Last night Tene and I got home from Penguicon 2010 at ... sometime around eleven. I'm going to do posts about the panels I went to (and I'm actually going to do them this year!), but I figured I would give an overview of how the con went for us, well, me.
Because we waited far too long to get plane tickets, we ended up missing all of Friday. I don't know what we missed - because I didn't want to feel bad about missing things, so I completely skipped over the Friday panels.
After two uneventful flights (first from San Jose to Phoenix, AZ then from Phoenix to Detroit), and talking to the rental car agency, we got to the hotel at ungodly early 2:00 in the morning, and promptly crashed into bed. Tene and I shared one bed, while Bancus and rlpowell shared the other (rlpowell is the one who funded our hotel room, yay!). Saturday morning we woke up around nine, left the room around ten thirty, and had breakfast.
I spent most of my morning hanging out with the Lojban people - Bancus, rlpowell, Tene, Matt, Neptunepink, djanatyn, Hugglesworth ... and some people I don't know the names of - and admiring the pretty costumes of other con attendants. I wandered the Dealer room/Artists alley and found some things I was interested in, but wanted to give myself a chance to think about before buying (this ended up being a good thing, and saved me a good $150 on a bodice I might have never worn).
My first panel was at one, and then I was in panels until four - when I got a half-hour break - and then I had one more at five.
At six I wandered back to the room where all the Lojban attendees were chatting, and it was decided that it was up to me and one other person to decide what we were all going to eat for dinner. I was informed this was because we happened to be the most picky eaters out of the group - I found this to be an understatement. The other person, who I'll refer to as "P," was so much pickier than me it was scary. I know I'm a picky eater. I've been working very hard to change this aspect about myself. And, most of the nearby restaurants were places that I would have been alright eating at. P was .... a lot pickier.
We ended up deciding (I ended up dictating, really. P ... kinda freaks me out. A lot. I don't like being around him) on a nearby Indian restaurant that offered takeout, and Tene, Bancus, and I loaded up in the car and headed out.
Unfortunately I was very disappointed with Priya's (the restaurant). Worst mango lassi I've ever had (which brings my total of mango lassi's from different restaurants to 3), tiny tiny portions, and ... I don't know, it just seemed to be low quality - especially for the price we were charged. Bancus footed the bill, and I worry that he was essentially ripped off :(.
After eating (I didn't eat much, which is becoming disturbingly normal) I went to one more panel - which I kind of regret wasting my time on. Then it was ten at night and I was tired and Tene and I decided to go up to go to sleep. This ended up turning into a sleep over - as rlpowell, Bancus, and I stayed up late into the night chatting about all sorts of things, and Tene played Disgeae on my PSP and contributed every now and then. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. We finally went to sleep at, like, three in the morning.
Sunday I didn't go to any panels, although I wanted to, but I did get to go shopping! I bought some nice steampunk goggles (pictures to come soon), debated over the bodice I had tried on the day before (decided against it - pure leather, which means it wouldn't breathe well, and I wasn't sure where I would wear it - I don't really go to RenFests, and it wasn't quite steampunk enough to match my outfit), bought a medium-sized bottle with a leather holster (Tene and I have plans for this), and got some nice, padded leather cuffs. A very lucrative trip.
Shortly afterwards we got back into the rental car and took rlpowell to the airport, then drove around (I slept in the backseat) for a few hours before going to the airport ourselves. We almost missed our flight to Phoenix (we were there early, but the flight was leaving early. We didn't realize how close we had cut it until we heard my last name on the intercom, followed by Tene's and Bancus'), and were very lucky we didn't.
One other thing that happened to me happened on Saturday that had me giddy for much of the day following. I have been a fan of Cherie Priest since I first learned of her at Penguicon in 2008. After sitting in on one of her panels I got up the courage to request she sign my copy of Boneshaker, and I ended up asking her if it would be alright if I emailed her and asked her some questions about writing and the business and everything. She was very friendly and told me: "Yeah, of course!"
While I haven't gone through with it yet, I'm definitely going to. I hope to become friends with her over email - because she is so awesome, and it would be great to have some connection to the writing world. But mostly because she is awesome and I think she would be a great person to be friends with/close to.
So much happened, though, this post really doesn't do it justice. I learned so much at the panels I went to, even though I didn't really go to many. I'm just so excited to share everything I learned.
The last awesome thing about this weekend: I had confidence in myself and my self-esteem was at a ... well good level! I felt confident and sexy and pretty and I didn't have any of that self-hate and self-doubt that has plagued me for years. The best part? It hasn't left me yet! I still feel great. I'm trying my hardest to keep this feeling working - and I think I've realized that it is (a least partially) a choice to be happy or not. I mean, I've been acting like my depression and my emotions are something that are being done to me, something outside of my control And to some extent that's true: I have a chemical imbalance in my brain, I cannot control the fact that something related to my serotonin levels is messed up. But I can control how I react to it. Right now, it's easy, and I'm scared of it becoming a lot harder. But I hope that I'm on the right path to finally feeling like a normal person.
I love you!
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