Con Report - FOXmas 2010
Con Report:
FOXmas 2010LEAD UP
So as usual one of the “big events” of the year for me is the annual FOXmas party up in Rochester NY, but this year I found myself terribly out of sorts for a furry event. Towards the end of the summer I managed to seriously injure one of my knees in my Capoeira class. (this is probably the main reason why I didn’t attend Furfright this year FYI) I didn’t realize it at first, and went about my day, but that night it started to feel odd. The following day I went for a run and then it started to hurt … bad. I figured I had just pulled something and so I took a week off. The pain lessened a lot, and so I started exercising again (I need to maintain my fennecy figure, after all!) and the pain came right back. I kept doing this, adding more recovery time, until finally I took a full two months off, for a grand total of three months of sub-optimal activity for a fennec boy. I gained a lot of weight and really started to lose some of my firmness (I didn’t curb my regular diet - I know I should have when my activity levels went down, but …). It was awful for me. I gained almost 10 pounds.
More than two months out from FOXmas I knew I had to start getting in gear, or else be a nasty slob by the time the party came around - the party where I wear my second most revealing costume out of all of them - and one that I really need to look good in. And so I started foxercizing again, despite my injured knee. By this time, the pain had decreased significantly, and by the time FOXmas came around, it had gone away entirely (I suspect that strengthening my knees had something to do with the recovery, once the basic damage was mended). Unfortunately the two months and change wasn’t enough to get myself back into proper form. Partially this was because I found myself severely weakened after taking such a long recovery time. I didn’t have the energy to do classes and then an hour of cardio and then weights six days a week like I had wanted to get myself into shape bootcamp-quick. Nor could I stick to the regimen that my friend Beowulf put me on to keep my metabolism high. The sheer amount of oil and fat (it was a low-carb diet, which is hard for vegetarians) and the lack of grains to “soak it up” made me feel ill, and I abandoned it after a couple weeks. Add to this Thanksgiving, and the fact that my mother had to work on Thanksgiving, so we had a second Thanksgiving so that we could celebrate the holiday togethe as a familyr, and my 10 pound weight-loss goal became a 5-pound weight loss reality. It wasn’t too bad because my tummy was rather perfect by this point. Unfortunately I quit Capoeira for the time being because its expensive and not easy to gauge in terms of calories burned and weights lifted. I hope to start this up again in the beginning of 2011.
Other things happened during the leadup. My friend Beowulf surprised me with a gift of not one, but TWO finished pieces of my character. Its an amazing gift that I could hardly believe, and for the life of me, I still can’t find a way to adequately repay him for it. Thanks Beo! Then two weeks before the party, I had a really bad week. I felt some sickness coming on, probably due to the cold weather, insomnia, and my strenuous foxercize routine coupled with a low-calorie diet, but I was staying one step ahead of it. It was a nagging feeling that any day now, symptoms would start to develop, but my clean living was keeping it in check. Unfortunately, I had a terrible day that Friday, and so afterwards, some of my non-fur friends and I went out clubbing, then After Hours clubbing. Essentially I was up all night drinking, then taking energy drinks. By the time I woke up the following evening, the cold had taken hold. At first it was just a sore throat and a fat feeling in my head, but then I made the mistake of foxercizing again, and the following day the symptoms were worse. Then I decided to stay home and try to recover, because FOXmas was less than a week away, but symptoms got worse and worse. I ended up taking Monday and Tuesday as sick days, but then I didn’t think I could take any more time off. By Wednesday I had a horrific cough, and by Thursday the cold had migrated into my eyeballs (again) and I had to be put on antibiotics. This was really just in time because by the end of day Friday... the Friday right before FOXmas... I was actually feeling rather good again. I knew that a night of drinking and dancing in a cold garage in a tiny outfit would probably bring the cold back, but it would be worth it.
FRIDAY
So I actually took the Friday prior to FOXmas off. This was a good idea because it allowed me to sleep in, adjusting my sleep cycle to late nights, so I wouldn’t be tired when 4 am rolled around at Soron’s. It also meant I was more alert when driving to Rochester, and that I could do errands before driving up at leisurely pace rather than doing last-minute-scampering only to arrive on Soron’s doorstep at 4 am. I actually arrived at midnight, which is pretty good for Boston to Rochester on a Friday night. There were already people there, and we sat around chatting and watching a movie until about 3 am, then I left for the Doubletree. The remainder of the night consisted of me fighting with the hotel Internet to try and pirate a song I wanted to have for the party that I forgot to upload (I never actually got around to playing it). And doing some megamixing after taking a shower, just so I’d have some tracks lined up so I could take breaks from DJing and do stuff at the party without worrying about the dance room stopping. I went to bed around 6 am.
SATURDAY
It was the big day, and I slept in LAAAATE. First - because I wanted to adjust my sleeping to late-late. Second, so I’d have a lot of energy for being up late-late. And third, because I still had some trailing embers of the cold, and in a vain attempt, I was hoping that a few hours extra might kill it off for good before the party. It didn’t work out quite that well, but I certainly was refreshed. I got up around 4 pm and then did the fennec grooming ritual. I switched my Gillette Fusion for a Proglide. So far, I do like it better, even though I did cut myself once. I managed to get out of the hotel at 8 pm sharp - exactly when I had wanted to. I had planned my whole routine around an 8 pm start, which was late. Soron had scheduled the party to kick off at 7 pm on Bookface and I scheduled it to start at 8 on the LJ. Or - more properly, I thought it was starting at 7, and then they were going out to get dinner. Turns out that Soron bought a huge meal and had it home cooked. I found this out the night before FOXmas, but I decided I wouldn’t change my schedule. The real party doesn’t start until the fennec arrives anyway ;)
So I got there and then changed into my costume. I put on some red Christmas eyeshadow... it looked like I’d walked into a door. Which is weird because I put it on a few weeks earlier to “test” it and make sure it looked good. Clearly I did something wrong, but I managed to get all of it off. I also couldn’t find my choker bell.... (strangely enough... people actually noticed it was missing. Thanks guys! -^.^- ) While I was changing the music kicked on. I was very disappointed. Whoever started it out started with some trashy trance, but it soon changed over to industrial, and I was liking it. I was a little scared that someone had usurped my set (and after I’d just finished megamixing so much extra content!) but I tried not to let it show. It was Jaderia and Tiffany (who were doing so well that I asked them to spin at FO Morphicon in May). I let them to it - the dance floor was doing alright at this point anyway.
So I went and conversed with furs for a bit, sucked down two bottles of unsweet tea (120% of your daily allowance of vitamin C each to hopefully give my immune system an edge) and then tried the Holiday Chai drink Soron made. It was *amazing* definitely one of the best Frozen Oasis drinks ever. I actually ended up having several of these, and they really hit me good. Time was flying by, and Ben was going to leave soon, so I busted out the champagne. I bought three bottles of very decent champagne... one was just for drinking. The other two was for a little experiment. See... because America consistently wins awards for the best white wines, beating France almost every year, one of the premiere champagne makers (Taittinger) decided to set up a vineyard in California. Same type of grapes, same processing, same methods, even aged in the same type of barrels. Champagne is one of the few wines where the undisputed best still comes from France, and I was interested to see if, once and for all, the French wine was better than the exact same wine made in America - i.e. - How much does soil and climate really matter?
Almost everyone thought that the French Taittinger was better, including myself. When I stopped keeping track, it was 11 preferring French, to 3 preferring American. Interesting.
After this we made the big special announcement in the dance room - Morphicon’s dance would be run by Frozen Oasis. A real ballroom with a bartender, where we can stretch our technical might in both light and sound, and have plenty of space for everybody! The response seemed at first lackluster. I don’t think many understood what that actually meant... but after Soron explained how we’d been trying to get that for years, and how we’d even be the ONLY Friday night event, to really started to catch on in people’s minds how big a deal this really was. After this, I played the Panda Song, which Soron liked, and a bunch of people took pictures and video of him groovin to it. It was pretty funny because he was totally wasted. Then I went into my regular dubstep mix. Initial response to this was extremely positive... but also more fleeting. People were really into it at the start of the night, but by the end it was dying out. I suspect that this was because nobody wanted to start dancing alone except for Jirashi (who’s gotten amazing BTW - even better than me, now!) and he left really early in the night (wuss). It probably also had a lot to do with the fact that I started so much later than usual (I almost always play first-set). Some people actually complained, which bothered me a little. Last year, I played all dubstep for my set and the floor was packed the whole time almost. This time, I interspersed it with breaks and a little house, but people still seemed put off by the “large amounts” of dub. I suppose you can’t please everyone, but it does hurt to get complaints.
Eventually the police showed up, thinking that it was an underage drinking party or something... obviously not understanding that the party was being held by the legit owner of the property and not some family on vacation or frat house giving alcohol to minors (we were strict about underage guests not drinking), because they came in and shouted “Everybody out NOW” but Soron handed their asses to them, pointing out that they can’t come into his house without his permission unless they had a warrant -- neither of which they had, nor could they throw his guests out. So the party continued, but we shut down the dance room as to not incite any more conflict with overzealous pompous cops.
After that, I went upstairs and hung out with folks in the den, watching movies and chatting. Eventually people started to fall asleep. Pretty soon it was just me and HappyPup who were awake, and I offered him the spare bed in my hotel room (I paid for it, might as well use it, eh?). We went back there. I set the alarm and went to sleep.
SUNDAY
I woke up around 11:30 and took a shower, then started to pack up as Happy snoozed away. Eventually he got up too and packed up his stuff. We weren’t able to get out until about 12:30, which was the time at which the Hangover Breakfast was supposed to start, but by the time we got there, folks were still ordering. The place (Jay’s Diner) was packed to the hilt. Its a good thing Soron made a reservation, but I doubt the number he’d given them was high enough. It turned out to be our largest Hangover Breakfast ever --- 33 people.
I was actually still kinda drunk, and not feeling my best. The coffee and omelet helped, but I still didn’t feel right until several hours later.
At the hangover breakfast we talked about going to a movie afterwards - Warrior’s Way, which looked like an absolutely dreadful film... a highly idealized and visually appealing Ninja Western... where Ninjas come out of puddles and fall from the sky and other comically impossible things. There was a fair amount of interest, and 7 furs went to the film. I guess it was entertaining, but it wasn’t a good movie, and I coughed throughout most of it, my cold having come back in earnest. Late-night drinking parties tend not to be good for the immune system.
… and then after the movie, I packed up an headed back home.
CONCLUSION
I did end up getting really sick after the party. I had a cough that lasted over a week afterwards, and coughed so hard that I threw out my back on the Thursday following. Then that Sunday I got a horrible pain in my back and under my right arm. I thought I’d collapsed a lung, so I went to the doctor first thing Monday, and he told me I had pneumonia.
But... it was worth it. This was the best FOXmas (at least for me) ever. I can’t put my finger on what specifically about it was exceptional... it’s just the best time I’ve ever had at FOXmas. Everything just seemed to go right... which is strange because technically everything went a little better last year (no police either). There are a few things that I wish had happened slightly differently... for instance I’d have like to have taken first set at the dance room ‘cuz there was a lot of stuff that I prepared that I was never able to get to, and the primary fan of the type of songs that I play (Jirashi) left early. Also I spent too much time with a few friends rather than going around and talking to everybody a little bit. I guess that makes me kinda a bad hostie. I’ll try and keep it in mind for next year.
Anyway - I give FOXmas 2010 an A, and I hope you liked it too.
Thanks for reading! -^.^-
-jaspi