Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: tired
  • Music: John Denver, "Leavin' on a Jet Plane."

Oh, babe. I hate to go.

There's something magical about airport departure lounges. They're these strange, impossible liminal spaces, where the world is infinite just because it's so limited. I spend a lot of time in them these days, what with the conventions and the work and everything else. The TSA at San Francisco is starting to know me by name.

I am heading home from Boston, where I just spent a wonderful, terrible, magical, mundane, perfect, flawed, absolutely incredible weekend as a Special Guest of Arisia 2010. The convention was warm and welcoming and filled with people who hugged me and were happy I was there. I had a terrible allergic reaction Sunday morning and spent most of the day sick even unto death. I sat on a stage with Cat and talked about gulper eels and Lord Byron's penis. I tried to make the hotel internet work, to mixed results. I curled up in a warm bed with two of my favorite people sitting nearby, and watched great television. I wandered around unfed and confused.

I had a fantastic convention. I am glad to know that someday, I will go back there. I am so very glad to be going home. And that, really, is the convention experience. You go to a strange place, you enter the airport departure lounge of your soul, and you do your best to fall in love with the people you meet there. And then you all get on planes and go home to your separate places, and you wonder whether you'll ever fly that route again.

My bags are packed. I'm ready to go. The city streets are filled with snow. I hate to wake you up to say goodbye...

But I will. And soon, Great Pumpkin willing, I'll say hello.

Thank you for everything.
Tags: cat valente, contemplation, conventions, good things, medical fu, post-con, utterly exhausted
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  • 39 comments

beable

January 19 2011, 03:51:12 UTC 6 years ago


It was lovely seeing you at the con!

If you don't mind my asking - I was catching up on LJ on the way home from Arisia (while I was a passenger, not driving!) and I mentioned your mention of allergic reaction in the car and speculated on whether it had been something from the breakfast buffet - and my two fellow traveler's reminded me that one of them (who normally has guts of steel and no food allergies or intolerances) had felt ill on Sunday for the most of the day, and asked me to ask you whether your allergic sick woes may have been from something eaten at the breakfast buffet.

They are of the view that more data points is good information to mention as con feedback, in case it was a food thing.

seanan_mcguire

January 19 2011, 22:13:20 UTC 6 years ago

It was actually an allergic reaction to a woman wearing mango perfume at the next table over. Sadly.

I did not die.