(no subject)

Sleep deprivation...wow. This morning I had a very hard time staying awake. I nearly fell asleep in the dentist's chair it was that bad. Then driving to work I found my eyelids closing every few hundred yards. I fought sleep all the way here. Once here, thankfully, I got a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake, so I've got sugar and caffeine in my bloodstream fighting the good fight for me.

But I went to bed at nine last night! Yeah, alright, so Tammie and I stayed awake a lot later than that, talking about everything (some of which follows), and I didn't sleep especially well even after we quit talking.

It has been a very long week, with a lot of late nights. Not only did she and I attend three roller derby practices this week, but after we returned home each night we stayed up til twoish working on stained glass for sale at Conflation this last weekend.

"Roller derby?" you're asking, in an incredulous tone. Yeah, I know. It's a surprise to me, too. We met a couple of the Arch Rival Roller Girls a few weeks ago at Knit Knight and were intrigued. It didn't hurt that I've been reading pixiecrinkle's gleeful derby posts for the last year. Remains to be seen whether we can really make this happen, though. Three practices a week is a lot of time, $80 a month for dues plus god-knows-what for equipment is a lot of money, and we have quite a few other obligations.

Not to mention 39-year-old muscles that are resisting the idea of getting whipped into shape, and the fact that until Monday I don't think I'd been on roller skates in over 20 years--and even then I wasn't what you'd call good at it. Coach and the other girls all claim that six weeks of training will solve both of these problems, and I have to admit that after even just one week my abs feel tighter and my legs seem stronger. So we shall see.

And the big event of the weekend, my first Conflation. Tammie and I shared a table in the dealers' room with reannon. That was a flop, on the whole; I think we barely sold enough to cover the table, let alone the room or the con badges. Made some contacts for other places to sell--there's a Ren Faire in Columbia at the end of August that we were invited to--and discussed potential-future-commissions with a couple of people, but until I see some cash I don't believe in them. Oh, and we traded three small glass ornaments for a fancy glass dildo. *evil grin* *plot plot plot*

The dealers' room was hidden away in a corner, and perhaps fewer than half the 80-100 attendees ever made the trek back there. Plus there was a serious conflict of programming: the fashion show/dress auction both grabbed most of the attendance and blocked passage to the dealers' room for much of Saturday afternoon.

But other than that. I've been both wanting to attend and dreading the idea of Conflation for a long time: it has quite a reputation in St. Louis fandom, and I've got some mixed squicks and desires involving exhibitionism, both mine and others'. I also knew that the reputation was not necessarily deserved, but before the con I was in that position of "not knowing what to expect" that leaves me internally discomfited. It is good to be able to say, now, that I stretched a couple of boundaries--in a good way--and had a wonderful time.

Friday, I showed up about six-fifteen, just time enough to dump my stuff in the room and go to dinner. After dinner, reannon and Tammie and I soaked in the hot tub for a while before getting dressed for the night's partying. We went to ldyalia's bachelorette party, which was also morgaath's bachelor party. Steve-NKLJ did a full monty striptease, with unfortunate wardrobe malfunction (a stuck zipper). There was trading of costumes between Steve-NKLJ, cunningminx, and Maya-NKLJ. All of them looked really hot in both their own clothes and the others'. Then the party adjourned to the dance, and Tammie and I danced our feet off until we were too tired to stand up any longer.

Saturday morning I hung out in the dealers' room until Lisa-NKLJ showed up and shanghaied both Tammie and me into modeling for the fashion show. I had planned to attend the Art Panel (ie nude figure drawing) but there was a scheduling snafu (Steve-NKLJ was unavailable due to a funeral) and it didn't start nearly at the expected time. I did in the end get to draw for forty-five minutes or so, and I'm even sort of pleased with my drawings, but I didn't model (normally a requirement of participation). Next year.

Fashion show was one of the boundary stretching exercises: I'm generally very self-conscious and even walking, fully dressed, into a room full of people and twirling is a hard thing to do. But I did, and once I'd gotten a sense of the audience, even participated in the $20 minimum bid option. That is, if the model was willing, the bidding would be started at $20 for the clothing item, and the winning bidder would get to remove it from the model. Chris won the dress in question--which I had wanted him to buy for me anyway--so the clothing removal was by someone I trust, but 30 or 40 people got to see me in my knickers (and nothing else).

After dinner was more hanging out and partying: we went to bradhicks's Tiki Party for a while--I got my arms painted with some very nice flowers by Steve-NKLJ, kukla_tko42, and alienne--and then eventually wandered off to the dance and the Virgin Raffle (of firstyear attendees). Again, a boundary stretch: I participated. The stipulation is that the raffle-ee is to spend an hour, in public space, with their winner. Anything else is subject to mutual consent. I don't know whether there was an oddity of randomness or just very few people who actually bought tickets, but most of the virgins ended up in globs with one long-time congoer. There was a waterfall effect where virgins won each other: Chris won Tammie, [another, girl] Chris won OurChris, he won another virgin...It was funny. ldyalia won me...No, actually morgaath did and he "gave" me to her. But in any case I spent a pleasant couple of hours of quiet talk time with ldyalia, morgaath and cunningminx, who was also won by ldyalia.

Oh, Tammie and I made Chris dance with us. Normally he says "Fat white men shouldn't dance" but we insisted and he gamely went along with it. It should tell you something about the nature of our relationship that the Irresistible Song was Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville".

Sunday morning was a small catastrophe of blood-sugar crashes, sleep deprivation and miscommunication that nearly--but not quite--turned into a big ugly fight. We had tears and sobbing, instead, but once some food and caffeine had been administered all was gradually restored to normalcy. I had to leave around 11:30 to go get the Princess from her daddy's house. I brought her back, we went swimming/hottubbing until checkout time, and we hung around the non-con parts of the hotel the rest of the afternoon. Occasionally Tammie or Chris would relieve me so I could go back into the con-space and do something or other, but mostly I just plopped in a comfy chair and talked to congoers who happened to pass by.

During one of the times when Chris and I were both out in the lobby, GOH Jason Carter passed by on his way to somewhere and we had a brief conversation with him--Rosa charmed him as usual. She asked him if he was Scottish and the following ensued. [Please note the dialogue is paraphrased at best--my memory is sketchy when I'm sleep deprived]

Jason Carter: No.
Chris: Do you know anybody who talks like him?
Rosa: No.
Me: Chris's mom, baby.
Chris, to JC: My mother is from Middlesboro.
JC: She calls everyone 'luv'?

Upon which Jason Carter segued into a North England accent and started calling us all "luv".

Rosa made one of her patented cute faces, and he said, "You're an actress, aren't you. Probably manipulating people all the time..." I said she's a ham.