Last night, I spoke to buddykat for a few hours in regards to programming for Lunacon 2011. We are good friends and we've always worked together well, and last night she asked if I would be hurt, upset, or offended if I was not asked to do Programming for Lunacon 2012; they'd had a volunteer from the NYC metro area with solid publishing contacts who would like to give it a try.

My response? "Are you kidding?! How can I be upset about that?!"

I know the volunteer they mentioned (I am not naming names here, simply because that's the con's right to do so); we've been friends since I first started helping Leigh with Programming and she's always struck me as responsible, smart, and level-headed. I think she'll be an excellent choice, both because she's nearby the con and because she has those industry contacts I lack. I'm friends with some amazing authors, but the same cannot be sad about publishers, editors, or agents. For years, Lunacon had made its name as a professional con, where people can go and make business contacts that could help them with their careers, or even just go and find out more about how the business side of publishing works. That possibility has been decreasing every year and while I certainly tried to contact people in the industry to invite them to the con, emails and letters out of the blue just don't carry the same weight as someone who is already known. Also, since I live several states away, it's a lot harder for me to keep up with everything going on.

I appreciate >buddykat's concern and her decision to confer with me before making any announcements or letting me find out by checking the website. That's the kind of politeness and friendship that made it so easy and fun to work with her. But if she's found someone who is going to be more useful to the con and actually wants the job? Then she should absolutely and without a doubt take that person up on her offer. I told her last night that a lot of the trouble Lunacon's gotten itself into comes from the desire to not hurt anyone's feelings and keeping people around long after they've ceased to be helpful. That is so not going to be me. I will be happy to send the new Programming Co-Chair all the information I have to help make her job easier, and to offer any advice she'd like, but I'm not going to be the person who stands in the way of a better con just so I can feel productive.

Lunacon, it was a fun few years. I remain confident I leave you in even better hands than mine.

Though now I have to actually buy a membership. That'll be weird.

Done

Not with everything, of course. But panels are made and panelists assigned. As soon as our webmaster gets home, he'll (hopefully) put the grid and the panels on the site. Once I get the addresses of those pages, I can send out all 175+ panelists their emails with their schedules on it.

And then I can relax and chill for a day--until people start emailing for changes. Still...done.

It feels so good.

Re: This post (and h/t to jimhines for posting)

Now I'm thinking of doing a panel about sexual safety at conventions. There are a bunch of people I wish I could wrangle into the panel and force them to listen and say, "See?! See?! This is why people think you're creepy!" but more than that, I don't want to see a post like that about my con, where someone won't come back because they feel unsafe.

Cons are meant to be 'safe spaces.' For a weekend, we can hang out with other fen and not have to worry about being judged for geeking out over Xena or Stargate or Joss Whedon. There's a real sense of community involved. But cons have their darker sides, too. The people who sidle up and start to massage you without permission and protest, "I'm just being nice" them to stop. The demand and expectation of mandatory hugs when you are considered the 'bad guy' for not returning the hug being offered. The 'hook-up' culture that can pervade the After Dark programs and parties. I'm not saying that the people who do these things are rapists or anything like that, but I am saying that knowing your own boundaries and how to express them is a good thing. Being told that you have every right to deny someone a hug or a massage is a good thing. Telling people that there are ways to tactfully step in when they witness a situation where one person looks uncomfortable is a good thing.

Maybe if more people were explicitly told these things, then situations like ones logansrogue describes will become less prevalent. (For the tl;dr folks, while the actual rape didn't occur at the con, the groundwork was laid there.)

Therefore, I want to make a Sexual Safety at Cons panel. I'd like to schedule it at 6pm Friday, before the first night of parties. However, due to the nature of the panel, this isn't something I want to arbitrarily assign to someone. Are there people attending the con available at 6pm (or willing to be available at 6pm), who are willing to staff this panel? I'd like a mix of men and women, if I can.

Consider this post a sign up sheet (and feel free to boost the signal!). Because programming is just about done, I'd like as many volunteers as possible so I don't have to pull people off of other panels. If I get enough volunteers, I may make a second panel Saturday at either 10 am or noon.

This is something I really think is important. I want to make these happen. I'm just ashamed it took me a boot to the head to think of it.

It's after 10 in the morning. Scheduled another 30 panels between when shogunhb went to bed an now.

I am now going to bed.

Still, feeling victorious. It might be the sleep-dep kicking in though.

I suddenly have a need to email 200+ people from my gmail account. I can't send them altogether as CC's or BCC's because then they'll get caught in spam filters, so I need a client or a program or whatever fancy computer term you want to use that will auto-magically send out these emails to a single person or a small batch of people at a time.

Help?

Google Docs just crashed. That's...sorta where I was storing the panels. You know, all those panels I was working on scheduling? I'm sure it'll be up soon enough but it's quarter after six in the morning and I still haven't gone to bed and I'm cranky and sleepy and wanna SLEEP but I can't cause I have a treatment tomorrow--well, okay, today since 6 am is totally today, whereas 2am or 4am still isn't.

Trufax

Anyway, shogunhb printed out a copy of the list we're using so I have it to reference but it's not the saaaaaaame. But I will use it until Google Docs decides to work again which maybe it did while I've been writing this.

No.

Wahhhhhhhh.

All right, back to the grindstone. I don't mind working on Lunacon all night (ahahahahahaha okay yes I do, but shhh) because I get to take tomorrow fuck, I mean today again, but anyway I get to take today off. To get a Remicaid treatment at the hospital.

ENVY MY LIFE, BITCHES!

EDIT: It's back up again, but now it's all borked. Why would it come back with a bunch of things struckthrough? IT DID IT JUST TO FUCK WITH ME, I KNOW IT! I AM ON TO YOU, GOOGLE DOCS!

Cause I'm getting reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally close.

Playing Karla is bad for me. I might forget I can't just use Craft to throttle someone.

Oh and since people have noticed....

15!

more days till my birfday

If you can, I NEED YOU to be at this week's meeting. Major brainstorming session. Bring laptops if you've got them.

If I had a dollar for everyone who emailed me wanting to know why they didn't get an invite to Lunacon from a different email address than the one we had on file, I could retire to Bermuda tomorrow.

Okay, maybe not. But treat my husband and myself to a nice dinner out? Totally.

I just sent out the second follow-up email to our participants. The subject is 'Second Hello from Lunacon 2010.'

This amuses me far too much. ILU, Eclipse Phase gaming group.

Giving credit where credit is due: it was shogunhb's suggestion. I'm far too exhausted to come up with that--thus, exhausted enough to find it hilarious.