All of my life I felt that you were listening, watching for ways to help me stay in tune.

ConQuest 36, Friday pictures are online. (And some people have already discovered them and started giving me caption info... my caption notebook is still packed so I don't have all the names up yet.)

ConQuesT doesn't start rolling until early evening, so I flew out Friday morning. I left perhaps a little earlier in the day than I needed to, but the day was going to be a write-off anyway so I felt I may as well arrive early and soak up some of the pre-con atmosphere. Soak was right -- when I got out to the shuttle bus stop, it started raining. I was glad I'd brought my sweatshirt
(even though it got a bit soggy); I almost didn't, but decided I needed it in case the aircraft was chilly. I'd forgotten about the thunderstorm at the last ConQuesT I'd been to! But apart from some rain at the airport, it was dry and fair (and not muggy) all weekend. Very nice weather; I'm used to living in paradise, so it had to be pointed out to me that it was rare for K.C. on Memorial Day weekend.

I saw a lot of familiar faces. People I knew, certainly, but also a lot of people I recognized (but couldn't bring their names to mind immediately) from our trip three years ago. The badges the big heading that said "ConQuesT" across the top. If I'd brought my own "Chaz" stickers like I sometimes do, they wouldn't have fit! My name was printed on the back of the badge, because I was a program participant, but not the front. I told the Program Ops people the trick of putting the person's panel schedule on the back of the badge; I'm not really sure why they had my name on a sticker back there at all, given that it didn't have any other useful information.

Fan Guests of Honor were Les and Jeannette Roth. AGoH was Theresa Mather, WGoH Joe Haldeman, TM George R.R. Martin. This time I made sure to get pictures of all of them (and also this year's and next year's co-chairs), if only at opening and closing ceremonies. At the opening ceremonies, George told Joe that he'd always wanted to give him two goats, and presented Joe with a pair of fuzzy goats. Later I learned that he'd asked the concom if they could provide live goats; the concom was taken aback and talked him down to the stuffed animals, and then scrambled to find some suitable ones. I was surprised they had any trouble -- but then, anyone else who's been to a few furry conventions would probably know how to find any kind of stuffed animal. (I told them about Stuffe & Nonsense, the people who took three Taco Bell chihuahuas and spliced them into a little Cerberus for me.) A similar conversation came up later in the weekend; Zoe from Missouri asked about good quality ears and tails, and I told her they're readily available. I almost whipped out my phone and called darrelx right there to ask him, or perhaps Rod O'Riley who had been talking to me about a new tail recently... (his, not mine. I just wear the ears.)

Friday night, after opening ceremonies, they had a Regency Dance in the back of the Art Show (really!) and I hung around, and allowed the dancemistress (Ann Shelby) to coerce me into participating, It was a lot of fun. My dance partner, Debra Glagola, was clearly having a great time, and that made it all a delight. I decided I needed my Kristi Smart coat and went back upstairs for it when we hit a break, and came back down for some more frolicking.

Then some party-hopping. At the K.C. in '09 party, two little girls (Rowan Poovey and Sam Myers) were in charge of stickering badges and had instructions to not let in anyone who had no badge. Inger said they were quite delighted to have such power, and were cheerful door dragons. Inger Myers was dressed as a cigarette girl, and had the box with (candy) cigarette, (bubble gum) cigars and lots and lots of Inger Cookies. (Chocolate Chip and I think some Butterscotch Chip.)

I managed to miss the Conestoga party somehow, and I'm still not sure how that happened -- was it the same smoking room as the Dawn Patrol party? I ran into three of my Tulsa friends, Elspeth Bloodgood, K.D. Wentworth and Melissa Tatum, but didn't get to the party. That was my only major regret of the convention.

ConQuesT has some straightforward rules, including expectations of the behavior of minor members; unruly kids not only have the threat of being kicked out, but their parents get kicked out with them. That's the policy; I didn't see any rowdy kids myself. Lots of nicely behaved folks, in fact. It's kind of a bummer to be underage at a convention with so much drinking. (About half of the parties had some kind of alcoholic punch, the rest had bheer or the like.) Zoe (who I mentioned earlier) is under 21, I believe, and had tried to get a Harry Potter party going this year. It didn't pan out due to a mix-up with the rooms, but I hope she gets it going at the next con she goes to.

I moseyed downstairs to see what was doing, and Megan Totusek, Lyndsey Griffey and Nikki Harper asked if they could try on my coat. Well, why not. It is a nice coat... I got pictures of them posing with the coat. I also saw the three of them carrying stuffed animals (two teddy bears and a monkey, I believe); not sure what the story was with that. I'm not so good with names and faces, practice is what makes it work for me, but by the end of the convention I was able to tell Nikki from Lyndsey. With any luck it'll hold the next time I see them. (I'd met Nikki at Demicon last year.)

And they loved the "JAILBAIT" ribbons. More on that later...

In a time where the sun descends alone I ran a long long way from home to find a heart

ConQuesT 36 pictures from after midnight on Friday are online now.

Julia Mandala and Linda Donahue had some unusual costumes on. They're both Yard Dog Press authors, and one of the motifs that recurs in some of the work published by Yard Dog is the "Bubba" meme. See, for example, "International House of Bubbas." Linda and Julia decided to create Bubba pin-up girl costumes, which mostly featured red or pink gingham check pattern fabric and lace accents on a vinyl top and bottom piece. Not exactlysure what they called the costumes, but they wanted all the other "Yard Doggies" to sign the costumes. When I was plying them with chocolate and rum, they realized that they therefore needed to sign each other's outfits...

In other news, there were some costumes at the Costume-Con party that are based on some of George R.R. Martin's work. (Were they at Torcon 3's Masquerade?) So I stopped by and snapped a couple of pix with George and thefrost monster. Or whatever it was.

One of the people I recognized from last time was "Conbarbie", aka Sherri Dean. She's going to be chair next year. More about Conbarbie when I get to my Masquerade comments...