Dancing Fingers in the Realm of the Pixies
We didn’t escape the mundane world as quickly as I’d planned. My Angel hasn’t been doing well lately, with physical pain wearing down her already fragile emotional status, to the point where she agreed to go see a pain specialist for her back, despite having seen too many people (including her mother) who had poor results from back surgery.
But once again, I’m getting ahead of myself. The important stuff isn’t properly linear.
So we wound our way through the modern wilderness of concrete and orange barrels, evading man-made and natural hazards alike, and eventually arrived at the hotel too late to see s00j and Betsy Tinney’s concert. Am I always destined to be late to see s00j? The last time we braved the wilderness to see her, the turnoff from the highway had been torn down, and either there were no detour signs, or they were hidden from view, so we were long past where we should have turned before we realized we had to turn around.
When we arrived at the hotel my brain was addled by too much driving through headlight glare (to say nothing of too much peering at underlit street signs). But I got keys, My Angel got a luggage cart, and I got stuff packed into the room while My Angel got lost on the way up and got her registration.
In the room, I again wanted to wear my dance of leaves, and tried it on with the expected results. So I got my helpers to tell me how far I had to go, and changed into a skirt and top, adding fairy foo-fraw and lots of jewelry before setting off to obtain my badge and catch a bit of Tomboat, mostly from outside the room. I love all those people, but the volume they project when playing as Toyboat hurts my eardrums. Probably one of the legacies of the allergies being so bad when I was a teenager that sneezes used to make my ears whistle.
There were fairy wings and fairy dust everywhere, and friends, and cheese and grapes in the con suite, which (along with some carrots and celery) did a lot to remove the aftereffects of the trip, leaving me much more focused and able to enjoy things. And somehow the necklaces, rows and rows of gleaming stone, laid light on my shoulders and the back of my neck, almost as if it were gleaming illusions.
At the open Filk, once My Angel brought my guitar, I found it was still in tune. Sadly, I was still tireder than I thought-I ended up using the computer not for nano, but as a cheat sheet for songs I’ve had memorized for years. But still, there was live music, and a bed to fall into once everyone gave up and I headed back to the room.
Saturday, rise to dress for more music. I put on my spring sky with butterflies, since it’s layered and I was cold. And, of course, the hand-me-up shoes. I then went to go grab milk and more grapes in the con suite. The display got my hopes up, with one box mentioning rice chex, but sadly, they were mixed in with wheat and corn chex, and so were not Deirdre food.
Then to see Alexander James, whose voice I like quite as much as I did his predecessor’s. I got to briefly say hi before the concert, while they were doing a sound check for the concert after his.
Music and appliqué - relatively simple appliqué, to be sure, since the siren call of wearing the dress was still sounding. But the music, the music was magical. I watched Alec’s concert and then Heather Dale’s (If you haven’t heard of her, go thou to heatherdale.com)
Then I met My Angel to look at the art show a bit, before running back to return to appliqué and music, to watch the guests of honor-Tricky Pixie.
As they were still working on getting the sound levels right, and attempting to chase away the loud gremlins of feedback, my sister Dragon (yes, she who gave me the hand-me-up shoes, and indeed who painted them in green lightning knotwork) slid into the chair next to me, and asked if I had a sketching pencil and paper.
The gremlins being well entrenched and the feedback squeals hurting my ears helped convince me to run (yes, run, as in actual running in the halls, as if the hands of time were running backward) to my room to grab the sketchbook and colored pencils I’d packed. And then they turned the lights down, and we shifted so the spotlight aimed at the stage bled onto our creative projects, and we settled in to enjoy the magic, both the magic from the stage and the magic flowing from our own fingers.
It’s not as if they were totally separate. Dragon noted that she was drawing in time to the music, and as for me? My fingers were dancing on the fabric, letting me resist the call to stand up and dance, if only barely.
See what my sister drew with my pencils, sitting there in the twilight where the audience sat spellbound?
But once again, I’m getting ahead of myself. The important stuff isn’t properly linear.
So we wound our way through the modern wilderness of concrete and orange barrels, evading man-made and natural hazards alike, and eventually arrived at the hotel too late to see s00j and Betsy Tinney’s concert. Am I always destined to be late to see s00j? The last time we braved the wilderness to see her, the turnoff from the highway had been torn down, and either there were no detour signs, or they were hidden from view, so we were long past where we should have turned before we realized we had to turn around.
When we arrived at the hotel my brain was addled by too much driving through headlight glare (to say nothing of too much peering at underlit street signs). But I got keys, My Angel got a luggage cart, and I got stuff packed into the room while My Angel got lost on the way up and got her registration.
In the room, I again wanted to wear my dance of leaves, and tried it on with the expected results. So I got my helpers to tell me how far I had to go, and changed into a skirt and top, adding fairy foo-fraw and lots of jewelry before setting off to obtain my badge and catch a bit of Tomboat, mostly from outside the room. I love all those people, but the volume they project when playing as Toyboat hurts my eardrums. Probably one of the legacies of the allergies being so bad when I was a teenager that sneezes used to make my ears whistle.
There were fairy wings and fairy dust everywhere, and friends, and cheese and grapes in the con suite, which (along with some carrots and celery) did a lot to remove the aftereffects of the trip, leaving me much more focused and able to enjoy things. And somehow the necklaces, rows and rows of gleaming stone, laid light on my shoulders and the back of my neck, almost as if it were gleaming illusions.
At the open Filk, once My Angel brought my guitar, I found it was still in tune. Sadly, I was still tireder than I thought-I ended up using the computer not for nano, but as a cheat sheet for songs I’ve had memorized for years. But still, there was live music, and a bed to fall into once everyone gave up and I headed back to the room.
Saturday, rise to dress for more music. I put on my spring sky with butterflies, since it’s layered and I was cold. And, of course, the hand-me-up shoes. I then went to go grab milk and more grapes in the con suite. The display got my hopes up, with one box mentioning rice chex, but sadly, they were mixed in with wheat and corn chex, and so were not Deirdre food.
Then to see Alexander James, whose voice I like quite as much as I did his predecessor’s. I got to briefly say hi before the concert, while they were doing a sound check for the concert after his.
Music and appliqué - relatively simple appliqué, to be sure, since the siren call of wearing the dress was still sounding. But the music, the music was magical. I watched Alec’s concert and then Heather Dale’s (If you haven’t heard of her, go thou to heatherdale.com)
Then I met My Angel to look at the art show a bit, before running back to return to appliqué and music, to watch the guests of honor-Tricky Pixie.
As they were still working on getting the sound levels right, and attempting to chase away the loud gremlins of feedback, my sister Dragon (yes, she who gave me the hand-me-up shoes, and indeed who painted them in green lightning knotwork) slid into the chair next to me, and asked if I had a sketching pencil and paper.
The gremlins being well entrenched and the feedback squeals hurting my ears helped convince me to run (yes, run, as in actual running in the halls, as if the hands of time were running backward) to my room to grab the sketchbook and colored pencils I’d packed. And then they turned the lights down, and we shifted so the spotlight aimed at the stage bled onto our creative projects, and we settled in to enjoy the magic, both the magic from the stage and the magic flowing from our own fingers.
It’s not as if they were totally separate. Dragon noted that she was drawing in time to the music, and as for me? My fingers were dancing on the fabric, letting me resist the call to stand up and dance, if only barely.
See what my sister drew with my pencils, sitting there in the twilight where the audience sat spellbound?