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geekchickIt's been more than a week, I suppose I might as well write it up before I lose it to my notoriously bad memory, eh?
I flew up on Friday around noon because I didn't want to try getting to Union Station for a 9 AM train and any later would get me to Boston unacceptably late. I had tickets on the noon flight on United, and when I got to my gate I found![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
madbodger and several other Arisia-bound folks. The flight up was uneventful other than bit where the pilot let us know we'd have to burn some fuel on the runway so that we could take off; I just kept repeating to myself "Not even I have as much luggage as Aaliyah" and it was all good. (You have to understand that after flying since I was an infant, somewhere between 7 and 10 years ago I developed a fear of flying. Not crippling to the point where I couldn't do it at all, but enough that I really would rather a drink and some valerian before I catch a plane. I'm not quite over it yet) Once we landed, I caught a cab to the Park Plaza and roped madbodger and (I think, but Spam will correct me if I'm wrong) ladi_lavinder into coming along with me since it seemed like it would be less hassle than taking the T.
nminusone had gone up a couple of days earlier, so I didn't have to risk waiting around until after 5 PM to get into my room as I had the last time I went up for the con. I sprang for a junior suite because it wasn't that much more expensive than a double and it was likely to have at least some amount of natural light. It did, which is good because there wasn't a lot of light in the room otherwise. I got settled in, and a bit later we met up with hyounpark for an enjoyable, if loud, dinner at Fire & Ice. I wanted to smack someone though when, while waiting for my meal to cook, I heard the girl and guy next to me at the grill commenting on the Kris Kross song the restaurant was playing at the moment. "I remember being five and jumping around my house to that." Oy. I remember being a junior in college and people jumping around to it at parties, don't talk to me about how you were five. And you kids get off my lawn!
After dinner, I came back and went to registration, where I got to see a very stressed-lookingpoints and watch shayde massage the badge printer. After a very brief conversation or two, I went back up and got cleaned up a bit, dug out an ankle-length velvet skirt and a black brocade bodice I'd found at Lane Bryant the day before and wandered downstairs to a party. It felt a little odd, because I hadn't seen the host or many of my other friends there in something like five years (Tim, when was I last at Arisia before this year?) and I didn't recognize the vast majority of people at the party. Since I was tired and not feeling overly social, I ended up nibbling on some of the fantastic spread that was laid out, chatting for a while with a few people, and then ducking out fairly early and wandering around the rest of the hotel for a wee bit before heading upstairs and playing hermit. I had meant to swing by hammercock's picnic, but I felt like I was too tired to be very good company.
Saturday, I managed to essentially sleep through a couple of panels I wanted to go to, by which I mean I woke up and puttered around and didn't get ready to go out in time.anotherjen came by, and the three of us snagged lunch at Urban Pain because it was right there. I can't remember where we split up, but we tried to meet up again at the LJ Meet & Greet in the con suite. I also met the lovely tikva and Brodie, which was kind of funny in the "you're local, so I end up meeting you finally in Boston" way, and jadasc, and ran into teddywolf again, although I didn't recognize him sans hair. =) In the con suite, I ran into hammercock and trowa_barton. Ran into gsh here and there while wandering around. I'm sure there were other people there, but I'm very bad with remembering names...or much of anything else, for that matter. I have a mind like a steel colander.
Later in the afternoon I popped over to CVS to pick up some Diet Coke and a few last-minute necessities for getting dolled up, and decided to stop and have a drink or two in the hotel lobby restaurant before heading back upstairs. I always enjoy sitting and having a drink there and people-watching. I also got a good laugh at the piano player, who knew his audience well enough to know how well breaking out the "Star Wars" main theme would go over; it got him a loud round of applause from everyone within earshot. ;)wolfy ran into me there and joined me for a bit, where we had a very nice conversation while I drank my wine. It's always nice to find that you can still relax and have a completely comfortable conversation with an ex. I guess there had been some question as to whether seeing each other again would be uncomfortable, but that was quickly put to rest. After Tim had to run off for a meeting and to do some work, Chris and Jen came and joined me and we had a small snack while waiting for Tim to finish up and meet back up with me and Chris for dinner. One surprise that came out of this was when I got the check and the very nice waiter leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Forget the wine." Neither of my two glasses of wine was on the check, so he got a very nice tip instead. wolfy, nminusone and I headed over for Indian at Tantric Indian Bistro, which was decent. I had a mango-clove martini, which was odd but good. (If you think you see the theme for the evening, I assure you this was my last alcoholic drink for the day.)
On return, we split up and Chris and I went up to primp and get me laced into my corset and a pair of Nice Boots[tm] before heading back down to the party. Unfortunately for me, I was feeling pretty "off" socially that night; again I didn't know most of the people there and the ones I did know were all pretty busy and I didn't get much, if any, chance to talk to any of them. I did get a good number ofpoints-snuggles though, which helped a lot. I'm sure if I'd been in a better headspace I could've made myself introduce myself to more people, but I wasn't in a good spot for that. Spent a few hours at the party and then Chris and I went to go wander around some of the rest of the con to see what was going on and ponder maybe vegging out in the anime room for a while. We ended up running into wolfy again and we spent a while hanging out and talking to him while he shirked worked the end of his security shift. Sometime around 2:30 or so, Chris went back upstairs to read and I wandered around with wolfy and chatted a little bit more before heading upstairs myself to pass out.
Sunday, we got a late checkout but packed up early anyway so we could go have lunch and then come back and check out before we had to leave for our 3:15 train home. I took a quick wander through the dealers' room, but surprisingly found pretty much nothing I really wanted to spend money on. I drooled on some of the costuming and historical cooking books one of the dealers had out and looked at some spice blends from another, but nothing screamed "take me home!" such that I'd feel like dealing with stuffing yet one more thing into my full-to-bursting suitcase. Normally I can find something I'd like to spend money on almost anywhere, but the only thing I really thought about was placing a bid on something in the art show -- a small clay sheep figurine (shut up, Tim) that was dressed up as Jayne, hat and all. In the end, I didn't feel like jumping through even the easy hoops involved in placing a bid though and passed.
Didn't quite have time to go run upstairs and say goodbye to a bunch of folks on Sunday because we got back from lunch just in time to dash upstairs and grab our stuff, check out, and hang out in the lobby for 20 minutes or so before grabbing a cab to the train station. Normally I'd walk to Back Bay, but overnight it got REALLY FREAKIN' COLD with a wind chill of approximately -145 degrees (my ears got completely numb in the block and a half walk to lunch earlier that day) so we decided a heated cab was the better part of valor. Snagged the Acela to DC and ended up back home sometime around midnight. I was miserable company on the train because I was underslept and had eaten no more than the one small-ish plate of food at Fire & Ice for lunch, so I definitely had my crankypants on. At least I caught a brief nap, which helped. I can say definitively though that while I appreciated the "no cell phones" rule in the quiet car, someone shuffling cards incessantly is MUCH more annoying than any cell phone conversation. I couldn't turn around and pitch them out the door of the car, but I really wanted to.
So to sum up the weekend: didn't manage to make it to any actual panels this year, didn't spend much time overall at the party I'd come up for, didn't get to meet some folks I'd have liked to likemathilde and hnybny, and hardly got to talk to some people I hadn't seen in a few years. On the other hand, I met some new folks, put faces with a few other names, didn't run into anyone I didn't want to see, spent a lot of quality time with other people I hadn't seen in a while, got some snuggles, didn't feel like I had to do anything in particular, and generally had a relaxing weekend. Overall, Arisia was a net positive.
I flew up on Friday around noon because I didn't want to try getting to Union Station for a 9 AM train and any later would get me to Boston unacceptably late. I had tickets on the noon flight on United, and when I got to my gate I found
madbodger and several other Arisia-bound folks. The flight up was uneventful other than bit where the pilot let us know we'd have to burn some fuel on the runway so that we could take off; I just kept repeating to myself "Not even I have as much luggage as Aaliyah" and it was all good. (You have to understand that after flying since I was an infant, somewhere between 7 and 10 years ago I developed a fear of flying. Not crippling to the point where I couldn't do it at all, but enough that I really would rather a drink and some valerian before I catch a plane. I'm not quite over it yet) Once we landed, I caught a cab to the Park Plaza and roped madbodger and (I think, but Spam will correct me if I'm wrong) ladi_lavinder into coming along with me since it seemed like it would be less hassle than taking the T. nminusone had gone up a couple of days earlier, so I didn't have to risk waiting around until after 5 PM to get into my room as I had the last time I went up for the con. I sprang for a junior suite because it wasn't that much more expensive than a double and it was likely to have at least some amount of natural light. It did, which is good because there wasn't a lot of light in the room otherwise. I got settled in, and a bit later we met up with hyounpark for an enjoyable, if loud, dinner at Fire & Ice. I wanted to smack someone though when, while waiting for my meal to cook, I heard the girl and guy next to me at the grill commenting on the Kris Kross song the restaurant was playing at the moment. "I remember being five and jumping around my house to that." Oy. I remember being a junior in college and people jumping around to it at parties, don't talk to me about how you were five. And you kids get off my lawn!After dinner, I came back and went to registration, where I got to see a very stressed-looking
points and watch shayde massage the badge printer. After a very brief conversation or two, I went back up and got cleaned up a bit, dug out an ankle-length velvet skirt and a black brocade bodice I'd found at Lane Bryant the day before and wandered downstairs to a party. It felt a little odd, because I hadn't seen the host or many of my other friends there in something like five years (Tim, when was I last at Arisia before this year?) and I didn't recognize the vast majority of people at the party. Since I was tired and not feeling overly social, I ended up nibbling on some of the fantastic spread that was laid out, chatting for a while with a few people, and then ducking out fairly early and wandering around the rest of the hotel for a wee bit before heading upstairs and playing hermit. I had meant to swing by hammercock's picnic, but I felt like I was too tired to be very good company.Saturday, I managed to essentially sleep through a couple of panels I wanted to go to, by which I mean I woke up and puttered around and didn't get ready to go out in time.
anotherjen came by, and the three of us snagged lunch at Urban Pain because it was right there. I can't remember where we split up, but we tried to meet up again at the LJ Meet & Greet in the con suite. I also met the lovely tikva and Brodie, which was kind of funny in the "you're local, so I end up meeting you finally in Boston" way, and jadasc, and ran into teddywolf again, although I didn't recognize him sans hair. =) In the con suite, I ran into hammercock and trowa_barton. Ran into gsh here and there while wandering around. I'm sure there were other people there, but I'm very bad with remembering names...or much of anything else, for that matter. I have a mind like a steel colander.Later in the afternoon I popped over to CVS to pick up some Diet Coke and a few last-minute necessities for getting dolled up, and decided to stop and have a drink or two in the hotel lobby restaurant before heading back upstairs. I always enjoy sitting and having a drink there and people-watching. I also got a good laugh at the piano player, who knew his audience well enough to know how well breaking out the "Star Wars" main theme would go over; it got him a loud round of applause from everyone within earshot. ;)
wolfy ran into me there and joined me for a bit, where we had a very nice conversation while I drank my wine. It's always nice to find that you can still relax and have a completely comfortable conversation with an ex. I guess there had been some question as to whether seeing each other again would be uncomfortable, but that was quickly put to rest. After Tim had to run off for a meeting and to do some work, Chris and Jen came and joined me and we had a small snack while waiting for Tim to finish up and meet back up with me and Chris for dinner. One surprise that came out of this was when I got the check and the very nice waiter leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Forget the wine." Neither of my two glasses of wine was on the check, so he got a very nice tip instead. wolfy, nminusone and I headed over for Indian at Tantric Indian Bistro, which was decent. I had a mango-clove martini, which was odd but good. (If you think you see the theme for the evening, I assure you this was my last alcoholic drink for the day.)On return, we split up and Chris and I went up to primp and get me laced into my corset and a pair of Nice Boots[tm] before heading back down to the party. Unfortunately for me, I was feeling pretty "off" socially that night; again I didn't know most of the people there and the ones I did know were all pretty busy and I didn't get much, if any, chance to talk to any of them. I did get a good number of
points-snuggles though, which helped a lot. I'm sure if I'd been in a better headspace I could've made myself introduce myself to more people, but I wasn't in a good spot for that. Spent a few hours at the party and then Chris and I went to go wander around some of the rest of the con to see what was going on and ponder maybe vegging out in the anime room for a while. We ended up running into wolfy again and we spent a while hanging out and talking to him while he wolfy and chatted a little bit more before heading upstairs myself to pass out.Sunday, we got a late checkout but packed up early anyway so we could go have lunch and then come back and check out before we had to leave for our 3:15 train home. I took a quick wander through the dealers' room, but surprisingly found pretty much nothing I really wanted to spend money on. I drooled on some of the costuming and historical cooking books one of the dealers had out and looked at some spice blends from another, but nothing screamed "take me home!" such that I'd feel like dealing with stuffing yet one more thing into my full-to-bursting suitcase. Normally I can find something I'd like to spend money on almost anywhere, but the only thing I really thought about was placing a bid on something in the art show -- a small clay sheep figurine (shut up, Tim) that was dressed up as Jayne, hat and all. In the end, I didn't feel like jumping through even the easy hoops involved in placing a bid though and passed.
Didn't quite have time to go run upstairs and say goodbye to a bunch of folks on Sunday because we got back from lunch just in time to dash upstairs and grab our stuff, check out, and hang out in the lobby for 20 minutes or so before grabbing a cab to the train station. Normally I'd walk to Back Bay, but overnight it got REALLY FREAKIN' COLD with a wind chill of approximately -145 degrees (my ears got completely numb in the block and a half walk to lunch earlier that day) so we decided a heated cab was the better part of valor. Snagged the Acela to DC and ended up back home sometime around midnight. I was miserable company on the train because I was underslept and had eaten no more than the one small-ish plate of food at Fire & Ice for lunch, so I definitely had my crankypants on. At least I caught a brief nap, which helped. I can say definitively though that while I appreciated the "no cell phones" rule in the quiet car, someone shuffling cards incessantly is MUCH more annoying than any cell phone conversation. I couldn't turn around and pitch them out the door of the car, but I really wanted to.
So to sum up the weekend: didn't manage to make it to any actual panels this year, didn't spend much time overall at the party I'd come up for, didn't get to meet some folks I'd have liked to like
mathilde and hnybny, and hardly got to talk to some people I hadn't seen in a few years. On the other hand, I met some new folks, put faces with a few other names, didn't run into anyone I didn't want to see, spent a lot of quality time with other people I hadn't seen in a while, got some snuggles, didn't feel like I had to do anything in particular, and generally had a relaxing weekend. Overall, Arisia was a net positive.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 04:00 am (UTC)odd that i happened by.
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Date: 2006-01-26 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 04:05 am (UTC)odd that one of his friends is in my nouveau community.
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Date: 2006-01-26 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 04:56 am (UTC)Things like the security crew, we normally have about 7-10 people for the weekend, this year we had close to 30. It was also the first year ever I had a room so I didn't put in nearly as many hours as normal (I only did 25.5 hours that weekend)
The weekend flew by, but yet things seem very slow not much activity.
By far the highlight of the weekend was getting to spend time with you and Chris. Next year will be back to the norm I bet, unless I have extra $$$ and get a room again. Seems to keep me from burning out. Hey who knows if I have enough maybe I'll buy you can Chris a flight up and back just so I can hang out.
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Date: 2006-01-26 05:10 am (UTC)Yeah, it wasn't what I was expecting out of the weekend, but it wasn't bad. The only thing I feel bad about is not feeling more social at the party because there were a bunch of people there that I'd have liked to talk to for longer than I did on Saturday.
It was also the first year ever I had a room so I didn't put in nearly as many hours as normal
You seemed much less wiped out than usual on Sunday. Tired, but not the "I've been up and on duty for 36 hours straight" kind of tired. I recommend you get a room again next time, it seems to have been a good idea for maintaining your sanity this year. Sleep is a good thing, you should try it more often. ;)
Hey who knows if I have enough maybe I'll buy you can Chris a flight up and back just so I can hang out.
Nah, keep it and make sure you get a room and someplace to sleep. I'll probably be back up next time anyway. =)
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Date: 2006-01-26 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:12 pm (UTC)