Disclaimer 2: You'll notice it gets more and more vague as it goes on, partly because I wrote the later parts later and forgot more things, partly because my memory is particularly bad at keeping track of a lot of things going on at once, partly because I am not that great at remembering people I haven't interacted with a lot.
Disclaimer 3: I missed some folks' LJ names.
The OH and I set off for the
airport around 9 am on Wednesday. Our flight wasn't full, so we got a
row of 3 seats to ourselves (the agent issuing our boarding passes even
*asked* if we wanted to move!). It was in the back of the plane, though,
and very loud. Reminder to myself to bring earplugs the next time I fly,
as most airlines are not Virgin and don't provide them. (I
Our flight was as smooth as could be expected. The one annoying feature
was that they showed the movie Signs, which we haven't seen yet and want
to - well, we certainly didn't want to try listening to it on those
execrable airline headphones, but we also didn't want spoilers, but we
couldn't avoid looking up at the screen every now and then. Fortunately,
nothing much was spoiled by doing so.
Upon arriving at Logan's baggage claim, we ran into
We were impressed by the hotel when we arrived - everything was very
spacious and artful. Our room was spacious too, and I was delighted to
discover down blankets and pillows. Of course the provided robe didn't
fit me, though. We went down to the restaurant for dinner. I was taken
aback by the prices, super-impressed by the bread (a trend that
continued throughout the weekend), and pleased by my pasta dish. We
ordered desserts and didn't much like them - the OH commented that
the pastry chef liked to cook "dry". And I was cranky that the waiter
didn't bother to refill my water glass (a trend that also continued
throughout the weekend).
We wandered around the hotel separately, and I made a visit to the
impressive workout room and even more impressive hot tub (which I never
was able to visit again, sadly, because of...well, that's TMI). Then we
went back to our room and unpacked. I fell asleep reading David Brin's
_Uplift War_ (one of my current projects is to read all the Hugo and
Nebula winners that I haven't read yet), which I highly recommend.
Thursday morning we betook ourselves downstairs and waited for
We went back to the room and logged on and relaxed for a bit, and soon
it was time for our second date of the day, with D, a net.friend of ours
for somewhere around a decade, whom we'd never met in person before. D
had planned to take us to the Naked Fish restaurant, but when she
arrived, she wanted to eat at the hotel restaurant instead because she
had only gotten her driver's license a couple of weeks before and wasn't
liking negotiating all the construction on the street. I had fish &
chips and wished the fish had been more crispy and the waitress had
refilled my drink at least once (the hotel had no soda machines, the
soda in the in-room honor-bar was way overpriced, and I was experiencing
diet cola withdrawl). The chips and sauce were good, though. D was
really cute and funny and I wanted to follow her home and meet her
family. I hope I get to see her again sometime soon.
Back to the room. Somewhere in here,
Mid-afternoon, I was feeling very nappy, and the OH went downstairs
to meet our third date - A and D. A and D used to live in the Bay Area.
Those who have been reading alt.poly for many years may remember that
soon after A and D got together, A posted the following:
A and D are living in cooperative housing - a set of condos that was
planned and built as intentional community over a period of 9 years. We
talked a lot about that, and I was very impressed by their report about
the tolerance for diversity in their housing coop. (I've felt leery
about some of the coop housing folks in the Bay Area because they've
seemed less interested in diversity and more interested in finding
people with fairly similar lifestyles.) They seemed happy and busy and
gainfully employed. I wished that D and I had been able to talk more
about her new interest in making mosaic art.
After they left, the OH and I ordered something from Takeout Taxi.
That didn't go so well, because what we originally ordered wasn't
available, and the delivery person didn't come up to our room as we had
been led to expect, and the food was not as good as we'd hoped. But they
did bring me a six-pack of diet cola, so I had my addiction taken care
of!
Soon
At dinner, I gave
After dinner was sleepytime.
On Friday morning I was feeling pretty cranky. Normally after I fly
someplace I need a day to more or less do nothing, and Thursday had
involved more socializing than was ideal for me (tho' it was wonderful
to hang out with everyone). The OH and I ate at the hotel restaurant
again. They were very slow bringing my coffee, and when they brought it,
it was in a container with an orange dot, so I thought it was decaf, and
I barked at one of the servers to bring me regular. When he did so, the
server who had brought it the first time barked at him and said no, no,
it *was* regular, just in an orange-dot pot.
Susan R joined us after we'd mostly finished breakfast. I'd not
met her before but I took an instant liking to her which grew throughout
the con.
Maureen came over too and offered to take me shopping later in the
morning so I could buy some things I needed (including more diet cola).
The four of us hung out and talked for a while.
Before leaving with Maureen for shopping, I ran into songbird in the
lounge. I hadn't seen him in about 7-8 years, and I'm glad he recognized
me, because I didn't quite recognize him. We hugged and talked about the
biography of Tagore he was reading. I need to read more Tagore, as a
couple of my favorite quotes are from him, and the biography quoted a
few more lines that I really liked.
Maureen, Susan R, and I went out to find stuff. Maureen took a
seat-of-the-pants approach to finding. We ended up driving quite some
way on a two-lane road, through some very pretty autumn-in-New England
scenery, and eventually reached Concord, I think it was. It was a
tourist shopping area and didn't have a pharmacy, but we picked up some
of our supplies at a liquor store, and the cashier directed us down the
correct road for a pharmacy, where we got the rest. Fortunately for
Susan we did not stop at the used bookstore, so she didn't have to
suffer the ignominy of bringing back more books than the books she had
brought to the con to get rid of.
I seem to recall that the OH and I ate lunch in the hotel restaurant
again, but I don't remember what I had.
Around two, the OH and I headed to registration. I got my badge from
After a while I needed some down time, so I went back to my room until
it was time for the Introductions panel.
We all introduced ourselves, and Bearpaw's champion
The OH and I decided to join the party of folks who were heading to
an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner, so we piled into
(This is where my brain starts fuzzing out.) What did I do after we
returned? Oh, I went to the con suite to
decorate my badge. I had some
trouble finding all the stickers and stamps I needed, but I managed to
specify the number of sweeties I have (4), my "looking?" status, the
number of alt.polycons I'd attended (7), and my participation in
dot_cattiness and soc.singles. I tried to put a "shy" stamp on the
badge, but the stamp had become worn out, so I declared a "fish" sticker
to mean "shy" too. I didn't put a LiveJournal sticker on my badge
because I was wearing a separate LiveJournal badge that I acquired from
After badging, I talked with Ian H for a bit, then hung out with
I tottered off to bed around 11 or midnight.
On Saturday the OH and I got up early because I was on a 10:00 am
panel, "Poly for Introverts." I was infinitely grateful to the con suite
goddesses for providing real dark roast coffee and real half'n'half.
Because of that, I was fairly awake for the panel (although not awake
enough to remember that it started at 10:00; I was busy adding more
stickers and stamps to my badge, including an indeterminate large number
of "tocotox" stamps - because how can you actually know how many
tocotoxen you have? - when
I'd been planning to attend the Renaissance dance workshop, but my foot
was bothering me, so I went to the craft room instead. I sat with
Folks began filtering back into the craft room from the dance workshop,
and the OH rang my cell phone, thus allowing me to show off that it
came with a "Ride of the Valkyrie" ring-tone. I headed upstairs for a
lunchtime conversation with Bernadette, Arthur, Kevin, Ian H, and
others. I lounged in the very comfy camp chair with footrest. I was
delighted to hear how well the menage-a-rie were doing, and sorry they
weren't allowed to bring their rat. (But the puppet substitute was
cute.) I wish I got to hang out with them more often.
After lunch, it was off to the "OSO Etiquette" panel. I'm afraid I don't
remember much of it.
After that, there was an hour or so to kill, and I thought of going to
the craft room, but I wound up going back to my room instead and
crocheting in total silence. Just what I needed.
I headed down to the "I can't stand my sweetie's sweetie" panel
afterward, but I wasn't getting into it, so I went to the craft room.
I crocheted and had a great chat with Peggy. Then
Dinner was at The Naked Fish. Maureen drove me, the OH, and Susan R
over there. Eventually, other members of the party showed up, including
We got back in time for the Poly & Disabilities panel. The most
interesting part of that panel for me was the point where
I poked my head in the craft room after that, and it was so full that
there was almost no place to sit. I was pleased and also a little
wistful - it felt a bit as if the craft room were a victim of its own
success! I went up to the con suite. Didn't really feel at home there,
either. Considered hot-tubbing, but changed my mind. Wound up sitting in
my room doing more crochet. Hey, I'm really getting the hang of it now!
Eventually I did go back up to the con suite. I think I was sitting on
the couch with
Sunday we got up on the lateish side for us and headed to the con suite
for a snack before brunch and to hook up with
Brunch was delicious, especially the
concentrated-essence-of-chocolateness "fallen souffle." After I ate, I
walked around chatting with some people I hadn't spent much time with
during the rest of the con, including
Next up was the Love Gets Glasses panel. I was impressed by a lot of
stuff that Ben said. The panelists did a great job - this and the panels
it spun off from strike me as particularly hard panels to run, because
of the vulnerable subject matter.
And after that was the Old Relationship Energy panel, which I was on
along with
I had been sitting way too long by this point. Said goodbye to
I brought the orphan objects d'craft that looked finished up to the con
suite, hoping folks would claim them. The dinner plan was for
Had good conversation with
I hung in the con suite until some other folks returned from dinner and
decided to watch some videos. I was feeling too fried to watch videos,
so the OH and I went back to our room and crashed.
On Monday morning, we had breakfast with the charming Selki, and grilled
her about her upcoming trip. She graciously offered to drive us to the
airport. We went back to our room to pack, and
===
Other random nonchronological memories:
treacle_well,
who was there
to pick up
australian_joe. Excited hugs were exchanged. We had very good
transportation luck - there was a Shuttle King shuttle waiting right in
front of the door as soon as we made a reservation and we got the
two-person rate of $35. We were the only folks in the shuttle, and the
driver offered us lots of commentary on the byzantine construction going
on around Logan, pointing out many of the ventilation towers that were
associated with the (Callahan?) tunnel we went through to get out of
Logan. When he found out what hotel we were staying at, and the price
our hotel liaison had managed to get us for the rooms, he was very
impressed. (Thank you, hotel liaisons!)
treacle_well
to
arrive (she'd promised us a Takeout Taxi menu and this provided an ideal
excuse for our having breakfast together). We ate at the hotel
restaurant again (I thought the name Seventy @ Third was kind of dorky)
and I was pleased by the buffet - there was actual crispy bacon! - but
alas, the Starbucks didn't register as coffee to my brain.
mittelweg phoned, and we made plans to
meet up with her,
jodawi, and
epiphany_69 in the evening.
NRE NRE NRE NRE NRE
I think that might well have been his last post. (But I'm too lazy to
dejagoogle it.)
mittelweg,
jodawi, and
epiphany_69 showed up. They'd been doing stuff in
Boston all day so they were tired and hungry, and (you guessed it) we
went back down to the hotel restaurant. We ran into Maureen in the
lounge and she joined us. Maureen was annoyed that the all-but-frozen
butter wasn't wrapped in a package, so she couldn't put it down her
cleavage to warm it up. (I was annoyed too.) I had a cappuccino -
normally I find cappuccino too strong, but with Starbucks it tasted more
or less like regular coffee to me.
mittelweg,
jodawi, and
epiphany_69 the gifties I'd brought for
them - a tiny rubber water buffalo, a tiny rubber rhea (well, some kind
of flightless bird, anyway), and a Fimo salamander. These were earnestly
played with throughout dinner, which delighted me.
tendyl and hung around while people showed up, including
xiphias and
cheshyre,
rmjwell,
australian_joe,
angilong
and
charlesks, Tal, songbird (and I'm sure
I'm forgetting a number of people). People said
xiphias looked like
the OH but I didn't quite see the resemblance - their body language
seems different.
treacle_well repeated back
all the names, so efficiently that the panel finished early.
porcinea,
Susan R, and I went to the craft room to set up.
porcinea had already
brought in an enormous selection of supplies for beading, collage,
origami, tatting, and so on. We created a list of supplies available and
a sheet where people could sign up and admit to being capable of
teaching something.
futabachan's SUV
(described by Ldot as "looking just like a Tonka truck") with
futabachan,
Ldot,
bcholmes, and
angilong. As you've no doubt heard by now, we proceeded to get lost
and wound up eating at a Greek restaurant instead (which was just fine
with me - I'd been missing really good cheap Greek food ever since I
moved to the West coast), then we got lost on the way back too...poor
futabachan and Ldot!
futabachan was playing some very interesting entertainment on the
way, so I got to hear the Buffy musical (I have never seen a Buffy
episode, so it was fairly obscure to me) and a Canadian comedy group
called, I think, The Vestibules. I especially liked their "gazebo"
number and I howled with helpless laughter over the "talking cat" number
because it reminded me so much of rock'n'roll fandom, which I spent a
lot of time amidst and obsessed with earlier in the year.
johno at WorldCon. I was also wearing a button that said Hugs Welcome,
so I didn't need that particular stamp.
kalmn,
porcinea,
redbird, et al. in the quieter room of the con suite.
kalmn was
crocheting something. I'm just learning crochet (yes, I know, I was just
learning crochet at APC7 too. I'm slow about some things) and I was
really impressed by her talent.
rivka gently nudged me out the door). That,
plus the fact that being on panels is not one of the things that makes
me feel shy, probably had something to do with my more or less "taking
over" the panel, for which I apologize to my fellow panelists. I was
glad that I encouraged everyone to speak in turn because I heard from
people I didn't hear from at any other panels. And I was fascinated by
all the different kinds of shy / introverted / etc. there were, and all
the different ways of handling it. This kind of diversity and
willingness to talk about internal states are things I absolutely love
about the alt.poly community.
redbird
and
cattitude and someone whose name I'm embarrassed to admit I don't
remember. They were beading and I was working on learning my basic
crochet stitches.
jinian showed up, so I
asked her to teach me how to do Byzantine chain. My fellow students were
cattitude and Wim.
jinian was a superb teacher, and I remembered how much
nicer it is to work on wire with good tools (I tend to try to make do
with fewer tools than I need, and then I get frustrated and feel
incompetent). I had to head off to dinner before I managed the hard part
of the chain-making (threading rings through several other partially
obscured rings).
redbird,
wandra,
the_maenad,
and some folks whose names I've sadly forgotten.
Our server had laryngitis and I kept wanting to wrap her up in blankets
and send her home to bed. She did a pretty good job of serving 10 of us,
so I left an extra tip even though the restaurant had added on an 18%
service charge. I had swordfish, which was well cooked, but the sauce
wasn't quite what I had hoped for. Guess I should have had it "naked."
rivka asked us
to indicate whether we considered ourselves disabled. I waved my hand
back and forth because I only identify that way sometimes. I explained
my reasoning, and I got the impression that some folks disagreed with my
reasoning and maybe felt that I would be better off identifying as
disabled. I never did follow up on this impression, though.
jodawi and
epiphany_69.
serenejournal sat with me for a while, then
we went out into the hall to talk privately. The OH came along and
reminded us that talking in the hall probably wasn't a good idea (might
be noisy for other guests). We all went to my room for a bit. Then
serenejournal went off to bed, having arranged to meet us in the con suite the
next morning, and the OH and I went to bed.
serenejournal. Dragged her back
to our room; the three of us talked for a bit, then the OH went back
to the con suite, and the two of us talked for a while more.
serenejournal went
off to pack, I went back to the con suite, grumpy because the OH and
I had had a bit of a tiff in front of
serenejournal, and dragged him back to
the room to whine at him. He was very gracious and patient about this
(*smooch*). We went back to the con suite again after that. Shortly
someone came in to announce that brunch had been set up in a different
place than we'd thought it was going to be, and early. So everyone in
the con suite piled into the elevators and headed down to brunch. Where
we waited until the appointed time, so that the vegans and people with
food allergies and vegetarians could get their food first (eminently
fair).
rosefox, and
brian1789
and
patgreene. Then I
headed into the craft room to pick up my books.
porcinea and I spent some
time working on Byzantine chain, and I figured out the tricky part.
The OH came in with
lcohen and Ayana, who were visiting briefly and being
introduced to all and sundry, and I collected some more good hugs.
wcg, Bearpaw, and Lisa. Definitely a great panel to end the
con with. I came away from it with a better sense that my own
sweetieships (all long-term) are on solid footing. I really enjoyed the
energy between Bearpaw and Lisa, and the wisdom offered by
wcg and
pagawne.
kalmn,
went up to the con suite, snacked, talked with
pagawne for a bit.
porcinea
and I hung out in her room for a while. Then we went downstairs to start
cleaning up the craft room. I loved the way it looked -- beads and paper
scattered everywhere, the signs of a bunch of folks having a really good
time playing and making stuff. (Sadly, some tools hadn't been put back
as requested, and so it was hard to determine their owners.)
mittelweg,
jodawi,
angilong and
charlesks,
nex0s, and
the OH and me (did I forget anyone?)
to go out somewhere nearby. That got put on hold when
teal7 phoned the
con suite. At first folks were having trouble hearing her, and finally
we discovered that shutting one person at a time into the kitchen was
the best way to talk with her.
nex0s,
angilong, and
mittelweg all talked with
her for a while. In the meantime, we'd decided to do Takeout Taxi
instead of going out. Everyone put in their orders and the OH and
jodawi
went down to the lobby to play fetch.
charlesks & others. When food arrived, ate part
of a calzone the size of a small planet. Watched
jinian and
mittelweg make
crowns out of a box of colored packing popcorn. It was the dissolvable
kind made out of starch, and apparently if you just dampened it, bits
would stick together firmly.
mittelweg showed up for a
chat. The three of us did lunch (at the hotel restaurant again), then
the OH and I finished packing and headed downstairs. Said goodbye to
jinian,
jodawi, and
mittelweg. Headed off to the airport with Selki, who
expertly negotiated the scary Boston traffic and got us there with lots
of time to spare.
rosefox.
serenejournal her giftie (a tiny rubber creature that I was calling a
wombat, although I suspect it might have been a hedgehog or porcupine).
serenejournal giving me my giftie, a lovely origami ball she made in the craft
room.
redbird looks really buff.
pixel.
nex0s in her clubbing clothes could substitute for coffee in
the morning.
angilong wrapped up in using the computer in the con suite.
mittelweg.
epiphany_69 threatening to bring me tiny cakes.
pagawne.
mittelweg give a backrub to
xiphias and feeling envious of both of them.
bcholmes a stealth happy birthday wish.
rmjwell not-announcing alt.polycon 11.
charlesks if I could hug him.
teddywolf was cute.