urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire The Journal of Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire 2015-04-23T01:31:08Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire:623441 2015-04-22T22:47:39Z 2015-04-23T01:31:08Z Julia Ecklar, "Horsetamer's Daughter." So I went to Eastercon recently. Hooray! If you don't know, Eastercon is the British national science fiction convention, held every Easter weekend. This year, I was one of their guests of honor, which meant hey, I got to go to England! Hooray x2!<br /><br />Only, see...I get the jet lag. I get the jet lag <i>badly</i>. I always have. I wrote an entire romantic comedy about jet lag (<i>Chasing St. Margaret</i>, not coming any time soon to a bookstore near you). I am not a girl who switches time zones quickly or easily. Normally, I deal with this by giving myself time before the convention to adjust. Sadly, this time, that wasn't an option, as I was a Special Guest at Emerald City Comic Con the weekend before. My schedule looked like this:<br /><br />Monday morning, fly from Seattle back to San Francisco.<br />Tuesday morning, get my hair done.<br />Wednesday morning, fly to England.<br />Thursday morning, land in England.<br />Friday morning, the con begins.<br /><br />...not ideal. And maybe it would have been okay if I had been able to sleep on the plane (I usually can), but this time the guy next to me wouldn't stop snoring, and I had a cough from the cleaning products at the airport, and it was no good. I was awake all the way to London, reading and fussing and trying not to be the worst person anyone had ever shared a plane with.<br /><br />My handler picked me up at the airport and delivered me to the hotel, where I proceeded not to sleep. And not to sleep. And finally to sleep for twelve hours, which resulted in my sleeping through a panel. When I finally woke up, I went looking for her to apologize, and had literally upward of thirty people laugh and tell me they'd missed me.<br /><br />Things not to do to people with anxiety: remind them thirty times that they are a failure.<br /><br />I had a full-blown panic attack, complete with inability to breathe, and stopped sleeping again, since sleeping now equated directly to fucking up. HOORAY. I didn't sleep until I got to Teddy and Tom's after the con, where I crashed for thirteen hours, was up for three, and then napped. I never did get quite onto UK time. I've been home for over a week, and I'm barely returning to normal.<br /><br />Jet lag sucks.