There and back again

If I tell you that, right now, I’m sitting at Suzan’s computer, nestled into a comfortably cluttered computer room in a small house outside of Atlanta, Georgia, you know where I am. If I tell you that I’m in my pajamas, with my hair disheveled and eyes still heavily shadowed with dark circles, you know how I look. If I tell you that my throat is painfully raw, and that most of my muscles are aching, you know how I feel.

But you still don’t know.A quick look outside, into the near-forested area of the Geek Farm, shows Bridget and a few of her barn-cat brood stalking something. When I started writing this entry, they were chasing a small brown rabbit, but the rabbit has since gotten away, and the soft wobble of errant leaves in the breeze currently has them all occupied.

It’s impossible to explain how incredibly alien this feels after several days of dragon*con. I’ve heard rumors that this year’s convention drew nearly 25,000 people, and I have no reason to doubt that number. For the past few days, ‘normal’ has been defined by carrying a handheld radio and responding to the following types of conversations:

“Spandex is a privilege! Not a right!”
“Our next entry in Costume Bingo is…”
“We need all available staff to the Centennial loading dock to load this band out RIGHT NOW.”
“Oh my God, Jefferson Starship wants to invite anyone in a costume onstage to dance while they’re performing…can we get some security back here?”
“She’s really going to go out there in orange-colored netting and a chain draped around her waist…and nothing else?”

Yeah. Like that.

The part I can’t explain is how much tech staff feels like, well, family. There are members I like, members I absolutely adore, and members I can’t stand, but at the end of each day, the world can be divided into us and them.

Details will be coming soon, when I am no longer exhausted and, at last, sitting in front of my own computer again. For now, let me catch up on a bit of sleep, catch my breath, and re-acclimate myself to the Real World.

Stories will come, soon enough.

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