Is Too Long... Let Me Sum Up...
Mar. 21st, 2010 08:24 pmApologies for the long silence to anyone still reading this journal. Long story short: husband dying + nervous breakdown = not much inclination for fannish blogging.
But I'm doing a lot better now, so am willing to fire this old gal up again. I will post more substantial material, later but here's a summary for now:
Chicago TARDIS - Oh. My. God. Best time at a convention ever - and I'm not just saying that 'cos of Paul McGann. (I was a complete and UTTER goober in his presence. Fortunately, he's used to dealing with fangirls melting into a puddle of goo in his vicinity). The masquerade went beautifully - I think it represented a wonderful cross section of everything that's fab within costumed fandom. I participated in some great panels, one of which - alt.timelord.sex - caused me to a) admit being a kink person to a room of approximately 100 strangers (oops!) and b) laugh up a lung. I'm still going to create the Doctor/Master Angry Sex Facebook fan page, you know...
Gallifrey One - kicked much ass, even if the actors I wanted to see had to cancel (but have now been rescheduled for 2011, hooray!). The Masquerade came off with nary a hitch, mostly thanks to
iamradar's cool head and generally a lot of patience on
friendlypinet's and
strollerman's parts. Apparently the programming director got some good feedback from participants and the audience and I've agreed to do it again, next year. Even if I move to Blighty this summer, I'd make a point of attending Gallifrey One. Also met Louise Page who is an ABSOLUTE SAINT and I'm not saying that just 'cos she gave me swatches from the Mercy Hartigan dress (cue: squealing costumegasm...). She was generally lovely and made the weekend for a lot of us costume-wonks. More about that in a longer entry...
(Oh, yeah, am thinking about moving back to the UK. But it's all very amorphous right now. Suffice it to say that midsummer would be an ideal time, for a variety of reasons, so I need to get cracking on the whole career-changing thing, but that's fodder for the regular journal)
Chicks Dig Time Lords has been released, and I giggled like a schoolgirl every time I signed a copy at Gallifrey. I don't know what the sales have been like, but some very nice reviews have been popping up on the blogosphere and this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, inside. And wondering if I can get in on any follow-up volume... ;)
I attended Time Quest 2, a Tenth Planet event north of London, primarily because it was probably my only chance to see Tom Baker speak. It was awesome. It would have been more awesome if my goddamn IRS refund had posted 48 hours earlier so I could have afforded a photo/autograph (it was one of those events) but, oh well. There was some other awkwardness that occurred - like, my being included in the programming, but not actually scheduled to do anything - but it was nothing insurmountable. I met some really great people, cooed over Nick Briggs' baby (the resemblance is uncanny) and was not threatened with a restraining order by any of the folks I ran into at Gallifrey/Chicago TARDIS. Gotta admit, I'd be a little worried if the same fan popped up at three different conventions, in three very different time-zones, in the course of four months...
It's a bit disconcerting, really. November - March has been absolutely mad for Doctor Who conventioneering, and now I'm staring at a long dry spell until it picks up again, hopefully at the end of the year. (With the possibility of moving to the UK, the fall-season US cons could be out of reach). I feel like I'm suffering a sort of fandom equivalent of jet-lag.
CANNOT WAIT FOR EASTER. Mind you, I've already pre-ordered the first three eps of S5 (or S31, if you like) from the UK. The previews have me squealing in glee and, given my initial doubts about Matt Smith, that's no mean feat...
(And the fans who still can't accept the fact that Change Happens in Doctor Who? Need to get over it. Particularly if this isn't the first regeneration they've sat through. You're allowed to be awkward the first time you deal with it - I wasn't the only wee fan who was deeply dubious about Peter Davison, way back when - but after that, methinks folks should try a little harder to embrace the dynamic nature of the character, rather than whine and complain about wanting "their" Doctor back... But maybe I'm just being intolerant.)
A friend of mine is prodding my brain re: fandom writing, whether I like it or not. Actually, I quite like it. I just hope I can keep up with him as he's a very, very smart dude and I'm slightly in awe. Indeed, I think that when I finally start bashing the keyboard again - in a fanficcy way, I mean - I'll feel like I've made a major step in recovering from Alex's death. Life-changing stress tends to kill the creative impulse, and I'm reaching the point where I'm starting to miss it - the creative impulse, I mean, not the life-changing stress. But enough of that. I save the morbid stuff for my personal journal.
But I'm doing a lot better now, so am willing to fire this old gal up again. I will post more substantial material, later but here's a summary for now:
Chicago TARDIS - Oh. My. God. Best time at a convention ever - and I'm not just saying that 'cos of Paul McGann. (I was a complete and UTTER goober in his presence. Fortunately, he's used to dealing with fangirls melting into a puddle of goo in his vicinity). The masquerade went beautifully - I think it represented a wonderful cross section of everything that's fab within costumed fandom. I participated in some great panels, one of which - alt.timelord.sex - caused me to a) admit being a kink person to a room of approximately 100 strangers (oops!) and b) laugh up a lung. I'm still going to create the Doctor/Master Angry Sex Facebook fan page, you know...
Gallifrey One - kicked much ass, even if the actors I wanted to see had to cancel (but have now been rescheduled for 2011, hooray!). The Masquerade came off with nary a hitch, mostly thanks to
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(Oh, yeah, am thinking about moving back to the UK. But it's all very amorphous right now. Suffice it to say that midsummer would be an ideal time, for a variety of reasons, so I need to get cracking on the whole career-changing thing, but that's fodder for the regular journal)
Chicks Dig Time Lords has been released, and I giggled like a schoolgirl every time I signed a copy at Gallifrey. I don't know what the sales have been like, but some very nice reviews have been popping up on the blogosphere and this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, inside. And wondering if I can get in on any follow-up volume... ;)
I attended Time Quest 2, a Tenth Planet event north of London, primarily because it was probably my only chance to see Tom Baker speak. It was awesome. It would have been more awesome if my goddamn IRS refund had posted 48 hours earlier so I could have afforded a photo/autograph (it was one of those events) but, oh well. There was some other awkwardness that occurred - like, my being included in the programming, but not actually scheduled to do anything - but it was nothing insurmountable. I met some really great people, cooed over Nick Briggs' baby (the resemblance is uncanny) and was not threatened with a restraining order by any of the folks I ran into at Gallifrey/Chicago TARDIS. Gotta admit, I'd be a little worried if the same fan popped up at three different conventions, in three very different time-zones, in the course of four months...
It's a bit disconcerting, really. November - March has been absolutely mad for Doctor Who conventioneering, and now I'm staring at a long dry spell until it picks up again, hopefully at the end of the year. (With the possibility of moving to the UK, the fall-season US cons could be out of reach). I feel like I'm suffering a sort of fandom equivalent of jet-lag.
CANNOT WAIT FOR EASTER. Mind you, I've already pre-ordered the first three eps of S5 (or S31, if you like) from the UK. The previews have me squealing in glee and, given my initial doubts about Matt Smith, that's no mean feat...
(And the fans who still can't accept the fact that Change Happens in Doctor Who? Need to get over it. Particularly if this isn't the first regeneration they've sat through. You're allowed to be awkward the first time you deal with it - I wasn't the only wee fan who was deeply dubious about Peter Davison, way back when - but after that, methinks folks should try a little harder to embrace the dynamic nature of the character, rather than whine and complain about wanting "their" Doctor back... But maybe I'm just being intolerant.)
A friend of mine is prodding my brain re: fandom writing, whether I like it or not. Actually, I quite like it. I just hope I can keep up with him as he's a very, very smart dude and I'm slightly in awe. Indeed, I think that when I finally start bashing the keyboard again - in a fanficcy way, I mean - I'll feel like I've made a major step in recovering from Alex's death. Life-changing stress tends to kill the creative impulse, and I'm reaching the point where I'm starting to miss it - the creative impulse, I mean, not the life-changing stress. But enough of that. I save the morbid stuff for my personal journal.