kalmn

i am cleaning out the closets and since it's less than a month (omgwtfbbq) til wiscon, i am putting it into bags and putting it into the trunk and bringing the crap to wiscon. er, i mean the awesome stuff i don't wear. because it is awesome. i just don't wear it.

women's clothing, 2-3x, 22 or 24. higher femme, dress up stuff. dresses and jackets and some skirts.
men's clothing, 2x, some xl. flannel and stompy stuff. mostly shirts.

if you are thinking oh, i would bring AWESOME FATTY CLOTHING stuff to the clothing swap if only i were local, and you have some money to throw at this problem, you can ship me stuff, and i will throw it in my trunk and drive it there.

there needs to be more fatty clothing at the clothing swap. so we can all look super awesome in new to us clothes.

(i'm serious about the driving it there offer-- if you're interested, drop a comment and i'll get you my address. you don't have to clean out your closets, but if there are one or two "oh, this awesome piece should go to someone who would wear it more...", it would be pretty cheap for you to ship it. or, hey, send me a big box.)

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.

wiscon just posted ecube 4, which has a status report, a draft statement of principles, and some notes about help wanted.

i understand that some people, at this point, are watching what's going on with wiscon and thinking boy, there's some problems there, i need to take a step back. that's fine. you need to take care of yourself first. please do. please understand that i hope to see you again in the future, but not at a cost to yourself.

however, if anyone out there is watching what's going on with wiscon, and thinking. boy, that's messed up, there's some problems there, boy, i could help fix that, that gladdens my heart. because we have opportunities to help fix that. yes we do.

for me, i am the childcare co-coordinator, and childcare is going well at the moment, but i could use some bodies at the con to either go hold babies, go play with toddlers, or play with the older kids. if you like kids, you can choose your own age group.

i am also the parties coordinator, and this is the one i really need some help with. i need someone to go to parties. that's it! go to the parties! (okay, also, check in and see how they're doing.) you and i would set up a schedule and say "hey, how's it going?" to the party hosts.

if you are interested in either of those, you can email me at childcare35 or parties35 at wiscon dot info, or leave a comment here.

you said something a while ago, that i didn't read (tl;dr) because i have little patience for what's been termed duty fetishism.

it was apparently pretty wrongheaded to start with and in the comments, which you have deleted and then shut down all further commenting on your blog, got flat out racist.

what do you have to say about that?

are you going to apologize? if so, when?

i have some hope that you're sick at heart over hurting people. but it's hard to tell when you're not saying anything.

an apology won't fix things. i don't know if it'd fix anything. but it'd be nice to see.

signed,
betsy,
who until she had a mortgage owned everything you'd ever written and up until oh, early september was recommending one of your books up down and sideways to everyone who'd listen.

(comments from people not on my accesslist screened; everything that's not russian spam unscreened as soon as i'm near a keyboard.)(settings on lj will be set the same as soon as i get over there)

(edited to fix commenting. that's a global, not per entry setting! how aggravating! sorry!)

i have this weird talent. i can write panel descriptions.

do you have a panel you'd like to see at wiscon but you're not quite sure how to write the panel description? tell me about it. give me a title, give me a subject, give me a quick description of it. i will write it up and send it back to you and then you can submit it, or if you'd rather not, i can submit it.

i have no freaking idea what disad i took to get this skill. no clue at all.

(comments screened just so people don't look and go "ooh nooo someone already suggested that but better")

mostly i post things friendslocked. but i thought i would post something here after wiscon. can you tell it's 1219am cdt on monday night? i have no sentences. so, if a person found me before i found them, they could comment here.