small figurine of Taweret for a bit there.
Taweret is a protective goddess, guardian of pregnant women and children. Her statue was maybe the size of my thumb and was probably marked with glyphs of someone else's spells. I studied Her for a long time, caught up in this web of readiness-notreadiness and confounded. I know I'm not planning on going off the pill just yet, but there She was, reminding me. I think I'm glad someone bought Her icon before I got back, because I probably would have if they hadn't, and I'm not sure I'm ready to have Her in the house.
I consulted with
teinedreugan about my lack of supervision, and then came back down to get the second shirt. On the way I encountered Loren talking to rmjwell, and wound up sitting with the latter for a while talking polyfoo and politics and life and crankiness; I may wind up making a post or two on-topic to alt.poly as a result of it. Then off to the dealers' room, acquire shirt, mill around a bit. I wound up hanging out by elfwreck's table for a while saying, "No, really, I need to go up to my room and hide" at irregular intervals. I did, eventually, go up to my room and hide, but not before running into sannion and talking about life, Kemetic politics, theology, and such.Then I came down again for the Sekhmet ritual. Which was ... interesting. (Also including a procession, for the record.) And apparently fulfilled my quota for rituals in which I feel vaguely like a Methodist because I'm handed grape juice in a cute little plastic cup. (Last year, this perverse spiritual need was met by
lysana's Feast of Age.) It was interesting. A little too Greek for my taste in bits (clear invocation of Isis rather than Aset). It was nice to hear the Daily Rite/Senut prayer in the original Egyptian. There was a part where the majority of the ritualists were chanting the Names of the gods (Greek form) that gave me significant shivers.Afterwards, I scurried down to queue up for the oracular seidh, which I'd never made it to before. This was another interesting experience. (Also, one of the Asatru present was extremely intimidating.) I was getting bits of the processional down visually well before they were described, which was ... sort of perturbing. I may have to chew on bits of that. The confrontation with the giantess guardian was ... sharp. She asked what we were seeking, and I told her "Wisdom and faith" and kept repeating that to myself the rest of the way. The bridge whose breadth depends on one's confidence was maybe eighteen inches wide for me -- not knife-sharp, but not an easy passage. I sat down well away from the gates into Hella's realm so as not to get tempted by them. I spent a long time honing my question for the seer, and got a very satisfying answer. The bridge on the way out was huge and broad, even before the ritualist suggested that it was wide for everyone.
Seidh got out at about midnight. I chatted with
fyrekat for a little and then went looking for sannion's symposium, which I failed notably to find. Then I went up to the ninth floor and looked to see if any interesting parties were going. The absinthe party was too rowdy for my state of mind, so I went downstairs and went to bed.I had no plans for the following morning, so I slept in and lazed about, and basically did nothing before the Bast ritual except shower and do as many ritual purification things as I could manage in my current state of biology.
Now the Bast ritual was interesting. I always get a little frisson from fragmentary bits of Kemetic ritual; it just hits the sweet spot in my responses, and always has. It was another dancing ritual (with processional preceding); here we get into the Sex and the Black Heart stuff, because this was one of the first times I've hit a really good understanding of the Feri equivalence between life force and sexual energy. The ritual was a celebration of life, and it wound up feeling very erotic for me. Partly this was, I think, because I have an established ritual practice of dancing for Bast, and so there was the strength of relationship in which the energy could flow smoothly. Also, Her place is a safe place for me, where I could unfold; I was moving far more freely than I had at the Pomba ritual, a place full of golden light and sweet scent (I put on the perfume that makes me smell like a girl as a devotional act for Her). I also think that because it was not intended to be a sexual ritual specifically (unlike the Pomba, which struck me as an explicitly sexual ritual that was trying to keep down to a level that wasn't explicit and thus causing me a certain amount of dissonance) it was free to be so, without self-consciousness or pretense.
Also,
jadecat9 has gorgeous thighs.I wound up confirming that Jade was there with
fyrekat and then talked with her for a bit before heading off to seek food, which I ordered up to my room. I wound up having a nice little conversation with the server, who was sort of baffled by the sudden descent of pagans on the restaurants in the hotel. (I explained to him about the schedule; he said, "Ah! So I will be very busy until seven!" and was amused.)I decided to go to the Feri ritual at seven (no processional, just a queue), and was thus wearing my peacock robe. They painted me slightly blue (a streak down the forehead and a fingerprint) which left me thrashing around looking for an iFeri joke. I may make one at some point, perhaps with a silhouette of a peacock. It was an interesting ritual (testing out new ritual technology!) and I spent some time running energy in my meridians doing it, and also dancing in a manner that tried to be reminiscent of how the Peacock God danced for me when He appeared to me in the fall.
Then the Discordian ritual with
elfwreck, which appeared to wind up as a Discordian revival meeting. It gets weirder every year, I swear. Prank pulled off to moderate effectiveness (the relevant ritual line was misread slightly; no complete stealth cheesing; people riffed off the joke, however). But seriously. Revival meeting. Yikes.Got to the very end of Loren's concert, divided my attention between listening to the music and playing with a small child and a beachball. Back to emotional weirdness.
Puttered about for a bit, retreated to room, went to bed. Airport first thing in the morning, and then home. We flew over the house, pretty much, and I cracked myself up by identifying it with fair accuracy.
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From:
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Hugs.
N.
Missed you bunches.
From:
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It's a pity the cheesing didn't go quite as well as you were hoping.
From:
*hugs*
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From: (Anonymous)
Wow
From: (Anonymous)
Wow
Oce