It’s weird how malleable our perception of time is. People have long observed that as we age, time seems to pass more quickly, and that how engrossed we are in whatever we’re doing affects how we experience the passage of time (see: “time flies when you’re having fun” or “I was playing a game and lost track of the time”).

The pandemic has been particularly hard on our mushy human sense of time. It simultaneously seems like these last seven (yes, seven!) months since my community first started sheltering in place have flown past and dragged on forever. We remember how the world worked before COVID with nostalgia, but forget how very recent that time was.

A particular example really struck me a week or so ago. (There’s another instance of losing track of relative time. This particular thought might’ve come up last week or last month, for all I can remember. I frequently find myself thinking back to somwhat-recent-but-long-passed events, and then realize they happened that morning.) I got to thinking about how everything had changed for film and television production, and that we’d end up waiting just ages between series of Doctor Who.

Then it struck me that Series 12 was this year. That happened in 2020. I watched an episode with my friends a Gallifrey One^* just this past February.

Let me begin by making my stance crystal clear: Black Lives Matter.

Readers may or may not already know that I live in the Twin Cities—the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area in Minnesota. My cities have been in the news a lot these last couple of weeks after a white, then-member of the Minneapolis Police Department knelt on the neck of a Black man named George Floyd, resulting in Floyd’s death. Since then protests and riots have erupted across the world.

This certainly feels like one of those historic Moments—something the Doctor might pop in to visit, to witness in person. I almost thought I’d gotten used to that feeling, to recognizing in realtime the unfolding of events that future generations (should humanity survive) will see as significant. The year 2020 has kept us all on our toes, though, and every time I’m still caught by surprise. “Wow,” I think to myself as something new crops up. “This is huge.”

The thing is, of course, that none of us can know just how huge any moment—any movement—will become. So what I try to remember is that if it’s something I believe in, I have to take part. No matter how small or powerless I feel in the face of massive, far-reaching societal injustices, I have to do something.

Funny thing about being in self-isolation under a stay-at-home order from one’s state during a global pandemic: all the days kind of blend together.

That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. Because otherwise I get really irritated with myself for having lost track of my blog schedule, and the fact that I should’ve posted last week. So here I am, checking in with anyone who still stops by the blog to read.

I was going to say that I have not been thinking about Doctor Who much at all, but as I began to write that, I realized that’s not quite true. The brand management team has been doing a good job keeping it on the radar across social media, and I’ve really appreciated that. Because sometimes we all just need a few encouraging words from the Doctor.

Here’s the first transmission, from 25 Mar 2020:

This may be a vast overgeneralization (though, let’s face it, some of the biggest fan opinions are just vastly overgeneralized rants), but I have decided that I really don’t like those big, corporate cons. You know the ones: they bring in a slew of big-name celebrities from a ton of different fandoms and then charge people an arm and a leg for photo ops and autographs. After my first, and so far only, single afternoon of trying one out, I’ve made my mind up: they’re not for me.

I’m pretty sure this judgment makes me a hypocrite somehow. After all, I went to this one for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the ridiculous photo op machine that plays such a large role in making these cons unpalatable to me in the first place. Further, I participate in photo ops and autograph sessions at Gallifrey One all the time (though I’ve never had to wait an hour past the scheduled time slot just for the line to start moving at Gally). So what gives?

The big difference, to my mind, is that after a certain size, the con becomes too big for con-goers to feel like anything more than a number to the organization. At a super local, single fandom con like CONsole Room, it can feel like you know everybody there, at least by sight. Gally is nearly a factor of ten larger than CONsole Room, with an annual attendance just shy of 4000 (which includes staff and guests), yet it’s still every bit as much about hanging out with other fans—friends old or new—as about seeing the guests, whether at photo ops, autograph lines, or panels.