Sleepless in Scotland

... *faceplants onto desk* Wizard need caffeine badly.

So I'm not going to be going to Escapade this year. Sigh. I kept holding out hope that I'd manage, but it's time to face the music and admit I just can't afford it this year. This sucks. After this year, I was really looking forward to spending a few days just hanging out with my friends and talking fantalk and probably drinking too much again at at least one point, and ... Yeah. *gloom*

The Dutch have been suspiciously quiet this last week. This is what's known as the silence before the storm, isn't it? *eyes Holland nervously*

Roleplaying tonight, which at least is a bright point in my week.

[ETA] Fuckity crap. Just finished the red stripe on the Gryffindor hat I'm knitting, and guess what? I forgot to brig the yellow yarn. So not only am I knitting-less at work, but this evening as well, which means I'll be fidgeting like mad. I think it may be worth nipping down home for the yarn, another quick look for my dice, and possibly to change, before I go to Kai's. *muttergrumbleBAHHUMBUG*[/ETA]

Am home safe. Only 30 minutes delay on last leg of flight, which I'd feared might get cancelled because of snow etc.

Tired + weather lag = cold!Melle.

Inbox: 38 messages<
Friendslist: skip=350
You bastards are never this chatty when I'm bored at work, dammit! *shakes fish*

Well, crap.

Not that I think I won't get into the country, but this is likely going to delay my actually getting out of the airport, and to be honest, if I'd known of this before I booked my tickets (Virgin's website doesn't have any info on this) I don't know that I would've gone. (Yeah, call me paranoid, but dude, I'm from a country with mandatory ID cards, and yet I can't help feel weird about this.)

So, what conclusions can we draw from this? The vast majority of these panels are non-famdom-specific, which is only in part because most of the fandsoms on ballot are not ones I'm interested in. A lot of the panels are either (Bitter) Old Fan Hag ones about the way fandom and fans have changed, about fannish butterflies vs monogamous fans, or about fannish etiquette, i.e. meta-panels. (There was actually a panel proposal about the trend towards meta-panels. I voted "not interested", somewhat ironically.) The rest are mostly panela about writing and stories (condoms, lesbians, etc.)

I feel like this says something about me, but I can't think of what, exactly.

Who is going to Escapade this year, and when are people flying in/out? I'm trying to see what the best timing for my flights is, and I want to know who's goin to be there. :)

First Escapade post: ( Quotes! )

Escapade Countdown: 13 days

First and foremost: Everybody's Free (To get A LiveJournal). Brilliant stuff.

And on a similar note, I've no idea what the recent popslash kerfuffle is all about, except that it involves the book incident and something about it has now actually reached Belgian news. So let me go on record as saying I'd really rather not know, all right?

And yes, spammers, that goes for you, too. I've no desire to see Janet's boob.

In other news, according to the poll, my Creepy Het OTP gets no love except from sivan (thank you, sweetie!), and Celeborn and Galadriel are just one vote short of a three-way tie with Legolas and Gimli and the Twins.

Since I've the final word in this, the AlphaSmart shall henceforth be known as Gimli. Here's hoping I won't have to wait too long for a new computer to give Gimli his Legolas. although, as I believe ruby_fruit pointed out, this name will probably result in my computer pointing out the obvious a lot. ("It looks like you're trying to write a letter." "No shit, Sherlock?")

In case any of you missed it, I'm going to Escapade this year. (I leave in twenty days, in fact, OMG!) And in my infinite wisdom (read: infinitely small impulse control) I signed up to moderate two panels. *facepalm*

The first is Beyond the Envelope: When does pushing the boundaries go too far?, which is the one I suggested. The idea was to discuss that sometimes fine line between taboo and common sense. For example, RPS was taboo for a long time, but (to me, at least), the showing of said RPS to the actual celebrities involved goes against any shred of common sense at all. So where and why do we draw the line? Thoughts/comments appreciated, as I've only just realised they'll probably be expecting me to be, like, coherent. Yeah, and I'd like a pony.

The other panel is Age: Just a Number? Fandom & age of consent, which I'm co-moderating with amatia. She'll be looking at underaged characters, and I'll be doing the underaged slashers. And that just came out sounding OMGSOWRONG but I'm too lazy to change it, so live with it. Here, too, comments are more than welcome.

Other panels I'd like to attend: Help! My fandom is tiny! and The History of Fandom (because sometimes I like to play the blasé fan, ha!), and possibly RPS: RPS and Ethics, which I may well end up walking out of if I perceive so much as a hint of self-righteousness. (Can you tell I'm bitter?)

But mostly, I'm looking forward to hanging out with rsadelle, amatia, schuyler, silviakundera, dine, and anyone else I might run into, and you've all hereby been forewarned that I babble. A lot. (I also eat a lot, and once I get started I tend to drink a lot, but that's usually not quite as annoying to other people.) And I have a rogue accent, so watch your heads.

Right now, I'm all "OMG HELP TWENTY DAYS AND I'VE NOT PLANNED ANYTHING YET," which isn't strictly accurate, I've registred and booked my plane and all, and that's all paid for, and I've been composing a list of minimum carry-on luggage, because I usually lug around about a ton of stuff (seriously, ask amatia), but with the recent security measures, and considering that I'll be wearing my cloak and thus standing out a lot and with my luck I will be picked at random to have my bag searched, I don't fancy unpacking my Bag o' Doom during my layover-cum-smokebreak, so my list is currently limited to the Alphasmart that is, I think, winging its way to me from Canadia, pen and paper, a hefty book, some snacks, a bottle of water, and my cigarettes, which isn't much more than I take on my normal one-hour commute, so that ought to be all right.

(I am the queen of run-on sentences.)

I'm also bringing the Godaweful Dyke Porn Novelette, so you can all see for yourself how Godaweful this is. Seriously. But I'm not sure there's anything else I should be bringing. Requests? Can I get chocolate into the States? Cause I could fill up every free bit of space in my suitcase with belgian chocolate, and potentially buy me some minions with it. Muahahahaha!

Now, let's see, I've registered, I've transport, I've roomies, I've money ... What am I missing?

I was considerably less nervous than any of the other times I'd met up with Internet people. This is not because Sae is less nervousness-worthy than anyone else, but rather because I'm getting used to it. And because I wasn't exactly awake yet at the time.

We went to her hotel, and talked about slash, fandom politics, etc. for about two hours straight. Then we headed for Borders, talked about gay sex in public, and waited for Zed. Once Her Zedness arrived, we went to take Sae's Camden Virginity. (Muahahahahaha!) She bought a dress at Black Rose, we spent some time in a gay porn shop, where we giggled a lot, and then we headed into a Starbucks, where we once again discussed touchy boylove, fandom politics, etc. for about five hours.

Back to the hotel it was, then, after buying a disposable camera, and after having some dinner, we got changed, had Sae's mother take a bunch of (slashy, which made us giggle a lot) pictures of us. As we left, we got some more pictures of us underneath the sign of a local hotel/pub called "The Swan", and off to Slimelight it was.

Slimelight was great as usual, despite the fact that I still had the cold from hell. Sniffling, sneezing and "Ow, my sinuses!" are not v. gawtique things, yo. Neither is singing *NSync, which I did, thanks to Sae. (She said "money", I Just Got Paid in my head. Oh, do shut up. :p) However, there were boys in drag, boys in make-up, boys hugging and cuddling and holding hands, and al that Jazz, so we were happy.

The next morning we took some "after" pictures of us while waiting for the tube station to open, and then we said goodbye to Zed, I went with Sae to get a shower and my stuff, then missed by bus to Standsted and took the next one, which made me five minutes late for check-in. The did not want to bend the rules for poor pathetic me, not even a bit. Bitches. Proceeded to get booked on the next flight, then panic when I realised I'd have to call my dad to have him call through his credit card into to the Ryanair booking line, because I have no credit card, and there was not enough on my debit card to pay cash.

Called dad. Broke down harder than I have since Black Tuesday. He didn't grouch, and took down the (confused/confusing) instructions I passed on to him. Due to general fucked-upness of phone lines, confused instruction and general unhelpfulness from the Ryanair staff, I missed the 15:40 flight as well. Eventually (I'll spare you the sordid details), I got on the 20:40, arrived at Charleroi at 22:40, from where my dad drove me home.

All in all, a great weekend, but I couldn't lived without the ending.