| a play-by-play of New Orleans |
[May. 26th, 2007|11:50 am] |
Alright, here's the synopsis of my trip. Tried to get it out before but my little iBook has been feeling unwell.
Wed – Em & I got up at 3 something AM & drove to Denver. We made it on the first flight out no problems (flying standby). In Houston, we magically bump into our girls: Manda & Karen, and all of us make it in on the same flight.
The hotel was not as grand as in Vegas, as expected, but it is nicely situated near the French Quarter. We check in, meet up with the HP Crafters (and score a lot of swag, I might add), then hunt for food.
Grad party at the Whirling Dervish. We saw a lot of familiar faces and most of them were drunk but Em & I decided to bounce a bit early so we wanted to get up at 7am to work on our film project.
Thurs – We did actually get up that bloody early & we did get the movie done while donning our St. Mungo's Healer & Alice Longbottom costumes. Sam & Anneke were wandering aimlessly in the lobby so we forced them to be our test audience. Back up to the room where Manda's hiding her head under pillows and trying not to think about Hurricanes (the drinks, not the weather phenomena).
Registration took a tenth the time as Lumos. Lunch with Em, Karen, Jenna, Monica, and Manda at Café de something. Checked out the vender room & art gallery, visited with the Drunkeaters, & posed for some pictures. Then back to get ready for the opening feast.
If you didn't already know, we (Manda, Karen, Em, & I) were the fantastic founders four of Hogwarts. Photo takers were abundant & we were even interviewed by some HP-clueless guys from Dateline for a stint that's airing in July (if you, unlike me, have TV & happen to catch it on tivo or something like that, lemme know).
My banner, that was painted & sewn last minute, was shiny & lovely and submitted to the art gallery when I got tired of holding it. Salazar & Rowena then had a drink down in the lobby until the other girls were ready to head to the Drunkeater party.
The début theme was fanvids & as mine took Mikey a nailbiting hour or two before we got it on DVD since we were lacking in the proper cords. I was annoying the piss out of the kid while he tried to get it to work & so he got me to bugger off a bit by refilling my drink a couple times with 85% gin, 10% ice, and 5% tonic. I was a titch toasted.
Despite all the snags, the first & only public viewing of "Adventures in Speed Dating, starring the Dark Lord" (sock puppetry style) was a success & the sequel is currently in the planning phase.
Fri. – A little on the slow side in the a.m., set off to breakfast. Went to a lecture or 2 while wearing my Lumien-ness. I put glue in my hair & twisted it to make pseudo dreads, ver marvy if I do say so.
We signed up for the keynote speaker at the wax museum. The museum was pretty nifty & the speaker had a pretty good grasp on the literary genres that run through Rowling's work…but the room seemed to be located somewhere in the arctic.
Straight from that to Storyville, the w-rock concert in the quarter. A day or two before the con, the planners decided (& they will never again do so) that this would be an open bar event. There was a 45 year old drunk guy that infiltrated our group & elbowed me in the head and snatched some beads out of another lady's hand (who was getting them for her little kid) in his zealousness.
When we got in, the line for food was a mile and veggie options were limited. We had previously, thought that the deatheaters would not be able to crash the concert because H&thePs weren't playing but Beth decided that we would interrupt Alex (the RLs). So there was some minor stage crashing.
My buddy Steve, from Embry-Riddle, stopped by for a few & I ought to point out that he refused to show any tits for the HP fangirls throwing beads at him, very sad.
Brian (D&theMs) did great on his own (little brother was touring in England with H&thePs) considering how many he drinks he had. 6 just while he was on stage. He did forget some of the lyrics, but we were all there to remind him. What a nice kid.
Sat. – My god, whose brilliant idea was it to hold quidditch the morning after an open bar concert? (I had a pick-up spot as a beater for the Alivan's Winged Lions. )
It was a little painful, but I figured 'hey, we're playing the wrockers first…they've at least got to be more hung-over than any of us & therefore completely beatable…" um, wrong. Sure Brian looked like he'd rather be hiding somewhere dark & quiet, but the little girls from the Parslemouths (beaters) were too young to drink and excessively zestful.
The rest of the games were, for the most part, less violent. Emily was wandering about taking pictures & wearing her Madam Rosemerta costume. There were people from MTV, Fox, & The NY Times. It got hotter as the day went on & I really didn't care if we won.
We did play one bs game against the Pixies, Manda's team. There was no running, plenty of hugs, and we even sat in a circle & sang Kumbaya (I think the sun was getting to us). We made it to the final game against the Werewolves, Karen's team. It's true, we lost, they wanted it more. But props go out to the 7 of us for being the only team whose players stuck it out the whole day.
Em, Sam, & I went to House of Blues for dinner. Steve tried to meet up with us, but they were being punks about letting him & his friends sit by us. There was artists & authors' night after that & funner than expected. I wore my Ravenclaw quidditch uniform till it got way to hot. Another night spent with the Drunkeaters; this time there was a ton of people because Alex & the Womping Willow kid played.
Sun. – Our 4some had breakfast together. Em & I trekked around Nola for a bit. We got back into Alice & Healer at the hotel and went to some more programming. Around 5ish we got ready for the masquerade. That was the best. Everyone had such fantastic costumes & masques. Em was Urania, the muse of astronomy; I was Calliope, the muse of epics. Monica & Manda were comedy & tragedy respectively. Karen wore a firey red feathered mask with a sleek black Asian ensemble, ver sexy.
It was over at midnight, which seemed way too early. We all headed out to the quarter and a boy was coming out of the bar we were going in. He chatted with our group for a bit and asked a "why do girls...." question. I jumped in like Hermoine just watched a Discovery channel special on social anthropology & instead of laughing at a girl in a toga trying to sound so matter-of-factly, he followed us back in.
I spent the next couple hours chewing the ear off this adorable mathematician, who is interested in the amorality of corporate America (it's hard typing while swooning), on all sorts of existential/political/psyco junk and he actually seemed to be pretty into it all. Top it all off with a brilliant accent from Kiwi-a-go-go-land and I am helpless. Sadly, he has gone back to farawayfordshire and I being a logical girl can accept that. But I must say that I am giddy even know that such an agreeable creature exists (and I did get a couple text msgs of the most charming nature ;) ).
Mon. - We were too tired to get back into the founders costumes so we went to the opening feast in our pajamas. Lumien won the house cup followed by much enthusiastic shouting on my part. They gave us some pirate booty, very appropriate.
Manda ignored our pleading (something about keeping her job) and departed. A lot of people did stay tho, including Karen, Em, & I. We wandered around the quarter again chatting it up about everything that went down & everything else too for that matter.
Tues. - We got on our flights, no problem. Made it home around 9 pm.
That's my Phoenix Rising experience in a nutshell. I know it runs a bit long, but it was a whole week.
I'm trying to get my photos all up, sorry. I have to take my laptop to the doctor & there's a shortage of ones that work on macs out here. I miss it all dreadfully, but I've already gone & signed up for Terminus. In the meantime, I have a 3 day weekend & I plan to fulfill a request & spend it thinking about a certain kiwi. :)
Cheers & Luv & Junk,
erynn |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
erynns_lj's journal