Let’s get down to it, boppers.

5 pm : Science Slam YVR.  I went to this mostly to find out what the hell it was. The program book didn’t quite make it clear and it sounded like the sort of thing I would enjoy so I said what the heck and went.

Turns out, as the name suggests, it’s like a poetry slam but for science. The idea is to find the best science communicators. So each contestant delivers a five minute science and then the audience picks a winner.

And I would totally rock that contest. WIth my big personality, my charisma, my public speaking skills, and most importantly my ability to communicate my enthusiasms, I could get the audience so pumped up about science that they want to go out and earn a doctorate that very afternoon.

I’m not saying they could. But they’d want to.

Because I am genuinely super enthusiastic about science. Sometimes uncomfortably so. Science blows my mind and with my performance and communication skills I am positive I could blow other people’s… minds with it too.

The fellow running the event told us that there are similar events all over Canada and that the winners go to some kind of finals round.

Which would be nice and all. But it did not exactly strike me as a well funded and well organized event, so I doubt they would be able to pay my way to wherever the finals are taking place anyhow.

Plus, you know, it would involved doing stuff.

6 pm. Have the Geeks Inherited the Earth? In other words, have we finally reached a point where nerds are accepted into mainstream society? Is it finally the Age of Nerds where we shall rule?

Maybe? I dunno. I was hoping this discussion would be more about the root causes of anti-nerd bias rather than the superficial “hey look, nerd stuff is super popular” stuff.

But it was suppertime and I am sure we all had low blood sugar and so the discussion rambled even more than usual for a nerd based panel discussion.

I did, at one point, rather unexpectedly find myself defending Big Bang Theory. Not as a show, because personally I don’t care for it. But as that super important thing, representation.  It present us nerdy types as people, not stereotypes, with diversity and legitimacy and all kind of good stuff like that.

And it’s not perfect. This stage of acceptance for an outgroup never is. BBT represents the stage immediately after your group is depicted purely as a hurtful stereotype, and so there is still a lot of said stereotypes in its DNA.

In the case of BBT, a lot of their jokes still basically amount to “hah, what a pathetic bunch of loser nerds we are!”.

But it’s still progress. After all, it’s the most popular show on television. And it depicts us nerdy types as real people, albeit in a flawed way.

So while I personally can’t stand the show, I am glad it’s out there.

7 pm. Time for FOOD. Felicity and I end up going to one of our favorite local eateries, the local Denny’s. We enjoyed one another’s company, as usual, but I have to admit, that it was a little sad not having Joe and Julian there. This cold and flu season seems to be especially viscious. Quite frankly, it’s freaking me out a bit.

10 pm. What kinks will we develop in the future? An adults-only panel, obviously. The program book said that these events are closed to those under 18 “except with the express permission and presence of their parents or legal guardians. ”

And I am thinking, “Um, no, not even then. I don’t care if the kid is 17 and you have a very progressive parenting style. GTFO. ”

Just thinking about it gives me the prickly sweats.

Anyhow, it ended up being a wide ranging discussion about the future of sex. The sex-doll brothels threatening to pop up all over the world got mentioned, as did VR, of course. The question of what kinks may develop when physical limitations are removed from the equation was dicussed. I brought up my concerns about human beings going insane from too much change in their physicality.

I felt I was especially qualified to speak on this subject because I’m a furry and we have been exploring sex beyond physical limitation for decades. We just do it with our imaginations and our art, not VR and the CRISPR genetic bag of tricks.

11 pm. You can’t do that at a convention! Oh wait, you CAN? Another panel for grownups. The main thesis is that you can get away with a surprising amount of outright naughtiness at a convention, especially if you know the laws and the loopholes and hence know exactly what you are doing.

For example, in BC, ladies can walk around with their boobs hanging out and the law has nothing to say about it. After all, men walk around bare chested all the time, and you can’t have a law that treats one gender different than the other.

The hotel could, in theory, try to invoke their own rules and toss a bare-breasted maiden out, but they would have to also toss out all bare breasted MEN, and that is a whole new kettle of tits fish.

Still, I wish I had been taking notes, because other than the boob thing, all I remember is being pleasantly surprised at all that one can get away with if one is careful.

And this is the sort of information I can use, man. I can totally see myself as an adults-only event organizer and it would be nice to know what I can and cannot do.

And I have to admit, I am exactly the sort of person who could figure out a way to have a really smutty convention without anyone ending up in jail.

Unless you are into that kind of thing. I don’t judge.

After that panel, I hung out in the hotel room for a bit then spent some time at the Captain’s Party, which was for captains only. So I grabbed a nametag and declared myself to be Captain N. Teneel.

Because what the hell, people my age will get it.

But for those who are younger, here is the answer key :

Yeah, that was totally a thing.

No, I am not going to explain it. It was the 70’s. Things were… different then.

Or so I am told. I was too young to enjoy it then. Dammit.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

I got waaaaaaay sicker overnight.

Right now, I am one sorry critter. My stomach is upset  – it was so hard to get myself to eat. My head aches like someone shot off a blank next to my ear. My nose is running and I have that damned dry tickle in my throat making me cough.

But worst of all is the ague, aka muscle pain. Every muscle in my body screams like a off-key string glissando played on non-Euclidean instruments every time I move. Even standing up is a stiff and painful process.

I don’t think I have ever felt quite this rusty before.

Oilcan…. oilcan,,.,, oilcan….

Well that was more trouble than it was wortth.

The muscle pain is proportional to trhe mass of the muscle moved, so just sitting here typing isn’t too bad. I get little bits of pain but it’s manageable. So thank goodness for that small mercy.

I’d hate to be stuck with nothing to do but lie in bed and sleep.

Right now, I know I will experience a little bit of sleep weirdness purely from the fact that when I went to bed last night, I felt reasonably okay, but when I woke up at 8 am or so I felt horrible and when I managed to get back to sleep and woke up at around 11 am, I felt even worse.

So part of me doesn’t want to go back to sleep in case I wake up feeling even worse.

I am super tired all the time, though, so I kind of doubt that I have a choice in the matter. I will consider myself lucky if I make it to halfway through tonight’s words before having to take a bit of a breather.

I did a stupid today : I skipped lunch. Well, that’s no strictly true.I had two mandarin oranges. which I was delighted to find I could convince my ill body to eat even though I felt quite ill and had a strong anti-appetite.

I guess my body was willing to make an exception for something so obviously packed with Vitamin C.

“Gimmie some of that!” I imagine it saying.

No, YOU’RE crazy.

The weird thing is that underneath all the wretchedness and pain, I feel a tiny little bit of euphoria. I think it must come from my getting punch-drunk from all the pain. Somewhere in my bloodstream, there’s a lot of androphins pumping about, and that gives me a kind of giddy feeling like I am dizzily dancing on the edge of a precipice and high on the adrenaline.

That is something I have been working on lately, by the way. Turning anxiety into excitement. Seeing some large quantity of anxiety coming my way and instead of trying to hide from it. embracing it as a thrill.

It’s potentially quite powerful if I can make it work. Instead of huddling for safety when the anxiety storm comes, I will run out inro the fiercest part of the storm and scream, “Is that all you got? BRING IT MOTHERFUCKER. ”

It’s kind of psycho, but I think it can work. It’s an extension of what I used to call my “kamikaze mode” where something causes me so much anxiety that some kind of surge protector kicks in and suddenly I am all “For the honor of the Emperor!” then throwing myself into the thing wholeheartedly because I just don’t fucking care any more.

It’s a sloppy mode, so it would not work for things where I will need to be precise and on the mark about things. I have found that I can do remarkably well at things despite how giddy and silly I feel, but I would not want to bet my life on it.

It’s a rare mode where I do thing more or less by instinct, I suppose. I am certainly not operating in my usual careful, cautious, clever, and considered mode.

And some exasperated part of me says “For once!”.

My efforts to free myself from the dehumanizing and life-stroying effects of my logic box continue apace. It’s early days yet, but I am definitely learning to be human and a big part of that is accepting my own humanity. Warts and all.

It’s my own form of the ol’ transcendental bullshit. I have spent a long time hiding from reality behind a a layer of cool reflection and an inhuman level of detachment. This let me pretend that I was somehow above all the petty goings on which sadden me so much in the world. Let other people wallow in their jealousies and resentments and social competition. I am Different!

Bull SHIT. The only reason I could convince myself of that was that I am so uninvolved in life that most of the things which would stimulate my reptile brain emotions are completely absent from my life.

And even if I was “different’ that way, who says that’s a good thing? What horrible things did I have to do to myself to get that way? How much of who and what I am had to die in order to maintain the illusion? How much of my humanity did I have to sacrifice?

I cna feel the places where the emotions should be. They feel like the frostbitten and palsied flesh of a fresh stump. I feel a terrible coldness when I try sticking my tonguerin that particular dry socket.

I know that there are things that should be there. Good. living, human, strong emotions unmolested by an ego gone wild weilding a scalpel. These cold empty places fill me with dread as I worry about whether the damage can ever be repaired, or am I doomed to be an emotional amputee all my life.

Maybe those cold areas are my touch of autism and I am no more going to recover from that than a shizophrenic is to make the voice go away forever.

The damage is done. I’m a gimp.

I guess I will just have to learn to live with it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.