Post Dragon*Con Recovery

If you've never been to a SF/F convention before, you really can't comprehend what you're missing. Imagine the most crowded environment you've ever been in. Then add at least 20,000 more people. Then imagine that half of those people are in costumes. This image only scrapes the surface of Dragon*Con.

Dragon*Con is an environment that can make fifty-year-old men act like sixteen-year-old girls. Seriously. My dad almost passed out when Richard Hatch (from BSG) walked by him.

So Dragon*Con is four days of awesomeness. I attended classes for writers, Star Trek Panels, Stargate Panels, author talks, and all sorts of awesome things. So the question is, after a weekend of pure amazing-ness, how do you recover? How do you go back to just mundane and quotidian?

Well first off, you have to understand that there are two stages of Post-Con feeling. The first stage is exhaustion.

Sure you had a great weekend. You shook LeVar Burton's hand. You heard Brandon Sanderson read from the next (unpublished) Wheel of Time book. You saw costumes that made you think someone stepped out of the Lord of the Rings. But it's been four days--and the con runs for the full twenty-four hours of each day. You've basically only slept four hours total. You are tired and a small little part of you is actually relieved the con is over. You can sleep. And your bed is soooo inviting.

So the first stage of your recovery is passing out in your bed as soon as the last panel closes (or you fly back to your home, depending on the closeness of your home).

The second stage is regret. You've waken up, you feel mostly refreshed (it takes close to a week to recover from such exhaustion), and you reflect on the awesomeness of Dragon*Con. Then you remember that the next Dragon*Con is a full year away. You now have 365 days until you can experience anything that amazing again. Sorrow and sadness wash over you, as you realize that you have to go back to work or school. You can't just spend the rest of your life talking about science fiction and snapping pictures of fantastic costumes.

So how do you recover from this? How do you move past through this regret?

One answer: start planning for the next con.

Who needs to live life from day to day? Live life from con to con. Start planning next years costume.

Though maybe you should do schoolwork...hmm...my orbital mechanics homework is a little incomplete.

Ok, ok. The best way to get past a con is throwing yourself into your work and your actual life. But that doesn't mean we can't dream about the next con.

Only 364 days!!! Wooo!!!