chipotle | Off in Seattle

Yes, I’m in in Seattle for Conifur this weekend. This seems to be a surprise to many friends, which is, I’m sure, in no small part because it’s something of a surprise to me. Since I moved to San Jose in mid-2002, I’ve kept thinking that I needed to come up here for this con—heck, it’s within driving distance, right?—but various circumstances, usually financial, have kept me from doing so.

This year, virtually at the last minute possible, I decided, “Dammit, I’m going.” I decided I didn’t have the time to do a drive or a train trip, and just got plane tickets, just under three weeks ago.

I spent Thursday night at shaterri’s place, with dinner at Ray’s Boathouse, a locally famous seafood place, then got to the con hotel on Friday and checked in. I have a room of my own, and while it’s not the cheapest way to go, there’s definitely something to be said for it. My room has a good view of Mount Rainier, which seems to fade in from invisibility as the sun travels toward the west.

I’ve run into a few Northwest-area people I don’t see too often, like chuck_melville, genebreshears, Edd Vick (of MU Press, the folks who long ago put out The Furkindred), and Gerald Perkins—who I didn’t realize had recently become a Northwest-area person, as all the time I’ve known him he’s lived in the SF Bay Area. Otherwise the con is pretty small, though, as I’d generally expected. That’s okay. I don’t know how much I’ll spend in the dealers’ room, if anything (although I’m tempted by an artist who’s advertising doing name badge artwork using coffee for paint).

I like to think I’ll get inspired to do new stories when I’m at cons, which only sometimes works out: I often get the inspiration but rarely the motivation. We’ll see. (I feel like I should actually get a quick furry finished to fulfill an obligation or two before my mind gets sucked out by NaNoWriMo in a week.) I’m also feeling a vague inspiration to get involved with a writing track at a con—again—although my past attempts to do that haven’t gone terribly well. In the past I’ve figured if I say, “Hey, I’m interested in helping on the writing panel” to the programming coordinator or con chair and they say, “Great, we’ll get back to you,” the ball is in their court. But, I may actually get off my butt and try to put together the one-man writing workshop I’ve been thinking about trying to do for years, and go bug someone like krdbuni about it.

Although at this moment, I should get off my butt and get back to the con.