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My day went okay on the anniversary of my father’s death (Wednesday), but I seem to have been getting more tense and irritable since then rather than less.

This morning, I finished up an overdue work thing (which was good; I had been pretty tense about not getting that done), then finished packing stuff up and said goodbye to Kam and drove up to Walnut Creek for FOGcon. Drive went fine, and immediately saw friendly people whom I like when I arrived, but my mood started sinking, possibly partly due to not having had enough food.

We played a practice/teaching round of Terraforming Mars (not a whole game, just a couple turns), which went fine; then Mary Anne and I were on a panel about submitting stories, where I kind of disagreed with what I saw as the premise of the panel, and I kept saying pessimistic things about the likelihood of improving a story based on feedback from a rejection letter. Then we went to a fairly nice dinner at a nearby Japanese restaurant, Miraku, but I’m apparently in an even more conflict-averse mood than usual and wasn’t up to engaging in political argument, so I mostly kept quiet.

We attended Opening Ceremonies, and taught the attendees the round “Creation of Éa”; I think it went reasonably well, but I fumbled my part of it in various ways. But KJ and Mary Anne did a fine job with it, and GOHs Andrea and Ada unexpectedly joined in, which was extra-nice. Then we played another few practice turns of Terraforming Mars, which was fine but I was tense for no good reason.

I wasn’t up for attending any of the evening panels; I had considered going to the Contention panel, but I don’t think I can cope with even friendly/joking arguing right now.

Am now hiding out in room, recuperating from socializing. (Adult in next room was yelling at a child, but seems to have stopped.) May head up to Eric & Beth’s party in a bit, or may stay in room.

Tomorrow morning, I’m hosting a gadgets-and-stuff “petting zoo” in the game room; to which end, I brought about 45 fun toys and devices, which I’ll put out for people to play with. Dunno if anyone else is bringing anything; if they do, I’ll leave some of my stuff in my suitcase to make room for other people’s stuff.

Other than that and dinner, I have no particular plans tomorrow; dunno if I’ll do much con stuff. I like FOGcon, but the right-around-the-difficult-anniversary timing makes it always uncertain for me how much I’ll be up for interacting with people.

Good to see Mary Anne, though. And good to see other folks, too.

Anyway, nothing really wrong; just being moody. Possibly sleep will help.