Monday, August 25, 2003
Bicon Day 3: Another journey on the Northern Line and DLR out to UeL. We know about 'dog years' and 'human years', but what about 'train time' and 'real time'? I timed it and it only took half an hour to get down to Bank, which is the amount of time it used to take me to walk to work but by crimminey it seemed longer. I suppose the enforced pacifisity (Is that a word? I doubt it. But it should be.) of sitting on a seat extends all journeys when you're not actually driving.
Anyway, halfway there halfway through the morning and I realise that I'm missing the workshop I wanted to do most of the entire weekend, 'Transgender Issues' but, arriving on site I happened to get talking to the person who ran the course (and who was wearing a spiffy 'Transsexual Menace' t-shirt like me) and found they'd been working from the excellent 'My Gender Workbook' which I've played about with in the past myself.
So, the first workshop I went to was the 'Bisexual Stereotyping and Biphobia' one. We split off into groups to talk about negative portrayals of Bisexuality from all sides in the media, such as Jackie Clune talking about there being a continuum of sexuality but at the same time seeming to believe that everyone should be at one end or the other. I was trying to keep things straight (as it were) in my head to make sure I didn't treat either the straight or queer communities as being uniformly hostile as a few uneducated people from Canal Street reported in the back of the Pink do not a uniform community position make. I'm not sure if anything particularly new was said at the meeting but it was just a nice experience to talk to people about it. And that's the main thing about Bicon for me. The amount of 'new' things I've learned is low (mainly because I didn't go to the BDSM or Flirting workshops) but it's just nice to talk to like-minded people (and get badges!).
So, after finding a certain person who, quite reasonably, stayed at UeL for the party on Friday night and didn't come home to be miserable and tired but made sure to phone me to bring her clothes in with me, we went to find lunch, accompanied by the lovely Saxey and Dan (and the apparently unblogging George from Brighton who was with us for most of the weekend). Game of the lunch was to replace 'love' with 'Loz' in songs, a la 'Tainted Loz', 'Loz, Loz me do' and 'Have you ever fallen in Loz, ever fallen in Loz, fallen in Loz, even fallen in Loz, ever fallen in Loz with someone you shouldn't have fallen in Loz with?'. It managed to get me buoyant enough to deal with the soul-destroying despair that is the Asda caff. Having a good nights sleep I'd foolishly not eaten anything in the morning before heading out to Bicon, so by lunchtime had not eaten for about eighteen hours. Plums was quite right to give me a verbal slapping for not taking better care of myself and although I felt fine when we went to get food by mid-afternoon was flagging. So perhaps if I want to feel justified about wondering why my body decides not to sleep some nights or throws up or whatever, perhaps I shouldn't give it any excuses by not eating or something.
Still, I made it to 'Revolution in 30 minutes per week' although even less substance came out of it than the 'Biphobia' one, like concrete ideas for doing stuff, possibly because a warm Sunday afternoon isn't necessarily the best time to try and start a revolutionary movement of some kind out of thin air.
Spent most of the rest of the afternoon slumped on the steps by the UeL union bar talking to people and swapping some emails and whatnot with people for more contact after Bicon. I may try and get a thing on the Wiki for people to list Blogs and Livejournal names and whathaveyou, there are people I'd like to keep contact with but I'm not willing to swap over to LJ just to do it. We admired the work of the people who'd gone to the body-painting workshop (someone who was done up like a bass, a woman with considerable frontage who initially seemed to be wearing a blue shirt under her blue shirt but then revealed all to show that there was only one shirt). Waiting for a report back from Dan and Saxey from the Slash workshop the sun was out and giving us headaches, so Plums and I returned home for something to eat as everywhere around UeL seemed to have decided to shut mid-afternoon. Recharged Plums put on her gladdest rags and launched herself back into the fray, your crap reporter whimpered and went to bed.
There is a sort of halfday today which I can't really be bothered to struggle out to, especially as it would have meant leaving early in the morning. It's pretty much all over now.
So, Bicon 2004 is going to be in Manchester, which I do intend to go to almost certainly, though I find these things best not to think about when I'm tired. Certainly if my health is better next year (or conversely worse so that I can at least then hopefully get something done about it or have some exciting invasive surgery) I'll be able to enjoy it more and will hopefully have a flat on site which will make getting to the morning courses easier and recharging my batteries before the evening festivities.
So, if you're bisexual, bisensual or just bi-curious and haven't gone to Bicon, should you? Hell yeah! I had a great time and I missed 2/3rds of it! 72 hours of hanging with some of the most interesting people gathered in East London and I'm suddenly taking more pride and pleasure in my sexual identity than I have in years. It does what it says on the tin! (If there was actually a tin involved and if it said something like 'makes you feel much more centred in your sexual identity than if you were just to sit at home and watch 'Will and Grace'.)
Anyway, halfway there halfway through the morning and I realise that I'm missing the workshop I wanted to do most of the entire weekend, 'Transgender Issues' but, arriving on site I happened to get talking to the person who ran the course (and who was wearing a spiffy 'Transsexual Menace' t-shirt like me) and found they'd been working from the excellent 'My Gender Workbook' which I've played about with in the past myself.
So, the first workshop I went to was the 'Bisexual Stereotyping and Biphobia' one. We split off into groups to talk about negative portrayals of Bisexuality from all sides in the media, such as Jackie Clune talking about there being a continuum of sexuality but at the same time seeming to believe that everyone should be at one end or the other. I was trying to keep things straight (as it were) in my head to make sure I didn't treat either the straight or queer communities as being uniformly hostile as a few uneducated people from Canal Street reported in the back of the Pink do not a uniform community position make. I'm not sure if anything particularly new was said at the meeting but it was just a nice experience to talk to people about it. And that's the main thing about Bicon for me. The amount of 'new' things I've learned is low (mainly because I didn't go to the BDSM or Flirting workshops) but it's just nice to talk to like-minded people (and get badges!).
So, after finding a certain person who, quite reasonably, stayed at UeL for the party on Friday night and didn't come home to be miserable and tired but made sure to phone me to bring her clothes in with me, we went to find lunch, accompanied by the lovely Saxey and Dan (and the apparently unblogging George from Brighton who was with us for most of the weekend). Game of the lunch was to replace 'love' with 'Loz' in songs, a la 'Tainted Loz', 'Loz, Loz me do' and 'Have you ever fallen in Loz, ever fallen in Loz, fallen in Loz, even fallen in Loz, ever fallen in Loz with someone you shouldn't have fallen in Loz with?'. It managed to get me buoyant enough to deal with the soul-destroying despair that is the Asda caff. Having a good nights sleep I'd foolishly not eaten anything in the morning before heading out to Bicon, so by lunchtime had not eaten for about eighteen hours. Plums was quite right to give me a verbal slapping for not taking better care of myself and although I felt fine when we went to get food by mid-afternoon was flagging. So perhaps if I want to feel justified about wondering why my body decides not to sleep some nights or throws up or whatever, perhaps I shouldn't give it any excuses by not eating or something.
Still, I made it to 'Revolution in 30 minutes per week' although even less substance came out of it than the 'Biphobia' one, like concrete ideas for doing stuff, possibly because a warm Sunday afternoon isn't necessarily the best time to try and start a revolutionary movement of some kind out of thin air.
Spent most of the rest of the afternoon slumped on the steps by the UeL union bar talking to people and swapping some emails and whatnot with people for more contact after Bicon. I may try and get a thing on the Wiki for people to list Blogs and Livejournal names and whathaveyou, there are people I'd like to keep contact with but I'm not willing to swap over to LJ just to do it. We admired the work of the people who'd gone to the body-painting workshop (someone who was done up like a bass, a woman with considerable frontage who initially seemed to be wearing a blue shirt under her blue shirt but then revealed all to show that there was only one shirt). Waiting for a report back from Dan and Saxey from the Slash workshop the sun was out and giving us headaches, so Plums and I returned home for something to eat as everywhere around UeL seemed to have decided to shut mid-afternoon. Recharged Plums put on her gladdest rags and launched herself back into the fray, your crap reporter whimpered and went to bed.
There is a sort of halfday today which I can't really be bothered to struggle out to, especially as it would have meant leaving early in the morning. It's pretty much all over now.
So, Bicon 2004 is going to be in Manchester, which I do intend to go to almost certainly, though I find these things best not to think about when I'm tired. Certainly if my health is better next year (or conversely worse so that I can at least then hopefully get something done about it or have some exciting invasive surgery) I'll be able to enjoy it more and will hopefully have a flat on site which will make getting to the morning courses easier and recharging my batteries before the evening festivities.
So, if you're bisexual, bisensual or just bi-curious and haven't gone to Bicon, should you? Hell yeah! I had a great time and I missed 2/3rds of it! 72 hours of hanging with some of the most interesting people gathered in East London and I'm suddenly taking more pride and pleasure in my sexual identity than I have in years. It does what it says on the tin! (If there was actually a tin involved and if it said something like 'makes you feel much more centred in your sexual identity than if you were just to sit at home and watch 'Will and Grace'.)
