post-con pajamas

is the order of the day.

I am tired today. I am new to this convention thing; though I’ve done a couple of earlier FOGcons, because I live so close by I just dipped in and out, buying day passes and going to the panels that were most interesting. This year was my second time really going to a con—staying all day, doing four or five panels at a clip, reading—and it’s done a number on me. I was pretty wrecked by Saturday night; Sunday was a jittery blur; I still feel shaky today. I thought I had a lot of things worked out by now, things about energy and introversion and anxiety, but the con thing is a whole new challenge.

And yet I love this work, and I want to get my little stories out there in the world . . . so I need to get used to reading them and talking about them. And when I’m on my game, I do enjoy myself. It’s food for thought; it’s weeks of grad school crammed into a few short days. For all that I physically feel like a wet dishrag today, my head is spinning with ideas. It’s marvelous input.

So part of this spring’s to-do list? Working up some con survival strategies. Because it looks like Readercon might be financially possible now, which means I’ll be doing this all again in a few short months.

Highlights from FOGcon, for me: running into a former professor and getting excited by her work all over again; hearing the wonderful Cat Valente read; and the panels on intervention, polyamory, and “when your traveler is my colonizer.”