Ex-Tabula Rasa

On’t Torontup

Torontup was my first tweetup and it was everything I wanted it to be. I got to spend time with people I’ve met before but haven’t seen in a while, people I’ve never met before but felt like I’ve known for years (because in a way I guess I have), and people I didn’t really know but turned out to be rather excellent.

I got to hang out with people I started following when I first joined Tumblr, and who I thought at the time, “If I knew this person in real life, I bet we’d be best buds.” Years later, my thoughts haven’t changed.

There were so many brilliant moments from this weekend that it’s hard to pick favourites. The guy with a cat on his shoulder. The dramatic reading of 50 Shades of Grey in a busy patio over dinner. Being accused by historically dressed 1812 people of “Carousing with ladies showing too much ankle.” Walking to the subway at 1 in the morning with Casey covered in stickers and watching people trying not to stare. Rachel’s English accent. And playing the worst game of darts that two non-blind people could possibly play, a forty-five-minute epic tragedy that didn’t actually legally end and will therefore continue on forever, like ghosts on some haunted battlefield.

So thank you to the Smallbones for their excellent organisation. Thank you to everyone I met and hung out with for being truly splendid people. And most of all, thank you to the marketing woman who turned up at the Artful Dodger asking questions that sounded like she was an investigative journalist, for smiling and nodding politely when I told her I ran a sideblog dedicated to fantasy art depicting Penelope Cruz making love to centaurs.