Arisia recap

[juldea]

Well, I returned home last night at 7:30pm, but rather than do anything important (unpack, clean room, catch up on LJ, etc) I sat around and listened to music and chatted for a few hours until I crashed into bed much too late. I'm gonna have a busy sleepy day, doh. And I'll be falling asleep EARLY tonight. :P

Arisia Events

Friday: Packed and left house at about 1. londo and I were going to take the bus to the subway to the Park Plaza Hotel, where the con was. Since we were dumb and didn't actually check bus times, we were out waiting in the cold for a bit. He was leaning against a house near the bus stop to get out of the wind, and I was standing near the curb. Suddenly, a car pulled over out of traffic and honked at us. londo thought that this was perhaps the owner of the house he was leaning against, and quickly straightened up, but the driver beckoned at us to come closer. When we did, the window lowered and an Indian voice called out, "Are you going to Park Plaza Hotel?" We blinked and looked at each other, and he asked again, adding, "I work there!" We notice he is, in fact, in a bellhop uniform. We climb in and get a ride! We still can't figure out how we were so obviously fen; I was wearing my cat-ear hat and londo was wearing his new pimp sombrero (don't ask, I'll get a picture eventually), though, and I guess those really aren't normal wear. Heh. Oh, for the record: I sent a text message to princesscurly while in the car with the guy, so that she could let the cops know if we went missing or anything. Luckily we didn't!

Registration, running around trying to get bearings and find where important rooms are, checking into hotel room, getting food at Staff Den.

3pm-7pm: Babysitting. Children of fen are insane. They range from adorably creative, intelligent, and polite to coming in and announcing that we will all be killed and replaced with better babysitters. Wow. I survived and had a fairly good time, however.

7pm: Panel on, basically, "Intro to Arisia and Cons in general." I didn't really learn much I didn't already know about cons, but I did get some ideas about Arisia (go see the art show, for example, and more clarification on the Masquerade, and how nice it is to volunteer.)

8pm: Wandered for quite a bit. Felt lost and overwhelmed. Found londo. Separated again. Sat in Con Suite for a while knitting.

10pm: Goth Beachwear Fashion Show. Disappointingly short and lame. Eh.

Went back to Con Suite. Knitted more. Socialized. Eventually went to bed 3ish?

Saturday: Woke up ~10. Intended on 10am panels; failed. Had breakfast and made it to 11am panel, "Fannish Eye for the Mundane Guy." Was fun debating what makes us recognize others like us, and londo and I told our story of how we were recognized by a bellman. :)

noon: panel, "No Buffy. No Angel. Now What?" Learned some gossip about the Joss Whedon group, and also some shows to check out currently that don't suck. Mainly Lost.

1pm: panel, "Beyond Sluggy: A Re-Introduction to Webcomics." Muahahaha. Got there early, sat in the second row. I was easily the non-panelist who spoke the most, throwing around names like candy. It helps to have kept up with 30+ webcomics for at least a significant portion of the past year. I intended on not advertising my roommatehood with kobold and instead just "spying" for him, but 3/4 through the panel there was this point where the panelists were discussing payment methods, and his fans had raised enough money to support him for a year, and that if he did it again people would begin to feel bitter and entitled... so I ranted about how it wasn't like that, it was a dare and he was the most surprised person of all when it happened, and he wasn't going to do it again. I was being looked at like I was talking out of my ass, so in the middle of the ranting I dropped, "He's my roommate," and the whole room rippled. It was fucking awesome. It was like watching a horror movie from the back of the theater and watching the audience rather than the movie. Hehe. The cool thing then was that kobold actually called one of the panelists, a friend of his, during the panel, so he handed me the phone so I could ask about my kitties. ♥

2pm: Found londo. Changed clothes. Ate. Prepared for LARP.

3pm: LARP, "Cold Storage." Small (14 people?) dramatic horror LARP. I played the pilot. Character was not quite what I wanted her to be, plus I totally fucked one of my character interactions up. Without giving away much, there were two named contacts in my character sheet of similar types; one of them was just for background and the other was in the game. I got them mixed up in a bad way. Silly me. Ah well. The LARP was good for continuing to help me refine what I want in LARPs. Plus my character didn't die. :)

6pm: Wandered. Found londo. Was fairly angsty and hungry. Was unreasonable about solutions to this problem for a bit. Eventually agreed on plan that involved ordering out. Talked to princess_muffin about LARP for a while.

7pm: Time to babysit again. One kid was dropped off, and there were 3-4 babysitters, so we were pretty bored. londo showed up with yummy delivered chinese/thai. Eventually the Masquerade started, so we began watching that on the hotel TV. Amusing but also shorter than I thought. The crazy killer kid showed up again, but there were still more than enough sitters for kids. Eventually I got to leave early (not midnight), wandered dealer's row...

Bought awesome button. Will eventually post picture, so be content to know it displays relationship status. Bought one for londo too. Suggested them to everyone I met.

Hung out in Con Suite, knitted, socialized. londo and I decided to take a nap.

Napped.

Midnight: "Club Dance." I dressed up all sexylike in a really nice velvety dress, but due to leg problems couldn't strut my stuff. Sad. londo and I watched the dance and were snarky. Was told by someone that "maybe you'll be poly when you're older." Wanted to hit him in the face. Enjoyed music for a while, then got bored of the amount of goth stuff that didn't interest me. Also, see above re: snarky. Eventually wandered with londo back up to Con Suite and socialized there for a while. Went to bed about 4 something?

Sunday: Woke up about 10, again? Pondered 10-11am panels but wandered instead, eating breakfast at Staff Den/Con Suite, looking at vendors, trying to make it to the art show but getting there right as it closed. :P Grar.

1pm: panel, "How Can We Stop Fans From Trying to Kill Themselves?" On health issues of fen; diet, exercise, mental health, etc. Interesting.

2pm: panel, "Fandom’s Flexible Borders vs. A House Divided." What barriers do we as fen put up, both external and internal (to the group)? The bastard who insulted my monogamy was brought up, as well as various religious and social designations, etc etc. A pretty good talk.

3pm: Was heading for the "Sunday Sundae" ice cream party when I was stolen by an InterconE unofficial con meeting. Hung out and was punchy with those people for a while. THEN went for ice cream. Found londo there. :)

Wander wander wander, socialize socialize. Most everyone is snowed into the hotel, what with roads and airports closed. The Con works to extend itself for everyone's fun and games.

5:30ish: londo and I concoct a plan for a P.F. Chang's dinner run, and he extends it to include bringing back food for others. Then our 2-person-date-like-thing turns into an 8-person party! I want to point out that our 8 people spent $200 total, and londo's carry-out order (for probably about 8 people) added another $200. Chang's should love us. Also, londo made $20 on it from people rounding up and letting him keep the change.

9pm: We return to the hotel and I go to the Massage Den to see if chaiya has an empty spot (I've been trying to get a massage all weekend long). I sit around to see if she does, and sadly not. Return to Con Suite.

10pm: Meet up with londo, go to nap. We have plans to sleep for a while, then wake up in the middle of the night and work late-night Con Suite. We end up watching an episode of Monk and talking for a while, then falling asleep around midnight. He's awakened at 2:45-3:00 by Con Suite calling, and goes to help without waking me up, letting me sleep. ♥ Unfortunately, he didn't know that I needed to be awake to call into work at 8 to see if I needed to show up... therefore...

Monday: 9:30am: woke up. Freaked out. Called work, told them I overslept, found out I did need to go in. Showered, gathered stuff, went to Con Suite to find londo. He was in full freak-out mode, but I got some snuggles in. I was in a horrid mood and grumped around a bit and in general dragged my feet about getting to work. There were also issues to hash out about how to get home and how to get my LUGGAGE home, since I wouldn't have a londo to carry it for me. Luckily benji came to our rescue, both giving londo a ride to the bus station, me a ride to work, and my stuff a ride to my house tonight.

1pm: Got to work. Worked worked worked. Was stressed.

5pm: Left work.

7:30pm: Got home. Yes, two and a half hours. Normally it's around one. Happily kobold had food (well, leftovers) waiting so I didn't have to worry about cooking (which is good because his cooking left the kitchen fairly cluttered!)

Futzed around, doing nothing useful. Went to bed at 11:30, called londo, talked for at least an hour about con. Fell asleep.

Tuesday: 5:30am, alarm went off. Reset it to, eventually, 6:50. No shower for me this morning. ;) Went to work. Here I am.

Wow. That's pretty long.

Arisia Thoughts

I had up times and down times. Not sure where it ends up on the scale, now that it's all done.

A lot of my angsty down times could've been fixed if I had thought of it not as something that londo and I were going to do together, but as something we were going to both do and possibly see each other at.

I had a lot of times where I was wandering around, bored, looking for things to do and friends to hang out with - and I would find the friends, but they'd be off to do things and they wouldn't wait around for my gimpy self or they wouldn't ask if I was interested or they wouldn't wait for me to say, "Hey... that sounds fun, can I come?" Now, I do know that there's a certain responsibility for me to approach others about socialization, but... Something seemed off. Londo says that what happened is that people assume that at a con like Arisia, you have something you're doing or off to do and you're not bored. Therefore if they pass by off to do something, they won't say, "Hey you wanna join us?" because they'll assume you've got purpose. Also, I complicated this matter by viewing the weekend as a "londo and me" event and therefore was unwilling to say, "Hey can I come along?" because I would want to check in with him first and see what his plans were. Sigh.

I am increasingly certain that polyamory is not for me. Some of the views and behaviors I saw at the con were not things I have interest in being a part of. I won't deny the possibility of change, of course, but I don't foresee it at all, nor want it. I am happy with my monogamous relationship. :)

I have some serious attention-whore issues, in that I was insanely jealous of many of the scantily-clad hot women walking around the con and wished I had better clothing to wear so I could strut my stuff, too. I did wear my cat hat a lot, and beamed every time it caused someone to comment. Intellectually I know that I shouldn't care about this, that it's cheap to be an attention whore that way, but... Dammit, those women are stealing my thunder. Or something.

The Dar Williams analogy I will leave for another post, because it's important. Just wait.

Next year, if I am once again injured/immobile in some way, I won't be going. It was too much trouble. I'll give it another chance if I'm mobile.

I got a LOT of knitting done.

I spent a lot less money than I thought, plus got paid for babysitting. Aside from exorbitant hotel costs, londo and I together made $23. Whee! This is good because I forgot to budget for Birka.

*pant* Ok, done. Heh.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I am increasingly certain that polyamory is not for me. ...
...I was insanely jealous of many of the scantily-clad hot women... Dammit, those women are stealing my thunder. Or something.

You incorrigible flirt! Sheesh.

(I should talk.)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. I'm a horrendous tease. I want attention but I'm not willing to give anything in response. :P

Well, hugs. And backrubs/scratches/etc. And friendship!

re: fen

[etherial.livejournal.com]

You are a dorkburger with cheese.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

And is that not something?! (I think so.)

P.S. your cat-ear hat is a scritch-magnet.

Re: fen

[juldea.livejournal.com]

And you were telling me about your Requiem costume. WHO'S THE DORK NOW?!?

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Re: cat-ear hat

The problem is that the scritches get applied to the hat and not my head. :( I need to make a cat-ear headband instead so I have accessible scalp.

[londo.livejournal.com]

You give the attention of a cute girl.

This is worth a whooooole lot to some people.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

*gives you attention*

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

But you looked all warm and bundly with it on! Next time I'll remember to lift the hat. :-)

oh yeah?

[etherial.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, which one of us uses a pretentious word to feel less dorky about being a fan?

That would be YOU.

Re: oh yeah?

[juldea.livejournal.com]

It's not pretentious, it's pedantic. There's a difference.

(Let me tell you what it is...)

nonsense!

[etherial.livejournal.com]

pedantic, adj. Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules.

pretentious, adj. Claiming or demanding a position of distinction or merit, especially when unjustified.

You're using a made up word to try and sound more important than normal fans. That's pretentious. I'm being pedantic.

Re: nonsense!

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Actually, in the comment you're replying to, I was quoting a button I saw at the Con...