I will, however, miss the team I’m walking away from, especially the WoW.com team which I’ve taken great pains to assemble over the years. I imagine life without our team chat will be a much quieter affair, with fewer random descents into laughter. I emailed yesterday to let everyone know that I was leaving and have been absolutely floored by the responses I’ve gotten — “floored” in a good way, mind you — which have ranged from:

Was it Khan? Are you leaving because of Khan? I’m just going to pretend you are.

KHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN!

To:

I have no words, just ellipses with many dots (tears?) ……………

Truly:

… out of fairness I should point out that wherever you’re going isn’t half as awesome as us.

A haiku:

we will miss you liz
and not just for our paychecks
your future is bright

Obviously:

Thank you for making everything sane and making sure I knew what the heck I was doing when I got into this thing. And the Doctor Who rabid commentary.

From Twitter:

A @wowdotcom without @Faience is like a @mikesacco without long hair

And a few lolcats, which are our regular conversational currency.

The phrase is overused, but all can say is that it’s been an honor and a privilege to be part of this team. I’ll especially miss Brad Hill, whose calm presence never fails to impress me; Chris Grant, whose ability to turn brilliant ideas into tangible realities is nothing short of amazing; and Dan O’Halloran, who will be taking over for me as WoW.com Editor-in-Chief and has taught me a heck of a lot. (There was a time, back when he first started, that I very nearly fired him — and WoW.com would be a different place today if I had.)

But new challenges: I’ll be rejoining the indomitable Barb Dybwad, who first hired me at AOL, at Tecca. I can’t really say much about what we’re doing there except that it sounds like fun and we’re hunting for talented folks. Change is always a bit scary, and I can’t deny being anxiety-ridden over the jump. But I do think it’s time, perhaps even past time, for something new.

So I’ll start with a story.

The closest to paradise I think I am likely to find on this world is a library or sometimes a bookstore. Bookstores do have the advantage in that they surround me with reading material and also sometimes serve coffee or tea, or best yet both. (BookPeople, downtown, being my favorite example of such a place.) Of course one can make due with a good coffee shop if you bring your own book… but it simply isn’t the same as being surrounded on all sides by towering shelves of books. Places like this are my comfort zone and my security blanket — even the lamest mall bookstore has a comfortable, familiar feel… almost like visiting an old friend. I can just wander places like this for hours — cavorting up and down shelves at random, picking things up and putting them down again, exploring the untamed forests of literature. That’s the little girl in me speaking, of course, but there’s still a bit of adventure to turning a corner to be met by anything that may be confined to the printed page.

A few days ago I found my way to Half Price Books, a local chain that’s just what it says on the tin. I wandered in circles for an hour, really hoping to find an atlas or some road maps to cut up for a project I have in mind, but instead made my way out again with five books. Three of them are older than I am and one of them cost 2/3rds of what I spent. (So my literary adventure comes complete with a math problem!) In my treasure-trove, I have:

• American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. I have read American Gods more than once and I hope to read it more than once again. I have an audio copy, which is quite good, but I wanted something more tangible this time ’round and I can’t find my original copy. This book, this story… it’s something that ought to be tangible. It needs to be touched, tasted, felt, experienced. I’m re-reading it along with the One Book, One Twitter book club.
• Spook Country, by William Gibson. I believe this is the only of Gibson’s works that I haven’t read. Somehow it amuses me to have a beaten-up paperback copy of it rather than read it on my Kindle.
• The Laurel Poetry Series Whitman. Published 1959, a collection of Walt Whitman’s poems, in a tiny paperback filled with hand-written notes. I love that it feels aged and the little notes — like a mirror back in time.
• Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chaing, by Terrance Dicks. Don’t judge me, okay. It’s the novelization of a great serial.
• Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel. Published in 1946 and quite lovely. Bound in pink cloth with pictures of rabbits across the front and back. Lots of illustrations, in both black & white and color. The color illustrations, especially, are striking — nearly enough to make me want to cannibalize this book and hang them on a wall. Nearly.

As if I don’t have enough books scattered around the house waiting to be read already… though, in truth, you can never have too many, can you? This brings me yet another step closer to building my library fortress of solitude.

But it is my first time home in about a month with no major work assignments or business trips awaiting me in the immediate future. I admit, the rush from BlizzCon to Dragon*Con to AGDC was fun, but at this point I’m just tired. Being home with absolutely nothing to do and no plans involving airplanes until November seems quite the ideal situation. And me, being the classic introvert who is worn out by dealing with people and recharges by being alone — yep. This is pretty well bliss. I’m going to enjoy it for a while.

And even though it is clearly not my birthday, now that I’m home I plan to celebrate the occasion in appropriately introverted style, by vegetating on the couch and watching through all of the Fifth Doctor episodes in order. This is rather more than a weekend project, but it’s my (not) birthday and I’ll do whatever I want. Right? Right.

Sans Shakespeare, we went out for coffee. It started raining rather seriously by the time we were at the coffee place, but we found some mostly dry seating on their patio. Sipped coffee, watched the rain, chatted with friends a bit (despite my tendency towards wallflowerish silence).

Time to leave, and it’s pouring again. Reasonably wet by the time we made it to the car and still wet by the time we got home. It is rather impressive how long clothes, once wet, can stay wet. (Especially denim, which, geez, never dries.) Brrrrr.

Am now home (or home away from home), dry, and almost warm again. All in all, an evening of good company, rain-soaked hijinx, and plenty of coffee — but no Shakespeare. Well, it will have to suffice, I suppose.

Post-Dragon*Con, I’m hanging out with friends in Nashville for general fun — but also for my birthday. I don’t have many (any?) particularly close friends back home these days, so it’ll be nice to have something vaguely resembling a real birthday party. Well, right up until my best friend informed me that we needed to reschedule my birthday because it conflicted with a WoW raid. I’ve not yet entirely decided what I think about that.

Really, I could not make things like this up. I’m not that creative.

Work-wise, we’re neck-deep in BlizzCon planning and prep, which seems to be sidelining plenty of other equally necessary work. Alas, there are still only 24 hours in the day with which to accomplish things. When I’m back from BlizzCon I’ll have a pile of resumes to review (always fun, but they all start to blur together after the first fifty or so).

Fortunately Dragon*Con is half-vacation and after I’m taking off to stay with friends in Nashville for a week (including my birthday). I’ll be back home just in time for the first day of GDC, so it’ll all be about hitting the ground running.

Really, I don’t mind either way, but I’m not much for larking about with logos on.

However, in this case hats (apparently) have been handed out at corporate HQ. I’m a work-from-home-er and would have difficulty caring less about this, but my boss’ boss inquired as to whether all of us had also gotten hats. When he discovered we had not, a few words were said about how off-site employees are employees and everyone should be treated the same, hats and all. I must admit, the speech made me feel a bit warm and fuzzy. Now that I have a hat, the whole affair makes me feel somewhat obligated to wear it.

So here I am. Wearing a hat. Hmm.

• I got to meet and hang out with some awesome folks I previously only knew online.
• Had a chance to hang out with Colin Baker (otherwise known as the Sixth Doctor). Even though until very recently, I was not at all a fan, this was definitely the highlight of the con. Despite the fact that I didn’t do much beyond skulk around the booth being unable to form complete sentences, he was friendly and talkative, with a  welcoming smile. By the end of the convention (I stopped by the booth to say goodbye and wish him a safe trip home — he commented that I was actually talking) he remembered my name. (And whenever I went by the booth, he would call me “Elizabeth” instead of “Liz.” Which, wth, I am become Charlotte Pollard. Somehow I do not mind at all.) Lovely man and one of my favorite Doctors.
• Got an awesome piece of art from Ben Templesmith of the Tenth Doctor. Doctor Who isn’t his usual thing (and to be shamefully honest, I am not terribly familiar with any of the stuff that is his usual thing, though I’m working on it), but he’s done a couple of Doctor Who projects which I think are just about the most gorgeous things ever. Talked about how the BBC didn’t approve his original cover for “The Forgotten” and he had to change it to make the Doctor look happier — so he has a really odd smile in the final cover. My commission piece is not half as gorgeous as any of those, but it’s awesome and I loves it. I need to get it framed to put in my office, probably next to my “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” print.
• Got signatures on a poster from Gabe and Tycho (of Penny Arcade fame, if you hadn’t caught on). I love these guys so much that I couldn’t say a word to them. Oh well — maybe next year? Come to think of it, that ought to go up on the office wall, too. My post Comic-Con office is going to be awesome.
• Was surprisingly enough the first in line for IDW’s round of Doctor Who comic signings, so have some signed comics by the awesome Tony Lee as well. Hindsight being 20/20, I really should have introduced myself by my Livejournal name, since I’ve traded a few comments with him in the past, but I’m nothing if not bashful in front of strangers. He liked my “if you’re interested in time travel, meet me last Thursday” t-shirt, which I take as a sign I’m doing something right in my own quiet, fangirlish way.
• Discovered that John Barrowman and Captain Jack Harkness are the same person, just in different costumes. ‘nuf said.
• Saw David Tennant and Russell T. Davies from a distance and it was good. The term “adorkable” was pretty much invented to describe David Tennant, who is such a geek.
• Saw the Doctor Who finale trailer. Died. Regenerated. Died again.
• Had the best dessert ever at a place called Extraordinary Desserts. Very possibly worth the entire trip just for that.
• Oh, yeah, did some work, too. Saw DCUO, Free Realms, Aion, City of Heroes, and Dungeon Fighter Online. Missed The Old Republic, but I suppose you can’t have everything.

Thursday: I trip and skin my knee while hopping on and off a curb, dodging crowds. This may seem excessively whiny, but it hurts, okay? It still hurts. At some point during the day I lose my debit card. I never carry cash — I use that card for everything. I have a back-up credit card… but it’s closing on its limit with all of my travel stuff on it. Comic-Con is less fun when you’re broke. Pretty much all of my “work” was on Thursday, so the entire day is spent running at high speeds from meeting to meeting and taking lots of notes. By the end of the day, wow, tired.

Friday: After zero success finding my card, I call the bank to cut it off. They can’t replace it (even at a local bank branch) but will send a new one to my home address. I should see it in seven business days. Holy god, how will I live seven business days without a debit card? I may need to find my check book. I miss the Coraline panel because all the trolleys heading towards the convention center are overflowing and it’s a longish walk. Proceed to miss the Star Wars: The Old Republic panel because when I get there, the line goes down the hallway, down the next hallway, down the next hallway, and then outside through a small maze. When the line starts moving to go inside, half of the maze ditches the whole “line” concept and mobs the doors. I try to set them on fire with my mind, but fail miserably. I am surrounded by very intense Star Wars geeks in the interim. One of them threatens me with a lightsaber for saying bad things about Star Wars: Galaxies.

Throughout, I have maintained a complete inability to talk to anyone remotely famous. I kind of stand there and smile and sometimes manage to wrangle words at approximately kindergarten level, and tend to say “thank you” an awful lot.

Though I guess there are some good things out of this con…

• I met Colin Baker, who called me “my dear” and hugged me. Holy crap. I met the Doctor. Holy crap.
• I’m getting Ben Templesmith to draw me something. Think I managed not to come across as more or less a sane human being. More or less.
• I met John Barrowman, who liked my “you never forget your first Doctor” t-shirt. He signed a picture for me “love always, John Barrowman.” Now wondering how much of Captain Jack is scripted and how much is just John Barrowman being himself.
• Got autographs from Gabe & Tycho of Penny Arcade fame. Did not manage to say a single intelligent word to them in the process, which is a real shame. Tycho is more or less my idol and I’m just not sure how to tell someone that without sounding incredibly awkward.
• Had almost entirely non-fangirlish conversations with reasonably famous (to me) people Greg Dean (of Real Life) and R. Stevens (of Diesel Sweeties). Both revolved around Doctor Who. My “you never forget your first Doctor” shirt is an honest-to-goodness conversation-starter.
• Found someone selling Jelly Babies on the con floor.
• Had the best dessert ever. Still blissing out. May never be able to enjoy other food.

On Saturday I have big plans for meeting Russell T. Davies and on Sunday, Tony Lee. Here’s to hoping I manage to improve upon my rather limited past efforts at communication with famous people. And, oh, right, and there’s some guy named David Tennant hanging around here somewhere… Perhaps you’ve heard of him?

But while that is the closest thing to my paradise, it means that its opposite — crowded, noisy places where I am expected to talk or interact with other people, especially strangers — is the closest thing to my hell. I am phobic of social situations in almost every possible way, from simple saying-hello nervous to full-fledged oh-my-god-look-at-all-of-these-people panic attacks.

But lately… I’ve been… well, different.

I first noticed it at this year’s post-E3 party. When I’d usually find myself skulking in a dark corner, clinging to a laptop or cell phone for sufficiently inhuman digital interaction, this year I spent the entire evening sitting and chatting with a few folks, some of whom were complete strangers. This scenario would typically inspire absolute terror but, dare I say it, on this occasion it was kind of… fun. Not at all nerve-wracking.

I’ll be at San Diego Comic-Con next week and I’m even looking forward to meeting up with a bunch of people I could scarcely be said to know casually. Later in the year, I’m looking forward to BlizzCon and Dragon*Con for the sake of meeting people.

Well, isn’t that a rather drastic personality shift.