Brief trip/con report

Finally getting a bit of bandwidth back, though I think I picked up a cold somewhere, so I'm still quite tired and hurty. Meh.

Anyway ... So: the big reason we decided to go back to London is that I wanted to finally meet my lovely Famous People. They really don't do the con thing at all, so when I heard that two of them were doing this one, I had to. I knew my chances of meeting them in the future were otherwise next to nil, so this was pretty much my one shot. (Two of them--Ben and Hannah--are doing a play right now and are thus a bit more accessible, but the third--Andrew--is very elusive, and only signed on to the con at the last minute. Had to grab him!) And yes, we loved London last year and wanted to see more of it. And did--though I wore myself out with excitedly overdoing it the first couple of days. Oops.

Not really much to say about the non-fan touristing. 90% of it is evident on Flickr. ( Details )

Quite tickled that I finally met all three lovelies, and got all three to sign the same pic (and also had the bonus-FP encounter, too.) It kind of feels like I've unlocked a fandom achievement or something--like how it was for me when I finally got all four hobbits' autographs (also on the same photo.) I feel a little guilty for spending so much money on what was more or less a big autograph hunt, but hey, ya only live once. I could certainly spend my money on worse things. :)

Sadly, as mentioned before, this is probably my last shot at London. I might get to go back someday if I can manage the physical/temporal/financial bandwidth somehow, but practically speaking, I'm basically done. I think the UK treated me very well both times I went, so I'm content. Bucket list items checked, and the next big travel we do--if we do anything at all--will probably be on the other end of the world (Oz/NZ.) So, farewell to the Isles, with fond memories.

Fan-o-rama post-script: A case of the mehs

So, there was one slightly odd thing about meeting my lovelies: I wasn't remotely nervous about meeting them, and don't necessarily feel particularly giddy or anything even now. As is most likely obvious to anyone reading here regularly, I've not been terribly stoked for much of anything lately (and quite anti-stoked on a lot of things--the horrid job, the tedious adoption process, stupid health stuff, etc.) Still, I'm kind of surprised that I wasn't more in fansquee mode for this.

( Fading )

Not that there's necessarily anything on the horizon. GoT fandom is a horrid cesspool, so I'm staying quite firmly on the fringes of that, and nothing else I'm into inspires any real squee for me right now. That goes for non-fandom stuff, too. The only two things likely to give me any great joy anytime soon are the adoption and getting my novel published. Both of those things are ponderously slow and the payoff for them depends greatly on other people, so true squee is somewhat unlikely anytime soon.

I suspect I might also be in the middle of a depressive slump, too. I've had so much grief/disappointment in the past 12-18 months (job, cats, chorus, health, politics, blah blah blah) that I'm just exhausted. It's not been horrible all the time, just incredibly stressful, and I've not had a lot of outlets for burning that off. The one thing that was keeping me from dwelling on the bad stuff--fansquee--is fading, now, so I'm left with a lot of ick, and nowhere to put it so I can ignore it again. I expect I'll find something eventually--I usually do--but this limbo period is going to be tough. Damn shame I don't/can't drink. It'd be lovely to just remain pickled while I'm waiting for things outside of my control to resolve themselves.

Anyway ... yeah, I'm kind of sad that this wasn't more of a fangasmic experience for me, even though some of that was deliberate limitation on my part. Trying to stay calm to avoid crushing disappointment is sensible, of course, but it also avoids elation, and I could use a bit of that these days.

Dang, I really have had a crap tsunami

Last post reminded me of all the major stressors I've dealt with in the last 1-2 years:

-Job/career stagnation
-Two pets dying
-Two surgeries (and two more upcoming--part 2 & 3 of the dental surgery)
-Adoption prep and related somewhat-tight finances and partial house re-orging.
-Ongoing health issues of various sorts, including discovering that my hearing is going
-Major disappointment with the chorus thing
-Family drama
-Shitty politics (seriously: seeing how openly racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist/etc. people can be is unbelievably awful)
-Helping M manage his own job ick

There's been good stuff, too, of course: travel (though that has stress of its own), finishing my novels, etc. And I've kept myself together by diving into fandom/gaming stuff. Still ... no wonder I'm so fucking exhausted and burned out. Maybe it makes sense that all I want to do this weekend is hole up in bed and sleep. Maybe read a little. I don't think I've really given myself enough free time to just heal from all this.