Arisia 2007

[amalthya]

It's been a couple of days since the last day of Arisia and given me some time to process the experience. I'm still on a bit of a high, especially with the new semester starting up again, or the drive home, or that bit of a chill in the air that makes your cheeks pink (even if it also makes my teeth chattery and fingers prickly)

Also, the first day of school was today! I talked with my favorite professor yesterday (after I helped him set up a network drive and pull the mp3s off of his iPod) and he agreed that I could take his class, but not actually register for it or have to do the papers -- I can also help him with all of the digital stuff.

Anyway, back to Arisia.

Friday

We planned to leave earlier on Friday than we ended up actually leaving, and rented a Scion with Zipcar. Of course, I was unhappy to discover that the CD player wasn't working, the car seemed to be a bit falling apartish and, most importantly, was extremely aesthetically unpleasing. Code Word: FUGLY!

I did manage to call Zipcar and they have given me a discount on my next rental, but it's always a bit awkward to be forceful on the phone when there are people in the car listening to you!

The drive was still fun, and I didn't get too cranky. We stopped in West Hartford and visited my great Aunt Margaret for about 2 minutes. Off we went again. Silly us, we actually stopped at the Friendly's in the middle of nowhere, until we realized that there was nothing there any of us WANTED to eat or COULD eat.

Fah.

We managed to make it to Boston in one piece, and I felt terrible for shoujo_mallet as we poorly navigated our way to her friend Josh's house. (Different Josh). Do people really live places and not know how to navigate themselves there? Did I used to be one of them? Am I still?

My favorite piece of directional advice: Turn Around

Has anyone ever tried to do this in Cambridge? Don't.

We were running terribly late for dinner with the lovely yuki_onna.

Editor's Note: Damn, nearly time to leave and I meant to finish this entry. I blame it entirely on IMing with mgrasso!

It was so nice to see Cat again and meet her People. And funnily, right to the right of our restaurant was a MONTIEN THAI CUISINE! I should have taken a photo!!

We ran back to the con for Cat's first panel at 7pm after some directional snafu-ishness. I rushed in, late of course after having to park about a mile from the hotel due to their garage inadequacies.

The hotel itself seemed like an oddity -- There are tons of photos here. It had strange circular designs, and improperly functioning elevators. In addition, someone had gotten their CLOAK caught in the escalator and broken it entirely.

Only at a con, right?

After the panel, we were exhausted, but needed to get ready for the 80's prom, so we headed upstairs to our big lovely room after moving the car and unloading it. We had a HUGE kingsized bed and the room was pretty nice. Even if the soap smelled funny.

We got ready for the prom and shoujo_mallet came back to the fold, looking gorgeous in her dress. We all gussied up in our 80s finest and headed down to hear the DJing of Luke Ski. Who seemed not quite to know how to use iTunes whilst DJing, but not everyone can be a tech person.

It felt lovely to be part of our little family unit -- really, that's a sentiment for the whole weekend, not just Friday night. I don't think it could have been the same experience for me without Josh there, and Rose.

We danced our HEARTS out, drinking lots of water that I later wished I hadn't. [rosefox and I saw the man refilling the water dispensaries out of a very unhygienic-looking black plastic rolling bin]

We were eventually tired, and wandered around, I think. Rocky Horror was due to start at midnight, and since I was tired from driving, I thought I'd take a nap in the room, which was cold and I nearly overslept.

Not like it would have mattered, since the pre-show felt like it lasted well past 1 am. Their "virgin" seemed more experienced than most, which was fun, but I was ready to start the show. Unsurprisingly, there were several NY audience veterans in addition to Rose and me, and we hollered until we were hoarse. And jumped to the left, the right, etc etc. Of course there was group sex, group sex. It was Arisia, after all.

We went to bed past three, comfortable in our big kingsized bed, happy and snuggly.




Saturday

I decided, masochistically, to go to Yoga at 9 am on Saturday. Starting the day with stretching would be exceedingly nice. As would meeting new people there independently, like magid. It WAS a good idea to start the day like that -- despite the screaming children just a flimsy-partition away from us and the intrusion at the end as a woman piled feathery bits into the room and repeatedly opened and closed the door, preparing for some sort of costuming workshop.

I wandered over to the breakfast buffet and robbed it of its fruit -- one of the only things I can eat. I sat down, was offered tea, took it, ate my fruit and left. It was later that I discovered that this was supposed to be a pay-service. Whoops!

Josh and Rose were still sleeping when I came back to bed, but rose soon after for Rose's Fast Track Origami session. Funnily, I didn't really go to many panels, though there were tons I wanted to go to. There were some I'd promised Rose & Josh I'd attend with them, so I tried to schedule around the others, but always seemed to miss it just slightly. Stupid lack-of-watch.

I did also make it down to the gaming room, dicebag and DSlite in hand, but it seemed that the only things going on were Munchkin, Super Munchkin, And Dear Losers, Steve Jackson Isn't God, Why Aren't You Playing Anything But Munchkin.

Alas, the disappointment. I'm told that Arisia is not often gamer-accommodating for these exact reasons.

I did make it to the LJ Meet and Greet, and we did indeed meet AND greet quite a lot of people. {met and gret?} What in the world did we do next? I remember having lunch with yuki_onna, and running to the Trader Joe's in the car, in the pouring rain, trying to drive while wearing a very tightly laced bodice.

Speaking of the bodice I wore on Saturday, everyone was asking me where I got it, so here is a link.

I got very strange looks in the Trader Joe's -- I was after all wearing a bodice, jeans and no shoes. Medieval Hobo!

We needed to met up with James for his dinner-away-from-the-con [I don't know what his LJ name is] and we drove the Toaster-Boat down the street to the Cambridge Brewery. The food was very slow, and everything in the salads was roasted and/or cooked, which made things slightly difficult for me, the Raw Food Vegan. Additionally, my entirely uncooked food took longer than a table full of burgers, nachos, etc. Grr!

When we got to the Toaster Boat... it wouldn't turn on. Not even a question of the engine turning over -- the key wouldn't even turn in the ignition. After panicking and calling Zipcar, we received the instruction: "Turn the wheel to the left" -- which seemed positively ludicrous, but we tried it anyway. Of course it didn't work, but rosefox suggested I turn the wheel to the right instead, and, lo and behold, the key turned.

Bizarre, though I'm told it's a regular car-thing. And also annoying, since we were late for the hosting of shadesong's fete. No one had called, strangely, to ask where we were (the party started at 8, and it was about 8:30). We pulled up to the hotel in a hurry, found a parking spot, and ran to the room... which was unlocked. And full of party-goers!

So, the people I spent time with were (aside from sinboy and rosefox) were: shadesong, yuki_onna, taureanbabe, slipjig, mgrasso, techempage. I've probably already forgotten people, but those few don't even comprise 1/10th of the guests at the party, all crammed into our King suite. I'm not even sure the bed knew it could hold so many people!

There are also so many things from the Saturday party that I'm not going to write about in a public entry, but be assured that it was a fabulous party. I should have met more of the people, I guess, but I don't think I would have changed up the people I met regardless.

I guess it was simply strange to see people on Sunday that I was relatively sure I recognized, who seemed to either a) not recognize me, b) recognize me and look at me strangely or c) recognize me and yet fail to acknowledge me.

As I joked with slipjig: "You don't know my name, and I probably don't know yours, but I might have seen your boob!"

The party ended early as people filed out behind shadesong, even though we got knocks past midnight. The three of us stayed up giggling until around 3, though.



Sunday

rosefox had a last panel and I slept through Yoga. There was also a dearth of food that I could actually eat. I went to the tea party, but I can't say that I wasn't tired and sort of peopled-out by Sunday. I did go swimming and sit in the hot tub, which was nice, though walking through the ice-cold walkway to the garage with wet hair and a wet swimsuit was not the funnest thing I've ever done.

We did eventually head off after loading the car, saying goodbye to rosefox and braving the rain with pisicutsa, sinboy and nightstalker in tow. We stopped off at pisicutsa's Mom's house in Lexington, and found some yummy Raw Food nubblies at the Whole Foods.

It was a LOVELY drive home company-wise, but I will definitely say that the weather, road conditions, and the very-heavy-and-overloaded toaster-boat-of-a-car made it slightly stressful. We also stopped off at my great Aunt Margaret's house to have some dinner.

It was so nice seeing her after all this time (I haven't made it up there since long before I left for Uganda the first time). Always the wisest of parental figures, she bade me farewell, saying "Be good... No, no, Don't be good. Be careful."

Tee hee!! I love her.

We made it back to the city in one piece, returned the Toaster-Boat, and nightstalker crashed in my guest room.


And amazingly, that was the whole weekend. I wish it'd been longer, but certain parts of it were, admittedly, perfect. There's always next year! I'm sure I forgot things too, but then again, I can always turn the wheel to the left and turn around.

Comments

[amalthya.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely endorse it! Was a wonderful weekend!