Given current circumstances, as mentioned previously, Marscon didn’t happen as scheduled in person in Williamsburg this year, but a bunch of regulars stepped up to help create a virtual experience for those of us missing our chosen family of misfits.

In the form of a bunch of online meetups, streaming video, and all the other tools we use in these times, we had something of a convention. There were panels, concerts, and even an online masquerade, and I think we all enjoyed ourselves and had a nice little catch-up. For my part, I popped into a few rooms, attended Mikey’s show, played a show myself on Saturday afternoon for an appreciative dozen or so, and took part in the online version of Marscon’s traditional closing event, the Musical Round-Robin with a host of Marscon musical guests, past, present, and future (thanks, especially, to Metricula for organizing that one!).

In the end, though, I still miss my friends; some of whom I haven’t seen in person in more than a year, even if we’re able to stay in touch via these screens we spend so much time looking at.

The rest of the weekend was the same flavor of bittersweet, I guess. I finally finished Witcher III on the PS4 (it only took me two years), started up a new video game where I spent way too much time falling off of roofs, read quite a bit of the book I’m into, got a little outside time in, and for whatever reason, spent almost the entirety of MLK Monday just irritable and angry with no clear reason why.

I suspect it was in part because our little virtual Marscon gave me just enough of a taste of what could-have-been (if people would just do the right thing and wear their damned masks!) that I resented not having the real thing, but I think much of it was just me hitting my second six-month wall; everything is honestly tough right now; I have my patterns, as we’ve all established, to cope, though I’m just tired. I’d like a little non-crisis living for once. I’m sick of seeing the same handful of faces, even if they’re the people I love. The stinking bow on the whole pile of crap is that it doesn’t have to be as bad as it is, because people in this country (and especially in my community) are denying the basic science and not doing what needs to be done to beat this thing, for all kinds of stupid reasons and prolonging the whole affair.

Yeah, maybe here on Tuesday morning I’m still a little salty. So be it.

At least tomorrow, a little over 24 hours from now, we get to turn a particularly odious page of history and maybe, just maybe, start seeing positive changes from the new management.