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October 10, 2000
JournalCon, day two
I'm kind of feeling like I should just link to all the much better JournalCon recaps out there -- the whole weekend is starting to turn into a blur for me already. (Haven't quite caught up on my sleep just yet.)
Let's see, we left off with the end of the hellishly-long trip to Pittsburgh, right? I'd collapsed in bed, leaving a note on the door for my roommate Jan (who was presumably out having fun somewhere) explaining why I had arrived so late, and was unconscious in bed rather than meeting her. I think I vaguely heard her come in at some point, but couldn't wake up long enough to say hello. Woke up at seven the next morning, and we chatted a bit while getting ready to go down to the "informal breakfast" -- which was so informal it was just a bunch of sleepy people sitting in the lobby eating bagels from the shop in the hotel. Grabbed some food and coffee, and sat and talked a bit. (I don't really remember who was there, except Patrick and Melissa. Sorry to anyone else who was there -- I was too sleepy to remember. Finished eating, and headed off to the first session -- Carolyn Burke and Diane Patterson talking about the history of online journals. My first impression was, "Damn, Carolyn's gorgeous!" She's also a very engaging speaker, and, as I learned later, really nice as well. Diane is an excellent speaker as well, and has a terribly cute and happy baby.
The next session was on coding for journals -- which, I have to say, gave me a massive inferiority complex. Everybody else does their own HTML, of course, and I'm still a lazy-ass who hasn't learned enough yet, so I use Dairyland. Whine whine whine. The session itself was good, though.
After the two morning sessions, a huge group headed out to a nearby restaurant for lunch -- we had to walk through a parade (shockingly, NOT in our honor) and Melissa damn near got run over by a bus, but we eventually made it. Spent lunchtime chatting with Dreama and Amanda and a whole lot of other people (I'm getting old and senile, I swear). Amanda's a riot. I had sort of met her at Patrick's cast party a few weeks back, but for some reason had barely had a chance to talk to her. She's way too much fun. Dreama's very animated -- I could sit and listen to her tell stories all afternoon, very happily.
The afternoon sessions were excellent too -- readings by Patrick and Margaret and Rob and Dana and Terry. I was wishing that there had been more time allotted for readings -- it seems logical that just about everyone would want to read, and two short sessions just weren't enough.
The next session was my favorite by far -- Patrick and Dreama discussing how much they choose to reveal in their journals, and why. Patrick changed the format a little -- rather than having everyone sit in rows looking at the podium, he had us pull the chairs into a circle, so everyone could talk. It was fascinating, and I was sad when it was over.
Mostly, I spent the first day feeling very star-struck -- lots of staring at people, lots of little "Wow!" moments -- "Holy crap, Beth knew my name! And I don't even have a name tag yet!" "Ohmygod, Pamie just spoke to me!" (I did, barely, refrian from squealing like a 12-year-old at her first Backstreet Boys concert, thank you... barely.) I'm sure it would be more interesting if I were dishing a big ol' pile of dirt about people, but I really just liked everyone I met. I was extremely happy to have finally met Molly Zero and Columbine -- it's silly that I haven't before, being as we're all from Boston. Pamie's just as cool as I expected her to be. Shelley just rocks. Emily is the friendliest person I've ever met. And I so wish Jan didn't live so far away -- she'd be very cool to hang out with more often. I'm leaving a ton of people out. It was just a bit overwhelming. And now, since I'm sneakily updating at work, I'd better go try to at least look busy. Next entry will cover Day Three...
Posted by Mary Ellen at October 10, 2000 05:00 PM