hugely long con report!
Um, this is intensely long, guys. Like, 7k, 8k words. I WANTED TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING, OKAY? Also, it covers from the time I left my house Wednesday until Sunday night.
OKAY GUYS, HERE IS MY CON POST-MORTUM. I have about eight itsproductivitys to catch up on, plus about eight I need to read, but I want to do this while it is still fresh in my mind, because writing up other awesome things I've done lately has slipped to the wayside and I don't want to forget this weekend.
So, even though it wasn't technically part of the weekend, let's start with Tuesday night. I had to work and then to pack and stuff, but instead of packing I mostly sat around and watched teevee. Eventually I finished packing, including a quick tripout to my car to clean it out. My mom was letting me take the Prius, which meant she was driving Leo around and, um... well, many of you have seen the inside of my car.
I went out, ducking under the HUGE pine branches that we are too lazy to cut and hang down over my car, cleaned everything up, and went back upstairs, finished up getting ready for bed, and went to climb into bed when I ran my hand through my hair. And freaked out. Because I was sure I felt a bug. I made a squealing afraid-type noise and tried to run in fear, tripping over a discarded t-shirt on the floor and then skinning my knee pretty badly.
This is the sort of ironic comedy gold that my parents dream of. After years of telling me to clean my room and making fun of me for my fear of bugs, I grievously injure myself when combining the worst bits of both. AWESOME.
Anyway, I got up and bolted to the bathroom where I brushed my hair frantically, only to discover that it wasn't a bug, but rather a little baby pine cone. GOOD JOB, KAITLYN. You are awesome.
So, that out of the way, I went to bed and got up a few hours later to get ready to leave! I actually ended up leaving on time, which was amazing considering how much I was running around. The drive down was nothing major, and I didn't hit any traffic at all until fucking DC, when I started to worry that I'd be late because the cars on the highway weren't. moving. at all. >:O
I did get to the airport with little fuss, though! It was much smaller than the airports I'm used to (Newark, mainly) and super easy to find where I was supposed to go. I was about twenty minutes early, so I got a hot chocolate and settled down in front of the big window across from krabapple's gate. The plane touched down exactly on time. IT WAS WEIRD. Like, it was supposed to come in at 12:06 (or 2:06? Or 12:26? Something like that? It ended in a six.) and as the digital read-out on my phone switched from five to six, the plane touched down. CRAZY.
Anyway, we collected her luggage and dragged it out to the car. The directions were pretty straight forward and we managed to pull into the hotel to check in with no problem. We got a cart and pulled all our assorted crap upstairs. I gave Jenny a box that I had for her since Christmas, then told an epic story about the worst person I ever met off the internet, and then we decided to find a place to park the car.
Hahaha, that is a joke, because there are NO PARKING GARAGES IN WASHINGTON.
Oh my gosh, guys, we drove all around and finally found a cop who told us that there are no parking garages and no public parking. That is why our hotel was able to get away with charging us THIRTY DOLLARS A DAY to have our car sit quietly in the corner and DO NOTHING. Which, of course, we had to do because there was no where else to park! It was insane.
Our hotel was kind of hilariously pseudo-sketch all together. Like, it was a nice place with a great location, but it was a nice place trying to be a SUPER nice place and couldn't really pull it off. Everything was just a little off. There were statues in the lobby that were chipped and broken and held together by glue, the door to our room didn't open unless you threw your entire weight against it after putting the key in, our air conditioner didn't exactly get cold, et cetera. It was kind of endearingly hilarious.
Anyway, after getting our car taken care of, we decided to explore, I think while looking for food. Jenny was meeting a friend for drinks after dinner, and we were hungry. We wandered down past the Capitol building and to the botanical gardens, which were in the midst of closing. We were chased off by a ranger, and ended up walking back to the hotel and finding a bar to eat at in the area. We ate and went back to the hotel again and played around on our internets, which were finally working for both of us. In the midst of our interneting (read: a few hours later XD), Jenny's friend called, so she went out and I decided to write the day's itsproductivity and take a shower. I watched about nine episodes of Cold Case and then Jenny came home and eventually we went to bed, but not before watching an episode of Without a Trace in which Martin was hilariously addicted to pills.
The next morning the maid came by to clean our room at nine thirty am. We nearly died. And told her to go away. And then went back to sleep for a little while. Eventually we got up and dressed, et cetera, and then headed out to be ~*tourists*~. It was the most beautiful day ever, basically. Like, 75 degrees, sunny but not too sunny, a nice breeze. We hit the botanical gardens again, which were nice, but very much lacking pretty flowers. They were very green. There was a dinosaur in one room, though, and I liked that! They were also doing a thing on saving the environment, which I took some pictures of for my dad.
From there we walked down the mall to the Smithsonian. We went into the Air and Space museum because we felt like we should since we were in town for a SciFi con. We didn't actually do much, but we did go to their AWESOME gift shop and had lunch in their overpriced cafeteria. After that, we continued down the mall, took some photos of the rose gardens, and eventually hit the Washington monument. We took lots of pictures along the way, walked down to the Lincoln memorial and bought ice pops because we really wanted ice pops. Now I really want an ice pop. But I am determined to finish this today!
At the top of the memorial, Jenny realized she had to book it if she wanted to meet up with her friend for dinner. I gave her my shitty map, so named because it got us lost like, three times, and we parted ways so that I could go to my favorite place in DC, the FDR memorial. I went through the memorial and walked along the edge of the Potomac and took a million pictures and then met My New Best Friend. His nickname is "Guy Working the FDR Memorial GiftShop." After going through the memorial, I bought a postcard and asked him about how to get to the nearest drugstore. The night before we had discovered that my skinned knee was pussing or something, and I had stubbed my toe really hard and it had turned kind of purple and swollen? These were things I thought I should address. He briefly explained how the streets worked in DC, gave me a map, and helped me get to a CVS that was conveniently across the street from a B&N.
I had to walk basically the entire length of the mall on a diagonal from the FDR memorial. Oh my god. It was a hike, but I didn't even realize it until after I had taken care of business and was sitting in The Bookstore drinking a strawberries and cream blended thingy. I read a book for a little while and then walked all the way back. Oh my GOD. Long walk. And just when I thought I was almost there, it turned out the streets started again at 1 and I had two more blocks to go. Uphill.
I did eventually return, and promptly took off all my sweaty clothes and collapsed face down near the air conditioner. Eventually I got up and computered a little, and then Jenny returned, also exhausted from a similar trek all across the city. We wanted dinner, but we were both bushed, so we teeveed and interneted for awhile longer before walking over to a strip that Jenny's friend recommended for dinner. Oh, at some point I realized I was sunburned and Jenny was as well, so we found another, closer CVS to buy sunscreen at. Good times.
We ended up eating at an Irish pub because the restaurants were kind of crazy expensive. No problem, though, because we were pretty hungry and would eat anything. Which we did. On the way home, I called inocciduous and we made plans to arrive at the hotel around 1pm. We were all very excited! And tired. So we watched some Ace of Cakes and went to sleep.
Friday morning Jenny got up early to have lunch with a friend and I intended to get up and either take advantage of the hotel's continental breakfast, take a picture of Wishbone outside the Library of Congress, go somewhere else for breakfast, or go to the bank to get some cash to pay Jenny. What actually happened was that I slept in, took a shower, watched a billion episodes of the SG-1 marathon on SciFi, and then ran to the bank to get money. Jenny came back from breakfast and after I gave a rough explanation of SG-1 to her, we packed up and headed out. Our intention was to get the car, make a quick stop or two in DC, and be at the hotel in MD for 1pm. When we were still packing at nearly noon, I called Jen and told her we were running behind. We were running even MORE behind when it took them twenty minutes to bring our car out. CRAZY.
It was much hotter and humider and yuckier on Friday, so we kind of lucked out with the brilliantly perfect day we had on Thursday. Even the walk down the block to the Library of Congress was muggy and gross. We took some pictures of the building and some pictures of Wishbone at the building and some pictures of ourselves and Wishbone at the building, then crossed the street and took some pictures of the Supreme Court building. Also, of a church with a hilarious sign.
Back to the car, and then on to our drive to MD, which was mostly painless. I don't think I remember there being a TON of traffic, but who knows. We got there around... a little after two? I think? I can't particularly remember and I can check my phone to see when I sent Jenna a text message that we are on our way, but I am lazy. I THINK WE GOT THERE AROUND TWO.
We went to check in and basically had the most hilarious check in experience ever. The two people at the desk were really friendly and joking around. The one guy first had me convinced we couldn't check in until four and then told us how he had convinced this other woman that she was sharing a room with five people. The woman commented, upon seeing my license, that there were a lot of people from NJ checking in. Going with the "telling hilarious falsehoods" theme, I told them that we were holding the annual New Jersey State Convention in Maryland. Except that she didn't realize we were joking and I didn't realize she didn't realize we were joking until she started asking me question. We quickly explained that we were actually in town for a science fiction convention. Good times.
At some point during this, Jen came into the lobby! YAY! So there was exciting meeting people and stuff and then we lugged all our crap up to the second floor to check into our room. The hotel was a little sketchy, but almost less sketchy than the DC hotel occasionally was because it was a Red Roof Inn, and thus we sort of expected it to be slightly lower class. I had booked this hotel for a couple reasons, mostly because the rate was cheap as hell, but I also made sure it had wireless internet.
What I did not check was whether it had FREE wireless internet.
Yes, boys and girls, we were in a "T-Mobile HotSpot." After lamenting about this for awhile, we hopped back in the car and drove over to the con to check in. I wanted to sign up for a photo op with the Hewletts because I'm a masochist, and we wanted to make sure everything was hunky-dory before the screening of A Dog's Breakfast at nine that night. Check in went fine, for the most part, although we did get lost in the labyrinth of the hotel for a little bit. After checking in, we went across the street to the bizarre inside-out mall that Jenny assured us was completely normal. We found a Noodles, something I hadn't seen outside of the midwest, and decided to eat there. Also, apparently, to stay there for several hours talking about how gay John Sheppard is.
(As a note, we did a LOT of chatting over the weekend and I can only remember about half the topics. We did frequently discuss how gay John Sheppard is, though, so that is going to be my default filler for all our conversations. Because John Sheppard is pretty gay.)
After lunch, we had to get gas and also find a bank so Jenny could get some cash. I have this thing about gas--I absolutely have to buy the cheapest gas around. I know that everyone plays this game now that the gas prices are so high, but my parents and I have been playing it for years. We are cheapskates. It is in our blood. We drove nearly all the way back to our hotel (without realizing it) until we found a gas station with gas for $3.91. WIN! It was cash only and we had to wait on line, but I totally didn't care. While we were waiting, the woman in front of us climbed out of the backseat of her car (which was a porsche or something expensive like that). We spent some time wondering why the hell she would do that, questioning her sanity and how cheap she was ("If you drive a car like that you can afford to have your front door fixed!") and being generally baffled.
Until I pulled up and tried to open my door, only to have it blocked by a very high curb. Haha. Whoops.
So Jen climbed out the back and took my wallet inside to pay for the gas. She also pumped the gas for me, as I was stranded inside. It was good times.
We headed back to our hotel to kill time before the ADB panel because there wasn't overmuch going on at the con until later. Somehow we got on the subject of... something. I think it was del.icio.us. I brought up the AWESOME Without a Trace fic that I found where Martin cuts himself while listening to Evanescence and Jenny reminded me that, in an e-mail exchange while getting ready for the con, I had mentioned fics where John cuts himself. It became my mission to find them. After googling fruitlessly for a few minutes, I thought to search del.icio.us and, low and behold, "sheppard" and "cutting" resulted in three stories, one of which I had been thinking of and two that were entirely new!
This meant, of course, that I had to dramatically read them out loud. Um, I think this happened for like, an hour. Oh my god, guys, this story was awful amazing. Something happens to John, I think with the wraith from the first time that Todd gave him his life back? Or something. And anyway, he needs to hurt himself, so he goes back to cutting himself, which he apparently did as a teenager. Rodney finds out and is horrified, but when he finds out that John has to cut himself because of the wraith (or something), he decides to find a better way to hurt John that will leave no marks. This is, apparently, whipping him. After which he's totally shocked that John expected them to have sex. So they do.
OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE BEST PART, Rodney finds out about John cutting himself when he finds a letter stuck inside War and Peace that says, "I, John Sheppard, give Ronon permission to kill me if he sees fit."
WHAT EVEN,INTERNET? OH MY GOD, HOW AMAZING IS THAT?
So, yeah, we read that for awhile and then realized it was time to go back to the con for the panel! When we got to the con, we had to park back in New Jersey, but tragically, not next to the other Prius from NJ. (I kept wanting to park next to Priuses so that they could be friends. ....shut up.) We stood around before the panel because there was something else going on in the room and saw many, many lunatics. We also saw lots of people in big groups that clearly all knew each other and were pissed that all the people on the internet who said they'd be there and look for us hadn't called. We decided the new way to be the coolest person in the room was to know the least amount of people around you, making us way cooler than the mobs that kept passing us by. Jen and Jenny were actually cooler than me because I knew both of them, but they both only knew me. TAKE THAT, PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET WHO BLEW US OFF! (wolfsavrd is exempt because we saw her later and then I stupidly forgot to get her number so not seeing her again was kind of my fault!)
Anyway, we managed to snag seats pretty close to the front when it was time to go in! We were all very excited, and even MORE excited when they called to the stage "everyone in the room named Hewlett." Out came David and Kate, and then JANE AND BAZ!!!
(Yes, that deserves three exclamation points.)
Here are some things about Baz: He is the cutest baby ever. I seriously think he might actually be a robot designed by David, because no baby can always be that happy and cute and CUTE, seriously, have you seen this baby, he is SO CUTE. At one point, he started to fuss a little, but he never even cried! He just sort of whimpered and kept staring at the huge mob of people in the audience (and into the five million camera flashes) with baby!fascination. SO CUTE.
(Side note: Jane continues to be super beautiful. Oh my god, David Hewlett, why are you constantly surrounded by super hot women? Why can't I be you?)
David apologized for Kate being all rumpled because apparently she had fallen asleep in her hotel room after ordering a movie, which she sort of grudgingly admitted was Step it Up and Dance 2. I tragically can't remember most of the rest of what they discussed before the movie because I kept thinking, "Oh my god, look at that baby, how is that baby so cute, look at Kate, oh my god, Kate is so gorgeous, oh my god, Jane is here, I love Jane without even having met her," et cetera. I also spent most of the time trying to take pictures, with little success.
The film started soon after that. Kate and Jane (minus David and Baby!Hew) watched a little bit of it from the corner, which I noticed during the beginning, which I think is a little slow. krabapple and inocciduous had never seen it before, so I was kind of anxious to see what they were going to think. As I said in my review on FaceBook, I was pleasantly surprised the first time I saw it because I was pretty sure it was going to be awful. All-in-all, I think it's a decent comedy and a fun movie, even if it does drag in parts. Jen and Jenny concurred.
Once the movie was over we vetoed the idea of watching the SGA premiere with a thousand other people in favor of finding pancakes. Pancakes were crucial. We had passed an IHOP earlier in our long drive after dinner, so we decided to go back there because IHOP is obviously always open. THIS IS A LIE! The IHOP closed at midnight and we were baffled because a) IHOP never closes at midnight! and b) no pancakes! I was angry because I knew there would be no 24 hour diners around, considering we were out of NJ. We kept on driving down the strip we were on, hoping we'd find SOMETHING open, when lo and behold, there was a diner! That was open 24 hours! And would definitely have pancakes and waffles!
Even stranger than this, I have to say, is that the diner's sister dinner is in MAMARONECK, NY and is, in fact, a diner which I have dined at in the past. WEIRD!
So we had breakfast foods and talked about how gay John Sheppard is and played a Journey song on the table-side jukebox. All acceptable things to do in a diner. Our waiter was a little odd in that I couldn't tell if he was honestly annoyed at our chipper attitude and general existence or if he was just joking or if it was some weird amalgamation of the three.
After being filled with pancakes we went back to the hotel again and settled in for the night. I assume. I can't really remember what we did. Whatever it was, it was AWESOME. Because we are awesome. Obvs.
Oh! One of the things we did realize, in setting our alarms for the morning, was that our hotel had no hairdryer and none of us had brought one. Oh noes! Our pictures with Kate and David were first thing in the morning!
I was the first to wake up because we agreed my hair would take longest to dry. Upon entering the bathroom, I stumbled across another problem: there were only two towels.
"Um, guys?" I said. "Just so you know, there are only two towels, so one of you might need to call down to the desk to get another one."
There was general grumbling that I didn't hear because I had to hop into the shower so everyone would have enough time to get ready. After I hopped out, Jenny hopped in because Jen wasn't getting a picture so didn't care about her hair being dry.
We got back into the car and spent most of the drive over being nervous about the whole picture thing. We found a relatively close parking spot and then went inside. We weren't quite sure where we were going at first, but after going downstairs and poking around and eavesdropping on another conversation, we managed to figure out where we were going and get there. The line seemed pretty long, but it was moving pretty fast. The main problem was that it was hot as hell in the hallway and there were no fans or air circulation. Mostly we just sort of silently freaked out. At one point, I realized that I had been itching my eye all morning and was starting to get Mutant Alien Eye, which is when my eye kind of swells up from allergies? So I took some benedryl. The hall was stuffy, but I wasn't particularly hot, just nervous and wired. We sort of eavesdropped on the conversations around us, trying not to crack up when the people behind us started waxing poetic about Rodney and John's "brotherly relationship."
So, once we turned around the bend and were a few people from the front, a woman came out of the photo room and announced that David hadn't eaten and thus we were taking a fifteen minute break so he could have breakfast. She encouraged us to get a snack, wander around the con, or at least get out of the stifling hallway. I realized that we had left our food, water bottles, and card games in the car and went out to get them.
In the hall on the way out, I heard some guy saying that he was glad JFlan got the role in SGA because he thought he was a much better actor than Ben Browder. I nearly died of laughing. I really did. I even called Jenny to spread the hilarity just as I was hitting the car. Once I got all our stuff and turned around to go back, my phone rang. It was Jenny. I'm not sure what I thought she was calling about (maybe a follow up to the JFlan-Ben Browder comparison), but it was certainly not, "Um, Kait, the line is starting to move again!"
I raced into the hotel and up the stairs and ran down the hall in confusion because I couldn't seem to find Jenna and Jenny. I heard my name and turned around and there was Jenna, peeking out from around the corner of the photo room. Jenny was next (!!!) meaning that I was right after her! There was confusion and freaking out over being in the room and giving the piles of stuff to Jenna. Some helpful volunteers tried to take all the bags from Jenna (she was holding her own, mine, and Jenny's at this point, along with the food/game bag and sunglasses and keys and all sorts of crap), not quite understanding that Jenna wasn't getting a picture until we jokingly called her our indentured servant.
So, Jenny had her picture done and I tried to stop looking flushed and crazed long enough to take a picture. I just hoped that my eye was looking better. Oh my god, I was nervous. Because, really, what do you do in this situation? You just paid to be in these people's presence. What do you say? It felt awkward!
So, my turn. Right. David shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me and I immediately said the same and then zoomed in on Kate and TOTALLY CAME ON TO HER WHILE SAYING IT WAS REALLY NICE TO MEET HER OH MY GOD. I was MORTIFIED once I realized what had happened and froze up, unable to continue the conversation that Kate was trying to have with me about the patterns on my shirt and her dress being similar or something. To make it worse, I blinked not once but TWICE before we got a good picture.
Um, I do not remember much of the rest of being in the room other than freaking out like a mofo. We somehow made our way down to the dealer's room, which was packed, and wandered in and out of the tables. There was some nice stuff, but way too many people to pay too much attention to much for long. Once we had gotten through the room, we decided to head down to the art room where it had seemed less crowded. It was right near where we were going to a panel a little later, so it made sense.
The art room was relatively small and we sort of nosed around at most of the stuff, until about halfway around the room I realized that Kate had just walked in. The room was basically empty--the staff, Kate, maybe two other people, and us--and I silently freaked and started hitting Jenny and pointing at Kate. Jenny missed Kate and focused in on the baby that was also in the room and didn't realize Kate was there until a few minutes later. The whole time, I was valiantly trying not to freak the fuck out, trying to remain normal until I could compose myself enough to maybe say something to her. We ended up spending much longer than was probably necessary, mostly because after I had worked up the nerve and decided I'd totally say something to Kate, I said something to Jenny about a cute picture of a baby dragon and a kitty with its tongue stuck to some ice and Kate popped up beside me and I lost my nerve again. OH MAN.
There was some nice stuff in the art room, but the best thing there by FAR (in hilarity, not necessarily in quality) was a manip called "CATLESTAR GALACTICA." It was exactly what you think it was.
Eventually, I was just a bundle of nerves, so we went out to get into the room the "Rodney Gets No Respect" panel was in. The only other people in there at the moment were two women with a couple kids. One of them said to the kids, "Okay, guys. Mommy wants to go to a discussion in here and maybe participate, when Daddy's done getting his picture taken with Kaylee, he's going to come pick you up."
Jenny and I both pretty much flipped out with the cuteness.
Anyway, after saving ourselves some seats in the second row, we sat on the carpet off to the side and proceeded to play The Scrambled States. It was fun times, especially because I forgot some of the rules! Jenny basically kicked our asses, which was tragic considering I have played it often for the past two years and she had never played it before.
When more people started coming in, we returned to our seats. We were pretty excited, because this was the first real panel we were doing and we all agree that Rodney gets no respect XD The room filled pretty quickly, and the moderators showed up. I can't remember their names, but they were, from right to left, a guy who didn't seem to totally keep up with the show entirely, two women who were level-headed but didn't get a chance to say much, and a super!David!fan and slash fan who was on the end.
Um, the panel did not go well.
It started off with the main guy moderating making a slightly bitchy comment about how David Hewlett sure brought out the Atlantis fans! We were all kind of like, "Well, yes, David and Jewel are here, of course there are tons of fans of SGA..." He then asked for opinions on Woolsey and Sam? Which went on for awhile? Which made no sense, seeing as how it was the RODNEY gets no respect panel. The women behind us were mumbling and pissed and finally a guy was like, "Excuse me, but does anyone else find it funny that Rodney can't even get any respect at his own panel?" And we laughed, riotously, but the guy in charge was like, "Well, we'll get to that."
What even?! Are you not seeing the irony here?!
It became clear that this guy watched the show but he wasn't a fan. He kept having to rely on the rest of the group to fill in the holes in his knowledge of the show. It was... pretty much both tortourous and hilarious. The topic kept getting off of Rodney, and when people tried to steer it back, it never worked. At one point, people were talking about Rodney/Keller as if it was something that actually happened in the show? Which, another universe, yeah, but totally confused me. The guy in front of us kept loudly expressing his not-entirely-sense-making opinions and not letting people disagree. The male moderator and the fangirl woman on the end were seconds away from a throw-down. At the end of the panel, when the guy saw there were only a few minutes left, he purposely turned the subject back to Woolsey. WHAT EVEN?!
These were the high points: Keeping Jenny from throttling people, passing notes back and forth, and the girls behind us. The girls behind us were hilarious. They were slash fans and were obviously as frustrated as we were. At one point, when the guy in front of us who wouldn't shut up was talking about how he thought that Rodney was lacking in field skills and hadn't really become good in the field yet, one of them said, "Amazingly enough, after four years, John hasn't become an astrophysicist either!"
We all pretty much died laughing. The moderator was not thrilled that we had our little hilarious side conversation, so he made them repeat it, at which point we all cracked up again.
The other truly hilarious quote was actually uttered by the guy moderating, completely by accident. They were talking about--well, okay, he started saying that we see Rodney in pain a lot because we can relate to him, at which point the guy in front of us argued that Rodney was not in physical pain a lot. Which, um, are we WATCHING THE SAME SHOW? I mean, yeah, Rodney's pain is often more emotional than physical, but you can hardly say he isn't in physical pain a lot! Anyway, they started comparing Rodney's pain to John's and the moderator decided (without getting any input from the audience, really) that Rodney's pain was emotional and John's was physical. So he says:
"John has to get beaten up to prove how manly he is."
So we LOST IT. I mean, clearly. Oh my lord. It was hilarious and very hard to keep from being obvious about it.
We, of course, had ended up in the second row, so we couldn't even sneak out. As soon as the panel was over we rocketed out of there to go to Panera and get lunch before the Hewlett panel. We got some salads and sandwiches and soups and went back across the street.
There was already a mob of people waiting to get inside, but Malcolm McDowell was in the middle of his panel and, being a New York theatre person (and a nice person in general), I thought it was rude to run in and out of the room over and over again. We scouted out a little place by the door that ended up being right next to the table where Kate was signing autographs. We didn't realize this until the person standing in front of us (which was a line for Kate to sign things, not a line to get into the Hewlett panel like we thought) informed us of it, at which point we spent the next twenty minutes talking about how pretty Kate is.
(Basically, that is what we did all weekend. "Oh my god, how the hell is Kate so pretty? I can't even deal with it!" "Me either! Look at her! Oh god.")
Kate is so pretty, guys.
One of the recurring jokes of the weekend was that Jenny and I were going to have a throwdown for Kate and Jenna was going to steal her while we were fighting as a distraction. Because. Wow. Kate is awesome. Anyway, we kept joking about that while stalker-yly staring at Kate while waiting for the McDowell panel to end.
We zoomed in as soon as the panel seemed to be over, but even with our mad zooming skills, we ended up in the second half of the audience, about midway back. It wasn't too bad, but they weren't the best seats ever. We were directly to the right of the microphone for questions and also next to the girls who were behind us at the Rodney panel. We talked to them about cons and SGA and the Hewletts and lunch until David came out and we all readied our cameras.
David was by himself at first, and kind of looked around for Kate and then addressed the audience. While he was talking about Kate missing, Kate snuck on stage behind him to surprise him, but the audience laughing nearly gave it away. It was quite cute!
Okay, so, I forgot most of what went on at the panel in favor of freaking out. Here is a list of what I remember, maybe in order, maybe not:
Okay, I can't remember what else. FEEL FREE TO FILL ME IN. Um, but then the best part happened, which was that David and Kate both went off stage and David came back with a guitar. He made a joke about being a roadie before a techie came over to fiddle with it, and then Kate came back with a paper. I was excitied/aprehensive at first because I know Kate's been writing a lot of songs and, much like when I see actors I like writing books/plays/et cetera, I am automatically wary of actors I like wiring songs. I was excited, but also worried that it would suck and I would be disappointed. That didn't matter, though. Apparently at the last con they were at (Meet the Hewletts, I believe), David asked Kate to do a repeat performance of the song she sang at his and Jane's wedding. She refused, saying she hadn't practiced, and I guess promised to do it at the next con? That was sort of implied, and this was it! She told a joke about how, when she was singing it at the wedding, she kept glancing over at David to see his reaction and he was fine until she got to the part about him losing his hair, at which point he was bawling.
I turned to Jenny and said, "Holy SHIT, if she sings an Ingrid Michaelson song I think I might die on the spot."
"That's okay," she said, "I think the two of us can manage to carry you out if we need to."
And, of course, that's what she did. I knew from the moment she started (really, from the moment she made that joke), and spent the entire time trying to video it while freaking the fuck out. My video is pretty much unusable because, not only was I pretty far away, but you can hear me freaking. OH MAN. I was just elated. I mean, obviously I love Ingrid, but I also love Kate, in case that wasn't clear, and the two worlds colliding was... insane. Also, I had JUST deleted all the videos from the Ingrid concert off of my camera to make room for DC pictures. OH MY GOD, GUYS. I just... melted with happiness.
The panel ended at some point after that. I was kind of in a haze of , "OH MY GOD DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN?" It was AMAZING. Holy crap, guys, I can't believe that happened!
Um, so I don't remember much else of what happened for a bit after that. On the way upstairs, while I was gushing about how beautiful and amazing and talented Kate was, we bumped into her. WHOOPS. SO EMBARASSED. We went up to the dealer's room, which was empty again, and I bought a present for quatredeathlady and something silly for myself. krabapple bought an Atlantis ID card with Rodney's name spelled incorrectly because we thought it was HILARIOUS. Jenna bought a Stargate Magazine with a ridiculous article about JFlan (and one about David Nykl!) and then we went back out to the car and drove to the nearest second nearest 7-11 to get something to drink. We went to a bank so that Jen could get some money, but we only saw a drive-up ATM, so that was fun. Also... gosh, I think then we went back to the hotel? And read more bad fic out loud? We did a lot of that because it is basically the most fun way to spend time with fannish friends. I showed them the Post-Trinity fic list and read the summaries of each one and eventually, a few hours later, we were hungry and decided to go to dinner.
We drove down the main strip again and ended up back at the inside-out mall across the street from the con after getting lost on some back road and having to do a weird k-turn in some craaaaaazy graveyard. We wandered around amongst the teenagers at the movie theatre in the inside-out-mall before settling on California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. Initially we went into this really classy place, but when we saw how everyone was dressed and that they actually hired someone to pay the piano, we realized that we were, perhaps, better off across the way at CPK.
After having some random stranger take our picture outside, we walked over and were seated inside where we made sure to order three different awesome things so we could share. We had a wonderful conversation over dinner about fic and original writing and childhood and SGA and how crazy that panel was, oh my god, that panel was crazy, and how much we loved Kate and crazy people and all sorts of stuff. IT WAS LOVELY, GUYS.
Afterwards, we sort of grudgingly drove back to the hotel, hyperaware that we were going home the next day :( Our internet was over, so we had to buy some more and then watched the SGA premiere and two SGA "behind the gate" specials from season 1. AW. Good times. And hilarious. I have such a sort of ironic/unironic fondness for Shanks, guys. I can't wait for him to [spoiler].
We interneted for a little bit after that, but eventually went to sleep. SADNESS. In the morning, Jenny took a shower and Jen and I hovered, freezing, under the blankets for as long as possible. We then packed up our stuff and bid our hotel room good bye D:
We checked out and said goodbye to Jen in the lobby :( We promised we'd have to do this again soon, obviously, and then Jenny and I got in the car to go back to the DC airport :( Unfortunately, on the way to the airport, I got on the wrong highway and we lost about twenty minutes of our commute. Which was... bad, considering there was a flight to catch. I PANICKED and was freaking out and Jenny kept trying to get me to chill, but I felt like shit. She had to reschedule her flight, which she said was fine, but... yeah. I felt bad. When we got to the airport, I insisted she let me buy her lunch, at least, so we had a lovely lunch at TGI Friday's and then I left her to board and headed back to NJ.
Traffic was fine until I got on the Turnpike, at which point I was stalled in traffic for almost two hours. Some bus apparently burst into flames or something. It was awful. I was cranky and sad and needed to pee and get gas (which was a HUGE detour that involved me driving around frantically looking for a cheap gas station as the car blinked "PLEASE ADD FUEL! PLEASE ADD FUEL!"). By the time I got home, my parents were cranky because the A/C was broken again and I was cranky from being in the car and missing everyone :(
BUT CRANKINESS ASIDE, it was a supremely awesome weekend. As you can tell from me just spending 7k words talking about it. YIKES.
Oh, one last thing that I forgot to put in! On our way up (I think after the Rodney panel on the way to Panera?), Jewel Staite came up in the elevator next to ours. We didn't know it at the time, of course, but we came out together and I thought it was cool that she was just... riding the elevators, chatting with fans, eating in cafeteria with everyone else. Totally calm, not being handled or hidden away. I guess because most of the cons I've been to before have been WAY bigger than this, but I've never really seen that before. She was walking by, waved to people, seemed totally nice, no one was swamping her... she seemed very cool and gracious and since I guess people have been saying something about not respecting her at this con (I can't remember who, I just remember seeing it around), I just thought I'd mention this. We didn't end up really seeing her because we were in Kate!mode all weekend, but I was impressed by that.
BUT THAT WAS THE WEEKEND. It was the best weekend ever, and I miss the whole con (even the really crazy fangirls who weirded us out!) and my friends VERY MUCH and life at The Bookstore is hardly as much fun as the con was! I will post pictures soon, I promise! And I probably left a million things out, but my brain is fried!
OKAY GUYS, HERE IS MY CON POST-MORTUM. I have about eight itsproductivitys to catch up on, plus about eight I need to read, but I want to do this while it is still fresh in my mind, because writing up other awesome things I've done lately has slipped to the wayside and I don't want to forget this weekend.
So, even though it wasn't technically part of the weekend, let's start with Tuesday night. I had to work and then to pack and stuff, but instead of packing I mostly sat around and watched teevee. Eventually I finished packing, including a quick tripout to my car to clean it out. My mom was letting me take the Prius, which meant she was driving Leo around and, um... well, many of you have seen the inside of my car.
I went out, ducking under the HUGE pine branches that we are too lazy to cut and hang down over my car, cleaned everything up, and went back upstairs, finished up getting ready for bed, and went to climb into bed when I ran my hand through my hair. And freaked out. Because I was sure I felt a bug. I made a squealing afraid-type noise and tried to run in fear, tripping over a discarded t-shirt on the floor and then skinning my knee pretty badly.
This is the sort of ironic comedy gold that my parents dream of. After years of telling me to clean my room and making fun of me for my fear of bugs, I grievously injure myself when combining the worst bits of both. AWESOME.
Anyway, I got up and bolted to the bathroom where I brushed my hair frantically, only to discover that it wasn't a bug, but rather a little baby pine cone. GOOD JOB, KAITLYN. You are awesome.
So, that out of the way, I went to bed and got up a few hours later to get ready to leave! I actually ended up leaving on time, which was amazing considering how much I was running around. The drive down was nothing major, and I didn't hit any traffic at all until fucking DC, when I started to worry that I'd be late because the cars on the highway weren't. moving. at all. >:O
I did get to the airport with little fuss, though! It was much smaller than the airports I'm used to (Newark, mainly) and super easy to find where I was supposed to go. I was about twenty minutes early, so I got a hot chocolate and settled down in front of the big window across from krabapple's gate. The plane touched down exactly on time. IT WAS WEIRD. Like, it was supposed to come in at 12:06 (or 2:06? Or 12:26? Something like that? It ended in a six.) and as the digital read-out on my phone switched from five to six, the plane touched down. CRAZY.
Anyway, we collected her luggage and dragged it out to the car. The directions were pretty straight forward and we managed to pull into the hotel to check in with no problem. We got a cart and pulled all our assorted crap upstairs. I gave Jenny a box that I had for her since Christmas, then told an epic story about the worst person I ever met off the internet, and then we decided to find a place to park the car.
Hahaha, that is a joke, because there are NO PARKING GARAGES IN WASHINGTON.
Oh my gosh, guys, we drove all around and finally found a cop who told us that there are no parking garages and no public parking. That is why our hotel was able to get away with charging us THIRTY DOLLARS A DAY to have our car sit quietly in the corner and DO NOTHING. Which, of course, we had to do because there was no where else to park! It was insane.
Our hotel was kind of hilariously pseudo-sketch all together. Like, it was a nice place with a great location, but it was a nice place trying to be a SUPER nice place and couldn't really pull it off. Everything was just a little off. There were statues in the lobby that were chipped and broken and held together by glue, the door to our room didn't open unless you threw your entire weight against it after putting the key in, our air conditioner didn't exactly get cold, et cetera. It was kind of endearingly hilarious.
Anyway, after getting our car taken care of, we decided to explore, I think while looking for food. Jenny was meeting a friend for drinks after dinner, and we were hungry. We wandered down past the Capitol building and to the botanical gardens, which were in the midst of closing. We were chased off by a ranger, and ended up walking back to the hotel and finding a bar to eat at in the area. We ate and went back to the hotel again and played around on our internets, which were finally working for both of us. In the midst of our interneting (read: a few hours later XD), Jenny's friend called, so she went out and I decided to write the day's itsproductivity and take a shower. I watched about nine episodes of Cold Case and then Jenny came home and eventually we went to bed, but not before watching an episode of Without a Trace in which Martin was hilariously addicted to pills.
The next morning the maid came by to clean our room at nine thirty am. We nearly died. And told her to go away. And then went back to sleep for a little while. Eventually we got up and dressed, et cetera, and then headed out to be ~*tourists*~. It was the most beautiful day ever, basically. Like, 75 degrees, sunny but not too sunny, a nice breeze. We hit the botanical gardens again, which were nice, but very much lacking pretty flowers. They were very green. There was a dinosaur in one room, though, and I liked that! They were also doing a thing on saving the environment, which I took some pictures of for my dad.
From there we walked down the mall to the Smithsonian. We went into the Air and Space museum because we felt like we should since we were in town for a SciFi con. We didn't actually do much, but we did go to their AWESOME gift shop and had lunch in their overpriced cafeteria. After that, we continued down the mall, took some photos of the rose gardens, and eventually hit the Washington monument. We took lots of pictures along the way, walked down to the Lincoln memorial and bought ice pops because we really wanted ice pops. Now I really want an ice pop. But I am determined to finish this today!
At the top of the memorial, Jenny realized she had to book it if she wanted to meet up with her friend for dinner. I gave her my shitty map, so named because it got us lost like, three times, and we parted ways so that I could go to my favorite place in DC, the FDR memorial. I went through the memorial and walked along the edge of the Potomac and took a million pictures and then met My New Best Friend. His nickname is "Guy Working the FDR Memorial GiftShop." After going through the memorial, I bought a postcard and asked him about how to get to the nearest drugstore. The night before we had discovered that my skinned knee was pussing or something, and I had stubbed my toe really hard and it had turned kind of purple and swollen? These were things I thought I should address. He briefly explained how the streets worked in DC, gave me a map, and helped me get to a CVS that was conveniently across the street from a B&N.
I had to walk basically the entire length of the mall on a diagonal from the FDR memorial. Oh my god. It was a hike, but I didn't even realize it until after I had taken care of business and was sitting in The Bookstore drinking a strawberries and cream blended thingy. I read a book for a little while and then walked all the way back. Oh my GOD. Long walk. And just when I thought I was almost there, it turned out the streets started again at 1 and I had two more blocks to go. Uphill.
I did eventually return, and promptly took off all my sweaty clothes and collapsed face down near the air conditioner. Eventually I got up and computered a little, and then Jenny returned, also exhausted from a similar trek all across the city. We wanted dinner, but we were both bushed, so we teeveed and interneted for awhile longer before walking over to a strip that Jenny's friend recommended for dinner. Oh, at some point I realized I was sunburned and Jenny was as well, so we found another, closer CVS to buy sunscreen at. Good times.
We ended up eating at an Irish pub because the restaurants were kind of crazy expensive. No problem, though, because we were pretty hungry and would eat anything. Which we did. On the way home, I called inocciduous and we made plans to arrive at the hotel around 1pm. We were all very excited! And tired. So we watched some Ace of Cakes and went to sleep.
Friday morning Jenny got up early to have lunch with a friend and I intended to get up and either take advantage of the hotel's continental breakfast, take a picture of Wishbone outside the Library of Congress, go somewhere else for breakfast, or go to the bank to get some cash to pay Jenny. What actually happened was that I slept in, took a shower, watched a billion episodes of the SG-1 marathon on SciFi, and then ran to the bank to get money. Jenny came back from breakfast and after I gave a rough explanation of SG-1 to her, we packed up and headed out. Our intention was to get the car, make a quick stop or two in DC, and be at the hotel in MD for 1pm. When we were still packing at nearly noon, I called Jen and told her we were running behind. We were running even MORE behind when it took them twenty minutes to bring our car out. CRAZY.
It was much hotter and humider and yuckier on Friday, so we kind of lucked out with the brilliantly perfect day we had on Thursday. Even the walk down the block to the Library of Congress was muggy and gross. We took some pictures of the building and some pictures of Wishbone at the building and some pictures of ourselves and Wishbone at the building, then crossed the street and took some pictures of the Supreme Court building. Also, of a church with a hilarious sign.
Back to the car, and then on to our drive to MD, which was mostly painless. I don't think I remember there being a TON of traffic, but who knows. We got there around... a little after two? I think? I can't particularly remember and I can check my phone to see when I sent Jenna a text message that we are on our way, but I am lazy. I THINK WE GOT THERE AROUND TWO.
We went to check in and basically had the most hilarious check in experience ever. The two people at the desk were really friendly and joking around. The one guy first had me convinced we couldn't check in until four and then told us how he had convinced this other woman that she was sharing a room with five people. The woman commented, upon seeing my license, that there were a lot of people from NJ checking in. Going with the "telling hilarious falsehoods" theme, I told them that we were holding the annual New Jersey State Convention in Maryland. Except that she didn't realize we were joking and I didn't realize she didn't realize we were joking until she started asking me question. We quickly explained that we were actually in town for a science fiction convention. Good times.
At some point during this, Jen came into the lobby! YAY! So there was exciting meeting people and stuff and then we lugged all our crap up to the second floor to check into our room. The hotel was a little sketchy, but almost less sketchy than the DC hotel occasionally was because it was a Red Roof Inn, and thus we sort of expected it to be slightly lower class. I had booked this hotel for a couple reasons, mostly because the rate was cheap as hell, but I also made sure it had wireless internet.
What I did not check was whether it had FREE wireless internet.
Yes, boys and girls, we were in a "T-Mobile HotSpot." After lamenting about this for awhile, we hopped back in the car and drove over to the con to check in. I wanted to sign up for a photo op with the Hewletts because I'm a masochist, and we wanted to make sure everything was hunky-dory before the screening of A Dog's Breakfast at nine that night. Check in went fine, for the most part, although we did get lost in the labyrinth of the hotel for a little bit. After checking in, we went across the street to the bizarre inside-out mall that Jenny assured us was completely normal. We found a Noodles, something I hadn't seen outside of the midwest, and decided to eat there. Also, apparently, to stay there for several hours talking about how gay John Sheppard is.
(As a note, we did a LOT of chatting over the weekend and I can only remember about half the topics. We did frequently discuss how gay John Sheppard is, though, so that is going to be my default filler for all our conversations. Because John Sheppard is pretty gay.)
After lunch, we had to get gas and also find a bank so Jenny could get some cash. I have this thing about gas--I absolutely have to buy the cheapest gas around. I know that everyone plays this game now that the gas prices are so high, but my parents and I have been playing it for years. We are cheapskates. It is in our blood. We drove nearly all the way back to our hotel (without realizing it) until we found a gas station with gas for $3.91. WIN! It was cash only and we had to wait on line, but I totally didn't care. While we were waiting, the woman in front of us climbed out of the backseat of her car (which was a porsche or something expensive like that). We spent some time wondering why the hell she would do that, questioning her sanity and how cheap she was ("If you drive a car like that you can afford to have your front door fixed!") and being generally baffled.
Until I pulled up and tried to open my door, only to have it blocked by a very high curb. Haha. Whoops.
So Jen climbed out the back and took my wallet inside to pay for the gas. She also pumped the gas for me, as I was stranded inside. It was good times.
We headed back to our hotel to kill time before the ADB panel because there wasn't overmuch going on at the con until later. Somehow we got on the subject of... something. I think it was del.icio.us. I brought up the AWESOME Without a Trace fic that I found where Martin cuts himself while listening to Evanescence and Jenny reminded me that, in an e-mail exchange while getting ready for the con, I had mentioned fics where John cuts himself. It became my mission to find them. After googling fruitlessly for a few minutes, I thought to search del.icio.us and, low and behold, "sheppard" and "cutting" resulted in three stories, one of which I had been thinking of and two that were entirely new!
This meant, of course, that I had to dramatically read them out loud. Um, I think this happened for like, an hour. Oh my god, guys, this story was awful amazing. Something happens to John, I think with the wraith from the first time that Todd gave him his life back? Or something. And anyway, he needs to hurt himself, so he goes back to cutting himself, which he apparently did as a teenager. Rodney finds out and is horrified, but when he finds out that John has to cut himself because of the wraith (or something), he decides to find a better way to hurt John that will leave no marks. This is, apparently, whipping him. After which he's totally shocked that John expected them to have sex. So they do.
OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE BEST PART, Rodney finds out about John cutting himself when he finds a letter stuck inside War and Peace that says, "I, John Sheppard, give Ronon permission to kill me if he sees fit."
WHAT EVEN,INTERNET? OH MY GOD, HOW AMAZING IS THAT?
So, yeah, we read that for awhile and then realized it was time to go back to the con for the panel! When we got to the con, we had to park back in New Jersey, but tragically, not next to the other Prius from NJ. (I kept wanting to park next to Priuses so that they could be friends. ....shut up.) We stood around before the panel because there was something else going on in the room and saw many, many lunatics. We also saw lots of people in big groups that clearly all knew each other and were pissed that all the people on the internet who said they'd be there and look for us hadn't called. We decided the new way to be the coolest person in the room was to know the least amount of people around you, making us way cooler than the mobs that kept passing us by. Jen and Jenny were actually cooler than me because I knew both of them, but they both only knew me. TAKE THAT, PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET WHO BLEW US OFF! (wolfsavrd is exempt because we saw her later and then I stupidly forgot to get her number so not seeing her again was kind of my fault!)
Anyway, we managed to snag seats pretty close to the front when it was time to go in! We were all very excited, and even MORE excited when they called to the stage "everyone in the room named Hewlett." Out came David and Kate, and then JANE AND BAZ!!!
(Yes, that deserves three exclamation points.)
Here are some things about Baz: He is the cutest baby ever. I seriously think he might actually be a robot designed by David, because no baby can always be that happy and cute and CUTE, seriously, have you seen this baby, he is SO CUTE. At one point, he started to fuss a little, but he never even cried! He just sort of whimpered and kept staring at the huge mob of people in the audience (and into the five million camera flashes) with baby!fascination. SO CUTE.
(Side note: Jane continues to be super beautiful. Oh my god, David Hewlett, why are you constantly surrounded by super hot women? Why can't I be you?)
David apologized for Kate being all rumpled because apparently she had fallen asleep in her hotel room after ordering a movie, which she sort of grudgingly admitted was Step it Up and Dance 2. I tragically can't remember most of the rest of what they discussed before the movie because I kept thinking, "Oh my god, look at that baby, how is that baby so cute, look at Kate, oh my god, Kate is so gorgeous, oh my god, Jane is here, I love Jane without even having met her," et cetera. I also spent most of the time trying to take pictures, with little success.
The film started soon after that. Kate and Jane (minus David and Baby!Hew) watched a little bit of it from the corner, which I noticed during the beginning, which I think is a little slow. krabapple and inocciduous had never seen it before, so I was kind of anxious to see what they were going to think. As I said in my review on FaceBook, I was pleasantly surprised the first time I saw it because I was pretty sure it was going to be awful. All-in-all, I think it's a decent comedy and a fun movie, even if it does drag in parts. Jen and Jenny concurred.
Once the movie was over we vetoed the idea of watching the SGA premiere with a thousand other people in favor of finding pancakes. Pancakes were crucial. We had passed an IHOP earlier in our long drive after dinner, so we decided to go back there because IHOP is obviously always open. THIS IS A LIE! The IHOP closed at midnight and we were baffled because a) IHOP never closes at midnight! and b) no pancakes! I was angry because I knew there would be no 24 hour diners around, considering we were out of NJ. We kept on driving down the strip we were on, hoping we'd find SOMETHING open, when lo and behold, there was a diner! That was open 24 hours! And would definitely have pancakes and waffles!
Even stranger than this, I have to say, is that the diner's sister dinner is in MAMARONECK, NY and is, in fact, a diner which I have dined at in the past. WEIRD!
So we had breakfast foods and talked about how gay John Sheppard is and played a Journey song on the table-side jukebox. All acceptable things to do in a diner. Our waiter was a little odd in that I couldn't tell if he was honestly annoyed at our chipper attitude and general existence or if he was just joking or if it was some weird amalgamation of the three.
After being filled with pancakes we went back to the hotel again and settled in for the night. I assume. I can't really remember what we did. Whatever it was, it was AWESOME. Because we are awesome. Obvs.
Oh! One of the things we did realize, in setting our alarms for the morning, was that our hotel had no hairdryer and none of us had brought one. Oh noes! Our pictures with Kate and David were first thing in the morning!
I was the first to wake up because we agreed my hair would take longest to dry. Upon entering the bathroom, I stumbled across another problem: there were only two towels.
"Um, guys?" I said. "Just so you know, there are only two towels, so one of you might need to call down to the desk to get another one."
There was general grumbling that I didn't hear because I had to hop into the shower so everyone would have enough time to get ready. After I hopped out, Jenny hopped in because Jen wasn't getting a picture so didn't care about her hair being dry.
We got back into the car and spent most of the drive over being nervous about the whole picture thing. We found a relatively close parking spot and then went inside. We weren't quite sure where we were going at first, but after going downstairs and poking around and eavesdropping on another conversation, we managed to figure out where we were going and get there. The line seemed pretty long, but it was moving pretty fast. The main problem was that it was hot as hell in the hallway and there were no fans or air circulation. Mostly we just sort of silently freaked out. At one point, I realized that I had been itching my eye all morning and was starting to get Mutant Alien Eye, which is when my eye kind of swells up from allergies? So I took some benedryl. The hall was stuffy, but I wasn't particularly hot, just nervous and wired. We sort of eavesdropped on the conversations around us, trying not to crack up when the people behind us started waxing poetic about Rodney and John's "brotherly relationship."
So, once we turned around the bend and were a few people from the front, a woman came out of the photo room and announced that David hadn't eaten and thus we were taking a fifteen minute break so he could have breakfast. She encouraged us to get a snack, wander around the con, or at least get out of the stifling hallway. I realized that we had left our food, water bottles, and card games in the car and went out to get them.
In the hall on the way out, I heard some guy saying that he was glad JFlan got the role in SGA because he thought he was a much better actor than Ben Browder. I nearly died of laughing. I really did. I even called Jenny to spread the hilarity just as I was hitting the car. Once I got all our stuff and turned around to go back, my phone rang. It was Jenny. I'm not sure what I thought she was calling about (maybe a follow up to the JFlan-Ben Browder comparison), but it was certainly not, "Um, Kait, the line is starting to move again!"
I raced into the hotel and up the stairs and ran down the hall in confusion because I couldn't seem to find Jenna and Jenny. I heard my name and turned around and there was Jenna, peeking out from around the corner of the photo room. Jenny was next (!!!) meaning that I was right after her! There was confusion and freaking out over being in the room and giving the piles of stuff to Jenna. Some helpful volunteers tried to take all the bags from Jenna (she was holding her own, mine, and Jenny's at this point, along with the food/game bag and sunglasses and keys and all sorts of crap), not quite understanding that Jenna wasn't getting a picture until we jokingly called her our indentured servant.
So, Jenny had her picture done and I tried to stop looking flushed and crazed long enough to take a picture. I just hoped that my eye was looking better. Oh my god, I was nervous. Because, really, what do you do in this situation? You just paid to be in these people's presence. What do you say? It felt awkward!
So, my turn. Right. David shook my hand and said it was nice to meet me and I immediately said the same and then zoomed in on Kate and TOTALLY CAME ON TO HER WHILE SAYING IT WAS REALLY NICE TO MEET HER OH MY GOD. I was MORTIFIED once I realized what had happened and froze up, unable to continue the conversation that Kate was trying to have with me about the patterns on my shirt and her dress being similar or something. To make it worse, I blinked not once but TWICE before we got a good picture.
Um, I do not remember much of the rest of being in the room other than freaking out like a mofo. We somehow made our way down to the dealer's room, which was packed, and wandered in and out of the tables. There was some nice stuff, but way too many people to pay too much attention to much for long. Once we had gotten through the room, we decided to head down to the art room where it had seemed less crowded. It was right near where we were going to a panel a little later, so it made sense.
The art room was relatively small and we sort of nosed around at most of the stuff, until about halfway around the room I realized that Kate had just walked in. The room was basically empty--the staff, Kate, maybe two other people, and us--and I silently freaked and started hitting Jenny and pointing at Kate. Jenny missed Kate and focused in on the baby that was also in the room and didn't realize Kate was there until a few minutes later. The whole time, I was valiantly trying not to freak the fuck out, trying to remain normal until I could compose myself enough to maybe say something to her. We ended up spending much longer than was probably necessary, mostly because after I had worked up the nerve and decided I'd totally say something to Kate, I said something to Jenny about a cute picture of a baby dragon and a kitty with its tongue stuck to some ice and Kate popped up beside me and I lost my nerve again. OH MAN.
There was some nice stuff in the art room, but the best thing there by FAR (in hilarity, not necessarily in quality) was a manip called "CATLESTAR GALACTICA." It was exactly what you think it was.
Eventually, I was just a bundle of nerves, so we went out to get into the room the "Rodney Gets No Respect" panel was in. The only other people in there at the moment were two women with a couple kids. One of them said to the kids, "Okay, guys. Mommy wants to go to a discussion in here and maybe participate, when Daddy's done getting his picture taken with Kaylee, he's going to come pick you up."
Jenny and I both pretty much flipped out with the cuteness.
Anyway, after saving ourselves some seats in the second row, we sat on the carpet off to the side and proceeded to play The Scrambled States. It was fun times, especially because I forgot some of the rules! Jenny basically kicked our asses, which was tragic considering I have played it often for the past two years and she had never played it before.
When more people started coming in, we returned to our seats. We were pretty excited, because this was the first real panel we were doing and we all agree that Rodney gets no respect XD The room filled pretty quickly, and the moderators showed up. I can't remember their names, but they were, from right to left, a guy who didn't seem to totally keep up with the show entirely, two women who were level-headed but didn't get a chance to say much, and a super!David!fan and slash fan who was on the end.
Um, the panel did not go well.
It started off with the main guy moderating making a slightly bitchy comment about how David Hewlett sure brought out the Atlantis fans! We were all kind of like, "Well, yes, David and Jewel are here, of course there are tons of fans of SGA..." He then asked for opinions on Woolsey and Sam? Which went on for awhile? Which made no sense, seeing as how it was the RODNEY gets no respect panel. The women behind us were mumbling and pissed and finally a guy was like, "Excuse me, but does anyone else find it funny that Rodney can't even get any respect at his own panel?" And we laughed, riotously, but the guy in charge was like, "Well, we'll get to that."
What even?! Are you not seeing the irony here?!
It became clear that this guy watched the show but he wasn't a fan. He kept having to rely on the rest of the group to fill in the holes in his knowledge of the show. It was... pretty much both tortourous and hilarious. The topic kept getting off of Rodney, and when people tried to steer it back, it never worked. At one point, people were talking about Rodney/Keller as if it was something that actually happened in the show? Which, another universe, yeah, but totally confused me. The guy in front of us kept loudly expressing his not-entirely-sense-making opinions and not letting people disagree. The male moderator and the fangirl woman on the end were seconds away from a throw-down. At the end of the panel, when the guy saw there were only a few minutes left, he purposely turned the subject back to Woolsey. WHAT EVEN?!
These were the high points: Keeping Jenny from throttling people, passing notes back and forth, and the girls behind us. The girls behind us were hilarious. They were slash fans and were obviously as frustrated as we were. At one point, when the guy in front of us who wouldn't shut up was talking about how he thought that Rodney was lacking in field skills and hadn't really become good in the field yet, one of them said, "Amazingly enough, after four years, John hasn't become an astrophysicist either!"
We all pretty much died laughing. The moderator was not thrilled that we had our little hilarious side conversation, so he made them repeat it, at which point we all cracked up again.
The other truly hilarious quote was actually uttered by the guy moderating, completely by accident. They were talking about--well, okay, he started saying that we see Rodney in pain a lot because we can relate to him, at which point the guy in front of us argued that Rodney was not in physical pain a lot. Which, um, are we WATCHING THE SAME SHOW? I mean, yeah, Rodney's pain is often more emotional than physical, but you can hardly say he isn't in physical pain a lot! Anyway, they started comparing Rodney's pain to John's and the moderator decided (without getting any input from the audience, really) that Rodney's pain was emotional and John's was physical. So he says:
"John has to get beaten up to prove how manly he is."
So we LOST IT. I mean, clearly. Oh my lord. It was hilarious and very hard to keep from being obvious about it.
We, of course, had ended up in the second row, so we couldn't even sneak out. As soon as the panel was over we rocketed out of there to go to Panera and get lunch before the Hewlett panel. We got some salads and sandwiches and soups and went back across the street.
There was already a mob of people waiting to get inside, but Malcolm McDowell was in the middle of his panel and, being a New York theatre person (and a nice person in general), I thought it was rude to run in and out of the room over and over again. We scouted out a little place by the door that ended up being right next to the table where Kate was signing autographs. We didn't realize this until the person standing in front of us (which was a line for Kate to sign things, not a line to get into the Hewlett panel like we thought) informed us of it, at which point we spent the next twenty minutes talking about how pretty Kate is.
(Basically, that is what we did all weekend. "Oh my god, how the hell is Kate so pretty? I can't even deal with it!" "Me either! Look at her! Oh god.")
Kate is so pretty, guys.
One of the recurring jokes of the weekend was that Jenny and I were going to have a throwdown for Kate and Jenna was going to steal her while we were fighting as a distraction. Because. Wow. Kate is awesome. Anyway, we kept joking about that while stalker-yly staring at Kate while waiting for the McDowell panel to end.
We zoomed in as soon as the panel seemed to be over, but even with our mad zooming skills, we ended up in the second half of the audience, about midway back. It wasn't too bad, but they weren't the best seats ever. We were directly to the right of the microphone for questions and also next to the girls who were behind us at the Rodney panel. We talked to them about cons and SGA and the Hewletts and lunch until David came out and we all readied our cameras.
David was by himself at first, and kind of looked around for Kate and then addressed the audience. While he was talking about Kate missing, Kate snuck on stage behind him to surprise him, but the audience laughing nearly gave it away. It was quite cute!
Okay, so, I forgot most of what went on at the panel in favor of freaking out. Here is a list of what I remember, maybe in order, maybe not:
- The first girl who got up didn't have a question, just wanted to tearfully tell Kate and David that she was praying for them. Which, um. Was pretty creepy to me. And there was this awkward pause during which David said he thought that was the first time someone had said that to him. I kept thinking of that episode of TWW where that guy is praying for CJ and it turns out it's because he thinks she's going to hell.
- Someone asked about nicknames? And both of them couldn't come up with any nicknames except that David briefly called Kate "Dracula" when she was little because she walked into walls a lot and knocked all her front teeth up to her eye teeth out at once. He said that Kate used to called him Davida, at which point Kate said that was another sister and then said, "I'm Kate, it's nice to meet you." (This was, of course, because of his oft-told story about the perils of being the only boy in a sea of fair, blonde children.)
- Something about Kate's dress? Being made from a tablecloth? And she made a Sound of Music joke that David didn't get.
- Someone asking about Kate's cats and David like, rolling his eyes while she gushed about them.
- Someone asked about what kinds of cheese they both like? It was another kid, like the first girl, and we found out that David's stomach does not tolerate cheese well.
- Kate, at one point, got distracted by David's wedding ring while he was answering a question. "Shiny!"
- God, I can't remember what else. Kate said she likes to write at night (I think?) unless she has a deadline, at which point she'll take her computer to a coffeeshop and work straight through for hours, while also consuming coffee and becoming a nutcase.
Okay, I can't remember what else. FEEL FREE TO FILL ME IN. Um, but then the best part happened, which was that David and Kate both went off stage and David came back with a guitar. He made a joke about being a roadie before a techie came over to fiddle with it, and then Kate came back with a paper. I was excitied/aprehensive at first because I know Kate's been writing a lot of songs and, much like when I see actors I like writing books/plays/et cetera, I am automatically wary of actors I like wiring songs. I was excited, but also worried that it would suck and I would be disappointed. That didn't matter, though. Apparently at the last con they were at (Meet the Hewletts, I believe), David asked Kate to do a repeat performance of the song she sang at his and Jane's wedding. She refused, saying she hadn't practiced, and I guess promised to do it at the next con? That was sort of implied, and this was it! She told a joke about how, when she was singing it at the wedding, she kept glancing over at David to see his reaction and he was fine until she got to the part about him losing his hair, at which point he was bawling.
I turned to Jenny and said, "Holy SHIT, if she sings an Ingrid Michaelson song I think I might die on the spot."
"That's okay," she said, "I think the two of us can manage to carry you out if we need to."
And, of course, that's what she did. I knew from the moment she started (really, from the moment she made that joke), and spent the entire time trying to video it while freaking the fuck out. My video is pretty much unusable because, not only was I pretty far away, but you can hear me freaking. OH MAN. I was just elated. I mean, obviously I love Ingrid, but I also love Kate, in case that wasn't clear, and the two worlds colliding was... insane. Also, I had JUST deleted all the videos from the Ingrid concert off of my camera to make room for DC pictures. OH MY GOD, GUYS. I just... melted with happiness.
The panel ended at some point after that. I was kind of in a haze of , "OH MY GOD DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN?" It was AMAZING. Holy crap, guys, I can't believe that happened!
Um, so I don't remember much else of what happened for a bit after that. On the way upstairs, while I was gushing about how beautiful and amazing and talented Kate was, we bumped into her. WHOOPS. SO EMBARASSED. We went up to the dealer's room, which was empty again, and I bought a present for quatredeathlady and something silly for myself. krabapple bought an Atlantis ID card with Rodney's name spelled incorrectly because we thought it was HILARIOUS. Jenna bought a Stargate Magazine with a ridiculous article about JFlan (and one about David Nykl!) and then we went back out to the car and drove to the nearest second nearest 7-11 to get something to drink. We went to a bank so that Jen could get some money, but we only saw a drive-up ATM, so that was fun. Also... gosh, I think then we went back to the hotel? And read more bad fic out loud? We did a lot of that because it is basically the most fun way to spend time with fannish friends. I showed them the Post-Trinity fic list and read the summaries of each one and eventually, a few hours later, we were hungry and decided to go to dinner.
We drove down the main strip again and ended up back at the inside-out mall across the street from the con after getting lost on some back road and having to do a weird k-turn in some craaaaaazy graveyard. We wandered around amongst the teenagers at the movie theatre in the inside-out-mall before settling on California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. Initially we went into this really classy place, but when we saw how everyone was dressed and that they actually hired someone to pay the piano, we realized that we were, perhaps, better off across the way at CPK.
After having some random stranger take our picture outside, we walked over and were seated inside where we made sure to order three different awesome things so we could share. We had a wonderful conversation over dinner about fic and original writing and childhood and SGA and how crazy that panel was, oh my god, that panel was crazy, and how much we loved Kate and crazy people and all sorts of stuff. IT WAS LOVELY, GUYS.
Afterwards, we sort of grudgingly drove back to the hotel, hyperaware that we were going home the next day :( Our internet was over, so we had to buy some more and then watched the SGA premiere and two SGA "behind the gate" specials from season 1. AW. Good times. And hilarious. I have such a sort of ironic/unironic fondness for Shanks, guys. I can't wait for him to [spoiler].
We interneted for a little bit after that, but eventually went to sleep. SADNESS. In the morning, Jenny took a shower and Jen and I hovered, freezing, under the blankets for as long as possible. We then packed up our stuff and bid our hotel room good bye D:
We checked out and said goodbye to Jen in the lobby :( We promised we'd have to do this again soon, obviously, and then Jenny and I got in the car to go back to the DC airport :( Unfortunately, on the way to the airport, I got on the wrong highway and we lost about twenty minutes of our commute. Which was... bad, considering there was a flight to catch. I PANICKED and was freaking out and Jenny kept trying to get me to chill, but I felt like shit. She had to reschedule her flight, which she said was fine, but... yeah. I felt bad. When we got to the airport, I insisted she let me buy her lunch, at least, so we had a lovely lunch at TGI Friday's and then I left her to board and headed back to NJ.
Traffic was fine until I got on the Turnpike, at which point I was stalled in traffic for almost two hours. Some bus apparently burst into flames or something. It was awful. I was cranky and sad and needed to pee and get gas (which was a HUGE detour that involved me driving around frantically looking for a cheap gas station as the car blinked "PLEASE ADD FUEL! PLEASE ADD FUEL!"). By the time I got home, my parents were cranky because the A/C was broken again and I was cranky from being in the car and missing everyone :(
BUT CRANKINESS ASIDE, it was a supremely awesome weekend. As you can tell from me just spending 7k words talking about it. YIKES.
Oh, one last thing that I forgot to put in! On our way up (I think after the Rodney panel on the way to Panera?), Jewel Staite came up in the elevator next to ours. We didn't know it at the time, of course, but we came out together and I thought it was cool that she was just... riding the elevators, chatting with fans, eating in cafeteria with everyone else. Totally calm, not being handled or hidden away. I guess because most of the cons I've been to before have been WAY bigger than this, but I've never really seen that before. She was walking by, waved to people, seemed totally nice, no one was swamping her... she seemed very cool and gracious and since I guess people have been saying something about not respecting her at this con (I can't remember who, I just remember seeing it around), I just thought I'd mention this. We didn't end up really seeing her because we were in Kate!mode all weekend, but I was impressed by that.
BUT THAT WAS THE WEEKEND. It was the best weekend ever, and I miss the whole con (even the really crazy fangirls who weirded us out!) and my friends VERY MUCH and life at The Bookstore is hardly as much fun as the con was! I will post pictures soon, I promise! And I probably left a million things out, but my brain is fried!