Back to Second Day
Rose again, once again brekkie of Nutrigrain, but this time we descended for coffee to the lobby, since our minibar was locked (you do not want to be trapped in a hotel room with two caffeine-deprived women, you just don't) and I had orange juice at an astronomical price considering we were in California, and the others got their coffee. We found Sandra, too, and huddled to hear her story. This poor thing spent the rest of the con being introduced as the "girl who got hit by a car". She said she didn't remember much, but that her friend Dana had looked out and seen a puddle of black in the middle of road and known it was her. We started cracking jokes about a goth band making "Puddle of Goth Girl" their next big hit, and Christopher Moore, who wrote Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, has sworn to use it in his next book. Hey, black humour is a healthy outlet. :-) Sandy wasn't walking too well and displayed her grazes for our admiration, but looked remarkably healthy for a woman struck by two cars.
Clive Leatherdale, hearing her story, was so concerned he gave her a big hug. :-) What a sweetie he is. . . *sigh*. I want to bear his children. . . but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Lu was chairing a panel on "Vampires: Redefining the Boundaries" that sounded deadly dull but she says turned out to be extremely funny, especially the paper on the menstrual taboo. I went to the paper on "Vampires: from Spiritual to Criminal" being given by Benjamin and it turned out to be deadly dull. Go figure. Mind you, I was mostly looking at the scenery anyway. :-) I left early and went shopping again. Hey, any excuse to cruise the marketplace. :-)
We met up again afterward and went to hear Bev Richardson give her paper on Renfield, but snuck out right after to go to lunch. A bit of a pity, because apparently we missed a psychiatric discussion of the dancer of the previous night, with a few psychiatrists agreeing that our Vlad the Performance Artist was a few Fruit Loops short of a bowl.
We went with Maggie, Elizabeth, Lu and myself, while waiting for Sandra and Dana to arrive, to Mickey D's. We spotted Elaine Bergstrom eating by herself, and I boldly invited her to come and join us. We went upstairs and cheerfully rearranged the furniture so we could all sit together, and had a glorious time. I showed her a picture of Mina, because of the book she wrote under her pen name, and after that all we talked about was cats. Well, it was a change from vampires. . . :-)
Maggie had to get back for her panel, and Lu wanted to wait for Sandra, so Elizabeth and I hit the AmPam so I could feed my chocolate fix, then went back to the hotel to wait for the others. Bev and I, being loyal types, met up and went to support Lu, Elizabeth and Sandra as they gave their papers on "The Long Tooth of the Law", variations on the vampire detective theme. There weren't many people in the audience, but Margaret L. Carter, who's nice, dropped in and listened to most of it. Their moderator was horrible, though, he was obviously not interested.
After that, which was entertaining no matter what the principals think, we went and listened to the end of a dialogue between Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Gahan Wilson, which was almost hysterically funny and I stared worshipfully at Quinn on behalf of the Vampyres listserv. We hurried down to the Vampyres Dating Game, although Lu went to go and get her books signed by Quinn, which took her almost an hour! I was glad I'd agreed not to get any autographs!
Before the dating game, though, the Collinsport Players treated us to a really cheesey play (their words) called "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" which was almost indescribable, it was so intentionally awful. Every so often during the action, a man in a Batman costume (really a sweat shirt, sweat pants and even hightops with the Batman logo on them, plus a cheap cape) would come out and sing the chorus in a Tiny Tim falsetto. I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to be sick--especially when the singer took his curtain call, swished his cape like a certain unspeakable artiste, and proclaimed "I will now dance for an hour!". He was roundly applauded.
Then the vampire dating game commenced. Bev had trouble finding vampires, but she rounded up Barnabas from the play, Elizabeth Miller, and a woman from the audience (who turned out to be a dominatrix, but that again is another story). The dating game is fun! I was really sorry more people hadn't come to see it. The "vampires" sit and ask questions of three people they pick at random from the audience, things like "Do you object to a date dumping you just before dawn?" "When was the last time you had a hickey?" and "What kind of coffin would you pick out for a hot date?". Barnabas was super! Elizabeth was very funny, and the dom was. . . well, quite magnificent, actually. I really enjoyed the game. alas, Bev's camera ran out of film and I had forgotten mine. *pout*
Lu, Elizabeth and I decided on dinner in the hotel restaurant for just one night, as we didn't have much time between the end of the dating game and the beginning of the night's festivities, and I still had to shower and change, as did they. And you know how I get about time. . . so we each had the buffet and a glass of wine and tried not to faint at the price tag. The buffet was okay, a nice salad bar and three hot entries plus veggies and noodles; but no dessert other than fruit. Not even a piece of cake! Luckily I still had some chocolate from the raid on the AmPam! We spotted Maggie and her aunt, who had come to spend the day with her, dining elsewhere in the restaurant. It turned out later that they had gotten a table right next to our favourite dom and had received quite an eduction when Maggie's aunt asked her what she did for a living. She replied "I'm a slave owner." (Do you get dental with that?).
I rushed up after dinner to have a shower and change, since we'd promised to meet other listmembers at seven outside the ballroom. We did eventually find Patrick (Strigoii) and Brigid, another lurker from Ireland who is quite lovely and has the most beautiful accent, but we never did see Robyn or Stephanie Moss. Heather Bryan came up later and introduced herself, and I almost said her listname right. :-) (It's Ina Autumn Rain, and "Ina" is pronounced "Een-yah" or something in that neighbourhood.) So I was all decked out in tux and cape and looked good, if I may say so. Everyone else looked smashing, too. Brigid was very daring in a dress of embroidered gold material rather than black. *grin* There was a *lot* of black.
While we waited, the ceremonies in the ballroom of course being late, there were many pictures taken and a lot of mingling. One man, being very charming, was schmoozing all the women who had gathered. He was dressed à la the Count, in a cape, tux, etc, rather like yours truly. He was obviously puzzled by my gender bending, for he bent to kiss my hand then must have caught the expression on my face for he switched gears mid-kiss and gave me a manly handshake instead, saying "I do beg your pardon, sir!". Good sport, that. (I was in persona, since I always am in costume, and Gideon was horrified to find his hand being kissed. . . I think that came across).
Finally they let us in, and we grabbed seats so that I could sit on the aisle to make it up to the stage to get my award. (I won something! Woohoo!). They announced the winners, who got a plaque as well as a cheque, which was really nice. I hope the pic of me accepting it turns out! I was really, really thrilled (and spent the rest of the con trapping every unwary passerby, whipping out my plaque and saying, "Look what I won!".) When all the winners of the fiction contest had gathered their prizes, they announced the winners of the popularity poll, in such categories as "Best Vampire Novel--Non Dracula", "Best Vampire Novel--Dracula-related", etc. David Skal, doing the announcements, made a slight gaffe with the first category, giving it as "Best Novel that does not concern Dracula" and Lu put on her best Vlad accent and said disdainfully, "This novel, it does not concern me" which sent us into gales of laughter that could be heard on stage. Poor David looked out and said "I don't see what's so funny" which of course set us off again. We were being very bad, I'm afraid. :-). When they said "Best actress in the role of a vampire" I said "Tim Curry" which of course broke us up yet again (Kirsten Dunst won, btw).
When that was over, they started to set up for the masquerade ball. There was a bit of confusion over the costume contest--would they, wouldn't they?--then Pat Elrod agreed to host it, others agreed to judge, and they called for entries. That's when I met Heather, and she's nice. :-). We joined the herd of people, some in quite astoundingly spectacular costumes that made mine look punk, others in efforts on about a par, and one pathetic child in a plastic silver dress and plastic fangs who was annoying everyone; and waited and waited in line until they were ready. I took my turn about stage, merely enjoying the attention, and rejoined my fellow attendees. The winners received nothing but applause, and a good time was had by all except for that damned dancer. She entered the contest and had a really bad time getting her cloak undone while people shouted "Don't dance!" at her. She was having a hissy fit because she couldn't get the cloak undone. Try Velcro, darlin'. . . anyway, she thankfully did not dance, and they hustled her out of there to get other contestants on stage. Another person, a guy this time, was dressed as Vlad as well, and he quite deservedly won--he had the bearing, his costume was great, he had the right attitude, and he had a really nice ass.
Then the music started as the first goth band came on--at first only two extremely skinny guys in silver PVC and a big Moog. then the lights dimmed and the band trooped out, two by two, the guys holding red flags with the band name inscribed on them and the women holding flickering votive candles. As this procession passed down the aisles of the ballroom, I nudged Lu and said loudly, "Oh look, it's Goth Pride Day!" and I thought she was going to choke. *grin* (I won "Best smart remark of weekend" with that, I'll have you know...). The volume started ringing off the rafters and we decamped. We ran into P.N. Elrod on the side wall and swept her up in our wake (we seem to have done that to a lot of authors. . . ). She wanted to know who the heck the demented woman in the Vlad costume was, she'd missed the performance art. We happily informed her what she'd missed. We moved outside and she proceeded to regale us with stories of past conventions, most of which was hysterically funny. She's an absolute dynamo and obviously needed to vent. The dancer (for lack of a more diplomatic word) came up, very rudely, obviously upset and protested that the other Vlad had won, his costume, she said, wasn't authentic. Like hers was? Anyway, there weren't any prizes, and attitude counts for a lot in these contests. She had apparently been hissing and cursing at Pat Elrod and the judges, and she expected to win?
Eventually Pat decided she had to go party, and left. We ran into Bev, but she wanted to party too, and we just went back up to the room, where Lu and I (Elizabeth had gone out) talked about some Adrian and Sofi fluff and then crashed.
Thus endeth the third day.