and now, the "Good stuff that happened at Arisia" post.

[arib]

I met several new people, including a crowd of New Yorkers who'd like me to come and visit.
I attended a few interesting panels.
I saw a great concert with some friends.
Shabbat lunch and Friday dinner were both really good, and with good company as well.
I did enough massage work to comp my admission for next year.
Had several good conversations with some unexpected people and learned a fair bit about myself in the process.

Comments

[penmage.livejournal.com]

How do you work shabbat into one of these cons? I've always wondered.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Well, Arisia's the only con I've attended, so I can really only speak for what goes on there.

They offer a Shabbat room block that has rooms on the lowest possible floor in the hotel. This keeps you from getting worn out by walking dozens of flights of stairs. Unfortunately, they no longer offer rooms with key locks, so you'll need to have a Shabbos goy around to help you with your keycard. As for food and such, there were two different groups that met for meals (one for Friday dinner, one for both meals). Apparently, they used to have a minyan, but it got too difficult to manage.

Generally, other con-goers are very open-minded about Shabbat-observance and such, but one or two can be a bit backhanded about it. (Last year, when a friend of mine and I had to get something set up before sundown on Friday, someone said, "I'm not sure why you'd believe in anything as stupid as all of this, but I'll help you, anyway." It was odd.)

I'd definitely recommend checking out a con sometime, there are lots of panels for writers that I think you'd enjoy.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

That's really tacky. I admit, I do sometimes (okay, often) wonder why you are so strict about some things when certain other things you've completely let go. But I would never describe it as "stupid".

Generally, I'd think that the people who are friendly and decent would be laid back and helpful about it, and the few people who were doing things like shoving people with luggage and babies in strollers out of the way to get on the elevator first, will be jerks about it. So, in other words, pretty much the same as out in general society.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Thing is, until recently, fandom had a reputation for being very anti-religious.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

True.

Or in many circles, still, either "anti-religious unless you're Pagan", or the ever-popular "everyone but Christians is ok".

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

It was good meeting you Ari. I've seen your comments in chaiya's journal and it is good to put a face to the icon. It is just darn nice when a foaf turns out to be a pleasure to be around.

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

Ok, that weird b l a n k area was supposed to say "chaiya" all nice and pretty with proper lj linkage. Oh well.

[arib.livejournal.com]

replace the dash in "lj-user" with a space. I know, you'd think they'd make it the same as a cut-tag, but they don't.

(and yes, it was great meeting you, too. :-)