Porn clothes & disco & parting is such sweet sorrow ...
More of my (seemingly endless!) Connexions report, with many more pics** ....
Saturday morning: I dragged myself out of bed just in time for my 9:00 am panel and then the dS panel (about which more later). But I have to say the absolute high point of the day Saturday, and one of the high points of the entire con for me, was lunch Saturday. There was a large group, but eventually it boiled down to byob_kenobi, lynnmonster, estrella30, brooklinegirl, dsudis, and me. We sat at the table talking about ... well, about everything, really, that a bunch of slashgirls could possibly talk about - from fannish things to personal things, sex and emotions and kids and husbands and fandom and fic and pairings. We squeed and sympathized and regaled each other with TMI. To quote miriam_heddy's recent LJ post, conversation flowed freely "between our work, our children, our loves and our lusts, all intellect and libido and emotion mixed together." It was the best of what fans, and women, can be to each other. I know I'll never remember precisely what we said, but I remember how we said it and how we felt, and it stands out in my mind as a rare and precious time even in a weekend full of such moments.
Eventually we made our way up to Flamingo's room for the SH room party, where we whiled away an hour or two watching her fab vids and continuing to boggle over how those guys just lived in each other's laps. Flamingo is always generous and welcoming to newbies, and she's a relentless and effective pimp, so it's always a pleasure to share some SH moments with her.
Around 4:30 or so I headed back to my room to begin thinking about prepping for the banquet, which started at 6. As usual, a bunch of people were hanging out in our room, including Miriam, cmshaw, darthrami, zoe_rayne and others whose LJ monikers escape me now. smaragdgrun, in typical fashion, was like a beneficent Slash Fairy, helping everyone get appropriately geared and kitted up - she painted Rami's and minotaurs' fingernails with sparkly polish, applied makeup, handed out accoutrements, and generally swept everyone up into her expansive and generous and laid back con spirit, which is one of the many reasons I love her dearly.
Conversation in the room ranged widely, but concentrated for a time on piercings, as Zoe and Rami compared tongue piercing scars and discussed the healing times for various strategically-placed piercings, Rami helped Smara insert her Janet Jackson-style nipple shield-ring (sorry, no pic available!), and I put in my very special irridescent banquet navel ring (see pic), and Smara adorned both of us with glitter.
So after Smara approved my makeup - sufficiently sparkly, including navel sparkles - I managed to zip myself into my pants and put on my shirt. Now, it's important to understand that the cleavage at these slash cons is Olympic caliber, baby - we're talking world class. I'd realized early on, at my first con in fact, that these are the big leagues, and I'm barely on the farm team - ain't no way I can compete, no way, no how. So no cleavage exposure for me - as carlacoupe said, the only way to get people to notice the chests of us amateurs at one of these cons is to wear shirts with writing on them!
So my banquet shirt was full coverage, but it had the perfect logo for a slash con - Smara found it when we were shopping last weekend, way at the back of the rack. She pulled it out and we immediately knew this was the one - seemingly custom made just for slashers! Plus, the hot pink with sparkly silver writing was perfect for the silver pants. And even better: the tail on the back (pic below).
Anyway, once we were all geared up, BLG, Estrella, byob, and Dira showed up, and Minotaur did the photographic honors, posing us according to his whim. Here's me, front and back - when Mr. JaC saw the outfit he said, "you look like Disco!" (Mr. JaC is of an age to remember that era first-hand!). I felt kind of like a throwback to the SH era (note the enormous silver hoops, very authentic 70s!!!).
At 5:45, right on time, BLG, Estrella, byob, and Dira showed up. I have to say, these women are hot. Note the very artistic holes in BLG's fishnets. And you can't tell from the pic on the right, but byob was wearing an absolutely wicked pair of shoes, borrowed from heuradys.
My shoes were on the opposite end of the spectrum - trashy Disco Queen shoes, reminiscent of the Candies of my youth (which I was never allowed to have, much to my early adolescent dismay):
So after the photo shoot was done, we all headed down to the Mezzanine to mingle and admire each other's get-ups while waiting for the banquet doors to open. The attire ranged from everyday clothes to wildly outrageous, and everyone looked fantastic. Before the con, isiscolo posted on her LJ that she'd found a great plastic irridescent skirt, but she decided not to buy it because she thought there must be a rule against women of a certain age wearing plastic irridescent skirts. I responded that even assuming there is such a rule, it doesn't apply at cons. That's one of the very cool things about cons, I think - the opportunity to dress up - like princesses, like sluts, like disco princesses or goth queens or anything else at all - without worrying about the "rules." This goes back to the whole girliness thing again - like playing dress-up at a slumber party or something, all those things I didn't do when I really was a girl. Not everyone dresses, which is absolutely fine - but you know, at this age, at this stage in my life, where else could I ever wear "porn clothes" or silver lamé disco pants?
Anyway, once inside the room we scrambled madly for seats and then proceeded to mingle and take photos and generally squee excitedly.
Here's Isis, looking absolutely fab in that fantastic skirt (which she ended up getting, after various LJ commenters encouraged her, and it was clearly the right decision!), and BLG and Heuradys in their matching poses and hot-hot-hot fishnets. Heuradys's fishnet shirt and leather bodice and hot pink skirt were just the coolest thing ever - I was blown away. And wasn't I saying something about the world-class cleavage? You only have to look at this pic of BLG and Smara to see exactly what I mean.
BLG, byob, Dira, uselessplayback, Estrella, and I sat at one table, and at neighboring tables were, among others, Minotaur, Smara, lynnmonster, and reginagiraffe. The theme of this year's Connexions was "Love Shack," and there was a little house on the table with little rubber people in it. The people, who could be - and were! - manipulated into all sorts of interesting poses, had little paper heads with faces from various pairings; our table had Duncan and Methos, plus we had little paper Bodie and Doyle heads floating around free on the table - which I promptly appropriated, put into my con badge holder, and kept close to my ... umm ... heart, yeah, that's it! - for the rest of the con. Unfortunately we didn't have RayK and Fraser - Smara's table did, but they wouldn't let us have them, much to our chagrin.
Dinner was pleasant enough, nothing special; but the company was great. Here's one of my favorite pics, of byob with her bitches. Go, b!!
After the dinner was the "game show" - my least favorite part of the con. So we headed up to my room, where meri_oddities was having a party for people who didn't go to the banquet, to chat for a bit and grab drinks, and then went back downstairs in time for the vid show (more about that in a later post, maybe). Then back upstairs to my room, which had become party central. It was extremely hot and unbelievably crowded, but I did manage to find the time and room to show BLG, byob, and Dira two of the classic vids of all time: The Man Song and Detachable Penis, from the Media Cannibals 3 vid. We watched those repeatedly, talked and mingled and talked some more.
And then, before I knew it, it was 3:30 am. Of course, my surprise at the time could have had something to do with the fact that we had to set the clocks forward! Even without that unpleasantness, though, I always find it difficult to call it a night on the Saturday of a con; I always want to string out the con experience as long as possible, and Sunday morning means the beginning of the end. But that has to be weighed against the exhaustion which has inevitably set in by that time - in fact, Smara and Minotaur were already asleep when the last stragglers left the room. I fell into bed for a few short hours, arising about 8:30 or so to an absolute chaotic disaster of a room. Food and trash everywhere - looked like a tornado had blown through. Smara and I cleaned and packed and generally got ourselves ready to check out, then headed downstairs for the last hours of the con.
There's nothing so depressing to me as con Sunday, with everyone packing up and people departing one by one and that magical con spirit trickling away. There are still con events going on - I went to the Pros panel and spent time in the dealers room. But that ending, let-down feeling is just awful. Still, as things calm down and people move out, I often find some unexpectedly wonderful connections. This time I stuck around the entire day, which gave me the chance to chat with some people I'd never met before, like blk_tauna, who very kindly played The Bullshitters for me in its entirety in the con suite. I also had time to have a long chat (mostly about Pros - and more about Pros in a later post!) with katyabaturinsky, with whom I'd not had the chance to spend much time during the con. That was a stroke of luck and a great pleasure - she was one of the first people I ever corresponded with about dS, plus she shares my other fannish obsessions (namely Bodie and Doyle, of course!). She's absolutely wonderful, and I'm crossing my fingers that she will eventually move down here and join the absolutely wonderful group of DC-area slashers.
And the very final ending to my con weekend was perfect in an entirely unexpected way. I went up to byob and BLG's room to retrieve my luggage around 4:30, thinking it was time to leave. They and Dira were on one of the beds in the room watching MfU (bluster and others were on the other bed), and when I saw them I was overtaken with exhaustion. I threw myself down with them and wound up in the most absolutely wonderful group snuggle (man that sounds cornbally - but how else to describe it?) with them. I didn't realize how much I needed to wind down, and to rest before the drive home, and to connect in a slightly less frenetic way with some of the people who really mean a lot to me.
Going home is always a mixed feeling. On the one hand, there's no way to sustain that pace forever, and I did miss my cats and my horse (and even my husband!) On the other, for me there's nothing like that con/slashy headspace - it's the biggest high I can possibly imagine, and I'm so sad when it ends. We all fly off to our various homes when we've barely begun to say all the things we want to say to each other.
On #discourse chat Monday night, someone said, when I asked if she'd had fun at the con (which was her first), that "fun" wasn't enough of a word, that it was "almost a life-altering experience." I understand that completely - that's what becoming involved in this community, from discovering slash to the online stuff to cons, has been for me. But she went on to qualify that statement, saying "maybe it seems overwrought, but ..." And there it is again - that slight embarassment at the possibility that we might seem too intense, too enthusiastic; like caring so much, having this mean so much to is, is somehow bad. Why do so many of us feel the need to apologize for our enthusiasms, to dilute them? I'm lucky, I think, to have something, and so many people, that I care so passionately about - why is it so hard to embrace that passion unconditionally?
Sometimes I feel like an utter newbie in my enthusiasm, like the old-timers are looking at me and saying, just you wait. And maybe there will come a day when cons feel boring and stale to me, when I'm jaded and cynical, when I don't want more and more and more of this world - I don't know. I hope not. But even if that's the case, for once in my life, I'm not going to anticipate it - I'm resolved to try, at least, to enjoy this high for as long as it lasts, to ride the wave without apology and take everyone I can along with me.
**Photos posted with the knowledge and acquiescence of those pictured
Saturday morning: I dragged myself out of bed just in time for my 9:00 am panel and then the dS panel (about which more later). But I have to say the absolute high point of the day Saturday, and one of the high points of the entire con for me, was lunch Saturday. There was a large group, but eventually it boiled down to byob_kenobi, lynnmonster, estrella30, brooklinegirl, dsudis, and me. We sat at the table talking about ... well, about everything, really, that a bunch of slashgirls could possibly talk about - from fannish things to personal things, sex and emotions and kids and husbands and fandom and fic and pairings. We squeed and sympathized and regaled each other with TMI. To quote miriam_heddy's recent LJ post, conversation flowed freely "between our work, our children, our loves and our lusts, all intellect and libido and emotion mixed together." It was the best of what fans, and women, can be to each other. I know I'll never remember precisely what we said, but I remember how we said it and how we felt, and it stands out in my mind as a rare and precious time even in a weekend full of such moments.
Eventually we made our way up to Flamingo's room for the SH room party, where we whiled away an hour or two watching her fab vids and continuing to boggle over how those guys just lived in each other's laps. Flamingo is always generous and welcoming to newbies, and she's a relentless and effective pimp, so it's always a pleasure to share some SH moments with her.
Around 4:30 or so I headed back to my room to begin thinking about prepping for the banquet, which started at 6. As usual, a bunch of people were hanging out in our room, including Miriam, cmshaw, darthrami, zoe_rayne and others whose LJ monikers escape me now. smaragdgrun, in typical fashion, was like a beneficent Slash Fairy, helping everyone get appropriately geared and kitted up - she painted Rami's and minotaurs' fingernails with sparkly polish, applied makeup, handed out accoutrements, and generally swept everyone up into her expansive and generous and laid back con spirit, which is one of the many reasons I love her dearly.
Conversation in the room ranged widely, but concentrated for a time on piercings, as Zoe and Rami compared tongue piercing scars and discussed the healing times for various strategically-placed piercings, Rami helped Smara insert her Janet Jackson-style nipple shield-ring (sorry, no pic available!), and I put in my very special irridescent banquet navel ring (see pic), and Smara adorned both of us with glitter.
So after Smara approved my makeup - sufficiently sparkly, including navel sparkles - I managed to zip myself into my pants and put on my shirt. Now, it's important to understand that the cleavage at these slash cons is Olympic caliber, baby - we're talking world class. I'd realized early on, at my first con in fact, that these are the big leagues, and I'm barely on the farm team - ain't no way I can compete, no way, no how. So no cleavage exposure for me - as carlacoupe said, the only way to get people to notice the chests of us amateurs at one of these cons is to wear shirts with writing on them!
So my banquet shirt was full coverage, but it had the perfect logo for a slash con - Smara found it when we were shopping last weekend, way at the back of the rack. She pulled it out and we immediately knew this was the one - seemingly custom made just for slashers! Plus, the hot pink with sparkly silver writing was perfect for the silver pants. And even better: the tail on the back (pic below).
Anyway, once we were all geared up, BLG, Estrella, byob, and Dira showed up, and Minotaur did the photographic honors, posing us according to his whim. Here's me, front and back - when Mr. JaC saw the outfit he said, "you look like Disco!" (Mr. JaC is of an age to remember that era first-hand!). I felt kind of like a throwback to the SH era (note the enormous silver hoops, very authentic 70s!!!).
At 5:45, right on time, BLG, Estrella, byob, and Dira showed up. I have to say, these women are hot. Note the very artistic holes in BLG's fishnets. And you can't tell from the pic on the right, but byob was wearing an absolutely wicked pair of shoes, borrowed from heuradys.
My shoes were on the opposite end of the spectrum - trashy Disco Queen shoes, reminiscent of the Candies of my youth (which I was never allowed to have, much to my early adolescent dismay):
So after the photo shoot was done, we all headed down to the Mezzanine to mingle and admire each other's get-ups while waiting for the banquet doors to open. The attire ranged from everyday clothes to wildly outrageous, and everyone looked fantastic. Before the con, isiscolo posted on her LJ that she'd found a great plastic irridescent skirt, but she decided not to buy it because she thought there must be a rule against women of a certain age wearing plastic irridescent skirts. I responded that even assuming there is such a rule, it doesn't apply at cons. That's one of the very cool things about cons, I think - the opportunity to dress up - like princesses, like sluts, like disco princesses or goth queens or anything else at all - without worrying about the "rules." This goes back to the whole girliness thing again - like playing dress-up at a slumber party or something, all those things I didn't do when I really was a girl. Not everyone dresses, which is absolutely fine - but you know, at this age, at this stage in my life, where else could I ever wear "porn clothes" or silver lamé disco pants?
Anyway, once inside the room we scrambled madly for seats and then proceeded to mingle and take photos and generally squee excitedly.
Here's Isis, looking absolutely fab in that fantastic skirt (which she ended up getting, after various LJ commenters encouraged her, and it was clearly the right decision!), and BLG and Heuradys in their matching poses and hot-hot-hot fishnets. Heuradys's fishnet shirt and leather bodice and hot pink skirt were just the coolest thing ever - I was blown away. And wasn't I saying something about the world-class cleavage? You only have to look at this pic of BLG and Smara to see exactly what I mean.
BLG, byob, Dira, uselessplayback, Estrella, and I sat at one table, and at neighboring tables were, among others, Minotaur, Smara, lynnmonster, and reginagiraffe. The theme of this year's Connexions was "Love Shack," and there was a little house on the table with little rubber people in it. The people, who could be - and were! - manipulated into all sorts of interesting poses, had little paper heads with faces from various pairings; our table had Duncan and Methos, plus we had little paper Bodie and Doyle heads floating around free on the table - which I promptly appropriated, put into my con badge holder, and kept close to my ... umm ... heart, yeah, that's it! - for the rest of the con. Unfortunately we didn't have RayK and Fraser - Smara's table did, but they wouldn't let us have them, much to our chagrin.
Dinner was pleasant enough, nothing special; but the company was great. Here's one of my favorite pics, of byob with her bitches. Go, b!!
After the dinner was the "game show" - my least favorite part of the con. So we headed up to my room, where meri_oddities was having a party for people who didn't go to the banquet, to chat for a bit and grab drinks, and then went back downstairs in time for the vid show (more about that in a later post, maybe). Then back upstairs to my room, which had become party central. It was extremely hot and unbelievably crowded, but I did manage to find the time and room to show BLG, byob, and Dira two of the classic vids of all time: The Man Song and Detachable Penis, from the Media Cannibals 3 vid. We watched those repeatedly, talked and mingled and talked some more.
And then, before I knew it, it was 3:30 am. Of course, my surprise at the time could have had something to do with the fact that we had to set the clocks forward! Even without that unpleasantness, though, I always find it difficult to call it a night on the Saturday of a con; I always want to string out the con experience as long as possible, and Sunday morning means the beginning of the end. But that has to be weighed against the exhaustion which has inevitably set in by that time - in fact, Smara and Minotaur were already asleep when the last stragglers left the room. I fell into bed for a few short hours, arising about 8:30 or so to an absolute chaotic disaster of a room. Food and trash everywhere - looked like a tornado had blown through. Smara and I cleaned and packed and generally got ourselves ready to check out, then headed downstairs for the last hours of the con.
There's nothing so depressing to me as con Sunday, with everyone packing up and people departing one by one and that magical con spirit trickling away. There are still con events going on - I went to the Pros panel and spent time in the dealers room. But that ending, let-down feeling is just awful. Still, as things calm down and people move out, I often find some unexpectedly wonderful connections. This time I stuck around the entire day, which gave me the chance to chat with some people I'd never met before, like blk_tauna, who very kindly played The Bullshitters for me in its entirety in the con suite. I also had time to have a long chat (mostly about Pros - and more about Pros in a later post!) with katyabaturinsky, with whom I'd not had the chance to spend much time during the con. That was a stroke of luck and a great pleasure - she was one of the first people I ever corresponded with about dS, plus she shares my other fannish obsessions (namely Bodie and Doyle, of course!). She's absolutely wonderful, and I'm crossing my fingers that she will eventually move down here and join the absolutely wonderful group of DC-area slashers.
And the very final ending to my con weekend was perfect in an entirely unexpected way. I went up to byob and BLG's room to retrieve my luggage around 4:30, thinking it was time to leave. They and Dira were on one of the beds in the room watching MfU (bluster and others were on the other bed), and when I saw them I was overtaken with exhaustion. I threw myself down with them and wound up in the most absolutely wonderful group snuggle (man that sounds cornbally - but how else to describe it?) with them. I didn't realize how much I needed to wind down, and to rest before the drive home, and to connect in a slightly less frenetic way with some of the people who really mean a lot to me.
Going home is always a mixed feeling. On the one hand, there's no way to sustain that pace forever, and I did miss my cats and my horse (and even my husband!) On the other, for me there's nothing like that con/slashy headspace - it's the biggest high I can possibly imagine, and I'm so sad when it ends. We all fly off to our various homes when we've barely begun to say all the things we want to say to each other.
On #discourse chat Monday night, someone said, when I asked if she'd had fun at the con (which was her first), that "fun" wasn't enough of a word, that it was "almost a life-altering experience." I understand that completely - that's what becoming involved in this community, from discovering slash to the online stuff to cons, has been for me. But she went on to qualify that statement, saying "maybe it seems overwrought, but ..." And there it is again - that slight embarassment at the possibility that we might seem too intense, too enthusiastic; like caring so much, having this mean so much to is, is somehow bad. Why do so many of us feel the need to apologize for our enthusiasms, to dilute them? I'm lucky, I think, to have something, and so many people, that I care so passionately about - why is it so hard to embrace that passion unconditionally?
Sometimes I feel like an utter newbie in my enthusiasm, like the old-timers are looking at me and saying, just you wait. And maybe there will come a day when cons feel boring and stale to me, when I'm jaded and cynical, when I don't want more and more and more of this world - I don't know. I hope not. But even if that's the case, for once in my life, I'm not going to anticipate it - I'm resolved to try, at least, to enjoy this high for as long as it lasts, to ride the wave without apology and take everyone I can along with me.
**Photos posted with the knowledge and acquiescence of those pictured