Obligatory Con Post: ConFusion '11
Finally!
We didn't get there until, like, six or seven and then went out to dinner (TGIFriday's, which is meh but was close and not terribly expensive), so we missed the panels and things, but that was okay. We had all three kids with us, so there was fun in the hotel room until we got them and Jerry situated, and then I wandered around drinking and talking to people, and also made it to the chocolate ritual. I'll tell you a secret - I'm actually fairly shy. I get super uncomfortable when I'm trying to actually relate to adults, which is probably why so many of my activities (Girl Scouts, DI, swimming, etc) revolve around my children and their friends. I was terribly proud of myself, though, for not going to the smoking section at all, because I usually do at least once to partake of the second hand smoke, especially when I'm drinking. Anyway, it was fun all around - I stopped by some room parties and chatted with people in the hall (including jimhines , who I adore), tweeted at sheryl67 a couple times, etc. All in all, a far more interesting Friday night than most.
Morgen, my oldest, had a KidFusion badge this year and was awarded a huge level of autonomy. She thought she wanted to go to the belly dancing work shop, but when we got there and saw everyone involved was older than me, she freaked out a little and decided to go up to KidFusion instead, where she enjoyed being read to and then doing science experiments with every day things one finds in the home. (The food coloring, milk and dish soap experiment that I saw was especially cool.) She made a con boyfriend, who was apparently an eighth grader, and I had to give her a very, very brief sex talk (ohgodsohgodsohgods), explaining that boys that age might feel certain things, and that there was nothing wrong with it but she's far too young to be thinking about it and to carefully consider maybe not being quite so friendly - which actually felt really shitty, but you know. She's eight, and the last thing I need is a hormonal boy hanging on her and her getting curious too early. It all worked out okay so far as I know, or at least she didn't mention being uncomfortable at any point, so win. I think. The two little girls went to Camp Grandparents' as Liana wasn't feeling well and Kaelinn was feeding off of it, so it wasn't going to be fun for them or us if they stayed. This was a bummer, but it allowed me to wander more freely and go to some panels I might have missed otherwise. High notes were kaffeklatsch with Cherie Priest - wherein we talked about children, zombies, the south, and the real estate market amongst other things - and the panel about next generation fandom, though that . . . kind of got on my nerves, in some ways. Something about suggesting we assume all tweens and teens want is video games and visual media makes my teeth itch, and I don't really think it's a viable solution, but that's me. Nearly everyone's read Twilight, Hunger Games, etc (no, I'm not at all prone to hyperbole, why do you ask?); to bring literate tweens and teens (and thus their parents) to a literary con, it seems to make more sense to cultivate panels of people who write for them than to hand them more video games and movies/TV. Other than that, though! It was fun. Again, there was wandering around and pretending I'm a social creature. There was also shopping, which is always fabulous when I have money to spend. I got three CDs (sooj's Mischief, seanan_mcguire's Wicked Girls, Vixy and Tony's Thirteen), a couple t-shirts, and in general wandered around looking at the pretty. There was a Dark Tower game there that I seriously, really wanted but apparently it's a collector's item these days - if the $250 price tag is any indication, anyway. The dystopian YA panel was a bit of a disappointment in that we spent more time talking about the difference between post apocalyptic fiction and true dystopia, and what dystopia is, and what was wrong with currently existing stuff than anything else, but there were book recommendations, so yay! I can't complain overly much.
I was done with panels for the day after that, so there was wandering around looking at costumes and making sure Morgen was having a good time (sometime earlier, she'd gone swimming with the KidFusion kids, volunteered for a couple hours, and she spent the evening at a pizza/pajama party before going back to the room for bed), and also drinking and pimping out Hard Luck Candy vodka (and seriously, I need to talk to Mike and Natalie about that and do a room party with real mixed drinks or something if I'm going to be all sales and PR about it) and so on.
There were a couple things I meant to go to, but then either forgot, slept too late, or lost interest in before they went far, so I only ended up going to the playing with genre conventions panel, which was lots of fun, wherein Cherie Priest and a few Eldersigns Press people talked about blending Cthulu and western, zombies and steampunk, etc. We also talked about the 'and Zombies' phenomenon, because it makes me twitch when I walk into Borders or B&N and see Little Vampire Women and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters on prominent display. Jerry went to the motion capture animation talk after it, and then we went home. Morgen was starting to fall apart a little bit, though she had a fantastic time. And I have yet more stories about how brilliant and fantastic she is, and they aren't just from my husband, me, other family or close friends, so yay!
In conclusion, it was a great con and we all (except for Liana and Kaelinn) enjoyed ourselves immensely. Sadly, we may miss Penguicon because we have a family wedding to attend smack dab in the middle of Saturday, but we now intend on going to ConClave, because I need to see seanan_mcguire play or talk or something. I seriously haven't stopped listening to this CD since I got home Sunday afternoon.
We didn't get there until, like, six or seven and then went out to dinner (TGIFriday's, which is meh but was close and not terribly expensive), so we missed the panels and things, but that was okay. We had all three kids with us, so there was fun in the hotel room until we got them and Jerry situated, and then I wandered around drinking and talking to people, and also made it to the chocolate ritual. I'll tell you a secret - I'm actually fairly shy. I get super uncomfortable when I'm trying to actually relate to adults, which is probably why so many of my activities (Girl Scouts, DI, swimming, etc) revolve around my children and their friends. I was terribly proud of myself, though, for not going to the smoking section at all, because I usually do at least once to partake of the second hand smoke, especially when I'm drinking. Anyway, it was fun all around - I stopped by some room parties and chatted with people in the hall (including jimhines , who I adore), tweeted at sheryl67 a couple times, etc. All in all, a far more interesting Friday night than most.
Morgen, my oldest, had a KidFusion badge this year and was awarded a huge level of autonomy. She thought she wanted to go to the belly dancing work shop, but when we got there and saw everyone involved was older than me, she freaked out a little and decided to go up to KidFusion instead, where she enjoyed being read to and then doing science experiments with every day things one finds in the home. (The food coloring, milk and dish soap experiment that I saw was especially cool.) She made a con boyfriend, who was apparently an eighth grader, and I had to give her a very, very brief sex talk (ohgodsohgodsohgods), explaining that boys that age might feel certain things, and that there was nothing wrong with it but she's far too young to be thinking about it and to carefully consider maybe not being quite so friendly - which actually felt really shitty, but you know. She's eight, and the last thing I need is a hormonal boy hanging on her and her getting curious too early. It all worked out okay so far as I know, or at least she didn't mention being uncomfortable at any point, so win. I think. The two little girls went to Camp Grandparents' as Liana wasn't feeling well and Kaelinn was feeding off of it, so it wasn't going to be fun for them or us if they stayed. This was a bummer, but it allowed me to wander more freely and go to some panels I might have missed otherwise. High notes were kaffeklatsch with Cherie Priest - wherein we talked about children, zombies, the south, and the real estate market amongst other things - and the panel about next generation fandom, though that . . . kind of got on my nerves, in some ways. Something about suggesting we assume all tweens and teens want is video games and visual media makes my teeth itch, and I don't really think it's a viable solution, but that's me. Nearly everyone's read Twilight, Hunger Games, etc (no, I'm not at all prone to hyperbole, why do you ask?); to bring literate tweens and teens (and thus their parents) to a literary con, it seems to make more sense to cultivate panels of people who write for them than to hand them more video games and movies/TV. Other than that, though! It was fun. Again, there was wandering around and pretending I'm a social creature. There was also shopping, which is always fabulous when I have money to spend. I got three CDs (sooj's Mischief, seanan_mcguire's Wicked Girls, Vixy and Tony's Thirteen), a couple t-shirts, and in general wandered around looking at the pretty. There was a Dark Tower game there that I seriously, really wanted but apparently it's a collector's item these days - if the $250 price tag is any indication, anyway. The dystopian YA panel was a bit of a disappointment in that we spent more time talking about the difference between post apocalyptic fiction and true dystopia, and what dystopia is, and what was wrong with currently existing stuff than anything else, but there were book recommendations, so yay! I can't complain overly much.
I was done with panels for the day after that, so there was wandering around looking at costumes and making sure Morgen was having a good time (sometime earlier, she'd gone swimming with the KidFusion kids, volunteered for a couple hours, and she spent the evening at a pizza/pajama party before going back to the room for bed), and also drinking and pimping out Hard Luck Candy vodka (and seriously, I need to talk to Mike and Natalie about that and do a room party with real mixed drinks or something if I'm going to be all sales and PR about it) and so on.
There were a couple things I meant to go to, but then either forgot, slept too late, or lost interest in before they went far, so I only ended up going to the playing with genre conventions panel, which was lots of fun, wherein Cherie Priest and a few Eldersigns Press people talked about blending Cthulu and western, zombies and steampunk, etc. We also talked about the 'and Zombies' phenomenon, because it makes me twitch when I walk into Borders or B&N and see Little Vampire Women and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters on prominent display. Jerry went to the motion capture animation talk after it, and then we went home. Morgen was starting to fall apart a little bit, though she had a fantastic time. And I have yet more stories about how brilliant and fantastic she is, and they aren't just from my husband, me, other family or close friends, so yay!
In conclusion, it was a great con and we all (except for Liana and Kaelinn) enjoyed ourselves immensely. Sadly, we may miss Penguicon because we have a family wedding to attend smack dab in the middle of Saturday, but we now intend on going to ConClave, because I need to see seanan_mcguire play or talk or something. I seriously haven't stopped listening to this CD since I got home Sunday afternoon.