Well, I hope.

After I returned home from the joys of Escapade on February 23, I promptly succumbed (on Feb 25) to a horrendous, evil, endless, soul-destroying sinus infection from which I am only now able to say I am recovering. I'm still a bit cranky about it, as you can probably tell.

I actually missed two and a half days of work. I haven't missed that much work because of being sick in the last ten years.

It's been a while. I know. Again. I'm not doing well at regular blogging, am I? I experienced two moments of distinct guilt at Escapade when people told me they read this blog. And, at this moment, I'm experiencing a little panic at the idea that I need to be entertaining.

I'm becoming very experienced.

I should have blogged earlier this week, when I was on enough medication to send my brain to Pluto.

Escapade...Escapade...let me think.

I attended not one but two panels on the joys of Napoleonic War era slash. One was specific to Master and Commander and the other was a bit more generic. Since the Aubrey-Maturin books are the ones I chose to take for airplane/hotel room/spare time reading at the con this year, I was 'up' on the subject, a rare experience for me.

I also attended a panel on "the best stories I never finished" or something like that. It was about why some story ideas die half-born. Interesting, but not really productive.

I remember helping form the "shock and awe posse" but I'm not telling you what it was about or who the other guilty parties were. It was funny at the time, that's all.

I attended a couple of panels, I've already forgotten which ones, where I was obnoxious for no particular reason except that I felt like being obnoxious.* (It's possible I was mostly obnoxious in the privacy of my own mind, though. My doctor is of the opinion that I was already getting sick over the weekend, which explains why I was tucked up in bed at the unusual hour, for me, of 10:00 most nights and reminds me that I'd like to apologize to anyone to participated in Monday morning's promiscuous round of good-bye hugging that caught any cooties from me.)

I made cucumber sandwiches in the con suite. That's a regular feature of Escapade for me. Ever since my very first year, there's been some point at which I've found myself making cucumber sandwiches in the con suite.

I didn't attend the LotR panel. I've given up on complaining about that fandom and have decided, graciously, not to be bitter just because I seem to be the only person on the planet who didn't hear a fannish bell go off when the movies came out.

Go ahead. Indulge yourselves in hobbit porn. See if I care, you selfish perverts.

I learned a surprising number of things. Like that there's an unusual and rather inexplicable concentration of outspokenly "Christian" fen in Mag 7 slash.

Like that there's a noticeable percentage of slash writers and readers who are militantly anti gay marriage. (The illogic of some people boggles the mind, doesn't it?)

That last group, by the way, can confidently expect never to receive an invitation to join my new universe of a-better-kind-of-fandom when I get done creating it.

I saw a great many people I'm very fond of and didn't get to spend half enough time with most of them.

Then it was over, The End.

(* Speaking of obnoxious, I had a conversation with someone about why some lists take off and some don't and we came to the surprising conclusion that what lists, and maybe even fandom, need are a small but significant percentage of idiots. Say what else you will about them, idiots generate discussion.

For instance, I'm on one list where none but intelligent, rational people were invited to join and that list is lucky if it sees two posts a year. I've volunteered to be the village idiot on that one in an attempt to spark some discussion. I'll have to dig through my vast stock of stupid opinions on fandom for something suitable. If anyone has a favorite, feel free to speak up.)

It's hard to remember details when you've been heavily medicated for a week, okay? I had a great time, probably the best time I've had at Escapade in 3 years or more, which is saying a lot. I'm just a bit fuzzy on the details at the moment.

I did not, for instance, enjoy having my flight home cancelled and having to wait four or five hours for another one while in LAX, but it was very amusing to stumble across fen also roaming the airport. I have no memory of who I saw, but I do know I saw eight or ten people.

I remember that on my first day back to work, I discovered that the IT guy had been "fixing" my computer and that it was, in consequence, barely functioning.

I remember being told that our e-mail server had crashed and that, contrary to intelligent expectation, IT had not in fact, been backing up the e-mail files. I lost 1-1/2 years' worth of saved information, including the details on this new job that I was just beginning to understand and am now completely bewildered by once again.

Then, last Wednesday, I got dizzy and I don't remember much of the next six days.

I was ill, so I took 'ils' like Dayquil, Nyquil, and Advil. I took decongestants. I took horse-pill sized antibiotics from my doctor that cost $4.50 each. (Is that right? I got 20 pills, they cost $90 total.) I should say, I only paid 50 cents each for them because I have good insurance, but retail was $4.50 per pill.

I'm just saying. At $4.50 a pop, I really think I should have felt a lot better a lot faster, don't you?

Anyhow, enough about me for a sentence or two.

Note: I typed that last sentence twenty minutes ago. Surely I have something to talk about that doesn't center around my egotistical self, don't I?

By the way, I checked my blog this morning to see the date of my last post and noticed a pop-up ad appear. Please let me know if this is becoming a regular occurrence. If it is, I'm going to be pissed. I paid money to upgrade to BlogSpotPro (before they abolished it) so that readers wouldn't have ads inflicted on them and if Blogger is now putting pop-up ads on blog sites, I'm moving off of their server.

I'll work on something to talk about that isn't egocentric and I'll be back later, okay?