Other Things Happening at Yaoi-Con
Oct. 31st, 2005 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakAn article that might be more accurately (though not succinctly) titled: The Excuse for Not Having an Article by Mishalak, Wherein He Navel Gazes at Length To Cover the Fact That Somehow He Managed To Miss Yaoi-Con Despite Allegedly Being in the Same Hotel as the Convention For the Whole Weekend.
After eleven madcap days at my place of employment I was more than ready for going to a convention for two and a half days of uninterrupted frivolity. Actually part of the reason I had the out of control time at work was precisely because I was trying to take a full day off work before the convention to show a few fans around Japantown and then get down to the convention hotel without having to drag everything I would be taking to work beforehand. The other part was that I was that despite ostensibly being at work the prior week trying to get things done early I did not succeed in getting much more than the minimum done due to the undertow of depression about living in the second least affordable city in America with nothing in particular to show for it.
So I worked over the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd to catch up. And when that was not enough I bailed on everything else I wanted to do and worked 10 and 11-hour days for the four days before the 28th. I was still doing a few at the last minute before I went out to meet my two roommates at the airport. With better coordination this whole thing could have been avoided, of course that would have required that I not decide that I would be attending Y-Con in September, just 41 days after moving to San Francisco. I would later learn that it was even worse than I thought because if I had done what I first intended, get my own room and find roommates, I would have saved about $62.00 even though the people I was staying with theoretically had the convention rate and I did not. Lesson learned: As much detail is needed in finding a roommate for a convention as is finding one to share an apartment. And I have to be the one to take charge no matter how little I feel like just being a plain "injun" rather than a chief.
The walk around San Francisco on Thursday was promising. I managed to show them everything they wanted to see in a reasonable amount of time despite having lived in this city only 88 days at that time. Our walk lead from the touristy Fisherman's Warf (actually not too bad to visit just after dark when the crowds are clearing away and nothing is actually closed yet), past Telegraph Hill to Little Italy and Chinatown, dinner in a Chinese restaurant, and finally through one of the picturesque gates on Grant Street into Union Square. I sent them off on BART and returned home to start packing and with the thought that I would just have to do a few items the next morning at work.
The next morning I spent an hour at work getting two payrolls done, not too shabby considering they were complex and difficult ones. And I even got down to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at the 4th Street exit from Powel Station within nine minutes of the time when I said I would be there. And L___, one of my roommates, was already nervous and said she had been ready to leave. Okayyyy. I was very sorry for being late, but in what bizzaro alternate universe is nine minutes late a basis for panic? This overreaction was the first hint of the storm of troubles I was soon to be engulfed in. Which had nothing to do with the three random girls who came up from the hotel with L___ and J___.
My memory of the bus system proved accurate and useful as we got to Japantown quite easily after being detoured by the hydra-headed-groupthink that had us going into a store of nothing but remaindered books. We had an inexpensive lunch at Benihana and finally I headed to retrieve my bags. I was not able to meet up with the group before finally arriving at the hotel, so I arrived via BART. I understand they had some misadventures that probably would have flustered me so I am glad I did not try to keep up with them. Though at the time I remember wishing I could be part of the group since a direct taxi rather than having to take MUNI, then BART, then the hotel bus.
Next time: The Convention Itself.
After eleven madcap days at my place of employment I was more than ready for going to a convention for two and a half days of uninterrupted frivolity. Actually part of the reason I had the out of control time at work was precisely because I was trying to take a full day off work before the convention to show a few fans around Japantown and then get down to the convention hotel without having to drag everything I would be taking to work beforehand. The other part was that I was that despite ostensibly being at work the prior week trying to get things done early I did not succeed in getting much more than the minimum done due to the undertow of depression about living in the second least affordable city in America with nothing in particular to show for it.
So I worked over the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd to catch up. And when that was not enough I bailed on everything else I wanted to do and worked 10 and 11-hour days for the four days before the 28th. I was still doing a few at the last minute before I went out to meet my two roommates at the airport. With better coordination this whole thing could have been avoided, of course that would have required that I not decide that I would be attending Y-Con in September, just 41 days after moving to San Francisco. I would later learn that it was even worse than I thought because if I had done what I first intended, get my own room and find roommates, I would have saved about $62.00 even though the people I was staying with theoretically had the convention rate and I did not. Lesson learned: As much detail is needed in finding a roommate for a convention as is finding one to share an apartment. And I have to be the one to take charge no matter how little I feel like just being a plain "injun" rather than a chief.
The walk around San Francisco on Thursday was promising. I managed to show them everything they wanted to see in a reasonable amount of time despite having lived in this city only 88 days at that time. Our walk lead from the touristy Fisherman's Warf (actually not too bad to visit just after dark when the crowds are clearing away and nothing is actually closed yet), past Telegraph Hill to Little Italy and Chinatown, dinner in a Chinese restaurant, and finally through one of the picturesque gates on Grant Street into Union Square. I sent them off on BART and returned home to start packing and with the thought that I would just have to do a few items the next morning at work.
The next morning I spent an hour at work getting two payrolls done, not too shabby considering they were complex and difficult ones. And I even got down to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at the 4th Street exit from Powel Station within nine minutes of the time when I said I would be there. And L___, one of my roommates, was already nervous and said she had been ready to leave. Okayyyy. I was very sorry for being late, but in what bizzaro alternate universe is nine minutes late a basis for panic? This overreaction was the first hint of the storm of troubles I was soon to be engulfed in. Which had nothing to do with the three random girls who came up from the hotel with L___ and J___.
My memory of the bus system proved accurate and useful as we got to Japantown quite easily after being detoured by the hydra-headed-groupthink that had us going into a store of nothing but remaindered books. We had an inexpensive lunch at Benihana and finally I headed to retrieve my bags. I was not able to meet up with the group before finally arriving at the hotel, so I arrived via BART. I understand they had some misadventures that probably would have flustered me so I am glad I did not try to keep up with them. Though at the time I remember wishing I could be part of the group since a direct taxi rather than having to take MUNI, then BART, then the hotel bus.
Next time: The Convention Itself.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 03:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 04:05 am (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/community/bascon/