Con report: APC9

[kiya]

Otherwise known as "Why I was away all weekend."


clairaide had a flight that was getting in to Logan at Some Ungodly Hour, and was, as a result, having trouble getting a lift anywhere useful. I gave her directions to the house by T and bus (which is fairly straightforward, given that the bus stops across the street), and she showed up a little before eleven. I introduced her to the cats and the kitchen, provided directions to the guest room, and after having a snack, went back to bed to snuggle with brooksmoses. (We had been up until six dealing with Our Issues.) Eventually the lot of us got up and headed out, managing to do so only a half hour or so after we intended to.

We stopped at the grocery (for cash) and a Staples (because clairaide needed to cut the card stock she was bringing to the con for a lab she was running on Saturday), and got to the con just as the introductions were beginning. I introduced myself by saying that I was Darkhawk, and I was completely fucking incoherent, so not to expect too much of me. (That condition persisted through the entirety of the con, to a greater or lesser extent.)

I tucked a bottle each of cyser and rose wine into the back room in the consuite, and wandered around a lot. I honestly don't remember much, except a lot of people asking me if I was going to the hotel restaurant for dinner. xiphias was among them, and rather than expressing disappointment at my answer, asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner with him. So dinner was me, brooksmoses, xiphias, and cheshyre, and we took their car, which had many more doors, and went to New Mother India, which I knew from really random encounters with kviri at times when erispope was visiting. And we went to get ice cream. Oh! Before food, we went to a comics shop, in which I encountered Someone I Knew I Knew, But Had No Idea Who Was Or From Where. It was eventually sorted that we might have known each other from the Brandeis LARP crowd, the SCA, or, uh, something else I've forgotten. And we also had stopped randomly when seeing someone xiphias and cheshyre knew who was vaguely familiar and apparently knew me from when I was living at the Fox Den.

That was a very long paragraph. Anyway, over dinner we discussed Jewish Minutiae ("Can you unscrew an Oreo cookie on the Sabbath?" was deemed to be a really interesting question) and infocom games. And I just got email from xiphias reminding me about the names of the languages he'd mentioned over dinner, as I'm pondering trying my hand at them. (Hey oneironaut, wanna brainstorm plots for a computer game?)

After dinner there was probably more stuff I've forgotten, and then we went to the lab that rivka and I were running, which was the relationship modelling lab. I should take a picture of mine so I can post it here, actually. . . *prods at camera* *has Kevin prod at camera*

*breaks a glass with her knee while looking for the cable*
*picks up the bits*
*sighs*

brooksmoses's model was damn neat, by the way, and I make hopeful faces at him in the hopes that he'll take a photo and post it in this thread or something. ;)

Hah. Here we go.




And I repeat for this audience: It's not as complicated as it looks. Incidentally, amongst the people represented on that widget are suzimoses, brooksmoses, oneironaut, and erispope. Find yourselves in beads!

kalmn came by the construction panel to give me a containerful of broken glass. Happiness.

I think we wandered up to the consuite somewhere around here (I was wandering in and out studying the levels of booze remaining on my bottles), and I saw that there was browngirl's bread, so I knew she made it and stuff, and made a mental note to bring the book I wanted to lend her the next day.

Somewhere in here brooksmoses and I went home.


Starting out on Saturday was delayed by a major drama-storm. (angilong commented that for all the drama that was in various people's lives at the time, it was a fairly low-drama con. I agree. However, trying to cope with being shellshocked by my own drama levels and with the con had me wobbly-incoherent rather a lot.) We tried a different route to the con, though, one that took a lot less time but cost five dollars, and only wound up being a little late to the Poly, In-Laws, Out-Laws, Un-Laws, Stuff Like That panel that I wanted to get to (because I still have the howling terrors of that sort of thing).

After that panel, rmjwell broke me twice and made me fall down, which rather startled him the first time. (RJ, was that one "The Larch" or was it something else? I can remember the second comment.) I waved the book I was lending to browngirl at nex0s, which I believe tickled her, since she was the one who had recommended the book to me. Or at least within my hearing. And I gave the book to browngirl. After that brooksmoses and I went up to the consuite for a bit, where redbird broke me. :}

Oh, hey, keshwyn, do you happen to remember where you got the Grecian urn design shirt you gave me a while back? I got a "where did you get that shirt, I want one like it" comment. (Was that from cattitude? I don't remember.)

Then there was the panel on LDRs, which I was on, along with rivka, brian1789, and Louise, I believe. I learned that, unlike when I'm not on the panel and have a hard time speaking up and being heard or what have you, or talking over people to get a point done, that sort of thing, when I'm on the panel I can speak up and interrupt people. Yup, I'm still a beta. (brooksmoses and brian1789 actually met for the first time, which amuses me tremendously, since they live something like a half-mile apart.)

tigerbright had stayed for that panel so as to be able to give directions to brooksmoses and myself for dinner, which was held at hers-and-teddywolf's house. (Also attending: browngirl, xiphias, cheshyre.) It is to be noted that teddywolf has quite rightfully earned the title of Food God. It was very, very good food. Mmmm. Also small cute cats, one of which occupied me happily for a while and coated me lightly in fur.

After that, somewhere, was the Poly: The Gathering lab that clairaide was running. (The concept of writing people/events/stuff up as a CCG type thing.) I was very peripatetic, up until the point that the combination of dealing with people and personal unaddressed drama quotient reduced me to a small gibbering wreck that mostly hid behind brooksmoses for the rest of the time, except when I wandered up to the consuite and then back down in a rather befuddled daze.

We went home a little early, and talked for a while. Trying yet another route -- this one partially derived from the trip to dinner -- which was The Best One Yet.


Up way too early, because the Decadent Brunch started at eleven. Still wrung-out and drained from Saturday; inadequately sutured drama. Went up to the consuite when we got there and lurked in the corner until teddywolf came up to say that the brunch was opening early.

The brunch was, indeed, decadent. There were huge amounts of food, and Very Weighty Chocolate Things. I went to lurk in the back corner of the place, because I was feeling terribly, terribly unable to deal with people, and was sort of a member of the last group to go up and get food -- the vegans, the allergy sufferers, the vegetarians, the everyone else, and the Person Who Just Can't Deal Yet. The table I sat at had me, brooksmoses, browngirl, cheshyre, charlesks, angilong, Jay from Poly-Boston, FMMO, and Umar. rmjwell wandered by to take a picture at one point.

After cheshyre left to pick up xiphias from Hebrew school classes, rivka and I sang MTA in unrehearsed harmony, which sounded really good even though we didn't actually arrange for the harmonies in advance. We also did a bit of riffing on Alice's Restaurant. I told rivka that we were planning on going to Tosci's, and she begged a come-along-with, so brooksmoses and I wound up staying a bit later than we would otherwise. We hung out in the consuite, and I curled up around him and hung on rather a lot.

Staying late was worth it, though; the last con event was the showing of a documentary about a family that was actually at said con, and it was . . . the only word I have for it is "real". I asked for a copy of the tape.

Afterwards, we collected rivka and curiousangel, got tailed by pixel and a pixel-partner, and zipped up to Alewife, and went from there down to Central Square to Tosci's. And it was good, even if they didn't have ginger snap molasses yesterday. (*snif*) And then we gave them a lift to the airport, because we were going right there anyway to go home.

And then brooksmoses and I went and snuggled for a while and worked on patching our drama, and then we went and got Kevin at the airport.


And that was my weekend.

Comments

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Nice icon. 8)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you. :) Nice fish. ;)

I *heart* the Robin Wood Tarot deck... gorgeous, expressive pictures. So is the Page of Cups your significator? ;)

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I'm a big Rider-Waite fan, since I tend toward the traditional (and since I've got a copy of Waite's "Pictorial Key to the Tarot" that my father had kicking around in the 60's...).

I'm going to have to go read your journal now. Hmmm... Interesting people to poke at, hooray.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *blush* :) I shall endeavor to return the favor... but I really need to get writing on NaNoWriMo. I've been messing around with my social LJ all day instead of writing. Heh. ;)