Back from Escapade. Now, where did I put my brain?

I think I left it in Ventura. It's not in any of my suitcases.

Oy. So tie-tie and disorganized and just exhausted. We had seriously craptastic neighbors the whole weekend who appeared to be moving furniture every night, after they had had their midnight conversations loudly out on the balcony. I mean, really, seriously, I think they moved furniture, because I heard the housekeepers move it all back Monday morning.

The con was both sweet and sour. It was wonderful to see many of the people I love, but there was also a serious dearth of other people I love who are usually there. And that colors the experience no matter how much I might not want it to. My Flashpoint pimping panel was attended by two whole people -- there just weren't many people at the con, and they're usually going to go to something they want to talk about rather than something they don't know. And shrift, who came to it, and I were dumping all our Flashpoint adoration onto poor keikokirin, who was kind enough to come and endure all of it even though she was probably screaming inside. I think -- I hope -- that I was able to maybe intrigue a few people with the series during the vidshow through my vid.

Another aspect of the con that was weird was that the past two years, it's been on the anniversary of my sister's death, and so I find it somewhat traumatic to be down in SoCal, amidst the palm trees and birds of paradise and sunshine, at that time of the year. It's very hard for me to forget that date, forget how entwined the con is with her last few days, when I was trying to juggle going to the con but with her going downhill so fast. And this year there was an added strangeness in that the west coast chapter of the support group I belong to, Twinless Twins, was having a regional meeting in Ventura on Saturday, so I made a point to go. And it was really, really not therapeutic. It was the exact opposite of that, in fact, and I think I left there feeling more traumatized than I went in.

Much as I wish I had someone to talk to about sis_r's illness and death and as lonely as I feel, and much as I appreciate knowing people who get the basics of what it means to be a twin, I keep going to these meetings and finding some of the people are such freaks that I end up getting creeped out and feeling worse. The email list drives me batshit and I can't really read it -- there is absolutely no netiquette whatsoever, and I have yet to see a post that I could read without having to parse all the unintelligible words and figure out what something means written by people with a complete lack of grammar skills. I honestly don't know if there's anyone in the group who can write a simple sentence that's understandable. So I find that... unhelpful. It makes me feel *more* stressed out than comforted. I want to support the organization, because it's been the most difficult, lonely thing for me since I lost her, this concept of trying to explain what it means to lose your twin, but... some of these people are fucking scary. I will spare you the details of a couple people who came to this group, but suffice to say, the people I told were equally horrified. So that left me reeling more than a bit for the rest of the con.

It all brought up such a mix of emotions that I'm still trying to cope with. This year would have been our 50th together, and for many years, we talked about how much we hated getting older and 50 was the worst thing ever and we were dreading it, so we planned to have a big blowout birthday party in Hawaii and invite all our friends. It's making me dread 50 more than I ever had before, and somehow, between the con, the anniversary, and the twins meeting, I felt like I could have just driven straight into the ocean and drowned. Except Tina's the one who rented the car and I think she would have been very angry with me if I had wrecked the Beetle ragtop we got.

Then came Saturday night, the vid show, and I also volunteered to run the vid review panel on Sunday with mlyn, so between the stress of the show going completely haywire beforehand and no sound coming out of the dvd and being 45 minutes late and not having all my alcohol with me and needing to really pay attention to the vids this year, I was kind of a wreck by the time I went to bed on Saturday night. And on top of it, I'd had a migraine since the morning, when I was listening to some of the freakiest of the freak people and thinking "I wonder if I could barf cleanly in my McDonald's cup?" most of the meeting, so I was unable at the end to stay for the retrospective vid show that ran after the premieres show, or to help clean up the room. Bad me. I will say more about the vids and what we talked about at review in a separate post. I'm fascinated by the fact that I haven't seen any post-con reports, or show reports.

My roomie black_bird_777 seemed to have developed food poisoning at some point and was up all night barfing and such, and in the morning I almost missed free bacon at breakfast because I didn't realize she'd turned the alarm off. Seriously, I can't miss free bacon. Bacon is the bestest thing ever. And it has remarkable curative powers, reducing my migraine to a dull roar! I hung around for a while in the Dead Dog party room later on and partook of some of Dail's retirement noshes, but in the end, I was so tired and battling emotions that I just went out to dinner with Katharine and then to bed. Poor Tina had been in bed *all day* because of the illness, and we bothered her with some conversation Sunday evening, but it was nice to get to hit the hay a little early what with the time change and all.

I tried to get on standby to fly home on the same plane as Tina, who had to leave an hour earlier than me, but they wouldn't let me. I got stuck on my regular flight next to a very very stocky man whose arms forced my shoulder practically to the front, which hurt a lot, but I was still able to nod off a good deal before we got to around Portland. I was worried about my checked bag, because it was on the standby flight, but I figured they'd taken off late enough that I might still be able to snag it at the carousel, and headed over there right away -- and lo and behold, there was Tina calling me on the phone just as I got there, holding my bag! She swore they'd arrived only about 5 minutes before, but knowing she had to stay there with my bag made me feel so bad after everything she'd been through. It was snowing when we arrived, which was quite a shock to the system -- coming from sun and warmth to freezing and snow. When the outer doors opened at the airport, that was a real short sharp shock.

There's this adorable little open market in Ventura that craftspeople bring their works to right next to the hotel, and this year I found a walking stick made from driftwood for my dad, because he's been using a cane sometimes lately, and a really cool hemp and cotton t-shirt with a batiked surfer (I think!) on the bottom left hip. Both of them were such steals, and the people were leaving so they gave me great deals on top of that. I hope my dad will like the stick, which mlyn, feochadn, and movies_michelle carried home for me in M'lyn's car, because they drive down. I meant to also give them this clock I picked up, because I figured a ticking clock wouldn't have been a good thing to put in my checked baggage. But I just took the battery out, since I forgot.

We never did get to take that top down on the convertible this year, but maybe next year. Tina's always wanted to drive a Bug since I got mine, and at least this way she had some fun with that. I really really hope that for the 20th anniversary con next year, some of our old favorite friends will be back to join us.