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Arisia 2011: The Westining
Jan. 23rd, 2011 12:11 amI spent exactly zero minutes of Arisia hiding in my room watching Everybody Loves Raymond. Go me! (I did spend half an hour watching Adventure Time, but I was eating oatmeal, and anyway that show is hilarious.)
So it was a more successful con than last year's. I did spend some hours on Sunday failing to find purchase on the social tapestry — like I was scrabbling at the slick surface of a big bubble, peering down at all the happy people being happy together — but I'm aware that that was an artifact of my own mind.
We were in a new hotel, the Westin Waterfront. The convention space was shaped like an H (H for Westin!): two columns of event space connected by a lobby, which made the lobby the place to run into people. Almost as soon as I left my room on Friday I found myself part of an ever-expanding lobby-amoeba of flirting and chatting and "Hey, it's you!" (Hi, Alex-Herbert-Lee-Dirk-BDan-Kat-Brenton-Sparr-Nurit-and-all!) Although I never again achieved that density of connection, I spent a lot of time with a lot of people I like:
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herbertinc pulled me into an SCA dance, and although it was painfully basic (step-step-step-step-step-step-step, and step-step-step-step-step-step-step) and the caller asked me to step aside so someone who "knew what he was doing" would be at the top, I had fun dancing with her and currentlee. I caught ceciliatan in a very bubbly mood (she'd just won a writing contest) and got to listen to her burble happily for a while. I went to room parties: the pajama party (where the coefficient of friction between my satin robe and the bed was...insufficient) and the robot party (where I wore pipe-cleaner antennae and people played Guess the Robot with my T-shirt) and the pi party (where they had pi + e). Many many people complimented my new green Lennon glasses (which at some point since I last owned a pair turned into Ozzy glasses), and my Utilikilt (which I wore for three days straight). And I got way more than my fair share of time with kdsorceress, which means I met everybody who's anybody, because she knows everybody.
Dealer space was divided between dealers' row (hotel rooms transformed into little shops) and a big dealers' room, which shared space with the art show. I was braver this year about venturing into the more intimate dealers' row and striking up conversations with the proprietors — as a result, I came home with the next three Elric books, absinthe truffles, and killer bee honey, and got to talk to the guy who made Nathan Fillion's steampunk glove for Castle1 — but was glad to have the dealers' room / art show to kill time in when I needed to decompress without hiding. Kat and I were there admiring Shaenon Garrity's original comic art when Shaenon herself popped up behind us — and of course she went to college withmarcmagus, and was heading off to dinner with dirktiede, and it was like we were old pals. Elsewhere, there was a portrait of Londo Mollari in dryer lint, and some sort of 3D printer squeezing black toothpaste into the shape of a tower, and girls in gold Dalek dresses. (Sometimes, I like fandom.)
I gave blood again, and it went smoothly, although I think next year I'm going to do it on Sunday to minimize the effects of the crash. To recuperate, I spent the next two hours in a dark room watching the Korean monster movie The Host, which I'd been wanting to see for some time, and then watched the masquerade from beside the sound board. I felt good enough, later, to put on my Dr. Forrester costume for the Weird Science dance, where I fought for my right to party, posed beside a life-size TARDIS, and limboed under a large stuffed gar. I was too beat to stay past 2AM, though, and actually made it into bed at a decent hour.
Sunday was when I finally started feeling antisocial and unloved, and wandered like a man alone, but after brooding in the lobby for a while I found some people to talk to, and wound up going to parties and naughty panels 'til the wee hours. In fact, when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
jedediah called me from California, asking me to entertain a friend of his (Sumana), I was already too committed to meet up with her before I had to leave.2
At some point, somehow, I found myself in a hotel bathroom tenderly rickrolling a tear-stricken young woman into laughter.
At 4AM, Kat saw me into a cab — which smelled of smoke and detoured to Medford because Storrow was closed — and I made it home before utter collapse overtook me.
1 Of course, Kat knows him.
2 She wound up, completely by coincidence, hanging out with Kat andsparr0 in the consuite after I left. So at least she wasn't lonely.
So it was a more successful con than last year's. I did spend some hours on Sunday failing to find purchase on the social tapestry — like I was scrabbling at the slick surface of a big bubble, peering down at all the happy people being happy together — but I'm aware that that was an artifact of my own mind.
We were in a new hotel, the Westin Waterfront. The convention space was shaped like an H (H for Westin!): two columns of event space connected by a lobby, which made the lobby the place to run into people. Almost as soon as I left my room on Friday I found myself part of an ever-expanding lobby-amoeba of flirting and chatting and "Hey, it's you!" (Hi, Alex-Herbert-Lee-Dirk-BDan-Kat-Brenton-Sparr-Nurit-and-all!) Although I never again achieved that density of connection, I spent a lot of time with a lot of people I like:
herbertinc pulled me into an SCA dance, and although it was painfully basic (step-step-step-step-step-step-step, and step-step-step-step-step-step-step) and the caller asked me to step aside so someone who "knew what he was doing" would be at the top, I had fun dancing with her and currentlee. I caught ceciliatan in a very bubbly mood (she'd just won a writing contest) and got to listen to her burble happily for a while. I went to room parties: the pajama party (where the coefficient of friction between my satin robe and the bed was...insufficient) and the robot party (where I wore pipe-cleaner antennae and people played Guess the Robot with my T-shirt) and the pi party (where they had pi + e). Many many people complimented my new green Lennon glasses (which at some point since I last owned a pair turned into Ozzy glasses), and my Utilikilt (which I wore for three days straight). And I got way more than my fair share of time with kdsorceress, which means I met everybody who's anybody, because she knows everybody.Dealer space was divided between dealers' row (hotel rooms transformed into little shops) and a big dealers' room, which shared space with the art show. I was braver this year about venturing into the more intimate dealers' row and striking up conversations with the proprietors — as a result, I came home with the next three Elric books, absinthe truffles, and killer bee honey, and got to talk to the guy who made Nathan Fillion's steampunk glove for Castle1 — but was glad to have the dealers' room / art show to kill time in when I needed to decompress without hiding. Kat and I were there admiring Shaenon Garrity's original comic art when Shaenon herself popped up behind us — and of course she went to college with
marcmagus, and was heading off to dinner with dirktiede, and it was like we were old pals. Elsewhere, there was a portrait of Londo Mollari in dryer lint, and some sort of 3D printer squeezing black toothpaste into the shape of a tower, and girls in gold Dalek dresses. (Sometimes, I like fandom.)I gave blood again, and it went smoothly, although I think next year I'm going to do it on Sunday to minimize the effects of the crash. To recuperate, I spent the next two hours in a dark room watching the Korean monster movie The Host, which I'd been wanting to see for some time, and then watched the masquerade from beside the sound board. I felt good enough, later, to put on my Dr. Forrester costume for the Weird Science dance, where I fought for my right to party, posed beside a life-size TARDIS, and limboed under a large stuffed gar. I was too beat to stay past 2AM, though, and actually made it into bed at a decent hour.
Sunday was when I finally started feeling antisocial and unloved, and wandered like a man alone, but after brooding in the lobby for a while I found some people to talk to, and wound up going to parties and naughty panels 'til the wee hours. In fact, when
jedediah called me from California, asking me to entertain a friend of his (Sumana), I was already too committed to meet up with her before I had to leave.2At some point, somehow, I found myself in a hotel bathroom tenderly rickrolling a tear-stricken young woman into laughter.
At 4AM, Kat saw me into a cab — which smelled of smoke and detoured to Medford because Storrow was closed — and I made it home before utter collapse overtook me.
1 Of course, Kat knows him.
2 She wound up, completely by coincidence, hanging out with Kat and
sparr0 in the consuite after I left. So at least she wasn't lonely.
