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rivkaI gathered my courage and spent Saturday at Capclave, despite the fact that I would inevitably encounter large numbers of strangers. And it went really well. I had a great time.
There were an awful lot of rasseff/rasfw people there - names that I'd been reading for a long time, although I'd never met anyone in person or even really had a personal e-mail exchange with anyone. Marilee Layman had very kindly offered to meet me in the lobby at 10am, so she was the first person I saw. After I registered and got my badge, she introduced me to Mary Kay Kare, and then to Kip Williams and Cathy Doyle and Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Brenda Clough, who wrote How Like A God. (I'm still not used to how, in fandom, getting introduced to authors is just like getting introduced to regular people. They don't think it's an imposition that you want to meet them - they just chat the same as you'd chat to anyone else you met at a party. I think this is really cool and the way things ought to be, you understand - I'm just not used to it yet.)
I wandered around in the dealer's room for a bit, and overheard some bits of conversation that I realized must come from Vicki Rosenzweig, who I've known for years on alt.poly. I think she recognized me about the same time, because we sort of dashed towards each other and met in the middle and hugged, and she introduced me to her partner Andy and Nancy Lebovitz (the button lady) and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Much conversation ensued. I kept being surprised to find that rasseffers recognized my name - I think of that as such a high-traffic group, and myself as such a recent and insignificant voice there, that I expected to recognize other posters but not to have them recognize me.
I bought buttons. My favorite, my absolute favorite, was one of Nancy's: "If God had meant for us to use metric, he would have given us ten fingers." I pinned it on immediately. It was just perfect for me, although probably not what Nancy had intended.[1] I bought a few books, including Guards, Guards, the only Terry Pratchett book I haven't read. I once again completely failed to understand or appreciate fantasy art, which mostly seems to be about thin but busty women wearing as little as possible and staring off into space with a vacant expression, holding either a blaster or a sword depending on the genre.
I had lunch with Vicki and Andy and wandered around some more. Taught Marilee how to play Set. Fell into raptures of admiration at Teresa's incredibly complex knitting project. Hauled a bunch of folks back up to Columbia for a sushi dinner, with ginger ice cream for dessert. Hung out in the bar and had a vodka tonic for painkilling purposes, because my hip and back were giving me trouble. Talked a lot about the WTC bombing - plenty of New Yorkers at the Con, for some reason. Lots of people wore buttons that said "No stupid terrorist is going to ruin my convention." Did what was probably too much psychology geeking, although people did seem to be egging me on. Hung out in the consuite until around 1:30am talking to people. Got introduced to Jon Singer, who I understand is sort of the fannish Kevin Bacon. Read Treasure of the Sierra Madres and Atlas Shrugged as presented in ten captioned panels for the Viewmaster. Met Keith Lynch, Extreme Libertarian, with whom I'd tangled in rasseff. He was either trying at great length to read my buttons, or, well. He was probably trying at great length to read my buttons. Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming. I don't know what I would've done if Marilee and Vicki hadn't been so vigorous about introducing me to people, but as it was I didn't really ever feel out of place.
"See you at Minicon," everyone said when I left. And now I think I could actually manage Minicon without utter terror. I'll know people.
[1] For those of you not in the habit of counting people's fingers, I only have nine.
There were an awful lot of rasseff/rasfw people there - names that I'd been reading for a long time, although I'd never met anyone in person or even really had a personal e-mail exchange with anyone. Marilee Layman had very kindly offered to meet me in the lobby at 10am, so she was the first person I saw. After I registered and got my badge, she introduced me to Mary Kay Kare, and then to Kip Williams and Cathy Doyle and Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Brenda Clough, who wrote How Like A God. (I'm still not used to how, in fandom, getting introduced to authors is just like getting introduced to regular people. They don't think it's an imposition that you want to meet them - they just chat the same as you'd chat to anyone else you met at a party. I think this is really cool and the way things ought to be, you understand - I'm just not used to it yet.)
I wandered around in the dealer's room for a bit, and overheard some bits of conversation that I realized must come from Vicki Rosenzweig, who I've known for years on alt.poly. I think she recognized me about the same time, because we sort of dashed towards each other and met in the middle and hugged, and she introduced me to her partner Andy and Nancy Lebovitz (the button lady) and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Much conversation ensued. I kept being surprised to find that rasseffers recognized my name - I think of that as such a high-traffic group, and myself as such a recent and insignificant voice there, that I expected to recognize other posters but not to have them recognize me.
I bought buttons. My favorite, my absolute favorite, was one of Nancy's: "If God had meant for us to use metric, he would have given us ten fingers." I pinned it on immediately. It was just perfect for me, although probably not what Nancy had intended.[1] I bought a few books, including Guards, Guards, the only Terry Pratchett book I haven't read. I once again completely failed to understand or appreciate fantasy art, which mostly seems to be about thin but busty women wearing as little as possible and staring off into space with a vacant expression, holding either a blaster or a sword depending on the genre.
I had lunch with Vicki and Andy and wandered around some more. Taught Marilee how to play Set. Fell into raptures of admiration at Teresa's incredibly complex knitting project. Hauled a bunch of folks back up to Columbia for a sushi dinner, with ginger ice cream for dessert. Hung out in the bar and had a vodka tonic for painkilling purposes, because my hip and back were giving me trouble. Talked a lot about the WTC bombing - plenty of New Yorkers at the Con, for some reason. Lots of people wore buttons that said "No stupid terrorist is going to ruin my convention." Did what was probably too much psychology geeking, although people did seem to be egging me on. Hung out in the consuite until around 1:30am talking to people. Got introduced to Jon Singer, who I understand is sort of the fannish Kevin Bacon. Read Treasure of the Sierra Madres and Atlas Shrugged as presented in ten captioned panels for the Viewmaster. Met Keith Lynch, Extreme Libertarian, with whom I'd tangled in rasseff. He was either trying at great length to read my buttons, or, well. He was probably trying at great length to read my buttons. Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming. I don't know what I would've done if Marilee and Vicki hadn't been so vigorous about introducing me to people, but as it was I didn't really ever feel out of place.
"See you at Minicon," everyone said when I left. And now I think I could actually manage Minicon without utter terror. I'll know people.
[1] For those of you not in the habit of counting people's fingers, I only have nine.
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