Saturday

The Place: Atlanta, GA
The Day: August 30, 2003
The Event: Day 2 of Dragon*Con

I didn't wake up til 10am or so on Saturday, which surprised me cuz I almost NEVER have trouble sleeping in! Must've been the big ol' costume parade going on down on the street outside. I wasn't going to get up to look until hippie told me there were Renaissance Faire types out there. I got up in time to catch the end of the parade which included all the Star Wars types. Even from 18 floors up, it was pretty cool.

Everyone was up to their own stuff that day. Ladyhawk, wish, and Dusty were taking turning sitting in line for a 4pm Q&A with Ghost of the Robot. (For those of you who don't know, that's James Marsters' band.) Otts was headingŠ somewhere. Hippie wanted to sleep some more. So I got ready and headed out to find food. I had my first Chick-fil-a, but I was still so out of whack that I hardly tasted it. I took my bucket of lemonade and headed off to look at all the shopping in the Dealers Hall and Exhibit Hall.

Good thing I brought the lemonade - the Dealers Hall was so enclosed I was afraid I was going to have another almost-fainting spell. The ceilings were low, the aisles narrow, and it was all so crowded with people that one could hardly move. But the stuff to buy! Oh, now THAT was something to behold. Good thing I'm not a comic book or photo collector or I would have shopped myself into debt. As it was, it took all my willpower not to buy really cool Buffy stuff I haven't seen in California. Or the pretty jewelry.

I did give in when it came to the books. I never could resist a Buffy book, and I got to chat with Candace Havens, author of Joss Whedon's biography. She's a neat lady; very sweet and generous with her time. We exchanged emails and she autographed my copy of her book. I also bought the galley of a new Buffy essay book. I can't wait to read both books.

Needing air, I headed back upstairs to look in the Exhibit Hall. Higher ceiling, not as close a space. Lots more pretties, but mostly RPG stuff. I realized that it was half an hour to Andy Hallett's and James C. Leary's Q&A, so I headed back to the Buffy Track room. I stepped off the escalator, and oh shit! The line was wrapped all around the lobby area!! I saw Eric and Mac in line, but since the Track Heads were counting and getting HMC in trouble was NOT on our agenda, I was a good girl (hush Miss UK!) and went to the back of the line, where I met up with Spike4Ever and LifesaShow. We chitchatted for a bit until they announced that the room was full and no one else would be let in to the session. Dammit! The one panel I was most interested in seeing, and I couldn't get in?? Mac and Eric did, which was cool, even though it didn't do me any good. So those of us in line were now the line for the Danny Strong and Iyari Limon Q&A, which wasn't for another hour and a half. Luckily, the people running the track took pity on us and gave us all "passes" so we could come back half an hour before the Q&A. Even better was Dusty and Ladyhawk stopping by to chat just in time to be given passes of their own. They were both heading back to wait in line for the GotR Q&A, so I took their passes and went to find Otts.

(Now see, it's all thanks to me that Otts got to brag about his question to Iyari. God knows I wouldn't have asked that.)

An hour or so later, Otts and I got into the room and sat down for the Danny Strong and Iyari Limon Q&A. Those two are so SHORT!! I mean, hell, I'm short and they are both much shorter than I am. They're also both an absolute riot. Someone finally asked Danny if he'd ever consider doing stand-up. He said no, that what he was doing right then was being sarcastic and goofing around. Finally Otts got to ask his question of Iyari: "In 'Touched,' there's a scene where Willow's eyes pop wide open. What did Kennedy do to provoke that response?" After much laughter and the proclamation from Danny that that was the question of the con, she answered, "If you look carefully, you'll notice Kennedy's hand go up and over Willow's shoulder and then down... WAY down."

After the Q&A, I hung around for the fanfic panel while Otts took off to see George Takei. I half expected the fanfic panel to degenerate into fights over ships, slash, or AU stories, but I was happily surprised that it was a nice, long discussion about everything from writing techniques to feedback to why people write. Candace Havens was there, and talked a bit about writing Joss's biography and life in general as a TV critic. (Did you know TV critics read fanfic to get a pulse for their audience? That certainly freaked out several of us authors.) I came out of it having met some neat people and with leads on where to find more fic.

I need to stop the play-by-play for a moment to explain the insanity of the crowds. I heard that there were 30,000 people at the con, and I wouldn't be surprised. The lobby of the Hyatt Regency is pretty spacious; it was packed to the gills with people, most of whom were in costume just standing around waiting for someone to take their picture. There are five elevators in the main tower servicing 22 floors; average wait was five minutes, and we very quickly learned that taking and elevator down to go up was a smart idea. Even so, I'm surprised there weren't more problems with elevators being loaded with people over their weight limits. (See Otts' parody "Caught in the Elevator" to get the real feel of this.) Then there is the hallways, stairs, and escalators among the ballrooms, track rooms, bathrooms, even the two hotels. It was a pick-pocketer's dream. I'm thankful that the only thing I lost in the shuffle was my Hellhound badge. (Not that I was happy about losing it, but if it was that or my wallet, well, you get the idea.)

So back to the story. Ladyhawk, Dusty, wish, hippie, Otts, and I all went out into Atlanta for Indian food for dinner. I've had some Indian food in the past, but nothing like this! After a couple hours eating and laughing, we headed back to the Hyatt. The Spike-a-licious Ladies (as I started calling LH, Dusty and wish) went to see GotR, Otts went to a panel on the reality of the creation and destruction of the universe, and hippie and I went looking for tattoos. Yep, tattoos. We finally found a place that was clean, safe, and nearby and hopped into the scariest taxi cab ride of our lives. This guy had no idea where he was going, practically blocked a main street while looking for the street number, and yelled at us. Then the cab actually stalled out. I was ready to grab hippie and get out then and there. It was a relief to pay the guy and see his taillights.

We finally found the place and went upstairs. The good news was that hippie's tattoo (the Chinese character for "faith") was no problem; the bad news was that while the guy loved the Celtic knot cross I wanted, he was too tired to do it in the time he had left to work that night. I was very NOT happy, but what do you do? I certainly couldn't force him, and I wouldn't want to. (Hello, can you say permanent? I can.) So hippie got her tattoo on her upper left shoulder and I sat and watched. Fifteen minutes later, we were calling for a cab (from a different company).

If the other cab driver was scary (and he was!), this guy was fabulous. Nice, funny, competent. He stopped by a Krogers on the way back to the hotel so we could pick up some beer. Hippie was ecstatic to find that they sold Stiller Boch beer, but we had to struggle to figure out who wanted what else. She got in line ahead of me, and when we decided that that line was moving faster than mine, I politely excused myself past a couple of guys to join her. They were really nice, and while bantering, one guy more or less proposed to me. I laughed and told him that first, I don't marry any guy who's name I don't know and second, he couldn't handle me. Then I asked if I could take his picture for part of my report. He declined. So much for my torrid love affair. *raising bottle of beer* Chef Craig, here's to you! Yes, I will tell my niece to become a pastry chef.

Armed with beer, hippie and I got back into the cab with our awesome cab driver and headed back to the hotel. We entered the lobby and damn, I swear two thirds of the convention people were all packed in that tight space. We had to stop to coo over the sweetest little baby with a knitted red devil cap and matching pointy booties. Then I had to stop for a picture with "The Buddy Christ" from "Dogma." We fought our way back onto the elevator, and headed back to our room.

Rumor on the street was that there was a huge 80's dance downstairs, so Otts, hippie, and I got dressed to kill and headed down to the ballroom. Ok, HUGE bust. Yes, there was going to be a dance there, but it was being organized by an RPG group, was going to cost $5 to get in, and at the moment, was EMPTY. We had had enough of letdowns and crowds, so we headed back up to our room to drink beer.

Wish, LH, and Dusty stopped by to drool over the GotR concert. They pulled off third row "seats," and had an incredible time, even if the lead singer wasn't always quite in sync with the rest of the band. (Rumor on the street is that they did the sound check before they opened up the back half of the ballroom.) But it's James, so that's all alright. Right?

I had a beer or two and headed out to see what the HMC leaders were up to. Mac and Jonathan filled me in on the hell that was being part of the press. (I'll leave the details up to them.) At that point, they were STILL trying to get interviews set up. Eric joined us, and we turned to good ol' fashioned Buffy geek-speak until Eric and I realized that we both know quite about Les Miserables. Jonathan and Mac finally decided we weren't pulling some elaborate joke on them and took off. We kept talking and I finally crawled back to my hotel room around 5:30am.

Coming up next, Sunday's and Monday's Adventures.