Conventioneering With Tiny People

I just got back from a two week holiday attending various Science fiction conventions. Actually I got back on Tuesday but between being so tired and having to go back to work, its taken until now to be able to write about it.

I’ve been to lots of SF conventions before, but this holiday was a first on two counts. It was my first time attending a really big convention outside of Ireland, and my first time attending a convention with a child in tow.

Oh Please Let It Be Like It Was

Many years ago I was in a relationship that went sour. In the beginning it was great, it was what you might even call classic, all daring adventure and star crossed romance. I remember rushing home in anticipation to share our precious moments together and then sitting up late whistling our song.

But at some point things started to go wrong. I didn’t realize it at the time but I think it was around the time they moved into a new phase and changed their look, joined a new generation if you will. I never liked their new clothes even then but I overlooked it in the excitement of it all. Maybe it was me that changed or maybe it was the new people that they started hanging around with that ruined it. I knew it was going south when Rick and Brannon started exerting more and more control over them and referring to our relationship as “The Franchise” and in a way they were right, we had very little spark or creativity or originality left, it was just about mindless consumption and I began to wonder why I was still there.

And so I drifted way, although there was some good moments towards the end, especially when our mutual friend Ron Moore helped make that last arc of our relationship so deep. Once we went our separate ways I was happy doing my own thing and I heard the other half had gone off voyaging somewhere far way and I didn’t care.

But then one day they walked back into my life and promised me it could be like it had been in the beginning, that we could have a fresh start and it could be gritty and real and we could make it work. I should have known better but they were irresistible and I fell for them again. If only I’d been stronger I could have avoided the pain of that failed enterprise, which was more abysmal than I could ever have imagined.

When we broke up that time I swore it would be the last time I would ever go back with them. I’ve held to that promise, but today I got a video message from them and I can feel it happening all over again, the tingle in my skin, the warm flush, my mind fading into the night thinking “what is this thing you call love” and waking up in a haze to find myself putting my boots back on.

I know its wrong, I know it won’t work but… but.. you see there’s this new guy JJ on board and he’s really cool and he says it ‘ll be okay and he doesn’t say “franchise” every second, so maybe it will work, maybe we can be happy again. Oh please let us be happy again, I can’t go through this again, let it be like the old days before they started wearing lycra unitards, before the 80’s PC blandness and, and before they started dressing like they were characters rented from FHM. Let it be like our glorious technicolor youth when plots were cheesy and skirts were short, when… real.. men… spoke… dramatically… or had southern accents or pointy ears and real women had subspace antenna or were just simply green.

Oh please… let it be like I remember… let it be good… oh please…

Octocon Bubble Time

I was away at Octocon, the Irish national SF Convention at the weekend and had a great time. Its been so long since I was at a con or any other kind of intense fun and socializing that I forgot how it skews your perceptions of time.

What I mean is that your perceptions of how long you’ve been away are exaggerated and when its over you’re left slightly disoriented. I’m back two days now and I still feel weirdly high and removed from the world around around me. Its as if the whole weekend gets encased in some kind of reality excursion bubble. Instead of popping when you leave you slowly squish up against the side of the bubble as you make you way home on various transport systems and bump into other people from the con here and there and go to some some post-con drinks the day after. Then finally the bubble slowly dissipates and your left bleary eyed sitting at your desk in work back in normal (albeit subtly altered) reality.