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Back from Dragon Con. There’s lot’s to say about it, but tonight the goal is bed early, because Jon and I are still beat. As Charles has called it, we have a con hangover. It has nothing to do with liquor, though there was certainly drinking going on at the con, just not by any of the three of us. This is my third Dragon Con, and after five days I always feel the same: achy, tired, muscles tight, hurting in places you can’t quite figure out, and feeling bruised. Con hangover. I think it has something to do with the concrete floor with so little padding on it, and walking from one hotel to another for events. Part of it, is the crowd. It’s not as big as Comic Con (what is?) but it’s still an amazing crowd. I think the number mentioned to me was 50,000 people. It’s not the 200,000 thousand of Comic con, but it’s still the population of a small, to medium sized city in a confined space.

The first year I went, by myself, was a sensory overload. I did my events, got food when I could, and huddled in my room unprepared for the size of the event. The second year I went, Jon was with me, and that helped. It’s always better to have a friend with you at a con. But it was still grinding and we would fall into bed as early as possible to save energy for the next day of panels. This was my third, Jon’s second, and Charles’s first, Dragon Con. We all knew how to do panels, signings, and the public events, but I really didn’t know how to enjoy a convention. I hate them, because I never get to play, it’s work. Charles pointed out that I never go to any after hours events. I never attend concerts (and Dragon Con has some amazing ones), I never do room parties, I don’t socialize. Apparently, socializing with friends is one of the main enjoyments of a con. This is like alien to me. My idea was to endure a five day event I had to get rest and plenty of it, and still by every Monday I felt wretched, and I’d done nothing but work. Jon had once gone to cons before I came along and enjoyed them. I was the only one that simply didn’t get it. I felt bad that I’d sucked the crunchy goodness out of cons for Jon, so, this year I vowed to try and enjoy myself. Problem, I didn’t really know how to do it.

I knew I wanted to see Voltaire and The Cruxshadows in concert, beyond that I just wasn’t sure. Okay, I knew I wanted to see the art show this time. It was my third Dragon Con and I’d never had a chance to see it, and I wanted to see the dealer’s rooms. That was a start. How’d we do on the list?

We saw the last part of Voltaire’s concert, and he proved once again that he is a wonderful story teller, and a great musician. We got to sing along with one of my favorite of his songs, "When your Evil." We all applauded him to an encore where he sang the Science Fiction double feature song from ROCKY HORROR. One of those nearly perfect moments, sitting in the dark with Jon and Charles and our friend Florence, and listening to Voltaire. Come to think of it, she was with us in New Orleans when Jon and I heard him last, and first. Charles has seen him once since in concert in between.

We didn’t get to see the Cruxshadows, because when we went down it was such a huge mob of a crowd, that the three of us decided we just couldn’t do it. Jon has an orthopedic brace for the knee he blew out some years ago, and I was wearing cruel shoes. We couldn’t stand for an hour in a crowd. Charles loves the group, but even he didn’t want to deal with that many people. I think this was our third night at the con and the crowd’s press was getting to all of us. We bought some albums and t-shirts next day, maybe next time.

I did get to walk through the whole art show, but never got a chance to go back and buy the print I liked. Oh, well, the artist has an internet site. We got to see all three, yes three, of the dealer’s rooms. We committed commerce at several booths, and we had our own booth in the big room in the basement. It was listed under Ma Petite, and not my name in the program which made it hard for people to figure out we were there. All right, Darla, Pili, and Kari were there; mostly Pili and Darla. Because we kept co-opting Kari to help with security and video taping stuff. She has twenty plus years in martial arts and is a professional camera person; so cool when my friends have such helpful jobs. Darla got sick Friday night into Saturday, so Pili was left to man, or woman, the booth a lot on her own, but damn that woman can sell. Darla got to feeling better by Sunday, but it had taken a lot of wind out of her sails. No one else got sick, so we think it might have been something she ate than none of the rest of us did. We are tentatively blaming some rouge salad dressing.

We did lot’s and lot’s of other stuff, but that gives you some of the highlights. I’ll blog more tomorrow.