We got the feeling of the modern world
That was the Arisia that was.
It was exhausting. I am never again letting this convention schedule me for an early morning/late night commute, especially when it puts me on even more panels than I asked for. But allowing for the fact that I slept no more than eight hours from Friday to Monday total and that includes the two afternoons I crashed for some unconscious blot of time in other people's hotel rooms, I think it went very well. That's not a Mrs. Lincoln. I got to see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel as Tom Stevens in the Post-Meridian Radio Players' The Day the Earth Stood Still, a smug Fifties gender-blinkered schmuck in a perfectly fine tie for once (I like the awful ones better). I moderated a panel on a formative author at ten in the morning and ran the experiment of reading from an in-progress story in hopes it would kick the thing into finishing itself already. I heard Sassafrass and Stranger Ways. I was on four panels with cucumberseed in the same room and really we should just have pitched a tent. (I accidentally synopsized an urban fantasy novel at one of them. I kind of want someone else to write it and I kind of want to see if I can.) I sat at the end of a fourth-floor hallway with rushthatspeaks and it was one of the nicest things that happened all con. At least ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kate_nepveu and I have now realized we should have been reading one another for years now. I baked and glazed a lemon cake at two-something in the morning. I bought the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's Dark Adventure Radio Theatre Presents: The Call of Cthulhu (2012) with a store discount left over from three years ago at Pandemonium and then Matthew Timmins and I stared in amazement and appreciation at the amount of material culture included with the CD. I drank a lot of instant cocoa in the con suite and the green room and had dinner at the hotel bar twice, once with Kesslers, once with gaudior, both times with entertainingly named cocktails, and failed all three days of my programming to eat anything before five o'clock in the evening, which is not a plan going forward. I was asked to read my poem "The Clock House" to close the centenary panel on Alan Turing. This year, the con crud did not even wait until the day after to hit.
I ran most of my panels on adrenaline. Last night Rob and I went to Cuchi Cuchi for his birthday (the Indian lamb, the burning rosemary, the Avenue) and tonight we are attending Burns Night at the Skellig (at which I metratatosk last year) and then I want to see if I can manage not to move for a couple of days. Or talk to anyone, possibly. That's all right.
This is better than last year.
It was exhausting. I am never again letting this convention schedule me for an early morning/late night commute, especially when it puts me on even more panels than I asked for. But allowing for the fact that I slept no more than eight hours from Friday to Monday total and that includes the two afternoons I crashed for some unconscious blot of time in other people's hotel rooms, I think it went very well. That's not a Mrs. Lincoln. I got to see
derspatchel as Tom Stevens in the Post-Meridian Radio Players' The Day the Earth Stood Still, a smug Fifties gender-blinkered schmuck in a perfectly fine tie for once (I like the awful ones better). I moderated a panel on a formative author at ten in the morning and ran the experiment of reading from an in-progress story in hopes it would kick the thing into finishing itself already. I heard Sassafrass and Stranger Ways. I was on four panels with cucumberseed in the same room and really we should just have pitched a tent. (I accidentally synopsized an urban fantasy novel at one of them. I kind of want someone else to write it and I kind of want to see if I can.) I sat at the end of a fourth-floor hallway with rushthatspeaks and it was one of the nicest things that happened all con. At least kate_nepveu and I have now realized we should have been reading one another for years now. I baked and glazed a lemon cake at two-something in the morning. I bought the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's Dark Adventure Radio Theatre Presents: The Call of Cthulhu (2012) with a store discount left over from three years ago at Pandemonium and then Matthew Timmins and I stared in amazement and appreciation at the amount of material culture included with the CD. I drank a lot of instant cocoa in the con suite and the green room and had dinner at the hotel bar twice, once with Kesslers, once with gaudior, both times with entertainingly named cocktails, and failed all three days of my programming to eat anything before five o'clock in the evening, which is not a plan going forward. I was asked to read my poem "The Clock House" to close the centenary panel on Alan Turing. This year, the con crud did not even wait until the day after to hit.I ran most of my panels on adrenaline. Last night Rob and I went to Cuchi Cuchi for his birthday (the Indian lamb, the burning rosemary, the Avenue) and tonight we are attending Burns Night at the Skellig (at which I met
ratatosk last year) and then I want to see if I can manage not to move for a couple of days. Or talk to anyone, possibly. That's all right.This is better than last year.
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I would totally read it.
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I will see what I can do. The King of Lava still sounds like one of yours.
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Likewise! The degree to which we do not actually hang out is slightly ridiculous at this point, considering how often we overlap.
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It really is! I blame introversion -- I'm certainly far more likely to join in with plans someone else has proposed than to think "You know what I should do? Hang out with other people!" -- but I ought to propose things more and seek them out more, because I always enjoy them when they happen.
Which reminds me, I was going to send off a restaurant-related email after Arisia was over and I could think about scheduling other things. I shall do so sometime soon.
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I like this plan! I cannot quite think about scheduling yet, because I've just realized my weekend is not at all full of hibernation and recharge (apartment-share showings, Readercon meeting, the noise of someone who wanted to ignore humanity for another week goes here), but I'm perfectly happy to hear other people propose some!
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Glad it was a good con.
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Next year you can come to Boston and sing at the Skellig. There is a lot of whisky and also three options on the haggis: ordinary, vegetarian, and kosher; hence the "Address to the Kishke." You'll like it.
Glad it was a good con.
I am about to run out of ability to keep moving on prior commitments and damn-it-all-ness, but it was. I keep being surprised this way about Arisia. There are reasons. The first one I attended put me into a three-day hibernation; I think I survived partly by seeing Mission of Burma in the middle of it. (They were actually playing at the Sinclair in Harvard Square on Saturday, but I had no chance with my schedule. I trust they will play in Boston again.) I think it's gotten better with every year, but I don't think I will ever leave feeling refreshed and energized: it is just too big and too crowded. I will thank the convention until the end of time, however, that they no longer meet in the Hyatt Regency on the Charles. That was a terrible venue. Even if I feel kindly toward their green room, in a safely retrospective sort of way.
(That was first contact with
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I would certainly read your urban fantasy novel if you wrote it.
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Arisia is never going to be my home convention, and there are ways in which I attend as a professional responsibility, not a social opportunity, but I am glad every year that I go. And see above: at this point, it's got memories. I'll want to find out what the next one is like.
I would certainly read your urban fantasy novel if you wrote it.
Hah. Thank you. I will certainly let you (and the rest of my friendlist, because it will confuse me) know if it happens!
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Thank you.
Anything else is going to be dictated by Tiny Wittgenstein, so just imagine I am smiling.
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Also you spoke (and read) wonderfully at Arisia.
It was lovely intersecting with both of you this week.
Nine
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Thank you. I am kind of sorry the only panel that was recorded (to the best of my knowledge) was the speculative poetry discussion: I know Tiny Wittgenstein and Tiny Richardson would be competing for shoulder space if anyone had taped the panels on morally ambiguous characters or unreliable narrators or future fantasy, but there was a lot of really intense theorizing in all three of those and I can only hope someone was taking notes.
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(Is April here on LJ, by the way? I'm trying to track down all of the people I met. I've found her elsewhere, but not here as of yet!)
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I found it a pleasant change to see you for more than five minutes at a time on consecutive days!
(Is April here on LJ, by the way? I'm trying to track down all of the people I met. I've found her elsewhere, but not here as of yet!)
What
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It's a con that's gotten better for me every year since 2008. I'm kind of impressed by that when I think about it.
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This is better than last year.
This, most especially.
I hope ye've had a lovely Burns Night. Happy recovering!
ETA:
(I accidentally synopsized an urban fantasy novel at one of them. I kind of want someone else to write it and I kind of want to see if I can.)
An you write it, I'll read it. I'd be delighted to.
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Thank you. So long as I do not schedule the rest of this week, I think it will work out.
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Thank you! I plan not to schedule next week insofar as it's possible.
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Thank you! I am entertained that I actually left that panel with an idea of what I wanted to see out of a future fantasy setting when I went in mostly knowing what annoyed me: I want coexistence. I feel kind of like my theme for this weekend was Science is a valid form of human expression too, damn it! I once built a radio telescope and I write poems!
It would have been nice to chat but I know you were busy generally.
I am never letting Arisia give me this schedule again. It was insane.