Notes from the Con – Day Two
(For Day One, go here.)
Friday Morning
The Vendor’s Fair opens at 10:00 a.m., so we’re up early to get ready for bizness. Also at the hotel is a group of young health care professionals attending a certification training put on by an outfit called Galderma Laboratories. Our table is set across from the River Rock Food Emporium, and I see a large crowd of ‘em waiting in line for breakfast. All the young women look thin to average-sized, but if you’d asked any of ‘em before they got to this hotel, I’d wager that most of ‘em would've described themselves as fat. I wonder if they still would after this weekend?
The morning proves pretty quiet in terms of browsers: we’re hoping it’s ‘coz everybody’s slept late. I know I’m still feeling caffeine deprived, and we went to bed at a decent hour. First night in a hotel room’s always shaky for both of us when it comes to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.
Friday Afternoon
Pick up a plate of lunch from the convention brunch auction buffet, then return to our table to hold the fort while Becky heads to the auction. As I sit behind the table, I enjoy the sight of beautiful plus-sized women wandering around the area in summers dresses, shorts and multiply-x-ed tee-shirts. So many places in the world where fat adults are encouraged to camouflage themselves, “blend in” by dressing as boringly as possible. In this setting, of course, the exact opposite is promoted. For this experience alone, I’d recommend attending at least one bit NAAFA to-do to any young fat admirer.
Speaking of which, this afternoon I get to speak to several FAs who’ve come to our table, one of whom recognizes me from my fiction and is surprised to see how “skinny” my mid-size wife is. (“In your stories,” he sez at one point, “the women are all over 600 pounds.”) I could tell him that my wife has been heavier in the past, but that arthritis and fibromyalgia were a factor in her dropping some weight, but that’s not really the point. I love “Miz Barbers,” even if she’s not over 600 lbs.
I attend two workshops in the afternoon: one, an FA workshop hosted by longtime workshopper Bob Sponaugle. As someone who has himself hosted FA Workshops in the past, much of what was said in this year’s was admittedly fairly familiar to me. The second was a bit fresher: a session devoted to putting together a NAAFA positive YouTube clip. Clearly, the association feels a pressing need to connect to younger fat adults and admirers. There’s a certain frustration in the fact that, though (admittedly fudged due to tinkering with the Body Mass Index), Americans are statistically fatter than they used to be, the membership in NAAFA has shrunk. I sign up to be filmed, but the process takes so long that I have to leave for the FA Workshop before I get my shot on camera. No YouTube notoriety for yours truly!
Friday Night
The first of two dances – this ‘un’s called Club Retro due to its seventies theme – takes place. Dances used to be a big draw for NAAFA as a unique and relatively safe place for fat adults and their admirers to connect, but the growth of regular fat social clubs in most of the country’s big cities has made this less of a part of the NAAFA Con experience. Unlike my memories of the last big Chicago NAAFA convention back in the nineties. I don’t see a lotta extra attendees at the event.
It isn’t 'til the dee-jay puts some disco on the floor that folks really start to get up and boogie: earlier rock tracks like Free’s “Slow Ride” don’t cut it with this crowd. Some fun kitschy periodware on some of the SSBBWs: I particularly enjoy a trio of (California, I think) women who dress up like an early seventies girl group. Being yer average move-free Baby Boomer white guy, I don’t personally venture onto the floor myself. I dig the music, though, pop nerd that I am, I can’t help noticing when the dee-jay fudges and plays somp’n from ’68 or ’69. I promise Miz Barbers a slow one at tomorrow’s festivities, though.
Friday Morning
The Vendor’s Fair opens at 10:00 a.m., so we’re up early to get ready for bizness. Also at the hotel is a group of young health care professionals attending a certification training put on by an outfit called Galderma Laboratories. Our table is set across from the River Rock Food Emporium, and I see a large crowd of ‘em waiting in line for breakfast. All the young women look thin to average-sized, but if you’d asked any of ‘em before they got to this hotel, I’d wager that most of ‘em would've described themselves as fat. I wonder if they still would after this weekend?
The morning proves pretty quiet in terms of browsers: we’re hoping it’s ‘coz everybody’s slept late. I know I’m still feeling caffeine deprived, and we went to bed at a decent hour. First night in a hotel room’s always shaky for both of us when it comes to sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.
Friday Afternoon
Pick up a plate of lunch from the convention brunch auction buffet, then return to our table to hold the fort while Becky heads to the auction. As I sit behind the table, I enjoy the sight of beautiful plus-sized women wandering around the area in summers dresses, shorts and multiply-x-ed tee-shirts. So many places in the world where fat adults are encouraged to camouflage themselves, “blend in” by dressing as boringly as possible. In this setting, of course, the exact opposite is promoted. For this experience alone, I’d recommend attending at least one bit NAAFA to-do to any young fat admirer.
Speaking of which, this afternoon I get to speak to several FAs who’ve come to our table, one of whom recognizes me from my fiction and is surprised to see how “skinny” my mid-size wife is. (“In your stories,” he sez at one point, “the women are all over 600 pounds.”) I could tell him that my wife has been heavier in the past, but that arthritis and fibromyalgia were a factor in her dropping some weight, but that’s not really the point. I love “Miz Barbers,” even if she’s not over 600 lbs.
I attend two workshops in the afternoon: one, an FA workshop hosted by longtime workshopper Bob Sponaugle. As someone who has himself hosted FA Workshops in the past, much of what was said in this year’s was admittedly fairly familiar to me. The second was a bit fresher: a session devoted to putting together a NAAFA positive YouTube clip. Clearly, the association feels a pressing need to connect to younger fat adults and admirers. There’s a certain frustration in the fact that, though (admittedly fudged due to tinkering with the Body Mass Index), Americans are statistically fatter than they used to be, the membership in NAAFA has shrunk. I sign up to be filmed, but the process takes so long that I have to leave for the FA Workshop before I get my shot on camera. No YouTube notoriety for yours truly!
Friday Night
The first of two dances – this ‘un’s called Club Retro due to its seventies theme – takes place. Dances used to be a big draw for NAAFA as a unique and relatively safe place for fat adults and their admirers to connect, but the growth of regular fat social clubs in most of the country’s big cities has made this less of a part of the NAAFA Con experience. Unlike my memories of the last big Chicago NAAFA convention back in the nineties. I don’t see a lotta extra attendees at the event.
It isn’t 'til the dee-jay puts some disco on the floor that folks really start to get up and boogie: earlier rock tracks like Free’s “Slow Ride” don’t cut it with this crowd. Some fun kitschy periodware on some of the SSBBWs: I particularly enjoy a trio of (California, I think) women who dress up like an early seventies girl group. Being yer average move-free Baby Boomer white guy, I don’t personally venture onto the floor myself. I dig the music, though, pop nerd that I am, I can’t help noticing when the dee-jay fudges and plays somp’n from ’68 or ’69. I promise Miz Barbers a slow one at tomorrow’s festivities, though.
posted by Wilson B. at 8:56 AM
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