Selenay's Ramblings

I made the decision a while ago that I wasn't travelling to England for Redemption this year, after the disaster of horribleness that was last February. Travelling at this time of year is incredibly stressful due to weather, and while I love Redemption hugely, the "will I get there or not" stress was getting too much for me.

On the one hand, that now seems like a very sensible plan. I would have flown out on Tuesday, when the roads around the province were still a mess and there were threats of weather bombs Tuesday night that could cancel my flights. Not dealing with that stress has been good. This winter has been worse than last year, just by virtue of having the whole of winter take place over a concentrated four week period, and it really would have been awful trying to do the travel.

My back is also still very painful due to Sunday's snow-rain-ice shovelling extravaganza, so the flight would have been very uncomfortable and I probably would have been slower than usual at the con. I would still have had fun, but it would have been harder when I'm dealing with pain and exhaustion from pain. So there's that, too.

I'll be going over in the summer for Nine Worlds instead. I discovered last year how much less stressful it was to travel when the weather isn't universally horrific, and I know that I'll have a ridiculous amount of fun.

But today, I'm watching people depart for Red and discuss what they're doing and generally being all Redemption-happy on Twitter, and I'm feeling sadder than expected. I love Redemption. I love the people and the community and the fun we have. For the first time in ten years, I'm missing out on that.

Have fun, everyone who is going. Have the best Redemption you can. Do all the things, stay up through the night talking, and be excellent to each other.

Hopefully I'll see some of you at Nine Worlds in the summer.

I have arrived safely at Redemption and the fact that I'm posting this means that I've managed to log into the hotel wifi :-D

The flight was very good - best I've had in years. There was very little turbulence and the airplane was only half full, which meant that I got a double seat to myself and was able to curl up and sleep for a while. Which had the double bonus of being able to look asleep and avoid breakfast. Frankly, if you can't tell whether you've got pancakes or omlettes in front of you even if you know you selected one them then there's a problem.

Yesterday was quiet and relaxed. I poddled around a little, picked up a cheap pay as you go phone, visited a new tea shop with Mum, and tried very hard not to fall asleep. My sister came up for a surprise visit in the evening so it was all rather lovely.

Now I'm heading out to pick up some snacks at the supermarket and later today there will be a meal for us early birds. I should probably find out what time that is...

So, I had these plans to write trip reports and con reports and all sorts of things. Except, er, I didn't. My gentle relaxing trip to England was actually far too busy to have time to do that. When I wasn't out and about, I was relaxing over cups of tea and knitting with Mum and Dad. I had Twitter and other things on my iPod to keep up with the outside world, but it was lovely to spend time not really worrying about online stuff.

Now I'm back. Work remains the same as ever (lovely colleagues, Zombie Project eating my brainz) and the medical appointments resume. Something showed up on my bloodwork so I have to see my GP later in the week. I suspect that my blood count may be down again. Ugh. Some of my symptoms returned (only very slightly, but just enough to be worrying) over the weekend, so I have done as my specialist recommended (increasing my predinisone) and I'll be seeing him later in the week to discuss it. I won't pretend that it's not a bit of a blow, but hopefully this is a minor blip in my recovery and could even be due to the stress of flying.

Speaking of flying, it was surprisingly un-stressful compared to my last few trips. I have concluded that on-line check-in is the best thing ever. It made everything so much easier: I picked my seat from home, didn't have any worries about check-in closing before I got there and didn't have to spend so many hours at the airport. Lovely. Even getting through security in Heathrow was a doddle because they're actually being a bit more sane about it all. It's made me think seriously about taking an England trip next year, possibly in May, because it felt so much easier than it has done the last few times.

I shall write up the reports etc. over the next few days. What I can say is that I came back from the convention refreshed and reinvigorated in my love for science fiction. It feels like I've had my brain switched off for the last few months (possibly all that exhaustion from being ill) and I'm just starting to wake up. Now I need to catch up and read all the books and essays that I've missed, watch all the shows that were amazing or thoughtful and generally get back into the habit of thinking again.

The trip also got me out of my reading rut and I've finally identified why I'd been so dissatisfied with my reading: I'd been deliberately going for the fluffy and un-challenging because it's what I thought my tired brain needed. A lot of the books didn't engage me and left me completely unsatisfied, which just made me want to read less. My last few books have been different. They have made me think, they have challenged and none of them have really been fluff, not even the YA that looked fluffy. It's been wonderful: the books have engaged me from the outset and kept me compelled to read at every opportunity. This is what I really needed because these are books that are exciting me and that seems to be better for my brain.

I'll post up my book reviews soon :-)

I have got to get myself back into the habit of posting about things that aren't Unix scripting issues. Although the good news is that I now know much more about scripting than I used to and have a good idea of what I'm doing and what I need to learn. Yay?

I've been thinking about conventions. To wit, the Redemption 2011 prices go up in September and I think that it's time to stop being in denial and just buy myself a ticket. I'm going, I was crazy to think about pretending that I wasn't. It's my favourite con on the calendar. If I plan to arrive in England on the Thursday and travel straight up to Cov then I could spend a few days with my family afterwards and still have three vacation days left for other things that year. And in June that year, it will be a new vacation year and I'll finally be up to three weeks vacation. Woo.

Also, it's Worldcon in a couple of weeks and I can't go. Boo :-( This made me think about cons for next year, though. Hal-Con is in my own little home town in October 2010, so I'll definitely be going to that. But if I don't go to something in the first half of next year, then I'll have been con-less for eighteen months. I really miss geeky fannish gatherings, there isn't a space like it anywhere else.

Are there any cons that folks would recommend happening say March-June next year? Preferably something reachable in one flight from Nova Scotia. I love the relaxed, fannish gatherings like Redemption far more than the big media cons. I have a feeling that muskratjamboree is only every two years, isn't it? And that would mean it happens in a Redemption year :-( But really, some recs for cons that people love over here would be awesome.

In other news, the Tour de France was awesome. I cannot express enough how much I loved it. The racing, particularly in the final week, was great. There wasn't even a sniff of a drugs problem. Contador absolutely deserved to win. Best of all, there were Brits in the race doing fantastically. Mark Cavendish was amazing and, with 6 wins in one race, rather deserves the title of fasted man on two wheels. Bradley Wiggins was the revelation of the race and he's made me very excited about the future of Brits in the Tour. Next year he'll be going in as a viable favourite - how cool is that?

In knitting news, I finished some stripey socks in merino and may never want to knit socks from anything else every again. Oh, so gorgeous. My lacey sweater continues apace: I finished the front last night and got some ribbing done on a sleeve today. I am actually slightly worried about how quickly it's knitting up, but it's fun.

I also cast on for a shawl this week. It's going to be a warm, snuggly shawl from DK weight yarn rather than a lacey thing, suitable for cool autumn days and overly enthusiastic AC at the office. I'm using Malabrigo Silky Merino and it's possibly the most amazing thing I've ever knitted. I've never knitted with yarn this soft, it isn't even remotely splitty and the fabric feels smooshy and gorgeous. The shawl is very simple, alternating bands of stocking and garter stitch whenever I feel like a change, so it shows off the sheen and the slight variations in kettle-dye beautifully. It's 50% silk and the reviews say that it grows a lot with blocking, so wouldn't be good in a sweater, but in this kind of snuggly shawl it's just amazing. I'm in love.

It's so gorgeous that I keep reaching into my desk drawer to feel my shawl. Oh, dear, you're not going to part me from this shawl when it's finished.

During the Redemption con, I attended a couple of book panels and got roped into being on the panel for the "Buried Treasures" one. We were attempting to discuss the books that we had read and nobody else had, unknown books by popular authors or really any books (and graphical novels) that seemed to fit with the them. A couple of people cornered me afterwards asking whether I could post the list of the books we discussed on the LJ comm for future reference. Thanks to lists from others in the audience (most noticeably wychwood) and my sadly patchy memory, I have what is hopefully most of the books that we discussed.

( List cut for f-list pages sake )


The links go through to LibraryThing so hopefully people can find the rest of the authors' books where we discussed an entire sequence of books. If anyone has books to add that I/we have forgotten, feel free to comment and discuss :-)

x-posted to redemption_con

Am home from Redemption 07. Fantastic con :-))) I'm really hoping that I'll be able to return to England for a week for Redemption 09 - this is the first time I've had to say "er, I'm not sure because I'm emigrating next year...." and it's starting to bring home the fact that it's really happening and rather soon.

Anyway.

Am home! Fantastic time! More details later!

Except to say that it wasn't as far as I thought it was, possibly because we spent much less time getting lost due to paranoidangel42's sat nav :-) We had Tom Baker on the sat nav for this trip and it was a hoot. In addition to telling us to drive straight over roundabouts (good mental images...) he kept telling us to "join the motorway, it's fun!" Much giggling. Possibly because we were both at the hyper stage of exhausted.

I have unpacked and am now at the dizzy, flumping stage of exhausted so I am dragging a pillow down to the sofa, making some popcorn and lying down to rest my back. Er, while watching the Oscars. Have somehow made it to 16:00 without finding out the results. Quite miraculous. If anyone has book lists, just wants to say hi with new LJ names that you were talked into getting or has friended me as a result of me scaring you at Redemption, leave a comment and I'll say hi back :-)

This post brought to you by caffiene, exhaustion and co-codamol. Wheee!