epershand

Huzzah! I am starting to get my WisCon logistics in hand! So with no further ado, my 2012 WisCon logistics post!

I'm arriving in Madison on the evening of Tuesday, May 22, and leaving freakishly early on Monday, May 28 (No Monday programming for me. Sadface.) The delightful were_duck is putting me up for the duration \o/. My early arrival means that I'll actually get to do things like karaoke--yay!

(Madisonians - if you have time, l'd love to have pre-con hangouts with you Wednesday or Thursday. And if you're looking at this and speculating that I will be available to help you with last-minute convention prep tasks, then... that is possible. As long as your task doesn't involve dust.)

I'm currently on the following two panels (I've offered a third, but have no idea if I'll land on it)

Feminist Open Source Fandom Sat, 4:00–5:15 pm

There have now been several excellent Open Source projects that both adopted explicitly-feminist policies and addressed pressing needs of fandom, most notably Archive of Our Own and Dreamwidth. It is proposed that fandom offers an alternative to the established open source software culture, one that is more welcoming of feminist ideals. How have these projects succeeded? In what ways did their feminist stance enable that success? In what ways do their products reflect these same ideals? How do open source and feminism complement or conflict? What can we, as both participants and users, do to extend, build on or replicate these successes? How can we extend this consciousness to other axes of oppression and under-representation?

Gender-Variant Characters in SF (moderator) Sun, 8:30–9:45 am

Let's explore how gender variance and/or variant/trans* characters are represented in Science Fiction. How often are gender-variant characters used for the purpose of examining the experiences of cisgender individuals? How often is the variance of these characters integrated into a character/individual level experience? The example of the former, a planet-of-hats scenario (such as was done on Star Trek) in which a whole society is genderless/gender-variant, comes to mind. Mass Effect is an example of the use of a "mono-gendered" (yet hyper-sexualized) race, the Asari. How about a story where a whole species is genderless or gender-variant? Dragon Age 2 has one of the most prominent examples of a trans* character, Serendipity.

Note: I would love your suggestions of books and other things I should take a look at for Gender-Variant Characters in SF. I've got some existing favorites but would love more.

All the travel worked out in an orderly fashion and was easy, which naturally meant that something else had to go wrong--namely, I got my period mid-flight in a drastically bad way, and the resulting tension from nausea + altitude change + turbulence turned into a set of all-over cramps that left me curled up into a ball on the airport floor for a solid hour before I got my legs to stop trembling enough that I was able to leave the airport. On the way out, I stopped at one of those ridiculous airport spa places that always offers massages for some reason, and I GOT A MASSAGE, and literally that is the reason I was able to make it to oliviacirce's place.

UM SO I'M MOSTLY BETTER NOW. And it's generally only one day out of each period that is this bad, so I'm crossing my fingers that tomorrow will be substantially better because PANIC(!)! NEON TREES! BLACK CARDS! ETC.

So... if you expected to hear from me today (for instance, if we were trying to make plans for this weekend) and you have not... that is why. I am currently using a laptop for the first time today.

But while I was in the air I finally finished reading every story in the eyai verse, and that was *well* worth the entire day, really. If you haven't read the eyai verse, it's a shared origfic universe done by a group of brilliant fannish writers, breathtakingly beautiful, all gorgeous Victoriana and clockwork and nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. nextian's got a primer here, and girl_wonder's got a masterlist here.

On reflection, I think my two favorite individual stories are billet-doux and torque & other nouns, but in large part it's because the worldbuilding is so fabulous and they each provide an intimate side-view of it from characters who are not centrally involved in the main arc of the revolution and counter-revolution. And, who am I kidding, also because they're the two stories that hit the gender and sexuality angles of the eyai and I am nothing if not predictable.

Also! ( sasha_feather asked me about five of my icons. note: one of the icons behind this cut is animated. )

Hi internet! I keep ignoring you while I am on vacation! It has been a lovely vacation so far! There was a college Reunion! There was a train ride! There has been NYC! I am wrangling last-minute Panic tickets and if that doesn't work there is the prospect of Period Movie Night with a bunch of folks from college.

WisCon logistics, before I forget that there is an internet at all...

eccentric_hat, oliviacirce and I will be arriving in Madison mid-afternoon on Thursday. The hatted one and I will be staying with aamcnamara; Olivia will be staying with her parents. I'm leaving late Monday morning.

I'm planning on attending Geekeoke Thursday night and will be dividing my time between the FOGcon party and the Vidding party on Friday night. I'm on two panels (FAIL! and Your Fandom is OK) on Sunday); the rest of my weekend is currently gloriously unscheduled.

I almost certainly want to have a meal or something with you (yes, you), but it may be in a large crowd.

La!

whoops, almost tagged this post "fogcon" instead of "wiscon"

WOW, what a weekend. Saw lots of people briefly, spent large stretches of the weekend prone with laughter. In summary:

Woke up at 3am on Friday, slept for most of flight to Boston. Discovered lack of food at Logan Airport, hopped over to South Station for foodstuffs. Got in touch with yarngeek, who met me at South Station after she left work for the week. Hung out until eccentric_hat arrived from her plane, 1.5 hours later. Was enthusiastic about Isherwood. Read lots of Yiddish Policeman's Union while I waited.

With Barbara and Marjorie, went to Cambridge, met militantgeek and Joyce-who-isn't-technically-an-FP-anymore-is-she for dinner. Bid a fond adieu to Barbara and Joyce and went to see Cabaret at ART.

( mini review )

We had a long distance to travel before the next morning, so we took off immediately from Boston, spent longer than reasonable trying to escape the labyrinth that is the Boston street system, and finally made our way to Concord, NH, for the evening. The late-night hotel clerk was one of those very New England middle-aged man, complete with very strong New Hampshire accent and skeptical attitude. We woke up 5 hours later and set out for Burlington. The main thing that New Hampshire affords, in addition to its beautiful vistas full of peep-worthy leaves, is very many jokes about libertarianism and the tragic demise of the Old Man in the Mountain. For instance: "Little known fact, 'live free' is New Hampshire for 'own a sawed-off shotgun.' So the motto is really 'own a sawed-off shotgun or die.'" We amused ourselves thusly until we crossed the Connecticut River (HEARTS) into the Green Mountain State.

We got to the Burlington area around 9:30 and stopped for breakfast before the wedding. manifesto_tea is married, guys! Wedding-type details: she wore a home-made dress and her SPOUSE omg Jaska wore a tuxedo shirt and a kilt that Katie had made. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, and then we went to the reception, which was at a farmhouse that belonged to a family friend. The reception was really lovely. We sat at a table with some of Jaska's friends and learned that J is in fact a very good egg. The dancing was contra, the sun was shining, the new spouses were charming and lovely. We mostly hung out in the shade with some of J's friends and watched the dancers, rather than participating. At the very end, before they took off for their honeymoon, K and J signed their marriage certificate.

For the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday we hung out in Burlington. We saw the Lake Champlain waterfront, and very many excitingly decorated statues of cows. We did not see Champ. Dani's dad arrived Saturday night and hung out with us on Sunday--it was really good to see him. Finally, the militantgeek family left Marjorie and I at the airport while they went on with their planned Maine adventures. On the way home I started reading Wolf Hall, which is just as good as everyone says it is.

And now I am, sad to say, back in the real world. Not recommended. In all, I'm glad I was able to cram so much in to the weekend, but I'm left feeling like I really need to find another time for a dedicated visit with K and J.

Hey, remember that time I got on a red-eye flight with only antihistamines to make me sleep, and then got off the plane in the morning in Chicago, a city I'd never visited before, went directly to an office building downtown, showered in an anonymous corporate fitness center, and proceeded to do a day's work before dashing off to catch a bus to Madison?

Yeah, today is definitely joining "inadvertently spending the night in a train station in Wales" on the growing list of totally senseless Molly travel plans, isn't it?

But I'm actually surprisingly alert, I've got a charming little conference room to myself, and I really did get an acceptable amount of sleep last night. So, let's hope it lasts for the day and I don't collapse at any point.

La.

I might be tired and headachey and getting on a plane. But when I wake up on the other end there will be warm ocean and palm trees and national poetry month and (best of all) militantgeek.

Well worth it, I am quite sure. Time to turn off the phone and sleep.