epershand

I've left WisCon (glorious WisCon!) but I'm not quite home yet. I'm now in Burlington, VT, helping fifteendozentimes pack up so he can move across the country and in with me \o/.

But wow has it been a good week or so. I flew to Chicago last Tuesday and spent a night with my sister before catching a bus up to Madison Wednesday morning. I spent some quality time with oliviacirce before heading over to were_duck's place. I spent a few days hanging out with were_duck and futuransky and then WisCon! About which I will hopefully write more later. (I am making no promises on that front, though, because every time I do that it's almost a sure sign that I will NOT write the post in question.)

Sunday night, instead of going to bed early like a sensible person would, I powernapped and hung out at room parties and lobbycon until it was time to get ready for my 5am bus. The travel was super smooth and easy, and I slept for the entire bus ride and then again for a couple of hours after we got back to fifteendozentimes's current place. And then last night I SLEPT FOR EIGHT HOURS HOMG WHO DOES THAT IT IS AMAZING.

Also there have been Starbucks adventures and Toys R Us adventures and packing and an amazing thunderstorm and stuff. Tomorrow back to San Francisco, fifteendozentimes in tow. Yay!

This has been a brief summary. So mote it be.

* * IF YOU KNOW VIDEO, WISCON NEEDS YOU * *

For the past several years, WisCon has done a live video feed of Sunday night's guest of honor speeches. The feed is sent live via the hotel's network to a monitor in the Conference 1 room so that those with severe allergies or other access needs can view the speeches in real time with the rest of WisCon's members. Traditionally, an A/V volunteer with video production skills has worked with our Internet Lounge coordinator to make this happen for WisCon members.

This year, WisCon does not yet have a volunteer with video production experience who is willing to do video for the guest of honor speeches. As a result, there is a real possibility that we will not be able to provide the live video feed, thereby denying full access to WisCon members with special access needs.

If you have experience with video production, please consider volunteering a few hours of your time to insure that we can make WisCon fully accessible to all its members. Volunteers receive a nifty gift and can qualify for a rebate on their membership. If you can help, please send an inquiry to concom36@wiscon.info.

**We also still need volunteers to assist with WisCon's daily A/V needs, such as looking after microphones, projectors, and screens. Insuring that A/V equipment needs are met insures that WisCon remains accessible to all of its members. Again, if you can help, send an email to concom36@wiscon.info.

I'm going to be wrangling A/V volunteers at-con, but my video knowledge is basically nil. As the e-cube post mentions, A/V helps meet some of the major accessibility issues a con has, and we can use all the help we can get.

Thanks!

From the Haiku Earrings Party

"Cinderella's Revenge"

As a calling card
foot size seems a little trite
but how glass shatters

Unexpected 3am mash-up of Robert Frost and Maurice Sendak

But if the world should perish twice.
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
If served with chicken soup with rice.
Perish once, perish twice, perish chicken soup with rice.

(I am back home and have survived a full day of work even. Still not quite up to making the epic WisCon post I'd love to make. Or the OMG OOKU post. But hi! *waves*)

(gratuitous icon is gratuitous)

On Thursday I'll be leaving for my undergraduate reunion, followed by a week at Olivia's, followed by WisCon. A more detailed itinerary will follow, but in summary I am going to see something like 2/3 of my combined LJ/DW circle in the next two weeks--yay! So, as seems to be the trend, I'm doing a "care and feeding of the epershand."

Recognizing an epershand: I'm short, at the smaller end of fat, and hyper. I currently have pink emobangs, but I'm planning on chopping them off on Wednesday, at which point in time I will edit this entry with a more updated hair description.

Current manner of dress leans towards preppy boy's clothing, but at least part of my geeky t-shirt collection will probably make the journey with me in case it gets too hot.

I make a lot of silly faces, especially when I am sleepy.

Identities: Especially in a fannish context, I am generally pretty cool with this DW being tied to my legal name and the internet alias that is closely associated with it; I do ask that they not be tied together online.

I also prefer to not to be affiliated with my employer in primarily-social spaces, so I'd appreciate it if you let me be a bit evasive on that front. :) I'm not going to be able to get away with this at Reunion, which means by the time I hit WisCon, I am going to be *sick to death* of the standard set of blah blah job blah blah living situation blah blah long term plans set of conversations. Let's have our smalltalk be on other topics, shall we? I am in touch with you on the internet, which means we can talk about more interesting things!

Food: I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian, which is pretty easy to maintain in downtown Madison, but you should probably be warned that I ask lots of questions about whether the food I'm eating has unexpected fish or seafood in it. I also have pretty high protein demands, generally for eggs or legumes. I talk a *lot* about legumes. I have also learned that the proper functioning of the epershand depends on a lot of hydration, so expect to see me chugging water at all times.

Based on lessons learned at cons past, I plan on having a stash of high-protein vegetarian snacks and a lot of coconut water in my dorm room/hotel--if you find yourself in need of these things let me know and I'll be happy to share.

Touch: I am very snuggly with people I know well, and ok with casual touch from strangers (hand shaking, light hugs, bumping into people), but I am not particularly skilled at navigating the space between the two and tend to default to less touch unless I am confident that it's ok. I'm very edgy about unexpected touch, such as hugs or shoulder-grabs from behind. Hugs are awesome, cuddling is great, I just like very much to know that it's coming. Approaching me slowly and in full vision is usually enough, but if you say "hey, is it ok if I hug you?" first, you will get a million metaphorical gold stars. (If we currently have an established hugging relationship, I'm a lot more relaxed about these things, but please let me know if I overstep your touch boundaries!)

I startle easily, and I am not often comfortable initiating physical contact with people I don't know well. If I tell you I'm not ok with being touched at any given time, please don't take it personally--it's not about you, it's about my capacity for being in an enclosed space with a large crowd of people.

I'm actually kind of curious to see how my touch boundaries play out at WisCon this year--on the one hand I often get edgier at cons in general, but on the other hand, I'm going to be around a lot of people who I am already physically comfortable with, which tends to lower my boundaries. We shall see!

Introversion: It is almost certain that I will have to vanish into a quiet space alone for a section of each of the next two weekends to recover some steam from being public!epershand. Hopefully I will be able to identify that need far enough in advance that I won't get too wound up/pissy first--this is something that I failed at last WisCon but have succeeded at at both of the cons I've been to so far in 2011, so I'm optimistic about my ability to manage this. If, however, you catch me when I'm running out of social steam, I apologize in advance!

MHC Reunion '11 is going to be May 20-22, not May 26-28 (when WisCon is). I can do BOTH.

eccentric_hat, bluestalking, others with an interest in both events--want to do a double weekend adventure, with a week of some sort of New England travel in between?

All in one place. Mostly for my own benefit, although possibly of use to others who I will see at WisCon. Possibly too far in advance for people to care, but I am dealing with travel and work logistics and so it is on my mind.

- I fly into Chicago on a red-eye Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I'm working from Chicago on Thursday (fortunately this coordinates with a full week of new hire training for New Job, which means I don't actually have to DO anything at work on Thursday except be vaguely present during videoconference trainings).

- Thursday night I take the bus up to Madison and meet up with oliviacirce &c. I think that night I am staying at her and sasha_feather's house and not yet at the hotel?

- Friday we move to the hotel. I am rooming with oliviacirce and bluestalking [thanks Olivia for correction].

- Friday my sister comes up to Madison from Chicago for her Separate Nefarious Purposes.

- Saturday is oliviacirce and my three-year breakup anniversary. We are going out for drinks to celebrate how wise a decision it was, and how glad we are to still be best friends. All and sundry are welcome to join us. [Warning: we may or may not use our tacky acronym of choice, "BXF" or "best exes 4-eva". Scratch that. We will definitely use our tacky acronym of choice. High-fiving is optional though.]

- There will be a convention and it will be awesome. There will be awesome people at that convention and it will be awesome to see them.

- Monday, my sister's birthday, we team up and leave Madison for Chicago. Birthday hijinks ensue.

- Tuesday afternoon I fly back to the Bay Area.