MomentumCon – The Impending Return of My Bubble of Amazing People

In less than a week I’ll be at Momentum, back in my beloved bubble of My People. Of course, in exactly a week’s time from right now, the moment I’m writing this, the bubble will be slowly bursting and all of my lovely friends will be departing for home and quite likely I’ll be alone in my hotel room for awhile. Hopefully I’ll be able to do things different this time and be able to write better about sessions I attend. Last year I tried to take notes and live tweet but all of that left me missing out on key statements – let’s face it, I have the focus and attention span of a gnat. This year I’ll be getting over my high school / college era anxiety and will be parking my ass in the front rows for many sessions so that I can just take personal use audio recordings for later perusal. I’m hoping that my fear of public speaking (or performance, as was the case growing up of participating in piano recitals) will not cripple me for the morning on Saturday. The session Laura and I are presenting is nothing like anything else going on (we’re doing a geeky session on Blogging) which could work for us or against us. It fits in with Momentum but yet in a tiny way it doesn’t. The UK recently had a conference called ErotiCon and while at first it seemed to deal a lot with the erotic writing and such, there was still a lot of sessions that would have been very useful and at least one that sounded similar to the one we’ll be doing. After reading someone’s re-counting of a session they attended there I’ve realized that I’m technically not a sex blogger anymore – I fall into a better category called sex journalist. But can one be called a journalist if they’re only writing on their own blog?

Momentum is probably one of the few sexuality events that is attended by all sorts of people who are horny perverts in their own ways yet there is no “play” party or plans of sexy orgies. At least not for me. I just want to soak up the company of People Similar To Me while it’s available before returning to my currently-boring life. Perhaps inspiration will strike me when I’m down there, who knows. If it will happen any place, it will happen there. The sessions blow my mind. The abundance of influential people is awesome and scary.

Overall I’ve been very excited for this weekend for the last few months. Some things have happened in the last week or two – seemingly minor things to other people but things that nonetheless speak volumes to me – which have set in motion a terrific depression and a heartache of epic proportions. So if you are at MomentumCon and catch me in a moment where I think nobody is looking (or I lose my self-control for a moment and my mask slips) and you wonder why I look so miserable….just give me a hug. Or a cigarette. Or both. I’ve not smoked in months but damn I need one lately. I have no fucking idea yet what I’ll be wearing because my entire wardrobe has been the butt of some huge cosmic joke or karma for who knows what. No big deal to some people but (confession time here) I’m one of Those Women who somehow think that a killer outfit will make up for the fact that my personality is not always sparkling and vivacious, that my social skills are lacking and that I’m not conventionally beautiful. Will a really great outfit (or at least ass-kicking boots) be enough to shut off the little voices in my head? You know, the destructive ones. I don’t know. I guess I can try. If I could suddenly heal this heartache the weekend would look much brighter but I can only hope that I’ll find a way out of the grey cloud long enough to enjoy the friends I so rarely get to see. Hopefully I can get it through my head that they won’t love me more if my nails are properly manicured or if I were 80 pounds lighter and just relax.

2 Responses

  1. Nadia West says:

    I’m looking forward to seeing you! I’ll be around for hugs. I’m always glad to give friends hugs.

    MasterDoc decided to join me last minute. I think he finally realized how important this panel discussion is to me – and how I’m actually nervous despite appearances.

  2. Joan Price says:

    I’m at Momentum listening to your session as I write this! Terrific, geeky information, I’m loving it. Thank you for sharing your expertise!

    Joan Price
    Author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex and Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty