   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
My grandmother died last night. This wasn't a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she's been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn't perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I'm going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn't.
I think it's interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don't know that I'll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I've felt a tension in my gut. Now that she's passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying... so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it's the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I'm so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don't have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
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but Milwaukee doesn’t want a con!
Welcome to the heck we have over in Virginia.
Shots fired.
Milwaukee’s various fandoms are so fragmented, scattered and disconnected, it’s possible that a new startup con could legitimately think it was alone out there. And I can say this as a part of the “old-school” cons that faded out decades ago (X-Con, First Contact and Brew-Con). A whole generation was absent from congoing here; I’m the youngest of the old guard, and I’m 50! But now, there is Midwinter Gaming Festival in January (heavy LARP focus, but expanded to other realms of gaming), Concinnity, and of course Anime Milwaukee (AMKE).
Finally, someone besides me who remembers the long dead Milwaukee con scene! 😛
Also, for current cons, you forgot Nezumi Con, Midwest Gaming Classic, the upcoming Nexus Game Fair and Mighty Con Milwaukee.
…and I know I’m forgetting a few whose names I just can’t remember. 😛
Fur Squared! http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Fur_Squared
Okay. not *technically* Milwaukee…
Thanks for mentioning that – I keep a list of dates of furry cons I know of, and I hadn’t heard of this one. It has now been added…
I just hit up Wikifur. They’re good for that.
I’d discounted MGC because it’s Waukesha, not Milwaukee 😉 Besides, I’m so far out of the gaming loop these days it’s not funny. Only reason I knew about Midwinter is that the folks who run it ran their main LARP out of my favorite coffee shop for a long time. Comic cons seem to be one of two extremes, either glorified swap meets, or big-budget extravaganzas like SDCC, and ain’t my scene in either case.
I thought it was a reference that many people from Milwaukee don’t there is anything more to Wisconsin passed well Milwaukee and Madison. That’s how I interpreted the joke.
It’s a multi-level joke…
Kinda like how no one from Omaha or Lincoln thinks there is anything else in Nebraska.
I’m pleased that the Lincoln and Omaha con scenes are returning. Omaha’s been getting a redic amount of cons sprouting up.
Thank goodness he’s offering the flyer to Megan rather than Lynn. It might not end up getting shoved somewhere uncomfortable.