The Con by Lionus (July 2002)
In the middle of a crowd and feeling alone.
It was a quiet Sunday morning at AnthroCon 2002 (I'm a chronic early riser) and the sitting room off of the lobby of the Adam's Mark hotel belonged to just the cleaning lady and me. She eyed me suspiciously as she pushed and pulled her sweeper back and forth across the soft rug.
Fifteen hundred of us for three days and the hotel staff had that shell-shocked look that soldiers returning from the front have. Forced smiles beneath empty eyes slightly widened eyes by what they had seen.
The nice cleaning lady was probably glad she had her push sweeper to occupy herself with. Or maybe it was me who was glad that she had it. I did not have any answers that sounded true to me to any Mundane questions that she might have asked me. Just an anonymous smile and a mumbled "Good Morning."
It is not that I am a grumpy person in the morning. Far from it. I am usually chipper, on top of my game and willing to encourage the other person to tell me about their job or a little of their lives at that time of the day. But on this bright warm July morning I had come down with a bad case of the "Con Blues." That odd reaction to too much non-stop manic activity, too much room mates, too much accommodating too many other people in small areas, and the secret nagging feeling that I really did not belong.
It was the last full day of the con. The climax of all the preceding events. The bidding on the displayed art would happen later that day and I had invested quite a bit of money in bids on several pieces. If the bids on the pieces numbered six, then those pieces would move onto the fevered open bidding at the Free Auction. Then the Closing Ceremonies where we would learn how many and how much. How many people had registered for the conference and how much money we had generated for the chosen charity. Yet, still, sometimes large numbers can feel empty. They are only numbers. I wondered about the good deeds that might stem from donated money, but knew I would never know.
But for now, after the cleaning lady moved on, I sat alone in the sitting room off of the lobby. Better to lose myself in a drawing than to dwell on nothing as my stomach slowly tightened at the prospect of one last day.
Pencil drawing.
