wiiiiiscon! (part one)

[kalmn]

it is monday afternoon, and i am writing this in my hotel room before going to the post mortem later this afternoon.

i have had a very pleasing convention. i was on three panels, two of which i'll talk about here.

we got in on thursday, and i tried to go to the bar to get something to eat, because we'd had some strange gas station meal at about 3pm, and it was now between 8 and 9 and i was starving. i tried valiantly to order cheese curds, but somehow, there had been a run on them and they were all out. :) i told the waiter that it was because we were all so happy to be in wisconsin.

on friday, i hung out at the gathering, and talked to a million people-- lcohen, replyhazy, clundoff, jinian, and many many others whose names or handles i cannot remember because it's monday. we then went out to dinner, with annaoj, dickens, and tinyhand, at flavor of india, where we arrived at 5:45pm, they took our order at about 6:20pm or so, we were able to get annaoj's dinner out of them in a to-go box at about 7:00pm because she needed to be back at the hotel at 7:00pm, and the rest of us got our tasty-but-not-worth-that-much-wait food at 7:15pm. in their defense, they said that they were aware there was a convention at the concourse, but not that we'd all be arriving for dinner at once. i mentioned that we would in fact be doing that for the next three days, and he said they would staff more appropriately on saturday and on. i still like their food, and i will still go there, just maybe next year not friday night. i then went and said hello to all the parties, and found and briefed my fabulous parties assistant, bcholmes, who did a later round of saying hello to all the parties. then, happy hanging out at parties, because i finished up with that exactly as opening ceremonies were done. i went to bed early-- my 3am days are past, i think.

on saturday, i got up, had breakfast ... i didn't write down who with. drat. whoever you were, you were excellent company, trust me. i then went and was on a panel at 10 am, intersectionality and feminist community, during which i said some things that i am pleased to have said, and also managed to shove my foot firmly in my mouth repeatedly and at length. ugh. [1] have now apologized to who i felt i needed to apologize to, but since i screwed up in public, i think it's important to acknowledge it in public.

on a personal note, i am thinking that while i am not in nearly as much pain that is noticeable as pain after ye olde bionic knee, where previously my pain manifested as fatigue, now it is manifesting as being muzzy headed. which means that i am more likely to say something and then think that that was perhaps not the brightest thing i have ever said and yet somehow fail to shut up. note to self: set phone to create calendar to take pain meds next year.

next, i went to lunch with jinian and the juggler at frida. it was a little too cold to sit outside (since we had all packed for may in madison, and somehow we seemed to be in april) and we sat indoors and discussed jinian's academic pursuits (she is a plant biologist, and it is fun for me to listen to her talk about it in that "this is really interesting and i do not quite understand it" sort of way) and whether or not the parrots in the picture next to us were based on real or imaginary parrots. in the afternoon, i went to the feminist coalition building panel, which was quite good, and the panelists made good points about how to tell which points you should agree on with your allies.

saturday dinner was with the juggler, lcohen, tinyhand, pennski, and bookzombie. we went for tapas at the icon, which was amazing as usual, and not as expensive as i had been expecting it to be. when we came back from dinner, everyone else went to the tiptree auction, and i went in and checked in the parties again. i came down and stuck my head in the auction, but did not stay-- it is a fabulous thing of the sort that is just not my cup of tea. i hung out in the bar for a while with commodorified and a few people winodw that i know of, and then off to the party circuit with the juggler.

on sunday, i had breakfast with the fabulous and amazing k-mo, and caught up over the past year. i then went to what is queerness, which was really a great panel. the panelists talked about what it means to them to identify as queer, which makes it sound boring and dull, but it wasn't, pinky swear. after lunch, i went to appropriate responses to cultural appropriation, which was fun and engaging, plus geoff ryman kept saying things that made the moderator laugh too hard to talk-- always a plus.

more parts later, but if i don't post this now i won't post it because i'll forget until too late.

[1] ppl who are now going to reassure me about how it couldn't have been that bad or i'm still a good person or whatever, please zip it.