Loscon: Saturday on the River

Except for the afternoon filk concerts I spent pretty much all day Saturday talking with people. Mainly the lovely Moira Stern (who should comment to tell me whether I should use her LJ ID, real name, or both interchangably), whose concert came after mine. With a concert harp and three kids, she certainly needed help gear-wrangling, and it made a good excuse to talk.

Had dinner with the Rubins, after which I hooked up with Moira again (we were at the same restaurant in the hotel). After that I party-hopped, which made for a couple more good conversations and a fair amount of tasty stuff containing ethanol. Trying to be gluten-free is annoying.

The concert went well; the Wolfling was trailing the beat a little -- we need to work on that -- but I was mostly on. It was all stuff I've been singing recently, so I was actually able to look at the audience a little. Tearful hug from Moira by way of a review. We really should have swapped sets; she needed time to tune the harp. And it's really hard to follow QV, or start one's set after one has been crying.

No, I'm not sorry about that.

My setlist, cobbled together mere minutes before the concert, consisted of:

1	The Toolmakers (3:06)
2	The River (4:00)
3	Wheelin' (3:15)
4	Keep the Dream Alive (4:18)
5	Quiet Victories (12:00)

Side note on gear: I took my notebook up on stage, which let me jam my watch fob into one of the rings where I could see it. Very useful. I found myself wishing that I'd taken one of the cup-holders, though.

I find the fact that I spent essentially the entire con as the Middle-Sized Bear to be deeply odd. I have noticed that I've been spending more time talking to people, and much less time in programming. And I've noticed a tendency recently to spend a lot of my time talking to one person during a con, usually somebody I want to know better. (It was cflute at Baycon, for example, and joecoustic at OVFF.) I love it, but it does mean that I get to meet fewer new people. (On the gripping hand, I've always had trouble meeting new people.)

On the whole, I'd rather spend my time deepening old friendships and making new ones than sitting around in a circle waiting for a good opening to slip a song into. Swapping songs with a small number of people is a lot of fun, though; I'm not sure how to find a good balance there.

Home again, home again

Tired, missing my Cat, but well-fed and happy to be home. Managed to aggravate the tendinitis in my right knee going up and down stairs during loadout; took the last loads down by elevator. By that time there were only two left operating. We got the final load out with mere minutes to spare before the checkout time of 12:00.

In spite of our early start, we got home about an hour later than usual -- traffic was awful. Over 7 1/2 hours of driving. Ugh. Didn't help my knee much, either.

Mongolian for dinner. Yum. Inexpensive, and the kids love it. Even Emmy, who has sense enough to ask them to clean the grill so as not to trigger her mushroom allergy.

Met a few new people at Loscon, and had some wonderful conversations. I'm a moderately happy Bear. Also a very tired one. And I get to see my Cat tomorrow! That will make me a very happy Bear.