Chrystalline

I know, I know, I haven’t said anything, but that’s at least partly because I didn’t have a lot of lead time between when I found out about it and when I had to fly. It was only about two weeks ago I found out about CPAC – my mom sent the link, and I almost disregarded it, but I glanced at the posted agenda and saw “How to Get Started in Hollywood” on the schedule for Thursday morning, and I had to come.

So I’m in DC. This is awesome.

The flight was almost an hour delayed, and I was exhausted before we even started because I don’t pack well in advance, and the idiot chicken-cat scratched his ear open Tuesday night, so I had to deal with a) catching him and holding him still long enough to get it to stop bleeding, and b) scrubbing off blood spatters, because the moron tosses his head when his ear is bleeding, which makes it look like someone went around flinging blood off a tiny baton or something. Work is still slow, so Manager had no problem with me leaving a little earlier than I’d planned, which meant I was ready almost exactly when mom & dad & brother arrived to pick me up.

DC isn’t as cold as I’d thought it would be; it’s about how Huntsville’s been the last few days. The snow piles are kind of impressive – the taxi took us past rows of cars parked on the sides of the road with snow piled up to their windows. Clearly, they’re not going anywhere.

The hotel is jaw-droppingly huge. It was kind of strange to get in the elevator, select our floor, and have the elevator start down. The lobby (which we entered from the front driveway!) is on the eighth floor here.

What really gets me, though, is how awesome it is to be in a crowd of people who mostly agree with me on so much. The Hollywood panel was great; conservative & artsy people like me – I did as much info exchange as I could. Again at the blogger free-for-all, too. I like this group. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve silenced myself because I’m so often around people whose views are incompatible with mine and I’m too timid to rock the boat. Getting cursed out by my grandpa at Christmas (because he disagrees with my political views) has shifted something in me, though, too – I think I want to start speaking out more. It’s my blog. It’s my life. I think I want it back.

Mirrored from Chrystalline.