I wanted to chat about the con earlier, but the backlog on my desk discouraged goofing off during work hours this week and by the time I got home in the evenings, my brain was fried.

(Remember the days when companies had enough employees to have someone cover for you when you went on vacation? I do...barely.

These days, forty-eight hours after I get back from a vacation, I'm as tired as if I'd never left. I have two more trips planned this year, one in May to see a dear friend graduate college Out East, and the Obligatory Familial Visit in July. I have to space these things out, otherwise the backlog of work on my desk would do me in.)

Besides, I had that whole SpikeFest to finish up in the evenings.

Con....

It was nice.

Very nice. The sun shone and the wind only blew a little bit and the rain didn't. There's a Starbucks within walking distance of the new hotel, which is pretty much all I ask for out of life. As a bonus, the beach was a short 2-block walk. A walk I took three times, with increasing enjoyment.

The hotel staff was helpful and charming. Especially the two delicious bellboys. Heh. Heh. It didn't hurt that there was a medical meeting going on when I checked in (young and handsome doctors everywhere!) or that a swim team (college-age, okay?) checked in to brighten our lives for one day.

Hmmm...the con itself, I hear you asking. What about the con itself?

Fine.

The con.

I had fun, okay?

I mean, I arrived at the hotel about three hours before my room was ready. So, I ate, for the first time that day. (I love having short layovers but the disadvantage is that you can sometimes go six or seven hours without the opportunity to buy food. On my return trip, for instance, I wound up with fifteen minutes of free time in LAX. I had time to buy food, or a book to read on the plane. The choice was simple and, fortunately for me, the flight attendants on the plane were happy to give me a couple of extra bags of pretzel-mix to tide me over.

After all that, I walked to the beach. Ahhh...sand! And debris.

Did that.

Walked back to the hotel. Watched the yummy young doctors and the sweeter-than-sweet bellboys. (Wondered exactly when I'd gone from being a woman admiring attractive men to being a dirty old woman because the attractive men suddenly became so much younger than I am.)

Walked around the neighborhood and explored what stores were within walking distance. Found nothing worth walking to. (Later I was to discover my mistake.)

Went back to the hotel. Read. Waited for People I Know to arrive.

That pretty much covers the first three hours. You'll be happy to know things picked up from there.

That evening...dinner at the nearby House O'Meat, where I was served a steak that was inexcusably tough, considering the price. Accompanying me to this MeatFest were Ashlyn and a couple of her Vegas Cohorts. (Later that weekend, said cohorts and I were to have a chat and agree that face-to-facing once a year via Escpade does not, for some of us, a friendship make. But we also agreed that if we met again next year, and possibly the year after that, we might all agree to become friends.)

PostMeat, I returned to my room and fell into a coma.

Friday arrived.

The con begins! (Well, no. Anyone who is everyone arrives on Thursday for Escapade. So, technically, the festivities commence with the Thursday Evening Encounters. These generally commence around 4:00 p.m. and involve various and sundry of us lurking in the hotel lobby, available to pounce upon and squeal over new arrivals.)

During the course of the weekend, I went to only one fandom-specific panel and to a handful of more meta panels.

(I'm a big lover of meta-discussion. I know it's become a dirty word in fandom, but get over it. The only reason people don't like it is because, as with all discussions on conceptual topics, it allows idiots to spout nonsense. Between intelligent, rational people, meta-discussion is very stimulating. So, it's stimulating at Escapade.)

I have little of interest to say about these panels. Some years I talk incessantly and make myself obnoxious. This year I confined myself to a total of, IIRC, three "raise your hand and speak" comments in official panels. That has to be some kind of record. (I mean, aside from the year when I was Between Medications and too freaked out to leave my hotel room 80% of the time. Let's all take a moment and give thanks for Modern Medicine.)

Panel the First: "Where Have All The Good Conversations Gone?" In terms, you understand, of the Escapade panel. Good suggestions ensued. Fascinating suggestions, in fact.

Me, I know that running two tracks of panels (one for fandoms and one for meta-discussions) is already a nightmare for the organizers. They've opened up a third track of "come as you are" programs that the attendees pick and schedule for themselves, so the smaller fandoms have a chance to get their own panels. With three tracks, you'd think each panel would be small enough that you could really get a discussion going, but it seems to me that many of the panels have far too many attendees to really come to any conclusions in as little as an hour.

(I want the world to like what I like so I have people to talk to in "my" fandoms and stories to read. But I don't want them all at My Panels because it cuts into my opportunities for grandstanding and hogging the conversation. And, "conversation" in Anne's World is a monologue.)

Next, I tried "You Can't Say That About My Friend" (How loyalty is killing fandoms) - I went to this by accident. (I meant to go to the SG1 panel in another room. I'm not a SG fan, but I thought it might help me talk to my friends who are.) This one was tedious. (No, fandom is not now and never was a place of universal kindness and civility. No group liberally sprinkled with people who are emotionally six years old and yet possess the invective of street thugs is going to be "nice.")

I arrived late (which is how I failed to notice, at first, that I was in the wrong panel) and spent most of the time thinking about how lame some Escapade panels are.

This made me reflect on Panel #1 at great length, and to remember some of the panels in the early days. Tiny rooms, a third of us sitting on the floor, talking, arguing, interrupting each other, and piling into the hallway to continue the debate when we had to give up the room to a different panel. I really think the tiny meeting rooms were an asset. None of this spreading out, sitting in the back row, getting lost in the dark gloom of the meeting room corners stuff. Nope, we were all in there, knee-to-knee and elbow-to-elbow.

Physical proximity (assuming all parties are practicing Modern Hygiene) encourages livelier debate.

About this point, I completely missed a panel I wanted to attend on how slash has changed with the advent of the internet. It's a pity, because I had a lot of mean things to say. Unusually for me, I also had some very good things to say. No one will ever know what any of them were now.

There was a panel bemoaning the fact that movies won't show "slash" that I wanted to attend, purely for the sake of pointing out that if it's canon, or "real" then it's not slash. The question about just how timid USofA movies are about discussing or portraying homosexuality in history is a completely different topic than "movie slash." I do hate the blurring of the lines between "slash" and "homosexuality." They just aren't the same thing. (This appears to be a battle I'm destined to lose, but I don't intend to quit fighting. There's little that has less to do with Real Life than fanfiction, even aside from the unrealistic portrayal of men in 8o% of fanfiction.)

Moving on, I did not attend the panel on LJ but I heard much about it. (Cultists!) Many things surprised me. The idea that a conversation started in one LJ "belongs" to the owner of that LJ and that moving the discussion, or carrying it on in a different LJ is "theft" surprised me. From whence comes this attitude that any one person in fandom "owns" a conversation? Still, I'm not on LJ, so it isn't my problem. (See: fannish conversation as AnneZo monologue, above.)

Similarly, I didn't bother to attend the panel on "what to do" if the pairing you like isn't the primary pairing in a fandom. Another pointless topic, from my perspective. I went through all of that in XF (I was writing Skinner-Mulder, most of the rest of the world was writing Mulder-Krycek) and have nothing to add.

Me, I think a better topic might have been, "what makes you think you're entitled to organize fandom for your personal benefit?" and if it weren't for the fact that I'm as guilty as anyone, I'd suggest that as a topic.

(rudeness removed)

I won something in door prize drawings! I never win things, but I won a $25 Borders gift certificate! Hooray for Escapade! Hooray for presents! (I put it with the $20 gift certificate I got for Christmas and went off this past weekend to have a blow-out. Now I have to find bookshelf space for five new books.)

Friday night - big Welcome Aboard! party for everyone at the con. I went. I wandered the crowd. As usual, I saw almost no one I knew. Always confuses me, how invisible I am in a crowd. I mean, I'm not that short. I must put out some kind of psychic, "I don't talk to strangers" vibe. And since my friends like me best when I'm in a different state, I rarely blame them for pretending not to know me in public.

Saturday...I slept in! Then I found Meghan who revealed the existence of the longed-for Starbucks and forced her to walk over with me. (It's good for your butt, Meg. Besides, I bought you a drink, as a thank you, okay?)

I totally wanted to attend a panel on what you, the writer, get out of writing your story (putting readers aside for a moment) but I got involved in one of those inevitable "hallway panels" that Escapade is so famous for and missed it.

(Most of the panels I wanted to participate in but missed, I missed because of these hallway panels. These are not infrequently the best discussions I have at Escapade. Once again...people excited about a topic, huddled together, all wanting to contribute and all having time to contribute because the group is small.)

I attended a panel about Methos just because it was being put on by a good friend and enjoyed it much more than I expected to. Much, much more. For the first time in a long time, I can almost see myself writing HL again. Certainly I was feeling the MethosLove to a large extent by the time I walked out the door. (I was even surprised to notice that my previous DuncanIndifference has mellowed over the years to a sort of amused tolerance.)

Saturday night was Sushi night. About nine of us walked to a restaurant. They courted early deaths or lifelong digestive disorders with sushi. I had the chicken.

After that, the vid show. I spent an hour working in the con suite (I generally do 3-5 hours worth of volunteering) then retreated to my room. I'm not a vid fan. I am, I'm aware, almost alone in this approach to fandom, but I'm at peace with my outsiderdom.

Besides, owing to a conversation I had with the illustrious Kat A. earlier that afternoon, I was finding myself inspired to abandon the SEN and work, instead, on a less-intimating story.

After a three-year absence, she pointed out wisely, you shouldn't start back into writing by tackling something the size of War and Peace. Take a smaller bite. Write a PWP or two in a fandom you find easy. Ease back into the process.

(That's one of the best things about Escapade. Those with knowledge, reaching out to give a lift to those of us pattering along behind.)

By the time I stopped Saturday evening, I had a 20-page start on my current Due South story and I'll be dedicating a heaping helping o'eternal gratitude to the courteous, patient, talented, and all-around amazing Kat.

I've always liked her.

Of course, she also pointed out that she spent 4 years working on her last long story, which was a bit daunting for those of us with WritingADD. (Besides, it's not like anything I turn out will be half as good as what she writes. Did I think I'd turn out a minor masterpiece, I might be inspired to put that kind of effort into a story, but I don't, I won't, and I don’t think I will.)

Sunday morning, the Big Breakfast. I did not miss it, making this the first breakfast in about three years I've managed to attend.

I went to "The Tipping Point." This was a panel to explore why some fandoms explode suddenly into supernovas while other fandoms grow slowly and still other fandoms never go anywhere at all. It was very interesting, in spite of the fact that we spent most of the hour defining terms.

I'd hoped to discuss the actual fandoms, instead of potential underlying mechanisms.

You know...how a fandom comes on the scene at the moment when a group of fans are ready and eager for it. It has, I believe, a lot more to do with characters and situations in the show/movie than it does about who is spreading the world and how. I think, if you could trace the path of the Exploding Fandoms, you'd find an emotional path laid out clearly. Fans run en masse for a new fandom that provides the right new emotional blast for them.

And, finally, "Where Do We Go From Here?" An Escapade Wrap-Up panel. Very interesting. I look forward to seeing what transpires next year.

In between the panels I attended, or missed, I spent a lot of time in conversation with small groups of fans here and there. Discussing characters, writing, canon, and other fascinating topics.

I capped the weekend by stealing three zines from the zine library, a fact I will be confessing to Ashlyn via e-mail when I tell her I'm returning them. I know they have to close the zine library so she can pack it up and take it home, but the last evening of the con is the one when I have a lot of time to read. And with the dearth of any new zines I want to read, turning to the zine library is natural.

I know you waited a week for this. I'm sorry it wasn't more fascinating.

But Mallory? I have your songvids! I'll get the disk sent this week.