Day One: Friday

Friday was a day fraught with all sorts of travelling trials and tribulations. First off, I had to rouse myself out of bed at 5 in the morning (anyone who knows me knows how much of a trial and a tribulation THAT was), and head for the airport. My plane left Minnesota at 7 am and arrived in Dallas at 9:30 where I spent the next 50 minutes of my life waiting for my luggage to arrive from the plane. When it finally does, I notice the tug-strap on the larger of my two suitcases is broken, so I'll have to carry it instead of pull it. I grumble. But it isn't the last of the traveling-related troubles that I'll have to endure today. Turns out, I am fated to spend most of my first day of my vacation sitting in the airport waiting for the arrivals of my friends and fellow convention attendees, (some of whom missed their connections through no fault of their own and were forced to take later flights). Eventually, I finally do manage to hook up with my con-roomies Gigi and the Queen of Swords (hereafter known as "Queenie") and we all finally get to meet and talk shop with each other in person for the very first time, which was a plesant experience for all involved. Unfortunately, the final member of our con-going party, Chris the Navy Man (who shall hereafter known as "The Lost Boy" and/or "The Luggage Puppy",) was AWOL for some reason, and we were forced to leave the DFW airport (hereafter known as "the Portal of Hell") without him.

Our hotel, (the Dallas Inter-Continental) was nice, and its staff was helpful and courteous (although, apparently, they must have some rule requiring their workers to speak in bad Europey accents, since nearly every staff member we talked to had one.) Our room was very spiffy-looking, with Chinese-style curtains and all sorts of snifty-keen amenities like coffee makers, an ironing board, and wall-mounted hair-dryers. And beds. Big, fluffy, hotel beds. I am just about ready to slip into one and sleep my brains out, but alas, before I'm able to do so, I notice that something has gone amiss with all of the precious, precious fanart that I had packed and brought along with me to the con for entering into the art auction. It seems the wet and heavy Texas air has taken my artwork and has warped and buckled it in such a way so it's now tearing loose from it's mounting boards. (Apparently, the folks at the Dallas Hotel Intercontinental were so keen on cramming their rooms full of amenities, that they forgot to install de-humidifiers. *Sigh*.) I quickly grab my glue and scissors (which I had thoughtfully remembered to pack with me in case of just such an emergency) and start performing meatball surgery on my artworks, (re-gluing the backgrounds to their mounting boards, or, if they were too far gone, cutting around the foreground figures and mounting them onto newer --and considerably duller and more hastily-drawn-- backgrounds.) Again, I grumble. Meanwhile, Chris, the Lost Boy has finally managed to find his way to the hotel and has checked into a room a couple of floors below us. Gigi and Queenie discover this fact, (I forget how) and rush off to meet with him. I, however, stay behind, far too exhausted by this time to do anything but crawl into the sheets and mutter a few complaints about how damp and icky the Texas humidity has left them. I then slip into a state resembling, but not nearly as satisfying as, actual sleep.

 Day Two: Saturday

My roomies and I wake up. This is the day we all plan to sit in on the Internet Comics panel and listen to Megatokyo.com's Largo lecture upon the subject. But by the time we manage to pull ourselves together, find a decent restaurant, eat our breakfast, then find our way back to the hotel through Dallas' labyrinthine tollway system, the lecture is nearly over, and it's almost time for Queenie to get ready for her fanfic panel. We grumble.

On the bright side, I finally got to meet Chris that morning. I found out that he was a great guy and an even better sport. After all, he let me do this to him:

(Now, if any of Chris' Navy buddies are out there looking at this, let me assure you, he's ALL man. He was just putting on the techni-color wig and the frilly tiara because I asked him to. There was no other reason. Really. Please don't feed him to the sharks or anything. Thank you.)

Anyway, in the back of this photo, you can see the sparkly pink spacegirl costume that I had planned on wearing at some point in this convention. I had made matching, color-coordinated costumes for Gigi and Queenie (and even one for Chris, whom we hoped to be "dragging" along with us). Unfortunately, we had neither the time (nor the inclination, really) to dress up in these outfits. Which is a shame, because I know we would've been adorable as sparkly, lame-wearing spacegirls, (and I KNOW, if I had managed to get Chris into his whole spacegirl ensemble and had taken a few pictures of him, I would've been able to blackmail him into doing anything I wanted for the rest of his natural life, or at least, for that portion of his life he planned on spending in the Navy). *Sigh* Things rarely ever turn out as you plan them, do they?

Anyhow, even if we didn't get to wear the spacegirl costumes, at least we got to wear the flashy, technicolor wigs that we had bought to go with them. Queenie donned a pink one to wear at her fanfic panel, as you can see in the following picture. She's seated second from the right.

The panel included a number of famous fanfic-ers, including Krista Perry, author of the Ranma 1/2 fanfic "Hearts of Ice" and all around nice gal. (She's sitting to the left of the Queen). It was Queenie, however, who stole the show. She really had her banter worked up (it helps if your resume includes a stint as a radio host) and her wit and wisdom kept things from getting too dull. Here's another shot of her in her pink wig (which I imagine by this time was getting extremely hot for her to wear. I know the purple wig that I had been wearing to the panel had, by this time, already caused several small fires to spontaneously combust on the surface of my scalp and rivulets of sweat to run pouring down my face. I can only imagine what the Queen was going through out there under the hot spotlights and all...)

Here's Gigi and Chris at the fanfic panel. (Gigi clad in the green wig Chris was wearing earlier, and sporting her color-coordinated mini ray-gun, an accessory to the spacegirl outfit she ended up not wearing. Lucky for me, it was a small, cheapie, plastic ray gun and not a real one with genuine death-laser destructive capabilities, because I know if it had been real, Gigi would've almost certainly used it to vaporize me for taking this picture of her: )