38 Days: Convention "Places"

Okay, so the first thing I want to get out of the way is that by "places," I mostly mean events. Although, since each of these events happened at a place, I hardly think my use of the term is unreasonable.

The first "place" I want to talk about is the Masquerade Ball.



Yes, this is indeed a clip from the movie "Labyrinth." Aside from the fact that this movie rocks, I chose this clip because they actually played THIS SONG during the ball. (That was the song that Erin danced with Guy Fawkes, too. So momentous all the way around.)

I was sooo excited for the masquerade. It is probably one of my favorite things, looking back on the weekend - though that's partly because in my memory I can pretend that I danced with lots of attractive guys who fought for the chance to be alone with me. In truth, I danced with no one. As per usual, my romances were fantasies conjured up in my own head. But I DID get to dress up and wear my very own $2 mask!


Really, the atmosphere and the concept of the whole thing was the best part. Aside from that it reminded me of a lot of junior high dances I went to: standing around watching other people dance and waiting for the slow songs to be over. In fact, most of us in the group left the dance halfway through to sit in the hall and bemoan the "high school dating" atmosphere of it all.

Aubrey was just complaining about how she had really only ever been on two good dates, when a man who had been walking past us turned to her and said, "Only two?!" He was dressed up and masked as well, and he posed dramatically before speaking, his hand held out to her. "Come with me now, and I will take your night away." We just sat there with our mouths open, speechless. A second passed, then he grinned. "Sorry. I was just kidding. See ya."

As he walked away down the hall, we all turned to Aubrey and shouted, "Run after him!"

She laughed, and quite possibly let the man of her life slip away. Poor Aubrey, you foolish girl.

That night, we tried to fit six people into our two bed hotel room. (Justin was NOT the sixth; Come on, I go to BYU people!) That meant Beth and I shared a bed, Erin and Aubrey shared a bed, and Erin's two cousins - we'd somehow picked up another one during the convention; I'm not really sure how - took the couch and the floor. I'm not sure exactly where everyone ended up because I passed out straightaway. When we woke up, Beth and Erin drove to the store and bought us a lovely breakfast of bagels, peaches, grapes, and orange juice. Then we all had to get back into costume for the convention.

This was very funny to me, because all I had to do was slip on my black pants and the Star Trek shirt, then pull on my black shoes and put my hair up in a quick twist. It took all of seven minutes, and then I was back to reading Ender in Exile while everyone else shrieked and squirmed trying to get into THEIR costumes. Lots of hairspray, pinning things into place, fake fangs slid on over real teeth, and of course TONS of makeup. Why someone would rather put on makeup than read, I'll never know. I suppose these are the mysteries.

The Battle Brawl was a lot of fun. We were in an auditorium of sorts, and they had a bunch of two-man teams going head to head with large weapons onstage. It was a lot like watching a Pokémon battle with real people. One member of each team would face off, and then a mediator would roll the dice and call out what attack was supposed to have just happened, then the fighters would act it out.


"Riku attacks for 300 points of damage!" Then the Riku guy would run over and slice up the other guy with his sword, and the crowd would scream and stomp and shout for their favorite character. And the whole time, that man at the keyboard would play music from arcade games and different Anime shows. It was seriously a whole lot of fun. Much better than TV.

But the most amusing places we ever went were restaurants. Restaurants filled with normal people, mind you, people who had no suspicion of any mass gathering of nerds nearby. It was so funny to walk through the aisles and watch the heads turn after us, the confused looks on everyone's face. My personal favorite was seeing the reactions of people standing at the sink in the bathroom when they saw me coming out of a stall. This - the real world - is where I got to be the star, because while most of the population knows very little about Anime, even normal people recognize Star Trek when they see it. We generated a lot of attention. Perhaps because of Clearing's lack of subtle behavior:


Anyway, those are the "places" of the convention, I suppose. It's ridiculous how much stuff I'm leaving out, but it's something you have to experience for yourself, I think, before you really understand it. If you have some aversion to wearing a costume and venturing into such an alien society, though, I understand; I only hope you can try to live vicariously through my blog posts. After all, that's what I'm here for.

Remember, tomorrow is the last day on the convention: "things." I won't be saying much, but there will be pictures. Many, many pictures.

Today's Movie: "Dracula" (But it wasn't really a movie. We went to the play.)