KJ

My employer announced yesterday that our return to office plans have been delayed indefinitely, from "sometime after Labor Day" to "we'll have another announcement in late October." This is fine, except I'd been sort of counting on being able to go into the office in September, when T is planning to redo our upstairs floor (replacing carpet with hardwood). This is a project we were supposed to do last summer and have been talking about for years, so I am reluctant to put it off any further (the carpet is ugly, falling apart, and possibly the source of our long-running moth infestation), but working from home with a construction site overhead is not my idea of a good time. So we'll see what happens.

( Vaccine news )

( Dayjob news )

( WorldCon news )

Brief pandemic stuff behind the cut.

( Entirely predictable, and yet )

My view right now

I severely overestimated the amount of writing time I would have on this trip, but that's okay because I've spent it lounging and board gaming and hanging out with people, and reading a little, and if that means I fall further behind on my writing goals this year, in the long run I think that's okay. I've needed this getaway so much, and I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to have one.

(Written on Saturday, didn't post until today. Now I am home. Tomorrow will tell if this trip was the reset I needed. I hope so.)

Last week, my employer announced that we will not be returning to our offices in 2020. And the implication was not that we'll be back at the beginning of the year -- to the contrary, the lease on one of our offices is expiring in January 2021, and the email said the organization will work with any employees who still have offices there to help them get their stuff back. (The lease ending isn't a surprise; staff have been moving out of that building for at least a year now.)

It seemed inevitable, in a way; once Google [announced that employees would be working remotely until next July](), with Apple soon to follow, I have to imagine the dominoes will fall for the rest of the text companies and any other business where work can be conducted, wholly or in part, from anywhere with an internet connection. Still, I wasn't ready to hear that I'll be working from my house for at least another six months, and I need to really figure out how to create a better work space for myself. What I have isn't terrible, but there's much room for improvement. I've already put in a request for a second monitor, with a webcam -- I've been using the webcam on my laptop, as well as treating the laptop screen as my "second monitor", and it puts my neck and back into an awkward position for hours at a time. Even worse is my desk, which I truly hate. It's rickety, it's somehow both too small and too large, and I don't have a decent flat surface for writing. Also, the built-in keyboard tray is much too high. I've long wanted to replace it, and this will be my impetus to do so -- I just need to figure out with what, and also how to choose a desk without being able to sit it and see how it feels. Unfortunately, unlike with the monitor and any other tech equipment, for the desk I'm on my own. Time to poke around the Ikea website and other online furniture options and see what I can find.

Any recommendations?

Today was basically just some Discord chatting (mostly in the Postmortem thread and the Fond Farewell) and a video call with other members of the concom. The transition back to everyday life has begun, starting with closing my laptop and moving it back upstairs once I've finished this post.

I'll probably have longer, more complete thoughts on the online con experience later, when I'm a little more awake and after I've had time to digest. For now, I just want to say how happy I am that the shift to an online con was a success. Perfect, no, I'm sure there are many things that we can point to that could have gone better (and I'm sure we'll hear about all of them in the days to come). I can think of a few myself. But thanks to the heroic efforts of many people, we were able to pivot from an in-person to an online con in less than two months, which frankly feels like a goddamn miracle. Thank you, heartily, to everyone who put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make that goddamn miracle happen. I'm so happy we didn't have to have a year without a WisCon. I look forward to making the return to Madison someday.

Considering that I typically finish con-related activities in the evening, you'd think I'd have no excuse not to write up each days events on the day of, but I've been getting tired weirdly early. Maybe I'm subconsciously transitioning to Madison time?

Also, many new people here! *waves to new people* I look forward to meeting you all, if I haven't already. :) (If we met at the con, and your DW username is different from your Discord one, let me know!)

Anyway, yesterday was good! I spent the morning popping in and out of Discord, and then at noon I had my first panel, on The Good Place. The online panels are half an hour shorter than the in-person ones typically are -- 45 minutes instead of one hour 15 -- and the time just FLEW by. As a result, I didn't talk as much as I might have usually done, but that's okay; I got to talk about what I think is the most interesting aspects of the show, the way it continually reinvents itself, and when I went back to read the chat later I saw lots of agreement with my points. But really, it was so short. The panelists kept talking on the video chat a good ten minutes past the actual end of the panel, and I wish it was a conversation we could have had with the audience. Then again, I don't think an hour 15 would have been long enough, either. :) I have a feeling that this could be a panel that recurs at WisCon every year for awhile. There's just so much to talk about! I also spent quite a bit of time hanging out in the chat thread after, talking with some of the other panelists and attendees, and as a result I unfortunately only ended up half-watching the Decolonizing SFF panel that followed mine. I might try to go back and watch the full video, later. Next up was the annual "Not Another Race Panel", in which PoC have a panel discussion about anything but race issues. I've always wanted to attend this panel, but never managed to make it work out in my schedule -- I've always either been on a panel in the same time slot, or had something else up against it. I am so, so, glad I finally made it there, because it was super fun.

That led into "dinner break" (which in Pacific time is 3pm-5pm, so more like a tea break). I spent part of that time chatting with a couple of people in a spontaneous video chat, mostly more conversation about The Good Place, and then I took a real break from my computer before it was time for the Otherwise Auction. Although it was plagued by technical difficulties (more than any other event has been so far), brainwane was still a hilarious and charming auctioneer who provided us with a fun time. She kept the proceedings moving along, switching between life performance and pre-recorded skits. Because the stream had to stop and re-start several minutes in, the auction ran right up into the last panel for the night: the now-annual Best Superpowers for Banging panel. This was, as always, a hilarious time, and at least of the events I've attended so far, the one most enhanced by the simultaneous text chat running beside the livestream of the panelists.

I spent a little time popping in and out of the Discord after that, but I confess that this is the aspect of the con where I've been the least comfortable. Finding and joining spontaneous conversations is the hardest part of any con for me, and I'm finding it even less natural in the message board format. I've learned that in-person cons are best for me when I attend with friends with whom I can meet up and connect on a regular basis, and then use those connections as a jumping-off point to make new ones. That's been harder online, as we are in different spaces, different conversations, often different time zones.

Anyway, I am back now and ready to get back into the swing of things, and also spend a little time prepping for my panel later this afternoon. "See" you over there!

So this is a very strange experience, trying to slip into con mode with no transition from everyday life. For FogCon, my transition is the drive to Walnut Creek (a place I rarely go for any other reason); for WisCon, it's taking a day off work to travel, plus the transit time in the plane. But Thursday is typically my busiest work day right now, so taking the extra day seemed unreasonable, and I was working up until 5pm. Since the first event started at 5:30, I had to go almost immediately from closing my work laptop to opening up my personal one, with no time or space to transition into the con headspace. I at least changed my outfit, at the suggestion of forestofglory -- I'd picked a particularly work-like outfit today, so shedding that and moving into my Agent Carter t-shirt, Wonder Woman earrings, and a comfy pair of cut-off shorts did help to change my mindset, but given that I still have to do the weekly grocery shopping tomorrow morning, I'm not sure I'll be able to fully relax into con mode until that's done.

I did attend the two main events today. First was GOH Rebecca Roanhorse's reading, at which she read from a short story and her forthcoming novel, and then answered questions about such thing her working process (both before and during COVID-19), her approach to world-building, and what it's like to write for Star Wars. She is a great reader and an interesting speaker, and I'm glad she was able to do a live reading. The second event was a pre-recorded Doubleclicks concert. I've definitely heard of the nerdy folk-rock sibling duo before, but it would be a stretch to say that I'm familiar with their music, so it was a fun introduction to them. Since they weren't able to be in the same place, they took turns singing (basically no one has been able to figure out how to record live music together online, due to lag issues), but they had clearly recorded on stream together, and their performance chemistry is excellent. I hope I get the chance to see them play together someday.

After that, I needed to eat dinner, and as I mentioned I don't feel quite ready to entirely disappear into con space yet, so I signed off for the night. I hope I'm more able to make the break from my everyday life tomorrow once my chores are done, at least during con hours. Wish me luck, and see you all around the internet!

I had no morning meetings, and it's shaping up to be a beautiful day, so I took an hour walk, during which I picked up coffee and a bagel sandwich (plus more bagels to freeze for later), and it was lovely. But it also reminded me of the beautiful mornings I've taken my bagel and coffee to a table at a local riverside park. Little things make me happy; it's also the little things I miss.

1. T's favorite boba tea place was completely closed until recently, so he bought some tea leaves so we could experiment with making our own. They released a cookbook recently, and today we finally had the ingredients together to attempt a raspberry-pineapple tea fresca, which is maybe my favorite of their drinks (and a seasonal offering which they haven't offered in over a year). It's a little early for fresh raspberries, so we had to add a little extra sugar syrup, but for a first try with the wrong brand of tea, we came pretty close! It's nice to make treats for ourselves when it's harder to go pick something up.

2. Today brings probably the most gorgeous weather since this whole thing started, so we took a walk down to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Making that trek on a day with nice weather was probably not the best plan from a shopping point of view -- I think that's the most people I've seen in one place since FogCon. But it still felt more comfortable to me than the last time we went to Safeway: being in open air, plenty of space to pass people at a distance, lines well labeled with six-foot gaps. We didn't buy anything, so it ended up being more of an exercise trip than a shopping trip (although we did stop by a fancy market on the walk home to get the raspberries and a couple of other things we couldn't buy at Whole Foods on Friday), but it was good to be out for sun and fresh air.

3. After finishing Horizon Zero Dawn, I moved on to Persona 5: Royal, which T and I will be playing together. We're only a few days in, and if I recall we're mostly or entirely on rails for awhile, but it was lovely just to step back into that world again. The new content is being introduced slowly so far, just a couple of scenes at this point, but I look forward to both that and to re-meeting all my old friends again.

4. Working at home continues to be about the same. I'm very glad I'm only expected to put in an average of six hours a day rather than eight. (That's my normal work schedule, not anything special because of the COVID-19 situation. My five-year anniversary with this organization was last week, which blows my mind a little. Remember when this was a short-term gig that was supposed to be over in three months? Actually, you might not, because I talk so little about my dayjob here, but I assure you that was the situation when I started. Now I'm a regular employee, getting raises and higher levels of responsibility, and I was even nominated for a promotion (which I didn't get, but I'm well positioned for the next cycle, so fingers crossed). I've never thought I would prefer working at home, and I can now say with absolute certainty that I'd rather be in an office, but I'm glad it continues to be an option.

5. I did a Zoom call with some family yesterday -- my parents, my dad's two sisters, and my 14-year-old nephew, who I haven't seen in person since he was... 10? No, nine, five years ago, when my brother (his dad) graduated from college. I've had very little contact with him over the years, so it was really pleasant to have a bit of actual conversation with him. We're hoping he can come to California for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, which is in June 2021. Let's hope that family gatherings, at least, can be happening by then. I've heard multiple people say that lock-down has put them in better touch with their family than ever before, now that we've moved to a norm of online video chat, so maybe that can be true of us, too.