Con, post-con, updatey thing
Jan. 31st, 2018 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexBefore I get sunk into politics again, here's some of what's going on with me. It's a lot more than bullet points so I've cut it up into sections.
My Arisia was... OK. Due to a flub that was half my fault I ended up having to work a lot at con. I'd hoped to get almost all my work done before con so I could relax and enjoy it. Instead I spent about half the con tucked away in a back room.
Of the other half, some good and some bad. My one panel on AR games went better than last year. I managed to attend a couple of panels and liked what I got to. On the downside, I didn't really engage with much of the pure fun stuff. The Indie*Expo and the bellydance show both failed to engage me much. I didn't make it to any of the dances or DJ sets, which I normally do and enjoy.
I also didn't get as much casual social time as I normally do. I'm one of those people who knows a lot of Arisians but doesn't interact with many of them outside of Arisia and I really didn't do that this year. I can sort of count on the fingers of one hand the good conversations I had. More significantly, I found myself bouncing off the outside of a number of social bubbles this year. I have never had good skills at just inserting myself into a group - if I see a circle has formed and there's no obvious space or invitation for me then I don't tend to do much. For example, at the traditional R/K/C party I spent most of my time talking to K and then R, both of whom were seated in chairs that faced out toward the room. Very inviting, very easy to come up and say hi and have a nice chat. By contrast, I found a group of folk whom I'd expected to have a drink with Saturday night had already started, the table was full and we would have had to ask people to move to make room for new chairs and they were all into their food and drink and conversation already... so I left.
That's not to say one sort of person or interaction is good and the other is bad. It's just that the amount of emotional energy it takes for me to push through those social membranes seems very large. It probably isn't, in reality, but that's how it seems from where I sit. I spent a surprising amount of time SMOFfing, in part because of the ease of talking to the people involved and in part because I couldn't find much else to keep my attention. I need invitations to better parties, or something, like just getting over myself.
I had originally thought I would take a year entirely off from Arisia. I like it, I like working on it, but I burned a lot the last two years. Two years ago we had a massively understaffed division and did everything ourselves. This year I fixed that problem by having more staff... all of whom were new and needed to get up their learning curves. Oy. Plus my DH had an attack of life and I had to do that work AAAAND I ran a team that built the new website.
Despite all that, the Web job isn't done, and I don't like producing crappy product. I can't fix printed publications - they are what they are at the time you send the PDF to the printer - but I can sure as hell fix the website. Surprisingly, one of my favorite people wanted to keep working on this and I jumped at the chance to work with her. Also surprisingly, several other people want to do this crazy thing so now I've got, like, a team. And we had a meeting and only about 25% of my stupid ideas got shot down and people are willing to do work to make a good thing into a great thing.
This makes me happy. I have other Arisia plans but I'll talk about them when they're more than just whiteboard sketches. The commitment I made is to work on the web project until September, and then evaluate where things are. Depending on how things are organized, people, progress, and some other factors I might walk away at that point or I might stay on.
Laugh if you like, my cooking skills largely consist in "put a bunch of stuff in a pot and cook it until edible." Well, I still do that but these days it's with a bit more planning and with teh intarwebz at my fingertips I can often find recipes that are designed for this level of cooking skill and desire. Turns out much of baking and poaching also falls into the "one pot" strategy and I have been making some moderately tasty things that aren't total messes or accidents. I'm still constrained a lot by the family food issues (no gluten no dairy no nightshades and damned if I can keep track of what the kids will/won't eat) but I get by.
It's really enabling for me to be able to open a browser, type three or four ingredients words into the search bar, stick "recipe" on the end, and get back a selection of things, some of which are reasonable.
The biggest impediment is that our schedules have gotten later into the evening. I don't usually get home until 6; Pygment is often home later. I know there are perfectly normal people who eat dinner at like 7 or 8 PM but that's generally too late for me and certainly too late for teenagers who roll out of bed early in the morning. We have a hotpot, which helps some with this problem but it's not ideal. Also, the theory of "make one big hotpot and have food for days" also tends to fall apart in a hungry-teen household.
Work continues to have a number of good things and a number of bad things. I am not making progress on changing this situation and I'm not entirely sure what to do about that. I get paid well, and the benefits are OK (despite insurance going up significantly this year). I don't have a lot more to say about that.
One advantage of Arisia projects is that they - like the regular D&D game - provide structured social time. Because I'm utter shite and organizing this myself. I should realize this happens and I need to just make it through the frigid crap. When the bright light in the big blue room returns I may try to do more about this. Mostly my energy goes into keeping my own house in order, knowing and working with my personal limits, and having mental reserves for the sudden-but-inevitable bad newses that keep coming. Memorial event Saturday that I can't even, right now. I owe a post, at least, but not now.
So that's me. What snoo witchoo?
My Arisia was... OK. Due to a flub that was half my fault I ended up having to work a lot at con. I'd hoped to get almost all my work done before con so I could relax and enjoy it. Instead I spent about half the con tucked away in a back room.
Of the other half, some good and some bad. My one panel on AR games went better than last year. I managed to attend a couple of panels and liked what I got to. On the downside, I didn't really engage with much of the pure fun stuff. The Indie*Expo and the bellydance show both failed to engage me much. I didn't make it to any of the dances or DJ sets, which I normally do and enjoy.
I also didn't get as much casual social time as I normally do. I'm one of those people who knows a lot of Arisians but doesn't interact with many of them outside of Arisia and I really didn't do that this year. I can sort of count on the fingers of one hand the good conversations I had. More significantly, I found myself bouncing off the outside of a number of social bubbles this year. I have never had good skills at just inserting myself into a group - if I see a circle has formed and there's no obvious space or invitation for me then I don't tend to do much. For example, at the traditional R/K/C party I spent most of my time talking to K and then R, both of whom were seated in chairs that faced out toward the room. Very inviting, very easy to come up and say hi and have a nice chat. By contrast, I found a group of folk whom I'd expected to have a drink with Saturday night had already started, the table was full and we would have had to ask people to move to make room for new chairs and they were all into their food and drink and conversation already... so I left.
That's not to say one sort of person or interaction is good and the other is bad. It's just that the amount of emotional energy it takes for me to push through those social membranes seems very large. It probably isn't, in reality, but that's how it seems from where I sit. I spent a surprising amount of time SMOFfing, in part because of the ease of talking to the people involved and in part because I couldn't find much else to keep my attention. I need invitations to better parties, or something, like just getting over myself.
I had originally thought I would take a year entirely off from Arisia. I like it, I like working on it, but I burned a lot the last two years. Two years ago we had a massively understaffed division and did everything ourselves. This year I fixed that problem by having more staff... all of whom were new and needed to get up their learning curves. Oy. Plus my DH had an attack of life and I had to do that work AAAAND I ran a team that built the new website.
Despite all that, the Web job isn't done, and I don't like producing crappy product. I can't fix printed publications - they are what they are at the time you send the PDF to the printer - but I can sure as hell fix the website. Surprisingly, one of my favorite people wanted to keep working on this and I jumped at the chance to work with her. Also surprisingly, several other people want to do this crazy thing so now I've got, like, a team. And we had a meeting and only about 25% of my stupid ideas got shot down and people are willing to do work to make a good thing into a great thing.
This makes me happy. I have other Arisia plans but I'll talk about them when they're more than just whiteboard sketches. The commitment I made is to work on the web project until September, and then evaluate where things are. Depending on how things are organized, people, progress, and some other factors I might walk away at that point or I might stay on.
Laugh if you like, my cooking skills largely consist in "put a bunch of stuff in a pot and cook it until edible." Well, I still do that but these days it's with a bit more planning and with teh intarwebz at my fingertips I can often find recipes that are designed for this level of cooking skill and desire. Turns out much of baking and poaching also falls into the "one pot" strategy and I have been making some moderately tasty things that aren't total messes or accidents. I'm still constrained a lot by the family food issues (no gluten no dairy no nightshades and damned if I can keep track of what the kids will/won't eat) but I get by.
It's really enabling for me to be able to open a browser, type three or four ingredients words into the search bar, stick "recipe" on the end, and get back a selection of things, some of which are reasonable.
The biggest impediment is that our schedules have gotten later into the evening. I don't usually get home until 6; Pygment is often home later. I know there are perfectly normal people who eat dinner at like 7 or 8 PM but that's generally too late for me and certainly too late for teenagers who roll out of bed early in the morning. We have a hotpot, which helps some with this problem but it's not ideal. Also, the theory of "make one big hotpot and have food for days" also tends to fall apart in a hungry-teen household.
Work continues to have a number of good things and a number of bad things. I am not making progress on changing this situation and I'm not entirely sure what to do about that. I get paid well, and the benefits are OK (despite insurance going up significantly this year). I don't have a lot more to say about that.
One advantage of Arisia projects is that they - like the regular D&D game - provide structured social time. Because I'm utter shite and organizing this myself. I should realize this happens and I need to just make it through the frigid crap. When the bright light in the big blue room returns I may try to do more about this. Mostly my energy goes into keeping my own house in order, knowing and working with my personal limits, and having mental reserves for the sudden-but-inevitable bad newses that keep coming. Memorial event Saturday that I can't even, right now. I owe a post, at least, but not now.
So that's me. What snoo witchoo?
no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-02 01:45 pm (UTC)