Why don’t you just tell everyone that you don’t have time to post because you have to get ready for Ubercon?

The question would have been less ironic, I suppose, were it not that the one asking it had called me around one in the morning, when I was trying to make good use of the time my laundry was running by washing some of the dishes which must be under control by the time I leave tomorrow–a phone call that lasted over an hour and took me away from the things I needed to do to look at one of the very forum posts he was suggesting I not answer until Monday.  Yet irony or no, it was a good question.  I could decline to attend today’s game, and let it all slide into Monday.  I would be a lot less pressured in terms of convention preparations were I to do so.

It is not so simple as that, however.  To my mind, the question is not whether I will post today, but whether I will attempt to post tomorrow before I leave.  My inclination at the moment is that I will not, but it is a hesitant inclination.  I believe that I have always posted on Friday before departing for any convention, probably all the way back to Apartment Con years ago.  However, I have also gotten caught in traffic, or fallen behind schedule, or otherwise wound up reaching the first event late, or breathless, or both.  I would like this time to get to my hotel first, leave my suitcase there (since I will be traveling in the pickup this time around, and I do not wish to leave my suitcase in the bed of a pickup in a hotel parking lot in the middle of a New Jersey Turnpike interchange while I spend four to six hours in the convention).  That means I’m looking to leave earlier than I usually get out of bed, and hoping to have accomplished at least a few things before that (although I will probably pack most of the stuff into the truck tonight).  So I already feel a bit guilty about the fact that I am nixing tomorrow’s visit, and to add today to it would be too much.

On top of that, as I pointed out to my caller, the work does not stop stacking up simply because I stop doing it.  Come Monday I will have all that I usually do on Monday, plus whatever I did not do in the interim.  Frequently I have managed to pop in and post upon my return Sunday night–but last Ubercon the last session was packed, and this Ubercon promises to be even more insane, so there’s no hope of an early departure (and really, I do not hope that there will be no interest in the last session).  I will be late getting home, and probably will not be able to do the bare minimum of Sunday’s work.  Thus Monday promises to be nightmarishly overloaded, and adding Thursday to it would be completely foolish.

So here I am; but I make no promises that I will return again before Monday.

–M. J. Young