Dragoncon....

[lyssie]

I've no idea how coherent this is, really. I've tried to break it down by days, and it's all a haze. I took no pictures, and went to no panels. Is very long.

Friday - Travelday. Getting into Atlanta was like trying to shove a toothpick into an ant: very hard. Our flight was delayed by half an hour, and then when we landed, we spent more than forty minutes waiting for a gate so we could disembark.

I spent Thursday packing, which meant I went to bed at around 2. Of course, since I get up about 6:30, that's when my body insisted I get up. There was, luckily, breakfast in there. Somewhere.

Met up with Drea at the airport, something like an hour and a half later than planned. Took the MARTA downtown and discovered that our hotel was at the bottom of the worst hill EVER. Checked in, lounged a bit, then headed for registration after trying to find out how bad the lines were from a few people.

Lines were short. I think I spent all of ten minutes, Drea took a little longer, since her last name has a 'w'.

Got cranky at roommates and stalked off--I hadn't eaten, and it was already six, iirc.

Ran into KKG, Kiko, Paul, and a host of others and basically said, "GO AWAY." but not in so many words, since I wasn't in the best of moods.

Ended up finding greycoupon and ranting. zorb and ebneter showed up not long after, and I shut up and tried to get my mood back. (it was either that or go back to the hotel room)

Mood wasn't helped until downing the entire hurricane-filled glass of alcohol at the Hard Rock. Was there for greycoupon's birthday dinner. Hopefully didn't annoy too many people with my commentary on the vids playing on the tvs there. (I think the group included the aforementioned folks and elly427, indigo419, _wisteria and some of GC's rl friends).

Daughtry's "Home" started playing as we were getting up from the table.

I said g'night to everyone and headed off to mend fences, picking up alcoholic content along the way (I'd eaten food, so I wasn't falling over anymore, just happily buzzed). Met roomies, apologized, they went off to watch the Buffy thing.

Got in a swim. Hot tub was ICE COLD, though. Ugh. Came back and discovered roomies back early, chatted for a while until I was too restless to stay home and went back out.

Met up with GC, and we wandered the con a while, then ended up in the Brit Track room watching series 3 Who. Martha Jones pwns all.

Got to bed sometime after 3 am.

Saturday - God. Um. Furlow-day. Dressed up, grabbed breakfast in the hotel (yay free food). Hit the con. From there, my memory is bad.

Oh! Finally called rosewildeirish back, chatted about her awful drive up, and she met us, karma_aster, and kkglinka in the lobby at the Hilton. Lots of chatting, then she split to track down some others.

I think we hit the dealers room, and met up with Indigo for a bit. And then kymscrazy wandered by. Did some chatting and sitting.

One memory of note: Girl-wonder.org chick stopped us to interview Drea, who was dressed as Marvel Girl. Apparently, she was interviewing girls dressed as girl-comics-characters, or something. Was unimpressed with her attempt to make Drea's costume some political statement. Given that nique was dressed as Aeryn Sun, and I was dressed as Furlow, one would assume we were, y'know, fond of chicks. Nique came and hid behind me, and I did my best not to snicker and interrupt the woman to tell her she and her ilk were giving the rest of us female comics fen bad names.

My parents raised me to be polite, sadly.

Picked up a Leia in Hoth gear (Han will eventually get smacked), some chick bounty hunter from the prequels and mini Tigh, Dad, Boomer and Toaster. Eee. They are so CUTE. Tigh comes with ALCOHOL. And Dad comes with his picture of he and his boys that Chief gave him in the mini!

Split off from crew to go hunting for food--also, I'd discovered that my phone had eaten Surrealphantast and Kate's phone numbers, so it was back to the room to kick the wifi for my lj and discover them again. Called both, left messages. Talked too fast for Kate, apparently. *g*

Hit the mall for food and ran into Kiko et al, apologized for the night before, then randomly ran back into Drea and Nique. For a moment, there, the Subreality Crew were spread across the steps at the food court.

Lost Ryuu and Megan to organizing con stuff, headed back to our hotel and de-costume before going swimming for a bit to cool off. There was lj-checking and then showers and stuff before we were presented with the lovely and wonderful Allie, come to meet us. We chattered and eventually headed for dinner at Mama Mimfa's where the service was complete crap, but they put a LOT of tequila in our drinks. Food was... not too awful. But they almost never gave us FORKS.

Went to the Marriott, planning to watch the masquerade in Allie's room, discovered we were off by one night. (or that part came first. Don't remember anymore). Went to a party Allie's friend was throwing, it was so crowded even I was having claustrophobia issues. But I did get a slippery nipple. Mmm.

Ended up on the tenth floor, playing cards and chattering. Talked to Rose again, and ended up coming down to the bar at the Marriott to hang with her, qwirky (for whom I'd worn my squirrel earings), and mspooh. To catch up, I ended up drinking four drinks in quick succession, which means I have NO idea what conversations went on.

Amusingly, though, to the left, on the corner, were deaniebtv and Stitch (iirc?). Not that I knew who they were at the time. Am kicking myself, as if I'd called Karma, she would have brought Triciabyrne with her... *snickers*

Daughtry's 'Home' played at least once in the bar.

We closed down the bar, then headed over to the Hilton to mock the karaoke bar people. There were some truly BAD people singing. If we'd been earlier, one of them might have been me. Especially since I was feeling no pain.

For the record: I am not allowed to grope random strangers.

Ahem. After that bar closed, we went to the Hyatt to meet Tom, a friend of Rose's. Lost the Qwirky and MsP to sleep. Met up with Tom and went to Con Suite, where we sat and talked and I watched Jekyll (OMG SO FUCKING PRETTY, and I recognized it after only a few minutes, and then got to be smug and knowledgable about what it was. also, Michelle who is in Bionic Woman is kind of hot and can I have one?) for a few hours. Then I went home to bed about 4...

Sunday - This was "meet my sister, who is EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT WTF" day. Made an early run to con, to meet up with GC, and gank the cute baby clothes she'd bought for sis. (who thought they were adorable, btw) Roomies were gone and costumed by the time K picked me up.

We needed cash, since both of us were out. Ended up at one of the ATMs by the Hyatt. Got money and figured out we didn't want to try finding food right there, since it would be crowded and people were annoying. However, we discovered that there is NOWHERE open on Sundays in downtown Atlanta. Not even on LD weekend. Finally found a mall-type place further up Peachtree St, and got sandwiches from a place that was closing. Then we sat in the atrium and talked.

It's a truly strange experience, seeing my sister pregnant. I think she's happy. I hope she is, anyway.

Eventually said goodbye to her, handed over her presents, and headed back into the hotel to put on gypsy skirt for noticeability in meeting up with people. Texted k8, agreed to meet at the Eureka panel, and roomies came back to drop stuff off.

Headed back out to dealers where I picked up a jingly shiny, then smacked my forehead as I'd forgotten k8's dvds. Ran back to hotel to get them, met up at the panel...

Now. I've been going to conventions since 1994 (yes, I am old). And I've rarely been in the habit of going to fan-run panels, much less the ones where the actors are (I did last year, but I'm over it). So I'd forgotten just how painfully shitty fan-run panels are.

The stupid, it burned. It burned a lot. There's a reason I don't hang out on most fan message boards, either. Because, fandom, as a whole? Is FUCKING STUPID and should be taken out and beaten with a large clue-stick.

Nique lasted about five minutes before bailing. I lasted another... five, I think, before I couldn't take it anymore. I needed water anyway.

Ended up in the hall, chatting, and then Allie showed up, and she looked fucking gorgeous in this blue dress. K8 and Spawn of K8 also came out. But they were heading off, so we only chatted a short time, and made dinner plans. Drea eventually escaped from the panel, and we trooped to the Marriott to start gearing up for the costume contest watching.

I kissed everyone and scarpered to meet K8 and crew for dinner. Met Justin. Hit mall for food, and Chikfila was closed, but KFC was not. Guys? Popcorn chicken is now chicken nuggets. *sulks*

People-watched and left mall eventually to see what was up at the SG track room.

Walking between hotels, I got a vm from splash_the_cat, but figured we'd end up meeting later or something.

And then my phone died in the middle of trying to call Karma and GC. Texted GC, but she didn't get it, apparently. Used k8's phone to call Ryuu.

So.

Then there were a group of us, standing in that hall, chattering. Tricia came out, and Deanie, who I kind of thought "huh, familiar" at, but didn't think anything of it. After all, TONS OF PEOPLE. One is bound to see more than one familiar face.

Looked up to find Rob L, an old STL friend of mine coming down the hall (he ran the Brit Track, I think) chatted a bit, let him go off.

And then we were sitting in the hall, and I saw a girl named Jennifer across from us, and couldn't help but ask if she was surrealphantast. She wasn't, but she joined our group, at which point, I realized that there were too many of us, and we were causing fire marshal issues. So we moved out into the larger area and dropped into a circle on the floor, to continue chattering away.

Stitch showed up, and possibly other people. I'm hazy. But it was here that we discovered that men have a fear of women in large groups. We couldn't get a single guy to come sit with us and talk for the longest time, which meant we were all pretty much laughing and mocking men continuously.

Eventually, James came out and sat with us. So we dubbed him an honorary fangirl and named him Bob.

Bob sort of broke the ice, and we ended up with two more guys, this time in the center as sacrifices that was the best place to put them.

There was hilarity in Stitch chasing some dude in a mask for his mask. And some LARPers (I think) kept using the room near us, and that amused us. One of the guys had smirnoff raspberry vodka, which he said was crap. It sort of was, but, dude, strawberry vodka? SO MUCH WORSE. I had no trouble drinking it straight (oops), but the rest thought it was horrible.

Sadly, we eventually realized there was nowhere to get alcohol, and we were all kinda winding down, anyway. I walked everyone back to their hotels, then continued on my way to my own. It was... something like 3.

Monday - Packed.

Saw Tricia and Deanie briefly, passed them the 'Gratuitous Space Lesbian' buttons that were created by redstarrobot. Ate lunch with Ryuu. Heard a rumor the airport lines were more than 2 hours long, and left early for the airport.

The rumor lied.

Daughtry's 'Home' played again, somewhere in my vicinity. I swear, that song is haunting me. Just because I think it's a good Kara/Anders song, bah.

Monday was also the one day I actually had a headache. Damn getting a hangover on the ONE DAY I didn't actually drink much.