Welcome to the Looney Bin
Originally uploaded by me.

Enter, If You Dare...

House on the Rock Photos are up. Just click on the photo of Hobart the Happy Wizard, and it'll take you to my Flikr account. Then you can click "next" to go through the pics in chronological order, if you so desire.

I was going to say something about Wiscon first, but Sarah already did it so well. She conveys nicely the joy of waking up to Jeremy shouting "WAKEY WAKEY!" at 7 am after being up til 2... but I don't really have a problem with this. It's a con, I don't expect to sleep fully or wake refreshed--I can do that when I get home. The con was as I remembered it, many sci-fi fans and/or feminists, milling around and discussing the finer points of literature--or, sometimes, not. Jeremy and Erin and I made a point of attending panels where it sounded like there might be a fight between panellists and audience, and the closest we came was one that followed up on some unfriendliness last year between Republican attendees, and everyone else. The thing is, the minority voices have an excellent point in that Wiscon attendees do make certain assumptions about their fellow Wisconers' social and political beliefs. I've been going there 10 years now, and I've often heard the word "republican" being used as a euphemism for "pond scum" in any panel that's vaguely political. It annoys me, but my fellow republicans annoy me far more, so I'm not really prepared to complain. But there's an assumption that if you like sci-fi with a feminist bent, you must be politically liberal, and that's not necessarily so. (there's also an assumption that if you go to a feminist science fiction convention you must be a feminist, and I'd differ with that as well. If anyone wants a long digression on "why I don't consider myself a feminist" I'll be happy to oblige them elsewhere...) So it's a good point that was made about sci-fi cons being a place where outsiders come to feel part of the group; but the group sometimes includes people who don't share all your beliefs, but like the same books you do. There still wasn't an actual fight at that panel, but there was almost some shouting, which was close! The con suite hot dogs were still awful (but they're free,) the Madison farmer's market was still fabulous, and the Guests of Honor were great to listen to. I got to see Heather and Ted and Jen for the first time in three years (I'd link to all their livejournals, but typing in the Flickr blog box is starting to get to me) and Sarah and Wendy, and of course the redoubtable Jeremy. It was a good time. And then Erin and Jake and I sat down with her laptop and plotted a course for Camelot, by way of hell....

I'd type more, but I'm exhausted. I've semi-adopted a stray cat who's been hanging around, and tonight while I was feeding him on the back patio another cat showed up who was almost his identical twin, and they proceeded to have a chase/fight while I ran after them, trying to figure out which one was "my" cat so I could put him on the porch and let things calm down. It was just like one of those Star Trek episodes where Captain Kirk gets duplicated, and Spock doesn't know which one to shoot while they're rolling around on the floor to the combat music: "da-da DAH DAH DAH DAH dada da dah..." I finally got them sorted out, I think. Now I'm just waiting until the other one goes away so I can let "mine" back out; he's getting tamer, but I don't think he wants to spend the night on my porch. At least not without a spare litterbox...