Or perhaps the exhaustion of the giant moth that went beating its wings and tumbling through space to the Earth and back from the Moon - to save Otho Bludge.
I have flitted and tumbled ... first hanging out for a while with Amhar in our room - we femmed up for the fancy dress party and talked about the canon panel - then to dinner as I sort of invited myself with kate s. and ellen and g. as they were makng a dinner date in front of me. I keep doing that perhaps a little rudely? but how else to find anyone. It seems best to say way, way in advance a specific time and place instead. Anyway - we walked past the capitol to somewhere that was sort of odd midwestern-fusion. I have no idea what I ate - some sort of mint pesto pizza with sausage? no... it was tomato goat cheese, but in a very un-california combination that turned out well - and good thin crust, which I've never found in california at all (why?)
I heard interesting gossip which I'll keep to myself, nothing earthshattering...
On the way back I noticed the statue of "Forward!" from the 1893 women's somethingorother Columbian Exposition - a woman with her hand upraised - she was definitely leading a charge! There were pansies at her feet and I wondered if someone else from the con put them there as a feminist tribute.
I still have a crush. But actual hitting-on was going on in other quarters. And it seemed quite likely to have followthrough but I backed off because of comparing to the crush and not really... well... also, I was overcome by a feeling that might have been "prudence" - I can't say. It wasn't a very familiar feeling! I'm blogging in bed, instead.
So - then someone kindly gave me their dessert ticket - I ate rhubarb pie and strudel (YUM) - the "short announcements" were long, but interesting and inspiring. I'll link tomorrow to these but there were speeches from the carl br4ndon society about their new awards - and from the japanese tiptree-ish gender award. Wow! And from Broad Universe.
Gwyneth gave a very interesting, intelligent, clear speech about insanity. I liked her opposition of the dreary self-destroying Bell Jar vs. the positive outcome of "I never promised you a rose garden." (Which I read when I was 12 or so, and liked - in fact I sometimes think of it and the cool gods - the conversations with the Falling God impressed me at the time though I don't remember why. I also remember being embarrassed for liking the book even then - it had a very drippy, sentimental, horrible book cover.) Then going from the imagination-space of madness to an imagining of writers walking in the room accompanied by this wraithlike ghostly rush of their characters who are parts of themselves. I enjoyed that .. was happy to go there! Like the Dead riding with Aragorn. (Though: I don't buy into the thought that schizophrenia is close to genius and vice versa though it's often occurred to me and seems sort of temptingly attractive. To G.J.'s credit (of course - as she is blindingly smart) she only mentioned it as a possible thing suggested by some research but not substantiated... ) I was very happy to hear all her clear, focused, shiny ideas!
R.McK.'s speech on the other hand was endless and dull to the point where it was nearly unbearable. I got extremely annoyed at the constant self-deprecation. The whole speech was basically:
"I don't know how to write a speech and hate it more than anything in the world except coming to conventions. I don't know anything, and am incompetent at everything, except for hamsters, and dandelion fluff, and collecting dryer lint, which I do because it doesn't take any skill or thought. Oh, by the way, I'll put myself down again. Dryer lint is my LIFE. I first encountered hamsters when I was six years old. Did I mention that I'm incompetent at everything? [REPEAT 200 TIMES] P.S.: Homeopathy is magic."
Recklessly, I mock the guest of honor. It was necessary for my survival as a human being - I swear it.
The thought that anyone could confuse or conflate what G. and R. were saying as being part of the same thing was even more annoying. More on this later.
[***edit -- okay... now I feel like a total bitch for saying that and making fun. Perhaps I was just exhausted and not seeing and it went on a little too long. I got R.M's point about the "wrong speech" and everything else. I will, though, stand by the mild annoyance at the rhetorical strategy of repeated self-deprecation.]
fancily dressed with my hair in a swirl - i went to nearly all the parties.
O god I loved that Rose Garden book! And also felt sort of embarrassed about it, because it had that cheesy cover and I was a literature snob even (or especially) at 11 or 12. But it was great! I should read it again; good summer reading.
Posted by: elswhere | May 30, 2005 at 12:05 PM