Lauren's Tales

I went to Arisia. It would have been nice to be on programming given that Wishbone came out last week, but organization is for other people.

Something important I learned as an Aspie is that when people ask how you are, you always lie. The catch is that sometimes I do not look ok and people will not take my word for it when I tell them. In the case of Arisia, I was experiencing the worst migraines I’ve had in almost a year. This led to many people saying “You look glassy-eyed. Are you ok?” I settled for telling them that the migraines weren’t nice, but that the drugs were.

Whatever.

Observation: there are lots of Aspies at cons. I mean, I knew this, of course, but damn.

Friday night was the Circlet Press party. I handed out lots of flyers. There’s something entertaining about offering people pieces of paper related to adult content. A few are emphatically not interested when you tell them Circlet publishes Erotic literature. But most are. I offered a flyer to a nice young lady whose eyes lit up like little sparklers. She told me that this was her first Arisia since she turned 18, and now she was delighted to go to parties that had been forbidden shortly before.

I had only bought a membership for Friday because I wasn’t sure how I’d feel. However, so many people I hadn’t seen in a long time were glad to see me. I decided to come back Saturday for more of the same.

I had a fantastic time going to parties and telling people that I wrote smut, would they like to check out my web site? This was even more fun after I found the rocket fuel party.

One gentleman informed me snootily that he didn’t need my site because his needs were served by Literotica.com. Have you ever looked at that site? I did once. I read the guidelines and found that everything that I had ever been advised not to write, and that everything that I had ever advised writers not to do, was required for Literotica stories. Ok, dude, you’re like, not a potential customer. No worries.

I also did some highly-useful schmoozing.

I found out something terrible. It was bad enough when all of my friends had kids. Now all their kids are starting high school. Augh!

Steampunk may be a bit overdone, but all the vendors of steampunk costume items work in leather, and their rooms smelled wonderful.

I had a great time, which made the subsequent minor snowstorm, the migraines it caused, and recent political events even more depressing. I’ll go have some more chocolate now.