sorcyress | Entries tagged with burn suburbia

It's been a while since I did a con-report, so have a con-report of "My Memorial Day Weekend In Maryland But Not At Balticon", done in the it's-been-a-while "awesome/good/bad/ugly" style.

( Overall grade? A double plus even with the shitty parts! )

And it's not con-reportable, but it is good --I've finished a small amount of grading as I ride the train back home to Massachusetts. I am woefully underfed and still have plenty more to complete, but at least it is gradually getting done.

May you find joy in your life. I love you.

~Sor
MOOP!

It's Balticon! How did I get to Balticon you ask, when I had two separate ride-structures fall apart on me and couldn't leave Boston until about 4:00 PM? WELL LET ME TELL YOU!

See, about ten days before the con, I posted on my Facebook being all "boo, my second ride-structure has fallen apart I just don't think I can go since every method is too expensive right now".

And then my friend Dan posted a comment. (paraphrasing) "Well, Abby and I have been meaning to go to Balticon for forever, why don't you fly down with us."

Fly. Because Dan, in addition to being good at tech and photography, owns a plane. And he's been offering to take me up for a right age, we've just never made it work out. So here we go, I have an opportunity to get to the con I love above most others, and an opportunity to fly with a pocketknife. HELLS TO THE YES ON ALL ACCOUNTS.

So at about six thirty this evening, I was sitting in a teeny-tiny four person one propeller plane --the interior is smaller than the minivan I grew up in-- about to take off. I don't think I stopped smiling until the sun set and I immediately conked out because I do not have enough sleep in me.

It was _glorious_. It was so extremely glorious. The windows are so SO much bigger than on a commercial jet, and I can twist around and see out of all of them, even out of the back a little. We cruised at about 6,000 feet the whole way, close enough to see trees and rivers and mountains and farms --David reported on which farms had red barns. We flew over the Hudson and Mount Monadnock and watched a just _beautiful_ sunset.

(and I get to do it all again on Monday, squeeeEEEEE!)

This was the best fucking trip to Balticon I have ever taken, beating out (by far!) the year where I arrived on Thursday through a hilarious series of transportation options and beat everyone else to the con by a full hour. Riding in a tiny plane has done nothing to dissuade me from the opinion that planes are the Very Best Things.

I want to learn how to fly. I still can't afford to learn, but it's on the list, and higher than it was before.

***

As far as the con itself is concerned, well...

The Hunt Valley Inn was bought a few years ago. Between last year and this year, they...redecorated. It is _very_ awful. I described it as "the sort of hotel people who like the place I grew up in go on vacation". Galia described it as "do you know how many little girls are going to have their Bat Mitzvah's here?". It's...insipid and boring and drab. The new scheme is slate grey, cream, and navy. It's grown-up, in the worst way possible.

I miss the ugly carpets from hell. I miss them so _very_ much.

The only upshot of the redecoration is that they have started up this fabulous horse theme, and like all the art hangings are these vaguely sensual close-up pictures of horses. It's completely disturbing and utterly hilarious, and I am SO SAD I did not bring my Equius cosplay, because can you even _imagine_ how much fun that would be to play with?

Anyways, I'ma get Galia to help me take a video of me doing an appropriate big-no vis-a-vis the carpets. She seems to be the only one who feels the depth of my pain (I knew there was a reason she was my favourite robot).

***

I arrived at the con a bit after 10:30 at night, which was very late. I dropped stuff off, wandered around, and was just...home. I haven't managed to find Kitty-Aaron yet, but I played Junglespeed (with breadMarc and Sonya and Tucker and other people who I should remember the names of) and chatted with Lanthir and Ian-Beastie and Galia, and did my push-ups with Galia's encouragement and got some lascivious hugs from the pervy artist, and oh, it is wonderful.

About the only thing I haven't managed to do yet is dance with Larry or Chort --they weirdly frontloaded on the dancing this year, so I think I've missed the swing dance (BOO!) and the time travelers ball was more'n halfway through by the time I stopped by (I was just too late to get into a quadrille) and the teen/college club dance required you have a special thing on your badge --I have no badge, so none for me.

People are friendly and wonderful. I am happy. Even if the new carpet is the most boring and awful carpet ever. The older carpet may have been ugly as sin's baby, but at least it had character and was interesting! This is so very derivative and insipid I don't even know where to start.

Hope all y'all are okay.

~Sor
MOOP!

Crossposts: http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/719094.html

So, it's not a line that will make sense to very many of you, as there is not so much overlap between my friends list and hers, but I was charmed last night when I found myself saying "I may have to write up the last hour of my life simply because it had so much ridiculous in it that I feel like Racheline".

(And of course, there is enough of an age gap between us that her ridiculous can echo memories in a manner that I simply do not yet have the experience to do, but the idea of how sometimes all the world aligns to be so strange and yet somehow entirely correct is a concept that I find very dear.)

And so that's how the bunny scampering away from me on the sidewalk last night (towards where I was going, foolish thing, meaning I kept scaring it further away) came to shift my mood ever so subtle that last click it needed --there is a specter of suburbia in my little patch of city home, and that's okay, and I can be happy at life again. It was just so strange and wrong and beautiful to have a rabbit here --this is not Columbia, bunny, what are you doing in the city?-- that it put a smile on my face as I dragged myself up the stairs and into the safety of a room that feels like home.

The stories of what else happened before are much the personal sort, like the fact that sometimes I do need to cry where no one else can find me, because sometimes I provide my own comfort and strength. I am a girl who cries often, and being well-practised at such a sport makes it easier to 'fix' myself, though I wouldn't always say my fractured mind is broken. And there are things that cannot be changed and are nobody's fault, and just because there is not a clear evil to blame, does not mean that it does not hurt with an intensity that makes it hard to think and impossible to talk.

(And there are things which are, so clearly, somebody's fault, but the matter of intent makes it difficult to blame them. Perhaps I give too much power over myself to the people who don't need it, but I've always been that way, as I try to be better and better and perfect. It has never been as crucial to me to please myself as it has been to please all the rest of the world.)

So my night was strange, but it followed familiar patterns, and I was given the chance to walk alone in the dark, and listen to music pushed very loud. Dar is right, you know --as long as she's got noise, she's fine-- and despite being so aurally inept, I find that I can drown myself in volume, as a way to save me from myself. And while the patterns and thoughts may be familiar, the world is far too vast for that, and so I find bunnies four hundred miles from where I saw them last and laugh.

My life is sometimes ridiculous in how it plays out. I'm very grateful for that indeed.

~Sor
MOOP!

Marylanders!!

Come to the Rita's of collage park today, between 5 and 10! Buy tasty foods! There will be pirates, and money will go to Team Greykell!

Flyer

Also, in case you need more incentive, I'll be there in a corset.

~Sor
MOOP!

If I try to change the subject, that's because I don't want to talk about it.

One of my coping mechanisms --hell, my most used coping mechanism-- is to write. One line posts, quick rants, strings of curses...whatever. I fire it out, and a lot of the time, I don't bother to proofread or think much about it.

This is what twitter is for, after all. Letting people know the mood of that particular instant.

That particular instant. Moods don't last, and I've had more than a few awkward conversations because I let the walls down too low one night and hadn't found a way to hide that fact the following day.

The second most used coping mechanism is to mask. To find so many distractions, splatter myself across the internet, talk to so many people at once that I can't help but put on a happy face and pretend everything's alright. If I pretend enough, it can't help but become real.

However, masking takes a little bit of energy. It's a fragile goddamn process, and while I'm working on it, it's very very delicate. Trying to undistract me, pointing me back to whatever caused me to need to mask in the first place Just Doesn't Help.

So, why am I crying/upset/frustrated/hiding/etc? Because I'm in this shithole of suburbia. Because I'm sleeping alone at night. Because it's been x days since I've seen him or him and it doesn't fucking matter what number x is, it's too fucking high. Because I'm too introverted for this household, and I can't always have people nearby, and without people, I have to be by myself. Because when I'm by myself, I have to deal with myself, and in case my wildly zaphodic ego wasn't enough of a hint, I do not always or even often get along with who I really am.

Because I hate it here, and I can't escape. There *isn't* an escape here. I can go play on mein Das Nonstop-Programm¹ or climb my tree or do any one of another million things that will unthrill my mother and result in annoyed phone messages.

Because I hate it in my head, and without distraction, I *really* can't escape. Let me find my fucking distractions, okay? Or seriously, GTFO, because it doesn't help. Star-hugs-star only works so well, and it's really just well enough.

No. I don't want to talk about it.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Very obscure reference. Don't feel like explaining, figure out a way to search my journal or something, as I'm relatively sure I've reff'd it before.

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MOOP!

The Rantings of a Terminal Optimist

Entries tagged with burn suburbia

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