Post-CascadiaCon, Hurricane Katrina, etc.

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't been around the last three or four days. I have, instead, been attending CascadiaCon. I had a wonderful time, but am, frankly, bagging the last day of the con (and my last panel) out of exhaustion and crowd fatigue. And it's a nice day. I'd like to see the sky at least once before I head back to work. I need need need some quiet personal time. I hope to post some con details anon. Right at the moment, I'm in a kind of numb stupor from catching up on the news of the last few days.

I don't have the words to articulate what I think about what Hurricane Katrina has done to New Orleans, that rockin'est, rollin'est town and its environs, or how appallingly the Misadminstration (as redaxe calls 'em) has responded to the situation. I have written letters to my representatives and senators begging them to hold the President and the Misadminstration accountable. I have written letters to the White House in protest and anger about how things have been mismanaged and covered over. I have donated money. Reading the stories about what's left of the region, the people who have survived and what they've had to deal with in the aftermath is hard for me. I don't handle this sort of thing well. But I am angry and sad and frustrated about it all. I hope that somehow, in the end, the Misadminstration will get its come-uppance as a result of all this. My biggest fear is that, yet again, they'll wave their hands and the press and the Congress, with their remarkably short attention spans, will let it all slide.

Quick request to my NYC contacts: Spirit photography at the Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is running an exhibit called The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult starting this month. This fascinates me. I'm plowing through the museum site and will probably order the exhibit catalogue. If anyone goes to the museum in the next month or so and finds postcards from this exhibit in the gift shop, would you be kind enough to pick up a couple and send them to me? I would be hugely grateful for any artifact available from this show. Thanks!

Post post-CascadianCon post

So... the convention. The short version: Saw wonderful people, had wonderful time, didn't drink as much as I might have, did only one (mildly) stupid (but fun) thing the entire weekend. Everything else I did was smart and hugely entertaining.

( Cut for flist mercy, but media fen might be particularly interested in some of this... )

So, all in all, it was a good weekend, I think. When I finally left the convention on Sunday night, I was ready and done with it. I needed today to detox a bit from the crowds and the energy of it all. It was a good, low-key day. I did some tidying up around here and just enjoyed spending time with the kitties. Am I ready to go back to work? Well, who ever is, really, after a long weekend?

Now it's time to get back into the swing of work, and chorus, and writing and working out. I'm returning to the real world. Odd sensation. It always is.