Definitely the strangest WorldCon I’ve ever been to

Writing that title got me thinking… how many WorldCons *have* I been to? Mom, did you go to St. LouisCon in 1969? That would mean I was at that one, technically, haha. I probably went to NoreasCon 1 (1971). I know I went to TorCon II (73) and DisCon II (74). Then MidAmeriCon (76), SunCon (77), and IguanaCon (78) (where I met friend Tad/Jesse, who allegedly is the reason we moved to Gainesville a year or two later, and has remained a lifelong friend). Missed a bunch until ConStellation (83), then ConFederation (86), NolaCon II (88) (where I met Quinn, and Rikk, who I also still have to this day), NoreasCon 3 (89), MagiCon (92), ConFranCisco (93) (where Parris and I talked the whole time about going and getting Sailor Jerry tattoos but never had the time). Short drought again and then BucConNeer (98) and then another short drought. Picked back up with TorCon 3 (2003), NoreasCon 4 (04), Interaction (05) (the other Glaswegian WorldCon I’ve mentioned previously), Denvention 3 (08). And then a very long drought until this year, 2024. So… 18. 18 in 54 years. I wish that number were higher! I mean, it’s not counting all the other cons I’ve been to, just the WorldCons. But still. You can definitely see what years I had travel money or not (or my parents did, or not).

Why is this the strangest one? Because I have Covid, and except for sneaking out of my room every now and then to go forage for food, I’ve… been in the hotel room. Staring out the window at the water and the mountains… so it’s not like it’s a terrible view. I’m glad I opted for the river view when I was making reservations.

But because of technology, both advances over the years and things instituted during the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I can still see a LOT of the convention. All of the panels are streamed, and recorded. So not only can I see a panel… I can … panel-surf. Or go back and rewatch a panel. Or watch three panels that were recorded at the same time, whereas in person I’d never have been able to get to two of them and would have lost out!  There’s a Discord channel (why do I always forget about Discord?) and so dedicated chat areas for every panel. So you can chat with other people watching while streaming (or, I guess, other people on Discord while sitting in the panel) and/or with panelists who were online panelists instead of in person, who hop on the Discord channel to keep chatting when the panel is done. It’s fascinating and makes me think “yes! this is what technology is for!!!”

… except the wifi at the hotel is run by hamsters on their last legs, and keeps hanging up or just decided it’s not there any more, so it’s sometimes hard to watch “live” because it lags so much. And sometimes the sound on a panel is so low that I can barely hear it even with the app sound on high and my laptop sound on high. But! They’re going to keep everything up for members through the end of the year, so once I get home I can figure out how to cast it to my TV, and raise the volume on the ones I can’t hear that well. And my wifi won’t be trying to keep up with 15 stories of hotel-stayers all trying to stream at the same time.

But I’m not getting to any parties, I’m not meeting up with friends, in fact I’m staying as far away as I can from the people I want to see the most because most of them are older and/or not in great health to begin with, and I don’t want to be a plague vector.

That part is making me a little sad. I want hugs. I want to see people. A lot of these people haven’t seen me since before Tim died, and they want hugs, too. I went to walk through the Dealer’s Room to pick up the gin I pre-ordered, but I want to look at things on the tables. I want to fondle books. I want to try on some jewelry. But I don’t want to touch anything with my Plague Fingers, so when I have walked through (there’s food on the other side of it) I’ve kept my hands in my pockets or clasped behind my back.

And walking to get food is tiring. It’s not even far, and it’s tiring! This morning I woke up all kinds of cranky. I didn’t even want to go down and get free breakfast and coffee because what was the point. I’ve been trying to get there early so I can (a) not be around a lot of people and (b) get to some of the buffet food before it’s cross-contaminated with people dropping eggs all over the place. But there are already eggs all over everything and not a lot of fruit and the fruit goes fast and I can’t eat eggs and it’s crowded AF even early in the morning and I don’t want to breathe on anyone but you’re also not allowed to bring free breakfast up to your room so I have to eat there. I didn’t even go this morning. (I’m paying for that a little with a caffeine headache now)

Honestly I spent until about lunchtime lying in bed watching old Mission Impossible episodes (the TV show, not the movies) (side note, I found a channel that listed a Murder, She Wrote episode as “new” and I’m like… Scotland, are you OK? …. new??????). I was just cranky and grumpy and mad at myself for being sad I’m not able to do the tourist things I wanted to do instead of being glad for myself that I’m not sicker than I am.

Then I stopped my whining, took a hot shower that got a metric ton of snot out of my body (seriously, how can I shut down that factory) and then I ordered two days worth of fruit and cheese and fruit juice from Uber Eats and a local grocery store. Another way that technology and how we do things has changed since the pandemic. No car? In a foreign country? Can’t leave your hotel room? NOT A PROBLEM. The future has you covered.

Now I am alternating between eating fruit and cheese and watching panels… knitting and watching panels… writing blog posts and watching panels.

I do hope I feel better soon, though. What am I on? Day 11? I’ll take another Covid test tomorrow and I really really really hope it’s at best, negative, and at worst, a faint positive. I’ve already lost two months of this year to being sick, don’t make me lose this, too. Tuesday we go to Inverness whether I’m up for travel or not.