(Previously: Prologue, Part 1 - Monday, Part 2 - Tuesday, Part 3 - Wednesday)

The excitement from the previous night lasted till the next morning as I woke up way too early, around 6 am. I had a Skype session with my therapist, then went to the La Luna Cafe for breakfast. The past week or so, I kept inviting XOXO friends, both old and new for a pre-registration breakfast. A lot of them came: Dan, Emory, Eliza, Georgie, her husband Nick, her friend Kylie, Andrew, Jim, Ben, Joel, Tiffany and I might be forgetting people. The food was the delicious and the company was great; by the end, though, I was a bit peopled out, and earlier that day something triggered my anxiety again, and I was starting to feel that.

The breakfast crew

The previous night I somehow managed to knock down my entire nightstand and my glasses got slightly bent, so I went to Myopic Optometry to fix them (you guessed it, someone recommended them on Slack.) Jim gave me a ride back to Revolution Hall for registration; we arrived almost at noon sharp. After picking up my badge and the swag, I started taking and printing portraits. I also met old and new friends as people started trickling in.

It’s on!

Jim

Crystal

I was planning on staying there for a couple of hours, but the sun was literally burning my skin, so after a lunch at Meat Cheese Bread where I got way too many grilled cheese sandwiches, I went to Push X Pull a couple blocks away to take a break. I hung out with Lyndsey a bit there, then got some writing done. Georgie and Nick arrived shortly after, but we mostly just enjoyed each other’s company in silence, if that’s a thing (it’s a thing.)

Georgie and Nick

The printed photos

I went to the Metafilter meetup afterwards, though I didn’t stay too long. I did take this portrait of Josh and Phil, though:

Josh and Phil

The lack of sleep and the high anxiety was really getting to me, so I went back to my Airbnb. I took a long bath and a nap; they helped a bit.

I arrived back at Revolution Hall around 6. While waiting I ran into Annika and her friends, got a Fronds pin and I admired her Raspberry Pi Zero/e-ink display project that she was wearing: it was showing stats from the XOXO Mastodon server that she’s running. I took a few more portraits, including a really good one of Joel.

Annika’s project

Aaron had a similar thing going

Annika

Joel

More people trickled in. I ran into Dylan and had a random chat with someone who was also waiting for the park to open.

Once the clock hit 7 pm and the park opened for the opening party, I went straight for the food carts. I got dinner from the Filippino place and it was extremely good food. Rice, noodles, skewers of chicken and two pork egg rolls, all of them excellent. I topped them with a copious amount of sweet and sour/soy sauce.

For dessert I went to the Churros truck which did not disappoint either; it pains me that we only had them for the first two days.

I got to hang out with a lot of people at the opening party. I met Skyler and her friends: got a cute turtle sticker from her for my badge. I got to know Earl who was having a small concert the next day. I chatted with with Liene, who I knew from the Slack but we didn’t talk much in real life before. I met Max, with whom we helped to save/migrate one of Andy McMillan’s old sites a few weeks before; later I would take one of my favorite portraits of him. And I finally got to hang out with Sarah; we kind of knew each other from Twitter but never met before.

The turtle is really cute.

By 9 pm I was getting tired — the glass of wine I had didn’t help — so I sat down at a table, where I met with Dunja again. She wasn’t feeling that great either and it was great to commiserate with someone together over shared anxieties and such.

In the big tent, people were playing Johann Sebastian Joust; it looked fun, but there were a lot of people waiting for it, so I called it an evening just before 10 pm, went back to my Airbnb, took a shower, went to sleep.