When You're Up On The Stage, It's So Unbelievable

Between 2005 and 2009, I didn't play a lot of music in public. It wasn't a decision I made to withdraw from the stage. It started because of struggles with depression that caused me to withdraw from a lot of social spheres, and then after I came out the other side of that particular emotional valley, I just...didn't. No one was asking me if I wanted to, and I wasn't volunteering, and the longer it went on, the more it just became...normal. This wasn't just not doing concert sets or one shots; many have noted that I absented myself from open filk, preferring instead to spend my con time socialising or lurking around the edges.

The last couple of years, I've been making an effort to get back to playing public, because...I enjoy it. So I've made an effort at cons to make itto at least a little bit of open filk, if only to justify having brought my guitar. And when mrgoodwraith asked me at OVFF a couple of yearsago if I'd like to come play a short set at Confluence in 2011, I eagerly agreed. Unfortunately, just before I was to book my flight, kitanzi unexpectedly lost her job, and I couldn't justify the expense. Randy understood, and extended an invitation to come up in 2012 instead.

( The part where I talk about Confluence )

Not much more than a month later was Dragon*Con, a convention I've largely avoided for the last several years. Not that DragonCon isn't a good convention, but it's a lot more than I typically want to deal with. This year, however, I'd decided to go, in part because a lot of my podcasting friends were goign to be there, but also because the folks running the filk track at Dragon*Con have been doing a stellar job the last few years, and they've been really supportive of Gafilk, so I wanted to give them some support in return.

( The part where I talk about Dragon*Con )

And those are the summer conventions. I hope to spend some time actually playing some music at OVFF in October. See you there!