On Contemplating Philcon

Yesterday evening I received a surprising e-mail — it was a pre-invite to Philcon.

Well, it was surprising to me; things like this are always surprising to me.

Philcon is, obviously, a science-fiction convention held every November in Philadelphia. I knew of it it when I lived outside Philly about a decade ago, but working in retail as I did, getting down to the con would have been impossible; there are times of the year that one can’t take time off from work, and the week before Thanksgiving is one of those times. After I moved to Baltimore five years ago, I got an invite to Philcon, and I went up for a day and had a nice time.

But I’ve never been back.

So when the pre-invite arrived yesterday, I started rolling it around in my head.

Should I go to Philcon? Well, I should do lots of things, of course I should go… 😉 That’s maybe not the right question.

Can I afford Philcon. Ah, a much better question. Writers don’t make a lot of money, after all. *shrug*

I priced the hotel room. Which actually wasn’t bad, much less than I was expecting.

I figured up what gas would be likely to be for driving up and driving back.

Meals? Well, I can always stop at Dollar Tree and stock up on off-brand (and shockingly dry) apple newtons for the weekend. 🙂

To make a long story short, if I set aside a certain amount of money from the next five paychecks, Philcon should be doable. I try to live a frugal life anyway.

The ironic thing? Until about a month ago, I had an emergency fund that would have covered this. (Okay, it was emergency fund/trip to Scotland fund, since I’ve never been to Scotland and would really like to go.) But I had to spend the emergency fund; some of it went to my grandmother’s funeral, the rest went to replacing my parents’ hot water heater.

Philcon’s a little different than the kind of conventions I normally attend. More literary, for one thing. A kind of terra incognita, I suppose. It’s always good to break out of one’s comfort zone.

Mark me down for a tentative leaning toward certain, then. Philcon. November 18th through 20th in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Now I just have to come up with some programming to pitch. 🙂

And this reminds me that I need to get Farpoint squared away, too. That’s just five months away. Tempus fugit…