Muskrat Jamboree

[raven]

In the last week, I have: applied for two jobs; entered the competition for the Lucy Cavendish Prize; started agricultural forfeiture proceedings; done a rural first registration; got four hours of CPD; approached two academics and two professional supervisors about references; gone to a three-day con 3,500 miles away.

(I am very tired.)

(I also have concrud.)

I am so tired, and I have such concrud, that I think I shall listen to the Gaslight Anthem very loudly and let you have the edited highlights of Muskrat Jamboree, oh yeah:

-My ROOMIES, alpheratz and soupytwist who are the best roomies a girl could ask for. I arrived somewhat mangled on Thursday evening in the snow (after I fare-dodged on the T by mistake - dear state of Massachusetts, I owe you $2.50) and soupytwist looked after me and got me my registration packet and dinner and fangirls (I met celli and slodwick and have no very clear memory of what I said to either of them) and then I went to bed. The con hotel was pretty fabulous, but of all its myriad wonderfulnesses the beds were way up there. Big squishy pillows. Also alpheratz's alarm clock tone is "Glosoli", which I found sufficiently charming that I didn't care it was stupid o'clock in the morning.

(Americans also say "ass o'clock in the morning", which is much more expressive, only I can't pronounce it. I forget who it was at the con who got me to say "I pawned my porn at the pawn-shop" but yeah, same deal, terminally non-rhotic &tc.)

-Fandom blind date! I was holding up Slings & Arrows; soupytwist did The Middleman; it was awesome. Also slash pictionary, which was hilarious and joyous and kind of a testament to the wondeful human brain - you could draw five stick figures with a couple of semiquavers and trust the whole room to shout "One Direction!" - and kind of exhausting, also, so I went to the craft table and found grown women studiously engaged in covering pictures of pretty people with glitter. It was the best.

-Make-up! So, commodorified very kindly offered to make me up for the dance, and by the time she'd done with me I didn't quite recognise myself. I had gold glitter on my eyes and sprays of glitter on my cheekbones. I looked like her Midas touch. (Here's the thing. I never liked school all that much. I didn't aspire to be prom queen. But I walked into the MJ dance party wearing a short red goth dress, covered in glitter, surrounded by all these gorgeous, unrepentant, unapologetic women, and felt like these are my people, this is my place. Fangirls, you are as beautiful as the night sky.)

-The vidshow was amaaaaazing. It started with Starships and got everyone going; there was a sweet interlude of Home; and at the end of The Adventure, the atmosphere in the room was electric, collective, transformative - I was transported.

-Dance party! There was daaaaaancin'. There was also a lot of sadness for the bandom fans when it came to light right in the middle of the party that My Chemical Romance broke up. That was not a highlight, so I skip over it. The daaaaancin' was awesome though; I like watching lots of ladies doing Gangnam Style.

-Saturday was a quieter, more disjointed day - soupytwist and I both slept through the nine o'clock panels, and I didn't really get myself together until we got to my first serious panel, Kink 201. Which was fun and interesting, but the hotel were also leasing space to a casting call next door to the consuite, and it was packed full of children. (And some adults - one of whom was so obnoxious (who, outside of fiction, actually says, "What're you looking at?) that I was v. uncharacteristically driven to be very rude in public.) And, argh, you don't want to be doing a kink panel when there are literally fifty kids just outside the room. "Don't crack the whips! It'll scared the children!" ...yeah.

(It later turned out the casting call was some sort of elaborate scam; I felt bad for the kids, but not the dratted woman I yelled at.)

-In the afternoon was the Twenty Years of Due South panel, which I liked a lot, and afterwards we went for ice-cream and thence to a costume room party, which was all pretty fun. I was getting tired and anxious again, but I had a good time in the end - especially eating peanut chilli ice-cream (mmmm), and playing Apples to Apples, Fandom Edition. (I won, largely based on the observation that gay sex is quite popular, competence kink is cool, and accidental marriage is bogus!)

-Sunday was also rather disjointed, as the con proper was over by eleven and my lovely roomies departed homewards before lunch. I went for lunch at the restaurant closest to the hotel (an amazing fake Irish Viking bar serving Irish classic dishes, such as BBQ brisket with biscuit and chai-apple French toast) and got to hang out with spuffyduds and queue among many others, and that was really great. I got to talk a little about my real life with someone from fandom who Gets It. Isn't that awesome? It was awesome and... affirming, I suppose. I sometimes worry I am fighting some wars on my own, and it turns out I'm... not. That is very vague. But I finished my con experience feeling very, very good, not just about fandom, but about life - the life I've made.

I flew into Heathrow yesterday very early morning, got home and slept like a dead thing; I am about to do the same again. Lovely, lovely con. I don't know if I can make it to Seattle for BP, but here's hoping.

(Also, the final crucial detail. Following the end of Connotations, there is a space, I believe, for a fan-run con in the UK. A general one, not a vidcon like vidukon_cardiff. soupytwist and I have plans. Watch this space.

Comments

[brynnmck.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you had such an amazing time, and that it was so affirming in so many ways. (Also CHAI-APPLE FRENCH TOAST? OMG. I'm drooling just reading that.)

Needless to say, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it SO VERY MUCH if you could make it to BP at some point, just as I would love to attend your future, currently-embryonic con, finances and vacation time permitting. I had somehow missed that you were going to MJ, and when I found out that you were, I was that much sadder to be missing it. ♥

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely Brynn! Why do you have to live so faaaaar. Boston is doable because relatively, it's close - it's a direct seven-hour flight, which made my workmates go *side-eye* at me ("You're going to America for the WEEKEND?"), but not out of the realm of stuff I can do. Seattle for me is a fourteen hours' flying time, with layover - sigh. BUT. If, come next spring, I have a job, and a job who let me take a week off, then I am THERE. I really, really, really want to come, I want to see yoooooou. <33