   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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Oh look! It’s every convention I’ve ever attended at the Gaylord in DC!
there’s a typo, you have wekend instead of weeked unless you intended it that way.
It’s a typo. I’ll fix ot in a bit.
i see what you did there
One year at Diecon a gaming convention outside of St. Louis, MO, the monthly psychic readers meeting was scheduled the same weekend in one of the smaller halls. I always wondered if any of them got mixed messages with us fight our way through dungeons and the 50k tournament. I kind of hope someone walked away thinking there was a orc battle in their future.
MechaCon 6 (2010) in New Orleans was the same weekend as the National Lutheran Youth Conference. The Marriott (where MechaCon was held) was filled with “Green Baggers”* and it made for quite a few interesting situations and some not-very-christian-like behavior.
Bourbon Street was also packed with “Green Baggers”.
*we called them “Green Baggers” because the Conference gave all of them Lime Green bags that you could spot from blocks away.
GeekKon 2009 had a shared venue and I have this pic capturing some woman’s bewildered look at a very well-done Zelda cosplay.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/6873058831_38a603706c_z_d.jpg
P.S. I’m creating a character to explore this sort of theme for stand-up.. he’d be dropped into a con and the funny will be how he views the reality around him thru his lens of reference.
First year WonderCon was in Orange County/CA (very conservative politically and religiously) it shared the Anaheim Convention Center along with a high school girls volleyball tournament and a cheerleading competition. About 50k total. Everyone had to pass each other all day. So imagine girls of all ages in skimpy outfits along with cosplayers plus moms giving all geek girls and boys nasty looks for being too near the daughters.
When sub-cultures collide, there’s always some funny to be had.
I think it was the first year of animeland wasabi (colorado) They shared the hotel with a cat show. Otakus kept trying to submit catgirls for the cat show, it was hilarious!
Probably not to the people running the catshow 😛
Yea, they were less than thrilled 😛
I’ve been to a con sharing a hotel with a youth hockey tournament, it was SuperCon in Minnesota.
The first Anime Central shared the hotel with a Christian women’s leadership conference. I had an interesting elevator conversation with some of them. Later I realized I was wearing a t-shirt from Hades Project Zeorymer.
Hmm… reminds me of the year Geek.Kon shared with a fancy wedding! I still think the gift opening ceremony was kinda pretentious, never knew that was a thing. What was that, 2011?
2012 I think.
Let’s see..
Anthrocon: Baptist group (surprisingly chill), Wedding party (They dug us), Mensa (They all wanted to hang out at our con). and lots of incoming-overlap with engineering groups (Curious, polite)
Furfright: Wedding party (they dug us), Scrapbookers (They TOTALLY dug us), Miss Teen Connecticut (Mutual ‘who ARE these freaks’ staring).
And I haven’t been, but Further Confusion had to share their convention center with both a high school volleyball tournament AND HempCon (Exactly what you think) on the same weekend this year. Those poor convention center staff.
Wedding seem to intersect positively in general with furry cons, so long as there’s no bride or bride’s mother flipping out (Califur). People in tuxes and dresses love to get pictures with fursuiters.
I once herd of an incident at an Iowa con that shared space with an NFL team for something that same weekend.
One of the players paid and enjoyed part of the con but his buddies came in too. There was supposedly a sexual harassment incident that came out of this with NFL players hitting on and asking for sexual favors from some of the girls in the skimpier cosplays.
Most surreal one I’ve seen was the first year Daisho was at the Kalahari. Bunch of other groups, but the one that stuck out was seeing a couple people in band uniforms going through the convention, turning to my friends going “That’s neat, which show is that from” as an entire marching band rounded the corner.
Aquatifur decided to hold their first con (2017) at Kalahari.
They didn’t allow any fursuiters to leave the convention center way at the far end of the resort from the waterpark. Guess they didn’t want anyone confusing them for mascots.