(no subject)

I am back from Norwescon! Indeed, I have survived my first con!

However, I am tired and I think I'm going to be anti-social for a week or so because there were so many people!

*conks out*

Norwescon: Day 1

In which I get lost and arrive quite baffled

Day 1 of Norwescon is actually more of a Hour 1 of Norwescon. I hurried home from work and threw together my luggage, left many detailed instructions with the boy re: how to take care of the rats, because I am a paranoid rat owner who loves my pets. Got to the airport. Ate expensive airport food that never tastes expensive. Sat. Sat some more. Got really bored and sick of dragging my luggage with me every time I wanted to go somewhere or use the bathroom. It's really hard fitting all of one's carry-on luggage in a little stall!

Ahem.

I ended up buying Simon Winchester's Krakatoa at the airport, simply because I cannot resist buying books at airports.

By the time I got to Seattle, I had finished Emma Bull's Bone Dance and was also extremely tired. Note to self for next con: do not spend the week before con sleeping only 5 hours a night.

I spent a good half hour wandering around SeaTac airport trying to find the shuttle to the hotel. Of course, said shuttle was located with all other courtesy vehicles, instead of with airporters, which is what I naturally thought. Then there was much nervous waiting for the shuttle and figuring that ohmigod I had landed at the wrong place, the shutle would never pick me up, I had made up the con, yhlee would not be there to greet me, I would be completely and utterly stupid and why in the world was I doing this anyway?

It didn't help that when I was on the shuttle, the driver oh so kindly warned all the passengers, "Just letting you guys know, there's some science fiction convention going on at the hotel. Lots of weird people wandering around." Many bad jokes about Trekkies and people in costume ensued.

I finally got to the hotel and saw Yoon in the lobby! Joy! Someone I knew! Although there was one of those funny awkward moments in which neither of us was sure that the other was the right person. I mean, I was rather sure, because how many Asian women would be waiting in the lobby, but then Yoon looked sort of confused or unsure, so then I felt confused and unsure, until finally we got our identities straightened out. Yoon led me to the registration line, while I was mostly looking around, completely and utterly in awe at the scope of the thing. You see, I had thought that if this was just the Northwestern version of Worldcon, that it would be rather intimate. I mean, maybe it is, comparatively, but it was still huge!

People milled around, some in geeky t-shirts referencing Star Trek or Cthulu or entrails (I liked the entrails ones), some in goth ensemble, some in Ren Faire or medieval type outfits. Lots of people with horns. Lots of people with wings. Some people in full regalia, very cool. Signs everywhere, people everywhere.

Got my lovely little bag of the con guides and freebies (book!) and then wandered up to the hotel room, feeling incredibly lost and overwhelmed. I hadn't even planned out which panels I wanted to attend because I had been so busy with the moving and the feeling miserable. Feeling miserable really takes up a good deal of energy.

Finally got to sit down with Yoon and exchange ritualistic greetings and presents, and I got to see her loot! Loot already, on just the first day! Drooled in envy. I sort of darted around from thing to thing and sniffed at BPAL samples and paged through Korean textbooks and the panel guide and generally felt my brain overload. Luckily, then, there was food gettage and finally sleep.

Rosen, Laura Epstein, and Xavier Francisco Amador - When Someone You Love Is Depressed

(subtitle: How to Help Your Loved One Without Losing Yourself)

I liked this one better than How You Can Survive When They're Depressed, probably because I felt it had a slightly more balanced view of people who are depressed. Either that, or else it just made me feel less guilty or something. It doesn't look quite as closely at the effects that depression has on other people, like the other book did, but it does seem to be a much more practical guide for people who just want to figure out how to deal with someone who is depressed.

The book gives guidelines for how to tell if someone is depressed, and tips on how to help out. Most of the tips are pretty much the same, even though the book is split into sections for lovers, parents, children and friends. I suspect the authors did this so people could just flip to the applicable chapter instead of read straight through like I did, because the book does get fairly repetitive that way. It also goes into dealing with suicide or suicidal behavior, constructive behavior, therapy and meds. Although I found a lot of the examples too pat -- problems got resolved so easily in the book -- the guidelines in general do seem to be good ones. However, I do wish that the authors said something more about the limits of what you can do. I think it's tough for a lot of friends and close ones to realize that in the end, if the depressed person doesn't want to go for help, you can't force them. Gentle nudging and convincing, yes, but anything that hints of forceful behavior (for me) at least, didn't work at all.

And it would have been nice to have something about the importance of finding other depressed people to talk to, if you want to help out someone who is depressed. At least personally, one of the biggest things that helped was just finding that there were other people who felt the way I did, and people who had pretty much the same thought patterns. Thoughts that seem perfectly normal suddenly look suicidal or depressive on other people.

Anyway, an interesting read, though rather repetitive.