Pen's Nest

ephemera asked for my best Con memories.

Best con memories (excluding Camp Sparkle, which has its own post):

My first con provided several. Walking in to see someone wearing the same (Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back) T-shirt as I was, bonding at once and spending the evening chatting. Finding two more women the next day and spending a hilarious evening, the four of us discussing the best bits in TNG, and didn't everybody kinda lean sideways to see what was behind that computer monitor? A guy from the next table told us, as he got up to leave, that he had really enjoyed our conversation and wished he'd taped it… Accosting someone just out of the registration queue because I liked her stories, and spending a goodly amount of time talking fanfic with her.

The DataCon, where Brent Spiner was the headline guest. All but one of my Dataphile acquaintances were there, and I couldn't walk through the bar (oddly, a necessity to get from public rooms to bedrooms) without seeing a group of them and, often, joining in. I printed out a recently-penned story and had the amused satisfaction of seeing it make the rounds. Generally when a fresh reader acquired it she would start reading at once, and after a few minutes declare that she would finish it in her room. Heh.

Fish and chips around the corner, where there was a table of Vulcans giggling, a table of regular fans giggling, us, also giggling, and two Klingons in full battle dress complaining that the food was already dead. And a very bewildered waitress.

The Angel con with Vincent Kartheiser: Bun had had a photo taken with him the previous year, and brought it to be signed, and he was delightful. Question time with J August Richards demonstrating VK's delicacy when having television sex with Cordelia. Keith Sjarabajka (??) stalking through the audience practically daring people to ask him stuff.

The Firefly con with most of the cast. The Starfury cons weren't quite my cup of tea, but seeing all those guests was hard to resist. And the fancy dress competition was awesome. "The Mudders' Statue of Jayne" would have won, but for the Wash-o_saurus, basically Wash riding on a smallish T Rex. Alan Tudyk leapt to his feet and demanded that all the cast take photos of them together first, before he and the Wash-o-saurus posed for the audience. Nathan Fillion being a truly brilliant guest.

My First Redemption: all those fanfic panels! And I spent the Saturday afternoon facepainting a very strange woman* who inveigled me into giving her my email address so that she could send me popslash recs.

Second Redemption, oddly, my Beast winning the Paper Aeroplane Competition and my son getting Drazi points for

Random Redemption moments: being dragged away from my cuppa by my children demanding that I join in the sword dancing as they needed more people. Stage fighting workshop—which proved very useful for 'The Mikado'. Spotting my husband and son in the first row of the Photoshop workshop which featured naked pics of the Doctor (10) and the Master. Bujold discussion filled with vast and uninhibited enthusiasm. Paul Cornell (Dr Who writer) being interviewed with great finesse—much more interesting than the standard audience Q & A. Ceilidhs.

Nine Worlds: the steampunk "Science of Afternoon Tea" session, a cookery demo with notes, given by a very capable woman in a spectacular outfit. Being on panels with all kinds of awesome people! Braving the silly intro games on the first evening.

The real shame is that I can't remember all the things that I've enjoyed at conventions.


* I had no idea.

manna asked me which non-canon Administration pairing I would ship.

Well, I'd have to go for the thermonuclear option. Warrick/Sara.

Because people in the Administration are not supposed to live happy, fluffy, long enjoyable lives.

Discuss!

frausorge asked for my favourite intra-Backstreet pairing.

And my favourite intra-Backstreet pairing is…

Hmm.

Do I even have one of those? I tend to pair everybody with my adored Lance, so the intra-BSB possibilities get overlooked most of the time.

Still, I think perhaps I do… but it's quite hard to tell, because really, I don't think there would be an intra-Backstreet pairing I couldn't like. I've just had a look to see what I've written, and reminded myself that AJ/Nick is adorable, particularly with them both being young and a bit clueless. Brian/AJ works surprisingly well as a mixture of caring and guilt—not that I do that sort of thing very often, but with that particular pairing, that's how it turns out, which is odd given how sunny Brian is. Howie/Kevin is a thing that there ought to be more of in the world, totally the opposite of AJ/Nick because these are two grown-ups and delightfully self-assured, and that's also something I like.

But I think my favourite has to be AJ/Kevin, which I wrote in my post-apocalyptic SeSa story back in, uh, 2009. I see them balancing one another out really well, with Kevin being sensible and with a sneaky sense of humour, and AJ being strong on the emotions.

But, really. Is there a wrong Backstreet pairing? I don't think so!

Okay, solariana asked me to talk about Gardens and Flowers, but I have allowed myself to be wildly distracted by the archives of TLo's Musical Mondays.

Anyway. Wow, gardens, flowers, where do I start?

I love going round big, open Gardens. There are always so many fabulous flowers, shrubs, trees and other vegetation to see. We seem to manage an outing from Camp to somewhere, these days—I remember going off to a lovely place last year where the bees were so enthusiastically clustered around the salvias fringing the rose bushes that the air hummed. And of course, huge, sweeping gardens around manor-sized houses can really display their flowers en masse, which is glorious.
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dine asked me to talk about my favourite books from childhood.

I read all the time when I was a child. I was never one for running about and there's only one tree I remember climbing (it was really easy, and had somehow grown with steps in the trunk), but I devoured books at a fantastic rate.

There were the obvious ones, of course, the Chronicles of Narnia, Beatrice Potter, George MacDonald, Roger Lancelyn Green's books of myth (Norse, Greek, and I think there were a couple of others), Paddington, Noel Streatfield, E Nesbit, fairy tales and Arthurian romances, the Famous Five and a panoply of School stories from the Chalet School to St Clare's to… whatever else there was. I also discovered a Biggles omnibus at my Nana's house, which set me off on a Biggles kick. Science fiction—Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, mercifully I missed out on E E 'Doc' Smith—came in my teens, along with Austen, Heyer, Tolkein, Jean Plaidy and a selection of other historicals. Many, many more.

My favourites, though, must be the Winnie the Pooh books. These are the ones I bought when I was pregnant with Bun, and which I still read, occasionally, even though she is twenty-eight (!!wtf!). I can recite the story of how Pooh gets into a Tight Place, not quite verbatim, but with extra glee at "How long does getting thin take?" "About a week, I should think." And Beast and I use "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" on relevant occasions, usually accompanied by an admonishing eyebrow. I love that story so much. It's inaccessible behind the sofa at the moment, so I can't re-read it right now.

I read the Pooh stories to my children. My parents used to read them to me. My mother made a particularly good Piglet with a little, squeaky voice. My father was then and will always be the True Voice of Winnie the Pooh, deep bass and grumbly. Think Christopher Lee. Somewhere, I may still have an ancient cassette with recordings of stories read by both of them, which is nice, since they're both long dead.

Disney-the-Pooh is an abomination. Do not speak of it to me. Ugh.


A few dates still available if you want to set me a task here.

watervole asked for my thoughts on global warming and what we can do as individuals to help.

There are a lot of days when I try very hard not to think about global warming at all, because it terrifies me. I keep wondering what will happen during my children's lives, and their children's lives. I want—I assume most parents want—my children to have the kind of life I had, only better, and the way we are treating our planet makes me feel horribly sure that that isn't going to be possible. The evidence is *in*, and the world still isn't taking it seriously.

I feel so small in the face of it. And I know that I don't do much to help. I mean, I've signed petitions, written to my MP (who is a weasel in a minor government position, so no help there), and I'm pretty sure I've given money to the cause, but it all feels very small.

How to help as an individual… again, it all feels very small. That said, the small things are things that everybody could do, and if everybody did them, it would help. No, not everybody. There are people in the world who can't make the little sacrifices—and I don't want to suggest that people for whom it isn't practical, even possible, to do the little things, are at fault. But there are a lot of smallish things that we can do, and when I read of privileged people refusing to do them, I want to smite someone.
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kira_j asked for something on my personal style.

Hmm.


I don't know that I have a personal style other than 'comfortable', but if I do, it's probably somewhere along the 'random', 'arty', 'quirky' and 'messy' axis.
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Happy New Year, everybody!

I seem to be caught up with the idea of memes telling me what to post, so here's an end-of-year list of 32 questions which I've seen around my Reading list.

1. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?( Read more... )

About this year's MTYG: I always look forward to the "guess the author" posts, but I don't really feel it would be fair for me to try to participate, these days, as I'm one of the Elves and have the chance—actually, the duty—to check through the stories beforehand to ensure they meet the challenge requirements. So I get to see who wrote what… and although by now I can't remember most of those details, I probably have a lot more of a clue than I ought.

So do, please, have a go at guessing. It ought to be much easier than usual this year, as you have fewer than two dozen authors to choose from. The MTYG Discuss guessing post is here on Dreamwidth or here on LJ.


On to my meme for the day: letterboys asked for my 'Patronus Memory'.

But the thing is, I don't think I have one.

I have quite a few very happy memories—when Beast proposed, for instance, which was quite the surprise; and when Bun was born, looking into her disapproving dark eyes for the first time; and when Boy was born and I looked at him and burst out laughing, for he was frowning and looked just like his grandpa. My wedding day might be an excellent memory if I could actually remember it, but most of it was a blur of smiling so hard my cheeks ached, and being photographed a lot. I can tell you roughly what happened, but the memory isn't particularly vivid. I probably have more detailed recall of my sister's wedding.

I can remember getting my A-Level results, which got me into Cambridge. I can remember graduating (though that was mostly relief!). I can remember my children graduating. Hmm.

I have good memories made with fellow fans. Awesomely fun conversation at first con. The Lava Lamp Reading. The first Camp Sparkle, and subsequents. Backstreet concerts.

I spose this means I've basically had a very happy life, which I have. No Patronus memory, though.

brandywine asked what is the best Christmas gift I've ever given and/or received.


The trouble is, I can't remember! I mean, I'd like to think I have on occasion managed to produce a spectacularly good gift for someone, but I don't know who and I don't remember when. If I were organised like my Dad, I'd have kept a Christmas Book with details of all presents received and sent, going back forever. But I ain't. I have done knitted stuff—I think the sweaters for my father in law, brother in law, husband and son (in a variety of years) went over well...

As for gifts received, I do remember a squeak of joy when I opened the present from Bun a year or two ago, for it was a set of Knitpicks circular needles, with interchangeable cables. I was slightly disappointed that they weren't the pretty decorative wooden ones, but I have since found that I really love the metal needles, and rarely use anything else now.

I'm sure there must have been other spectacularly well-chosen gifts, but I don't remember... argh!