I came. I saw. I half-assed Dragon*Conned.
I took no pictures. I didn't leave my room until after 11am and usually closer to 1pm both days. I didn't come in until after 3am and closer to 4am both nights. I missed the parade because... sleep. I missed a lot of people because my cell service absolutely sucked all weekend and time. But I had a blast. And I'm so grateful to get to see the people I was able to see. I missed a lot of you and that really, really sucks. I mean, I only saw one of the people who was in the room right next door! But I'm already making plans for next year, full time, possibly dragging Chris along. I've got to figure out Jonah's whole school thing. My mother-in-law came up to take care of him this year. I wonder if she would consider house sitting. Anyway...
Thursday, I was late leaving town... as I am. Always. But, this time, I was like 8 hours late leaving town. I had too much shit to do and not enough time to do it. Thursday morning, I rinsed one of my fishnet fingerless gloves down the drain as I was rinsing the dye out from the day before. Not even stuck in the trap, but washed completely down the drain. It's probably floating around in the Cumberland or something now. It didn't matter anyway, as the remaining one turned out this hideous pinkish lavender color. It was supposed to be charcoal grey. I guess I just lucked out with the corset. Of course that was pewter dye, not the charcoal that's given me fits before. I've got pics of all the stuff I was doing in preparation for D*C. I even took notes. Except maybe the hat. But I was pretty much following someone else's instructions on that, just scaled down into a tiny hat that I'm sort of learning to love. Also the staff because that was the last thing I did before showering and heading out of town. But I remember what I did on that one.
Leaving so late, I hit rush hour on the way out of town. And trying to head east in Nashville in rush hour freaking sucks. It took me like an hour to get out of town. I finally got to Atlanta at 9pm EST. Rushed into my room, changed into Sexy Gandalf wearing the sensible flat boots that he borrowed from Celeborn and carrying a cooler full of booze and my stilettos, I headed out to the Fellowship of the Wrong Party. I feel sorry for the dude who stopped me for a pic on my way to Cindy and Kate's room.
Before leaving town, I had printed out this:
really small so it would fit in my wallet. When people would take our picture, I'd walk up to them and ask them if they wanted to see a picture of the Balrog I killed. And then I'd go off about "This one time, in Moria, I killed this Balrog..." I'd alternate between boasting, "... in his own house!" and simply stating, "... and it was Awesome." tossing my head back and almost breathing the word 'awesome'. People either laughed or just stared at me and wondered if I was drunk or just crazy. I had only had one beer. It was sadly the latter.
I'm not stupid enough to get drunk while wearing 5" stilettos on slick hotel floors. No effing way. I waited until we got back to the room later and put the flats back on. Then I got drunk. Probably too drunk. I was still drunk in the morning... four hours later when I first woke up. So I spent the majority of Friday morning in various states of consciousness, snacking on the wholesome things I brought and nursing myself back to sobriety while I looked at stuff on the internet on my phone. Then I needed caffeine and Michael's leatherworking panel was about to start. I knew that was probably as good a time as any to see at least Michael and Rebecca and maybe more people I knew (Judy, Tim, Jo and Daniel were all there, which was awesome). I sported my vintage 30's dress with the shoes I was supposed to wear for Arwen that night, but they wore blisters that afternoon. Arwen instead borrowed Celeborn's boots that Sexy Gandalf had previously borrowed. I see what Kate means about elves being the sharing types with their wardrobes. It's quite nice of them.
After the leather working panel, we stood around outside the Tolkien track room waiting for Berg to come get his Legolas kit, but I didn't mind standing there holding it and taking in every detail with the maker standing right there so I could pick his brain and say, "hey, what did you do here?" It's a gorgeous piece and I think if I were Berg, I'd just wear it around, like daily. From there, I think I headed back to my room to go ahead and start changing into Arwen in time to go to elf choir. I had tons of time and yet I was somehow still late. I'm convinced the comforter on my hotel bed was stuffed with chamomile or something. I really took my time with the wig and I think it paid off. Judging from pics, it looks a lot better than previous wears (I guess, ALEP2 being the only previous wear, really). I think I'm finally happy with an Arwen wig.
Anyway, late to the elf choir, wound up sitting in the back of the class cutting up with some dude, which is totally canon for Arwen, by the way. He asked me to explain the Star of Elendil. I answered, "dude, it's a long story" with my hand out in resistance saying, "elvish mythology, man" and shook my head. Elrond Buzzkillington would not have approved of his daughter right then. Once we were done singing Passing of the Elves for the fourteenth time, met up with Yvette and family, Kate, Cindy, Bonnie and... maybe that was all? Seems like there were others. Posed for many photos. Met a very nice, extremely tall Legolas (but I don't remember his name). We all discussed our plan of attack for heading to Evening at Bree all agreeing that waiting until about 9pm for the frenzy at the door to settle was wise. We were wrong. I showed up at 9 and there was a line waiting to get in. We probably all waited about 20 minutes before they started letting people in again. But on my way, I got to see Maggie and Jen riding up the escalator in their Star Trek outfits and both looking super cute!
Once we finally got in, it was fantastic. And this event totally made my con. Craig Parker was hilarious and just generally lovely. Emerald Rose was, as always, a delight to hear. I didn't realize it at the time, but I finally got to meet Jedielfqueen and her hubby!!! If I had realized, I probably would have fangirl squeed really loud. She pulled me over to get a picture with my "grandparents" as they were in Galadriel and Celeborn. The Celeborn that inspired me to make Celeborn! I studied her page on that costume for hours. Also her elven armor pages. She was so radiant and lovely in person, but I didn't realize until hours later who I had been talking to. Her husband wasn't wearing the outer robe and no longer has long hair, so for some reason it didn't fully register. So bizarre. I blame sleep deprivation because I hadn't had a drop of alcohol. I was carrying around two beers, but as Yvette and I stood there in our heavy velvets, we just wanted water. Endless water. Have I mentioned how ridiculously awesome her negative eyebrows were? They were pretty ridiculously awesome. Especially in pics! Her whole family looked amazing. And a Julien with a German accent just cracks me right the heck up. ;)
Kate's Gil-galad was absolutely stunning. All the way down to the orc blood. Cindy's legitimate Boromir was a fabulous contrast to her Sexy Boromir from the night before. Also, Legitimate Boromir is the name of my new ambient synth-pop band. The guys from TORN were there doing streaming video of the costume contest and other festivities. There was a general air of just, I don't know, something comfortable. But I must say a brief word on my ever growing ALEP family: you guys feel different at Dragon*Con. It's like we're all keeping a secret. Anyone else get that, or am I crazy? It did't bother me, it's just something I noticed. Everyone was just as warm and friendly as always, but at the same time everyone seemed a bit overwhelmed. I guess a lot of people have had a lot of things going on recently that are overwhelming. This year in general has been a bit trying for most of us, I think. I will say this, Dragon*Con does not have the restorative properties of the Shire. Quite the opposite. Hence why I'm just now getting around to writing about it.
Berg and Nadine looked amazing as always. I mean, they really put their all into their work and you can tell. OMG! IDEA! You guys should join the band of Feanorian brothers... named Kinslayer... on our 2014 World Tour... to Kentucky... to support our first album since the First Age... called Family Jewels. This is a thing that should happen.
As things were breaking up I ran into Ryan and Dawn, two locals I don't get to see very often. They looked so awesome in their costumes! I can tell they had a lot of fun going all out for the con. Their pics are awesome. I hated that I missed Lane and Brooke. Their Merry and Rosie costumes were perfect! The pics from, I guess it was Sunday? Epic!
Anyway, after that, people needed to shed armor and heavy velvets or otherwise become very disgruntled. Yvette and I bumped into Jess and Amber and recorded a piece of video in the bathroom which is bound to look pretty dumb for my half. Then we met back up with the rest of Yvette's family and watched, mesmerized for probably close to a half hour while a table of three people in I'm guessing Mass Effect costumes (they had a Tali) put each piece of their complicated armor back on after finishing their meal. Then, once they finished, we left not long after them and noticed them just outside the restaurant straining to pick up something one of them had dropped. I've been there. The lenses in my Batgirl cowl lasted all of five minutes before they fogged so badly, I couldn't see out of them. It's part of working the kinks out of a costume.
After that, I think they were headed to bed and I went up to see Cindy and Kate who were pretty close to turning in. I finally drank my two beers. Kate took a hilarious anachronistic photo of Arwen holding a beer and Sexy Gandalf's tiny hat, which I had left in their room the night before. And then we had a hilarious discussion of anachronistic photos of people in costume. Then we had our, "I might not see you before I leave, I mean, I hope I do, but in case I don't, bye," hugs.
After that, I tried to find Yvette and Eric in their Romans. But after wandering the Marriott several times and thinking that maybe turning in at 3am would be advisable, I finally decided to head off to bed. I did first run into Donovan and John. Donovan honorably offered me an escort back to the hotel if he was still around when I was headed back. He texted before turning in just to be sure. Such a gentleman. Once I got back to the room and out of nine yards of silk velvet and heavy bullion trim and 42" of hair, all made heavier with sweat and in bed, I suddenly got texts from a friend who I haven't seen since the last D*C I went to in 2010. He was raving it up and proceeded to beg me to get dressed and go back out. I did not.
I woke up four hours later, again, debated on going to the parade, decided sleep was more important, then got up to get packed and dressed and go meet Janine for brunch. I had a ton of trouble finding people. Cell service was completely gone the second I set foot into the Marriott. I just randomly ran into her, but still didn't have much of an appetite and she was starving so much she was shaking, so she for a big smoothie and started feeling human again. We sat with some random lady who decided to befriend us and also randomly decided we should go to Frolic Con... a fetish con. That was funny. Not really. But it was so awesome to get to have a few minutes with Janine! And I get to see her again next month! At GMX! (More on that later.) (You guys should come, if not this year, next. All of you.)
As we were getting up to leave, we randomly ran into Yvette, who was having an equally hard time finding anyone because of the same sort of cell service woes I was having. Would it cost just a ton of money to outfit the Marriott and Peachtree Center with free wifi? I don't know, I really can't say that things with D*C haven't improved greatly since two years ago when I went, in some aspects anyway. Namely registration. And I guess if they can only tackle one issue a year, there's always going to be a backlog of issues that piss people off. Honestly, other than putting a cap on memberships, I don't see how they can resolve the foot traffic issues in the main hotels. That was my only headache this year and I left right before peak traffic time. I can't imagine what Saturday night was like.
Anyway, we finally got some food at the 24hr diner there past the food court. It was nice to get some time away from the hotels before I got on the road and it felt like we were away from the hotels there. But then on the way back through, it took forever for me to get back to my room and pack up my car. I managed to meet up with Alex (the friend that was texting me the night before trying to get me to come back out) before taking off and heading towards Hop City to buy Chris' appeasement (a case or so of sour beers and a six pack of Back in Black, 21st Amendment's black IPA in cans).
But I missed so much. So many people. So many really awesome costume groups. Kate and Nadine's costuming panel that I've heard nothing but fabulous things about. I didn't even ride the Vader 'Vator. And that really, really sucks. And it wasn't even worth it to only go for a couple of days because I was still just as worn out. I was exhausted for like a week when I got back. And if that's the price I pay then I'm going full time. Committing to it right now. It's a done deal.
And it's right back out of town this weekend for Brewgrass. Then the 22nd is the Smial's Anniversary Party/Hobbitt discussion. The 28th is this big-deal-I'm-trying-really-hard-to-care-about fundraiser at Jonah's school. He's got a field trip the following week I'm chaperoning (yes, we're doing this now). It just keeps coming at you, man. My Bloggess calendar is scribbled all over this month in various colors of whatever writing element was handy. But it also says "don't let the bastards get you down" so all the scribbled commitments don't seem so scary. And that's maybe the best product endorsement ever.
ETA: Forgot to include such epic moments as: Stacey and Josh showing up at like midnight ready to throw down with some absinthe after a 17 hour drive, awkward family photos with Caranthir and Maglor Magloki (I wasn't there, but I've seen the photos and they are awesome. My favorite is "surly".), seeing Betsy's Jessica Rabbit finally (amazing!), Raj kissing Sexy Boromir just out of curiosity of what a goatee made of faux fur would feel like and Jen getting a pic of it, epic (and often painful) high fives with Cindy, and "THEY'RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO DAIRY QUEEN!" This is what I get for trying to write a full on rundown. I inevitably forget things because it takes me like three days to write it.
Thursday, I was late leaving town... as I am. Always. But, this time, I was like 8 hours late leaving town. I had too much shit to do and not enough time to do it. Thursday morning, I rinsed one of my fishnet fingerless gloves down the drain as I was rinsing the dye out from the day before. Not even stuck in the trap, but washed completely down the drain. It's probably floating around in the Cumberland or something now. It didn't matter anyway, as the remaining one turned out this hideous pinkish lavender color. It was supposed to be charcoal grey. I guess I just lucked out with the corset. Of course that was pewter dye, not the charcoal that's given me fits before. I've got pics of all the stuff I was doing in preparation for D*C. I even took notes. Except maybe the hat. But I was pretty much following someone else's instructions on that, just scaled down into a tiny hat that I'm sort of learning to love. Also the staff because that was the last thing I did before showering and heading out of town. But I remember what I did on that one.
Leaving so late, I hit rush hour on the way out of town. And trying to head east in Nashville in rush hour freaking sucks. It took me like an hour to get out of town. I finally got to Atlanta at 9pm EST. Rushed into my room, changed into Sexy Gandalf wearing the sensible flat boots that he borrowed from Celeborn and carrying a cooler full of booze and my stilettos, I headed out to the Fellowship of the Wrong Party. I feel sorry for the dude who stopped me for a pic on my way to Cindy and Kate's room.
Before leaving town, I had printed out this:
really small so it would fit in my wallet. When people would take our picture, I'd walk up to them and ask them if they wanted to see a picture of the Balrog I killed. And then I'd go off about "This one time, in Moria, I killed this Balrog..." I'd alternate between boasting, "... in his own house!" and simply stating, "... and it was Awesome." tossing my head back and almost breathing the word 'awesome'. People either laughed or just stared at me and wondered if I was drunk or just crazy. I had only had one beer. It was sadly the latter.
I'm not stupid enough to get drunk while wearing 5" stilettos on slick hotel floors. No effing way. I waited until we got back to the room later and put the flats back on. Then I got drunk. Probably too drunk. I was still drunk in the morning... four hours later when I first woke up. So I spent the majority of Friday morning in various states of consciousness, snacking on the wholesome things I brought and nursing myself back to sobriety while I looked at stuff on the internet on my phone. Then I needed caffeine and Michael's leatherworking panel was about to start. I knew that was probably as good a time as any to see at least Michael and Rebecca and maybe more people I knew (Judy, Tim, Jo and Daniel were all there, which was awesome). I sported my vintage 30's dress with the shoes I was supposed to wear for Arwen that night, but they wore blisters that afternoon. Arwen instead borrowed Celeborn's boots that Sexy Gandalf had previously borrowed. I see what Kate means about elves being the sharing types with their wardrobes. It's quite nice of them.
After the leather working panel, we stood around outside the Tolkien track room waiting for Berg to come get his Legolas kit, but I didn't mind standing there holding it and taking in every detail with the maker standing right there so I could pick his brain and say, "hey, what did you do here?" It's a gorgeous piece and I think if I were Berg, I'd just wear it around, like daily. From there, I think I headed back to my room to go ahead and start changing into Arwen in time to go to elf choir. I had tons of time and yet I was somehow still late. I'm convinced the comforter on my hotel bed was stuffed with chamomile or something. I really took my time with the wig and I think it paid off. Judging from pics, it looks a lot better than previous wears (I guess, ALEP2 being the only previous wear, really). I think I'm finally happy with an Arwen wig.
Anyway, late to the elf choir, wound up sitting in the back of the class cutting up with some dude, which is totally canon for Arwen, by the way. He asked me to explain the Star of Elendil. I answered, "dude, it's a long story" with my hand out in resistance saying, "elvish mythology, man" and shook my head. Elrond Buzzkillington would not have approved of his daughter right then. Once we were done singing Passing of the Elves for the fourteenth time, met up with Yvette and family, Kate, Cindy, Bonnie and... maybe that was all? Seems like there were others. Posed for many photos. Met a very nice, extremely tall Legolas (but I don't remember his name). We all discussed our plan of attack for heading to Evening at Bree all agreeing that waiting until about 9pm for the frenzy at the door to settle was wise. We were wrong. I showed up at 9 and there was a line waiting to get in. We probably all waited about 20 minutes before they started letting people in again. But on my way, I got to see Maggie and Jen riding up the escalator in their Star Trek outfits and both looking super cute!
Once we finally got in, it was fantastic. And this event totally made my con. Craig Parker was hilarious and just generally lovely. Emerald Rose was, as always, a delight to hear. I didn't realize it at the time, but I finally got to meet Jedielfqueen and her hubby!!! If I had realized, I probably would have fangirl squeed really loud. She pulled me over to get a picture with my "grandparents" as they were in Galadriel and Celeborn. The Celeborn that inspired me to make Celeborn! I studied her page on that costume for hours. Also her elven armor pages. She was so radiant and lovely in person, but I didn't realize until hours later who I had been talking to. Her husband wasn't wearing the outer robe and no longer has long hair, so for some reason it didn't fully register. So bizarre. I blame sleep deprivation because I hadn't had a drop of alcohol. I was carrying around two beers, but as Yvette and I stood there in our heavy velvets, we just wanted water. Endless water. Have I mentioned how ridiculously awesome her negative eyebrows were? They were pretty ridiculously awesome. Especially in pics! Her whole family looked amazing. And a Julien with a German accent just cracks me right the heck up. ;)
Kate's Gil-galad was absolutely stunning. All the way down to the orc blood. Cindy's legitimate Boromir was a fabulous contrast to her Sexy Boromir from the night before. Also, Legitimate Boromir is the name of my new ambient synth-pop band. The guys from TORN were there doing streaming video of the costume contest and other festivities. There was a general air of just, I don't know, something comfortable. But I must say a brief word on my ever growing ALEP family: you guys feel different at Dragon*Con. It's like we're all keeping a secret. Anyone else get that, or am I crazy? It did't bother me, it's just something I noticed. Everyone was just as warm and friendly as always, but at the same time everyone seemed a bit overwhelmed. I guess a lot of people have had a lot of things going on recently that are overwhelming. This year in general has been a bit trying for most of us, I think. I will say this, Dragon*Con does not have the restorative properties of the Shire. Quite the opposite. Hence why I'm just now getting around to writing about it.
Berg and Nadine looked amazing as always. I mean, they really put their all into their work and you can tell. OMG! IDEA! You guys should join the band of Feanorian brothers... named Kinslayer... on our 2014 World Tour... to Kentucky... to support our first album since the First Age... called Family Jewels. This is a thing that should happen.
As things were breaking up I ran into Ryan and Dawn, two locals I don't get to see very often. They looked so awesome in their costumes! I can tell they had a lot of fun going all out for the con. Their pics are awesome. I hated that I missed Lane and Brooke. Their Merry and Rosie costumes were perfect! The pics from, I guess it was Sunday? Epic!
Anyway, after that, people needed to shed armor and heavy velvets or otherwise become very disgruntled. Yvette and I bumped into Jess and Amber and recorded a piece of video in the bathroom which is bound to look pretty dumb for my half. Then we met back up with the rest of Yvette's family and watched, mesmerized for probably close to a half hour while a table of three people in I'm guessing Mass Effect costumes (they had a Tali) put each piece of their complicated armor back on after finishing their meal. Then, once they finished, we left not long after them and noticed them just outside the restaurant straining to pick up something one of them had dropped. I've been there. The lenses in my Batgirl cowl lasted all of five minutes before they fogged so badly, I couldn't see out of them. It's part of working the kinks out of a costume.
After that, I think they were headed to bed and I went up to see Cindy and Kate who were pretty close to turning in. I finally drank my two beers. Kate took a hilarious anachronistic photo of Arwen holding a beer and Sexy Gandalf's tiny hat, which I had left in their room the night before. And then we had a hilarious discussion of anachronistic photos of people in costume. Then we had our, "I might not see you before I leave, I mean, I hope I do, but in case I don't, bye," hugs.
After that, I tried to find Yvette and Eric in their Romans. But after wandering the Marriott several times and thinking that maybe turning in at 3am would be advisable, I finally decided to head off to bed. I did first run into Donovan and John. Donovan honorably offered me an escort back to the hotel if he was still around when I was headed back. He texted before turning in just to be sure. Such a gentleman. Once I got back to the room and out of nine yards of silk velvet and heavy bullion trim and 42" of hair, all made heavier with sweat and in bed, I suddenly got texts from a friend who I haven't seen since the last D*C I went to in 2010. He was raving it up and proceeded to beg me to get dressed and go back out. I did not.
I woke up four hours later, again, debated on going to the parade, decided sleep was more important, then got up to get packed and dressed and go meet Janine for brunch. I had a ton of trouble finding people. Cell service was completely gone the second I set foot into the Marriott. I just randomly ran into her, but still didn't have much of an appetite and she was starving so much she was shaking, so she for a big smoothie and started feeling human again. We sat with some random lady who decided to befriend us and also randomly decided we should go to Frolic Con... a fetish con. That was funny. Not really. But it was so awesome to get to have a few minutes with Janine! And I get to see her again next month! At GMX! (More on that later.) (You guys should come, if not this year, next. All of you.)
As we were getting up to leave, we randomly ran into Yvette, who was having an equally hard time finding anyone because of the same sort of cell service woes I was having. Would it cost just a ton of money to outfit the Marriott and Peachtree Center with free wifi? I don't know, I really can't say that things with D*C haven't improved greatly since two years ago when I went, in some aspects anyway. Namely registration. And I guess if they can only tackle one issue a year, there's always going to be a backlog of issues that piss people off. Honestly, other than putting a cap on memberships, I don't see how they can resolve the foot traffic issues in the main hotels. That was my only headache this year and I left right before peak traffic time. I can't imagine what Saturday night was like.
Anyway, we finally got some food at the 24hr diner there past the food court. It was nice to get some time away from the hotels before I got on the road and it felt like we were away from the hotels there. But then on the way back through, it took forever for me to get back to my room and pack up my car. I managed to meet up with Alex (the friend that was texting me the night before trying to get me to come back out) before taking off and heading towards Hop City to buy Chris' appeasement (a case or so of sour beers and a six pack of Back in Black, 21st Amendment's black IPA in cans).
But I missed so much. So many people. So many really awesome costume groups. Kate and Nadine's costuming panel that I've heard nothing but fabulous things about. I didn't even ride the Vader 'Vator. And that really, really sucks. And it wasn't even worth it to only go for a couple of days because I was still just as worn out. I was exhausted for like a week when I got back. And if that's the price I pay then I'm going full time. Committing to it right now. It's a done deal.
And it's right back out of town this weekend for Brewgrass. Then the 22nd is the Smial's Anniversary Party/Hobbitt discussion. The 28th is this big-deal-I'm-trying-really-hard-to-care-about fundraiser at Jonah's school. He's got a field trip the following week I'm chaperoning (yes, we're doing this now). It just keeps coming at you, man. My Bloggess calendar is scribbled all over this month in various colors of whatever writing element was handy. But it also says "don't let the bastards get you down" so all the scribbled commitments don't seem so scary. And that's maybe the best product endorsement ever.
ETA: Forgot to include such epic moments as: Stacey and Josh showing up at like midnight ready to throw down with some absinthe after a 17 hour drive, awkward family photos with Caranthir and Maglor Magloki (I wasn't there, but I've seen the photos and they are awesome. My favorite is "surly".), seeing Betsy's Jessica Rabbit finally (amazing!), Raj kissing Sexy Boromir just out of curiosity of what a goatee made of faux fur would feel like and Jen getting a pic of it, epic (and often painful) high fives with Cindy, and "THEY'RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO DAIRY QUEEN!" This is what I get for trying to write a full on rundown. I inevitably forget things because it takes me like three days to write it.