Lynati writes...

Con Journal part 5

Monday

Slept well, very deeply, and was woken up by a voice in the room that wasn't expected there; Siryn, in search of her missing wallet. It was later recovered, although not in the room. Being of no help and knowing it, I let sleep drag me back down right as she left. The second time I wake and there is an extra someone in the room, it turns out to be Ellen Stolfa, whom Emambu finally hunted down to sign his Anthology. There are about two seconds where I think, "oh good, nothing is on fire, I can go back to sleep" before recalling I really wanted her to sign mine as well…and I'd already packed it. Besides, I wanted to talk to her- I'd managed to miss her pretty much the entire con, and the same thing happened at '03- and so managed to wake up enough to do so. I think I was officially up after that, and due to the one miscommunication in the Travel Plans side of things, I'd only gotten the room until Monday morning anticipating leaving that afternoon. We'd already taken care of that, having worked out with Revel and Spacie to crash their room for the last night, and so I started trucking my bags and boxes down to their room on the 7th floor.

At some point during this move, Mara and Aaron woke up enough to pack, and with Emambu we got everything moved with no mishaps. Oh, I did have to spare a good 15 minutes to finish cleaning up the bathroom. The paint was the easy part, actually; it was the soft pastels that had turned to powder everywhere that were the problem.

I go check-out, and more or less stumble into Kathy then- she amidst a crew of her own, who tapered off while we talked until we were the only two in the walkway. Now, I hadn't gotten to talk to Kathy much, outside of what con matters she helped with in 2003. Definitely my loss. Anyway, there was again a moment of "let's move out of the middle of the walkway". Talk at this point was focused on con stuff and the position the DVD might put Vegas in. She went off to do something, and I wound up talking with Flanker and IRC Goliath, whom we shortly learned the origination of "Team Canadian Body Massage" 's oh-so-original name from. For the unenlightened, it is from one of a collection of amusingly re-dubbed GI Joe Public Service Announcements. (He was nice enough to post the link in LJ for our perusal; it's I think sixth or so down on the list. http://www.fenslerfilm.com/?sec=video )

The group doubled in size somehow, and next thing I know Emambu and I were giving Kathy a back massage. I got to talk to Flanker for a bit, and after Aaron showed up the conversation with Kathy turned back to con stuff for a while, but rapidly moved to fic. And lo, we were struck amazed, for here was someone who not only remembered what happened during season 1 of TGS, but *remembered why things were done the way they were!* A bloody revelation to those left with the chore of writing the last seasons of the Gargoyles Saga as we prepare to close down the project. Somehow Chris and Hudson and Kael materialized amidst this, along with Norcumi and Quindar, and suddenly there were umpteen conversations going on. I was pulled out of chat by Dancer for a twenty minute discussion, only to return and find the conversation was just returning to the point I had left it at. Surreal.

Hunger takes up, and those of us who are going out for food offer to pick up McDonald's orders for those who aren't. We make the mistake of ordering our own food to sit down instead of takeaway, and are an hour or so later in returning with feed for the others. …ooops…

We move up to the loft of the lobby for a bit, Aaron and I dragging Emambu into the ficcy talk with Kathy, until Chris and co. have to leave and the rest of us are too exhausted to stay awake much more. All of us opt to go back to the one room and hang out there for a while, and offer Mandi the same when we run into her, which she took us up on. We gather there for a while, lots of random storytelling, especially things involving cars and a great story Emambu has from a time his brother inadvertently caused the start of a mile back-up on both sides of the highway.

A good time was apparently had by all, although Kathy's expression at nearly the whole room singing along- and keeping pace- with the entirety of Dennis Leary's "The Asshole Song" was quite amusing in its own right.

But we couldn't keep up the pace forever, and one by one people begged off for the night or fell asleep where they lay. A perfectly dead-dog way to end a wonderful weekend, and I only threw up twice during the con, which makes this the least vomitous Gathering I have been to.
Yaye Montreal!

And now it's time to prep for staffing 2005; I've already started by updating the "tips for running a small con" advice piece that Aaron and I wrote after 2003; unfinished, it's already blossomed into website proportions and has been accorded such. Con Planning 101 can be found at: http://lynativerse.artchicks.org/Fic/CP_TOC.htm

-Lynati
Aug 29th, 2004