Note: I’m post dating this to keep it on the top of the post for the weekend. Scroll down for new posts.

In February 1985, I went to my first science fiction convention. In October, I ran a fiction convention, NotJustAnother1 Con (NJAC). I did it again in 1986, and then started Arisia, Inc. and ran the first two conventions 1990 and 1991.

About 4 years ago, I realized something important: I don’t like science fiction conventions.

When I go to a con, I don’t go to program items, I either work the con, or I self medicate.^*

What’s more, my involvement with running a con completely subsumes my life, and I have a family now, and, quite honestly, it’s a destructive addiction thing to me, and no one wants to work with a self-destructive addict, and I don’t want to be one.

It only took me 20 years to realize that I hated my hobby/obsession, and, honestly, I’ve always found the community rather unremarkable.^†

So I cut my losses, and following a remarkably unpleasant exchange with Arisia, Incorporated and the for-profit database vendor to whom they have outsourced their attendance and mailing list management, I had my information, and that of my wife and children, expunged from the Arisia database.^‡

Maybe, the next time I think about calling someone “#@&ing stupid”, perhaps this experience will make me a bit kinder.^§

In any case, I was driving to pick up my Son, and his drum kit, from school today, and there was an announcement for a Martin Luther King day symposium, and I realised, “MLK’s Birthday? Is it Arisia again?”

So I called up their web page, and yes, it is this weekend …… Though it’s technically in Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston.

The first few years after I severed ties with the con, and the 501(c)3 corporation, I worried about it sucking me back in, but I hadn’t thought about the con in months, and only made the connection because the MLK birthday announcement triggered a connection.

I find this amazing, because just a year ago, I was contacted regarding a potential dispute with an artist, whose graphic art work is the official artist, and I found that it left me pissed off for a week.

If anyone from Arisia is reading this, I will paraphrase what I said about the time:

Please note that this is NOT intended to prohibit or discourage any individual to contact me personally in a purely social context, I just don’t want to discuss, or be involved with Arisia.

I would sooner give Dick Cheney a sponge bath than get sucked back in.

^*Mammoth, some would say legendary, drunken binges.
^†Which anyone who has ever discussed SF Fans with me knows.
^‡What part of “remove me from the list” is so hard to understand? Needless to say, this Further justified my sense of ambivalence toward science fiction fans.
^§NoT!!!. I’ll still judge them harshly. Let’s be honest here. I’m going to be calling people who do stupid things while I still have two brain cells left to rub together.