azurelunatic | Belated FOGcon entry, for Sunday March 8th

Despite it having been timechange weekend, I had got to bed early, and then woke up disgustingly early, fully perky and ready to get things done. I had a leisurely morning where I did not feel obligated to do any of the things, just get dressed and pack. It was fortunate that I'd woken early, as all of my alarms were set to only go off when I'm at home, and be silent when I'm elsewhere (like at work, but also at hotel). I hauled my stuff downstairs, checked out, and then realized that the valet queue was ridiculous. I promptly found a chair, parked my bags, and joined lobbycon.

I got a chance to chat with Wendy; that was nice.

I saw

ckd; the name on the badge didn't mean much to me, but the blue shark picture did. "Oh!" I said. I know that shark! You are a helpful person who I have known in passing for years! So that was nice. He passed along greetings on behalf of

aedifica as well.

Having seen him sillydrunk and being a fucking perfect unicorn the night before, it was no surprise that Naamen was gloriously hung-over.

The next little circle over was having a fascinating conversation about Supernatural. I had thoughts and feelings. It was thus that I met

geardrops and

doriangrayscale.

For the record, my feelings about Supernatural season 5 episode 22 are as follows:

The episode STARTS THE FUCK OUT with Chuck explaining how much the Impala means to these guys. That is a hell of a fucking shotgun. We have just spent the previous episodes watching these guys lose basically everyone and everything that is dear to them. They are in dire fucking peril. Ellen and Jo have died back in episode 10 of this season. Bobby gets killed.

AND SUDDENLY GOD SNAPS HIS FINGERS AND BOBBY IS ALIVE AGAIN AND DEAN IS OKAY AND IT WAS ESSENTIALLY A MAGIC RESET BUTTON AND IT FEELS LIKE CHEATING AND BTW ELLEN AND JO ARE STILL DEAD.

When Chuck explained that the Impala was their FUCKING HOME I braced myself, because I knew they were going to lose the Impala.

THEY DIDN'T LOSE THE IMPALA. THE ONE MAJOR SYMBOLIC THING THAT COULD HAVE SO VERY FUCKING EASILY BEEN SUCKED INTO THE GODDAMN PIT, AND IT DIDN'T, AND OH MY GOD THAT SHOTGUN WAS JUST FUCKING RIGHT THERE AND NOBODY SO MUCH AS LOADED IT. God.

I was recommended "I Feel Better", by Hot Chip, which is … a bit surreal. I think this was around when lunch arrived, because Carrie had fries, and they were very very hot. There was basically nothing vegan on the menu, which is unfortunate.

Seanan had been Out of Town, but made an appearance for Lobbycon, in all her mantis shrimp rainbow hair glory. It was very good to see her!

We got around to exchanging twitter handles, and mentioned our strategies for dealing with some of the low-content sorts of people who seem to exist to recycle the same five links every three hours on Twitter. I was abruptly reminded of something I'd seen during an [off-topic] discussion of home automation.

"They're -- tweeting like a lightbulb," I said in disgust, and then had to explain.

Emma and Cynthia came back through, and that was great. Topics included Janelle Monae (yay afrofuturist art) and so many books and shiny things. There is a tool that will let you know when bands you like are going to be local to you, but I am not sure where to find it. I need to check out http://www.elizabethwein.com/sunbird . I did not know that Ellen Kushner had written not just one but several Choose Your Own Adventure books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Kushner#Choose_Your_Own_Adventure_books

At some point after the valet line had cleared out, I retrieved Vash to load most of the heavy things.

Shweta and husband re-appeared also, and I went fishing for mippos with my party cane. (I have a cane with a rainbow tie-dye scarf attached to the front, and I had added a little book of paper for the con.)

Eventually it came time for the wrap party. That included some review of what had gone well, and who needed to either be sat down with a sock in his mouth or shown the door.

So there was a panel (which I didn't wind up going to, but sounded very interesting if I'd actually been making it to any panels) about how Whitey Brings Civilization is a toxic meme in general, and maybe when we're writing we might not want to do that thing.

So Whitey McMansplain in the audience stood up and started talking, apparently. (I have no idea who Whitey McMansplain was in this particular panel, but he's earned his way into not being Mr. Popular in the local convention circuit at the moment, at the eyeroll level, from the hallway buzz.)

When this came up in the discussion local to me, some dude who seemed to have close ties to some of the other people talking cringed. The words seemed to fly out of his mouth without his volition. "Not all men..."

He winced, and the two possibly-ladies closest to him turned and Looked at him. He seemed fully aware of what he'd just said and why that was not the most helpful statement in the history of ever.

"What we need," I said, "is, all the guys who are like 'oh god not all men are like those assholes', we need to issue you sawed-off pool noodles. Then, when one of those men opens his mouth, one of you can come up with the pool noodle..."

"And I have long arms," said the guy, demonstrating his whack radius.

Eventually the wrap party too was wrapped. Wendy and some guy who also had some muscles carried some soda down for me, as I was willing to take some home, but was sort of limited in what I was willing to carry at once. We loaded it up into my car. The valet dude on duty observed that the car sort of felt like he was going to die when starting. This was a Known Problem.

I headed home, not being quite up for Dinner With People after such a delightfully social weekend. This is such a lovely fun con, and I'm planning to return next year.

I curled up in bed early (for me). Before I fell asleep, I remembered that Aahz had been wearing an "I Break Rule 6" button, so I googled the phrase to see if I could find out the backstory. The backstory is amazing: http://rule6.info/timecon.html

My unexpected early rising schedule would continue for some time yet.