It takes a bit of work to shake off the effects of a convention weekend. I’m not sure if it’s euphoria, stress, exhaustion, or just dust on the social interaction muscles of a misanthropic introvert, but it always makes starting the week back in the mundane world a less than appetizing proposition.

Those who read my Friday post might be curious to know that my anxiety expressed there was, for the most part, not much of an issue, but I’m still feeling the stress of having to continually maintain a low level threat posture in case something went awry (even though it didn’t).

Beyond that, (and the relatively minor personal crash on Saturday afternoon), this year’s RavenCon was a great experience, full of games, spirited discussion, and communion with the like-minded. A couple of weekends a year, I get to spend time with “my” sort of people, and in its own way, it’s glorious.

In my post-con stupor on Sunday, I neglected to take a photo of the goodies we brought home (and there are some nice goodies), and I honestly probably won’t get there before I take some stuff to the framing shop (edit: see below!), but I did take this photo on Saturday evening of some glorious graffiti that one will only see at an event like this:

It’s funny, because it’s true, and if you can’t read it, click it to make it bigger.

I didn’t get to Many panels this year, spending most of my time in the game room slinging cards and rolling dice (thanks, MIBS from Steve Jackson games, including his holiness, the pope of france), though I did catch a presentation on “Sci-Fi vs. Space opera” on my way to the screening of Browncoats: Redemption, the semi-authorized Firefly/Serenity fan film making the rounds of the convention circuit and raising money for charity (for those of you that care, it’s really quite good. I plan on catching it again -and picking up a copy from the filmmakers- at Balticon; consider it highly recommended for fans of the ‘verse.).

Otherwise, we picked up a bunch of books from nice folks like Pamela Kinney (who it was nice to finally meet after several near misses) and Leona Wisoker, sat in on a couple of crafting workshops with jewelrymaker Loren Damewood (who was terribly gracious in going above and beyond the call of duty with his essentially non-stop roving workshop which entertained many of the younger attendees), and, of course, the traditional Sunday morning knitting panel where Colleen talked shop with lots of nice folks like Debra and Diana.

I also ought to mention the folks at Pickle Man Productions who entertained Catherine, B & V Traders for (perhaps dangerously) re-introducing me to Battletech, and fellow fan Lady Ozma for the amusing twitter exchanges.

And those would be the highlights; time to go back, reluctantly, to the real world for at least a little while.

edit: look what my wife sent me! An artfully arranged still life: