alt.polycon in boston.

it was great. that's the short version.

the long version: my flight was supposed to take off from minneapolis at 7pm. instead, we had an amazingly observant pilot who managed to find the computer systems doing something new and unique but apparently not worrisome. (it took them an hour and a half to decide it wasn't worrisome. they knew it was new and unique immediately.)

so, we got into boston late. i went to go stand outside in the cold to hope that a rental car company bus would come by and rescue me. eventually, one did. (and it was just a little nippy out. remember, i am a minnesotan. do not try this at home.) so i went over and rented a little black ford focus. in my head, i called it a ford americar all weekend. hey, it amused me. the gas responds much more quickly in that car than in my car. i spent some time spurting around the rental car lot, trying to get the hang of it. (did i mention it was 1am by then? and the tiredness?) i zoomed off to the westin waltham. there is hardly any traffic in boston and it's suburbs at one am. if you must drive in boston, i recommend doing it then. preferably while you're well rested. i got to the hotel, and the front desk staff checked me in to my room. (a long long way from the elevators. foo.)

the westin's motto is "heavenly whatever". okay, that's not precisely it, but it's close. heavenly beds, heavenly showers, etcetera. the bed had a very nice down comforter and down pillows, and i rapidly crawled into bed and fell asleep.

friday morning, i got up and went and had lunch at the hotel restaurant. overpriced, as i was expecting, but also not involving any boston driving. i had brought a book down to lunch, so i read most of it while eating. stef and aahz came up and said hello while i was eating. yay!

i wandered up to the hancock room (later to be the games room) where people were hanging out, waiting for the consuite to open. a lot of people were there. i got to talk to rivka and misha and joanna and stef and aahz and bearpaw and maureen and rj and bill and tendyl and lore and and and. as i had expected, my most recent ex was at the convention. it went all right. we had very little interaction, and while i was quite worried on friday morning how it was going to go with us both being in the same space, it went all right. i had a strong desire to not interact with him much, but no strong desires to beat him about the head and shoulders with a stick or else go sit in my room and weep. so, a win, by me.

i put lots of stickers on my badge (including both "giddy and terrified" and "giddy and terrifying") and talked to tendyl and flipped through the pages of who was registered. no big surprises, other than that the edmonton contingent was totally absent. (sad!)

opening ceremonies was next door, shortly after i got up there. so bearpaw welcomed us all to the convention, made a few announcements about room changes, we all took a minute to introduce ourselves, and then fmmo did an astounding around the room all names named recall of everyone who was there.

friday night dinner was arranged by ruthanne, and it was in the hotel restaurant. we sat at tables of eight or so, and i sat with ruthanne and rj and tal and lore and joanna and charles. it was both good company and good food. ianh showed up during the last of dinner, but the waitstaff wasn't so good at noticing him, so he went away to sneak some food somewhere else before the evening's panels.

the first panel was "coming out, staying in". a lot of good stories there. i talked about how i decided that i wanted to tell my parents that i was poly after my dad was in the hospital for two months and nearly died. (i'm on good terms with my parents and like them a lot as people (hi mom and dad if you're reading this! :) and didn't want to be hiding such large portions of my life from them.) someone there said that that was a good point and that they were going to go think real hard about coming out to their parents, so i feel pretty good about that.

friday evening after panels, i spent a lot of time in the consuite. i crochetted on the bed in the quiet room (i didn't crochet in the craft room even once!) and talked to whole bunches of people and got some snuggling in.

saturday morning, i had the hotel bring me breakfast in my room, on the theory that i would then eat breakfast and shower and make it to the 10am panel on time. ha. what a silly thought. i ate breakfast, and then watched a show on cable that was all spaying and neutering all the time. mostly dogs, but there was an adorable potbellied pig, only eight weeks old, who went in to be neutered. what a fine cute little guy he was! however, they get large and funny looking. this is not so good.

i went off to the last bit of the living shy panel, and then in between panels got misha to make great faces by describing to him my mornings tv watching and my breakfast. (mmm, bacon.)

i'm certain that i went to more panels in the afternoon.

rj coordinated dinner delivery from takeout taxi for me, piglet, rivka, misha, pat, nicole, kylee and wim. mmm. i had yummy eggplant parmesan and there was much snarkiness over the dinner conversation. so much snarkiness, in fact, that rivka and i were almost late to the panel we were on after dinner, about poly and disabilities. the panel started slowly, but went really really well. i wanted to take the room hostage and not let the next panel in so that we could keep talking, but that would have been antisocial of me. ah, well.

darkhawk brought cyser and mead, paula brought cordials, and maureen brought yet more mead. yum. yum yum.

wim thought ahead to prevent twitching and brought his laptop to the convention and set it up in the consuite, where it had fast internet access. all hail wim.

saturday night, i brought my album of pictures from when i was in russia to the consuite, and got to show several people, including ben who is actually russian and who was able to translate some of the text in the pictures for me. (sadly, the picture that i thought was a rabid weasel warning is actually a poetic advertisement for a school.) but people were very entertained by them. on saturday night, i also found out that ldot works at ibm again, so i sent her email today from work, since i also work there.

sunday morning, i got a wakeup call at about 930am, with the thought that that would get me up early enough to shower and dress and schlep stuff out to the car. ha! ha, i say! i snoozed in bed until 1037am and then had the startling realization that the brunch started at 11am. whoops. fortunately, i had packed on saturday night, and was able to make it out of the room by eleven, and off to the front desk to settle that one of these room service charges was not in fact mine and to drop my bags off. i found the brunch and found a table to sit at with rachel, siobhan, stef, aahz, joanna, bc, and ldot and possibly some other people. i got there in time for bearpaw's second set of announcements, and registered early and often for apc10. (okay, i just registered twice, once for me, once for nate.)

after the brunch was the "love gets glasses" panel, which i wasn't interested in attending. lucky lucky me, lisa and ayana (who are mostly swlab and soc.bi people, not alt.poly people) showed up late into the brunch, and we sat around in the hotel lobby and chatted while they waited for serene to get out of the panel. lisa and ayana are *so* *cute* together. awwwwwwwww.

piglet, joanna, and lisa have convinced me to join wombat. drat you! drat you all to heck!

i sat for a while in the consuite after lisa, ayana, and serene departed, and talked to various people. at about 3pm, i decided it was about time to hug as much of the remaining conventioneers as i could manage. so i hugged my way through the consuite, and then lore and i went downstairs and waited for the 215pm panel to get out, and then i hugged as many of the people in the panel as i could, and then lore walked me out to my car, and i drove off to logan to my flight back to minneapolis.

oddly, i napped a lot on the plane.

there were lots of people who i saw who i haven't mentioned specifically here, and it's not because i didn't have an even more fabulous time since you were there. let's try to make a bit of it up here, hmm? hi, ivy, louise, luc, stefani, tiadhg, ryk, louise, peggy, brian, songbird, bearpaw's sweetie whose name i didn't catch, sue, suzanne, susan, jacob, rachel. pinkee, arthur, louise, bernadette, jeff, cathy, jodawi, kim, and you! yes, you! in particular!