alt.polycon 9 report - part I

[rivka]

curiousangel and I arrived at the apc9 hotel around 10:30, after a mostly-smooth trip punctuated by minor traumas such as a 4:50am wake-up call and a stiletto-heeled, hot-pantsed taxi driver who ran out of gas just outside the Westin. ("It's okay, I got fuel injection. I know it's bad for the cah, but I got enough to get you folks to the door." Well, maybe to the mouth of the parking lot.) The hotel found us a vacant room so that we could check in right away, which curiousangel took immediate advantage of by settling in for a nap. I was too excited to sleep, so instead I went off to prowl the hotel.

I met and hugged a few folks in the lobby (including Aahz and firecat), and then called fourgates and demanded that he come down to the lobby to entertain me. He was easy to convince. We settled in on an ultra-high-backed moss green velvet couch, in view of a house-sized window with a view of hills, water, and flocks of wheeling birds. (I may comment later on the hotel's design sensibility, which I loved. Moss green, grey, dark wood, clean lines, tall windows, and a refreshing absence of gilt and flourish.) fourgates and I talked and cuddled and generally got caught up on each other's lives. After a while mittelschmertz spied us from the balcony and came down to chat with us. The three of us wound up having lunch together at Bertucci's, which was noisy and crowded but had excellent hot rolls and put whole cloves of roasted garlic on my pizza. We spent a long time in the restaurant talking, and at last decided that we'd better go register for the convention.

Up 'til then, I had managed to completely avoid the fits of social anxiety that usually overtake me before a con. But registration was in a small crowded room filled - overfilled - with people, many of whom I didn't know. I kept having to find corners to hide in. (Fortunately, the first corner I found had xiphias and cheshyre hiding in it too, and we had a pleasant conversation about the terrors of social contact.) I kept emerging from my corner to hug people and be excited about seeing them - kalmn, rmjwell, redbird and cattitude, helygen, who was looking remarkably well and happy, lots of others - and then diving back to the wall and waiting for the overload to subside. It was vexing.

I stickered my badge a little. "Bouncy, giddy, and terrified" went on right away, but it took me a while to work up interest in badge-code completeness. At some point, I added two stickers to the code: a small red apple meaning "I am allergic to apples," and a ghost meaning "I'm kinky but I don't like bugs."

Ruth Anne passed around menus from the hotel restaurant, explaining that they wanted our orders for the 6pm dinner in advance so that serving us wouldn't take forever. I spent a while in sheer choice paralysis before settling on lamb chops in a blackberry reduction. It helped that cattitude promised to give me a bite of his Chilean sea bass. I wanted curiousangel to order one of the other dishes I really wanted to try, but he obstinately ordered the lamb as well. Sigh.

Opening ceremonies were surprisingly brief, even with sixty or so people introducing themselves. Everyone seemed happy to see my squirrel - of course, lots of people already recognized her from my userpic. We did some more milling around, up to the consuite and down again, had a painless five-minute comcon meeting ("Is everything okay?" "Yes, everything's okay!" "Great!") and tramped off to dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Which was chaos. They took our orders again. They failed to offer us beverages, even after several requests. They tried to give us someone else's beverages, instead of letting us order our own. They left us to wait and wait and wait. But the lamb was good, and so was the scallop Ben gave me. And the company was lovely. I wandered around a little hugging people, and then it was nearly eight and time to dash off for the first panel.

This is probably a good place to stop for now. More later.

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Nice write up so far.

While you mentioned it to me at the con, my brain still has trouble linking "Rivka" with "social axiety." It's getting the hint, mind you, but you seemed to be handling it fairly well over the course of the weekend.

I look forward to seeing more reports about more of the con.

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

While you mentioned it to me at the con, my brain still has trouble linking "Rivka" with "social axiety." It's getting the hint, mind you, but you seemed to be handling it fairly well over the course of the weekend.

It comes and goes. Usually it's worst when I'm just entering in to a social situation. I was pretty uncomfortable there in the registration room, and kept having to retreat into the corner, but there was so much going on that it probably didn't register to anyone I wasn't actively hiding behind.

It came back, a little, in the consuite on Saturday night. I dealt with it by going out into the hall and having a long phone conversation with therealjae.

Most of the weekend, I felt genuinely social and comfortable. But remember, it's my job to talk to people I don't know. I can also fake social comfort pretty well, when I want.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

...a ghost meaning "I'm kinky but I don't like bugs."

Eh? How does kink have anything to do with bugs? Or is this a reference from the newsgroup which I've missed due to not having time to read it? :)

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

I think it's a reference to the fact that the "kinky" sticker was an ant.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Eh? How does kink have anything to do with bugs?

See? It shouldn't. But someone picked a horribly well-articulated ant sticker to mean "kinky." I refused to wear it, and so did at least one other person. Hence the ghost.