It was an amazing weekend.
The drive there was wonderful. It was so nice to be on the road with my love. It really is our favorite place to be.
The con was amazing, if a bit of a blur. I was struggling a lot, 14 months at home did terrible things to me.
I'm not going to try to mention all the people I saw, I know I'll leave out someone. To give a view of my general state of mind, I saw a bunch of photos this morning and my first thought was "I wish we could have gone".
It was wonderful to be part of the Pegasus Awards concert, I hope we did Brooke justice. It was an honor be be part of the Listeners Choice concert. I did have the weirdest struggle with my guitar, which I am proud to say I won! Our show Sunday was a trifle odd. The songs we got through went well. One song, I never played the right chords through the chorus ... any of the choruses. Even Lizzie didn't notice.
The rest of the weekend was a blur of hugs, conversation, and me being close to collapse. 14 months ...
We didn't make any circles, except to listen a bit, we just didn't have the ability to cope. I quit playing guitar for 6 months earlier this year, and I still am not back to where I want to be. I may never be again. That has happened before, and I change how I play, and have always come back better at it.
Looking at the Pocket Program, things I did want to talk about.
The Pegasus Awards concert was amazing. I am so humbled by being in the presence of so many brilliant musicians.
Via Bella were a delight. In particular, Erin continues to grow as a performer.
James Mahaffey was as brilliant as I expected. His songwriting amazes me, his guitar playing makes me giddy.
Familiar were a delight. I love the albums, and now love them as much live. They are one of the few acts where I am surprised constantly by where the songs go. Their music is so playful.
And two shows by the Misbehavin Maidens, one only mildly wrong, the other wildly wrong. I am so glad I was finally able to see them live. They are a blast onstage. One of the best live acts in Filk.
Peter Alway ... Peter ... you need to record an album. Your songs need to be heard all through Filk. Delightful as always.
And Summer Russell, sometime I need to hang out with her and compare record collections. I adore her voice, I love her songwriting. Unfortunately, she was on right before us, so I had to miss some of her set.
I bought a lot of CDs this weekend, expect to hear about that on the next FilkCast.
Finally, to everyone who dealt with my babbling. Thank you. I am difficult in social situations at the best of times, and I was not at my best this weekend. I have missed all of you so much. And it was lovely to meet so many people I only knew from online. Do understand, those of you who I met face to face this weekend, a lot of my memory for people is visual, so I will have a lot of trouble figuring out who you are when I see you again ... even if you are still wearing a mask.
We got home to very happy beasties, who I am sure, after about 5 minutes of us being gone, were convinced they had been abandoned forever. I got out of the shower yesterday morning, and Helvetica was waiting for me on the bed. I sat down to put on my socks, and he yelled at me ... really yelled at me. I gather that it translated as "PET ME NOW MONKEY BOY!" So I did.
We're going to spend the next couple of weeks finishing the initial writing for the Arcana project, and then back to re-writing Callenwood. Some of it is ready to go, some of it needs work. We hope to have at least it out by the end of next year, if things go really well, we'll have both CDs out.
And we're home, home until Capricon. We're going to do something online for my birthday, but not a concert, I never want to do another online concert. (Yeah, we probably will, but not soon).
Thank you everyone with OVFF for giving us this marvelous weekend. We needed it so much, even if our participation was less than we wanted it to be. We'll see you all soon!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
