Sunday, May 27, 2007

Connage

I love me a good Wiscon, don't get me wrong, but I've never stayed Thursday-Tuesday before, and yes, it's Sunday night and I'm incredibly burned out. It takes a lot of effort to get ready for those things. After I blew through the first couple days of "I love all these people! It's so great to see them!" personal stuff started to wear me down, and I found I suddenly felt this desperate need to be interesting.

I'm stunned at the huge feelings of inadequecy by day three, where everything that comes out of my mouth starts to sound way too loud and stupid and all I want to do is drink liquor and burn something.

I knew this was going to be a stressful Wiscon, but it hasn't been as blazingly, gloriously, stunningly bad as I thought it would be.

It's at acceptable levels of screaming terror, which is all right.

I've met some great people and got to sit down and talk to others who I didn't know so well, and really, socializing and a couple of panels that inspire some note taking is all I want out of a good con...

What can I say?

I'm easy.

11 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

The Stealth Geek said...

How have you managed to keep your numbers in check while at Wiscon? I mean, I go to a lot of cons and the food choices when you're on a budget are pretty awful.

Hope you're at least enjoying yourself!

Kameron Hurley said...

Oh, I haven't. They've been bloody awful. A lot of that is just that I'm eating things I don't usually eat, and the ratio of carbs to protein goes way up cause, yeah, low carb eating at cons isn't exactly easy.

And liquor doesn't help.

I just sort of throw out cons as "well, my numbers will suck" and try not to be too hard on myself.

The Stealth Geek said...

As much as I love going to some cons, I was always usually working them for whatever publishing company I was with at the time. Inevitably there is the burn out. By the end of the day, when you've been "on" for twelve hours or so, you just don't want to be social anymore. At least I didn't. It was a balancing act. I didn't want to start hating working the cons, so I needed to try to find time for myself each day, even if it was just thirty minutes alone reading. There was always one night when I decided to hibernate in my hotel room with pay-per-view and room service.

Anonymous said...

Oh man, I was so overtired and emotionally overwrought that last night when my husband called to ask what time to be at the airport this morning, I actually ended up breaking down crying after the phone call because after hearing the sound of Chris' voice, I desparately wanted to be home.

And then when I went around the 6th floor looking for people who were still awake, I ended up crying on David Schwartz' and Haddayr's shoulder because I desperately didn't want to leave. :P

I think I will now take the rest of the day off and sleep through until dinner.

Anonymous said...

(And it was nice to meet you!)

Gwenda said...

Things will re-mellow (tonight) Monday evening, which makes a nice transition back to not being completely socially and intellectually overstimulated all the time! Promise!

Kameron Hurley said...

Yeah, today's more low key. I think that I'll just throw Sunday out in the future as being my "burn out" day and just keep going to be early that day...

Again, tho - there was personal stress stuff at this con which shouldn't be a bigger deal at future cons, so I'm hoping that'll improve as well.

Subtitle said...

Hey--

Just wanted to say that a. we need to actually sit down and talk at a con and b. I felt very similar as I collapsed in my seat on the plane on monday. There's something insane about wiscon, even though within two months I'm thinking "wiscon is so far away!"

Kameron Hurley said...

Meghan - indeed we do. I even managed to have a whole ten minute conversation with Hannah!

But now, yeah, I'm just going to collapse.

Greg van Eekhout said...

My mad need to socialize falling into social burnout tends to exist in five-minute cycles. I wish I could just activate a sensory deprivation/invisibility cloak for a few minutes every now and again.

It was truly a pleasure to meet you. You've got just the greatest laugh.

Anonymous said...

Hey Kameron,

It was great to meet you, and I totally know what you mean about the acceptable levels of screaming terror. I hope your screaming terror stayed acceptable! I think mine did, I'm not sure. It's a hard thing to judge.