Holy moley, it's been a while!

[luscious_purple]

I really need to dust this journal off! Let me summarize here:

ELECTION: I worked as an election judge for four of the eight days of early voting and for Election Day itself. Same as the Maryland primary -- same-day registration during early voting and provisional ballots on Nov. 8. Fortunately, no giant windstorms and power outages this time around.

CHURCH: We finally have a place to hold in-person worship services! We are meeting on Sunday afternoons at the University Christian Church in Hyattsville. (This started only on Nov. 20.) Despite having the word "Christian" in its name, the church is a member of the Disciples of Christ denomination, which is pretty ecumenical. The Hyattsville congregation welcomes the LGBT+ community, and when I drove by it just before the election, I noticed that one of the messages on its outdoor LED sign was "Reject Christian nationalism." I can go along with that.

PHILCON: Even though I would have liked to have gone to Holiday Faire (an annual SCA event), I used the free membership to Philcon 2022 that I won at Costume Con 40. I rode up there with my fussy friend R. in his shiny CR-V. (Before our trip to Cherry Hill, he'd owned that vehicle for about 18 months and put a grand total of 3,200 miles on it.) For some reason, all the people I already knew at this convention were male, and they have been getting steadily more conservative. By the end of the weekend, I was craving the company of female friends.

CHESSIECON: Now this is a convention that is all about female energy. But it was dreadfully small ... *maybe* 120 people. And since it was at that Hunt Valley Inn that used to host Balticon, which is something like 10 times that size ... it felt empty, full of ghosts. The con committee rented way more function space than they could fill with programming, and they didn't sell out the room block, so the committee is now thousands of dollars in debt. Most of the (few) attendees believe that this was the last Chessiecon, sadly.

And now Julia is demanding her nightly treats.

P.S. I am definitely NOT missing the Virginia congressional candidate commercials.

Comments

[zhelana]

TKE used to do services at an episcapalian church. They threw table cloths over the crosses lol. Fortunately I only know that because it is our 40th anniversary and there've been pictures.

[luscious_purple]

I vaguely remember hearing about a church and a synagogue in Brookline, Mass., who helped each other out by hosting the other's services due to fire or renovation or whatever. (I read this a LONG time ago.) It's great when congregations can help each other out.

[zhelana]

Yeah. We do a lot of ecumenical stuff still. Especially when something happens to another religious group. Like we had the leader of the Ukrainian church come in feb. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 29, 2022, at 8:19 PM, luscious_purple - DW Comment <dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:



luscious_purple replied to a comment you left in a Dreamwidth entry "Holy moley, it's been a while!". The comment they replied to was:

TKE used to do services at an episcapalian church. They threw table cloths over the crosses lol. Fortunately I only know that because it is our 40th anniversary and there've been pictures.

The reply was:

I vaguely remember hearing about a church and a synagogue in Brookline, Mass., who helped each other out by hosting the other's services due to fire or renovation or whatever. (I read this a LONG time ago.) It's great when congregations can help each other out.

From here you can:

• Reply at the webpage
• View all comments to this entry
• Go to the top of the thread this comment is part of
• View the thread beginning with this comment

Reply to this comment by replying to this email. Replies will be formatted using Markdown syntax. Your comment must appear before all other text at the top of the reply email. Do not change the reply-to address. It uses a secret address to identify you. Reset the secret address if you've accidentally shared it with anyone else.

[cz_unit]

Damn, I totally forgot about Philcon and Chessiecon. I remember going to the last Lunacon, it was a blast but it then passed away. Darkover was one of those cons I always enjoyed but it was small and intimate.

So what's up with the church? Did the walkway collapse or something at PB?

[luscious_purple]

It didn't collapse, but it's not safe to have more than one or two people on it at a time. So letting a whole bunch of people leave together after a service is not a good idea. There are also problems with proper air circulation and exchange. Plus a host of deferred-maintenance issues.

[gorgeousgary]

I wish we could have made Philcon and/or Chessiecon but we're going through some challenges right now that make cons difficult.

[luscious_purple]

Understood. Better days will come, I'm sure.

[cellio]

That's a bummer about Chessiecon.

(I realize I'm part of the problem, having stopped going to cons a while back -- I went to the last Darkover but then didn't go back the next year, or the year after that, or... But it's still a bummer for the folks who were part of it.)

[vvalkyri]

There's a gofundme for chessiecon. They wouldn't have gone to the Hunt Valley if their old little hotel hadn't fallen apart before closing. https://www.gofundme.com/f/friends-of-chessiecon-unite

[cellio]

Thanks for the link. I hadn't realized that the hotel they'd been using from way way back in the Darkover days had fallen apart. That's a bummer.

[luscious_purple]

A couple of years ago, some guys made their way into the now-closed hotel and shot a video of it. Creepy. I have no idea what happened.

On the way to and from Chessiecon, I noticed that the hotel was still there, visible from I-83 as always. Almost totally dark at night. Still closed.

[northernwalker]

Gosh, I hope Chessiecon survives! I haven't been in a few years, between health issues/plague/working weekends, but I'd like to go again. Fingers crossed for next year!