Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

A tired Alyce

Sunday was fairly quiet in Press Relations at Otakon. I got there at 8:30 in the morning and stayed until we closed, in part because I'd left early the day before.

This meant I missed the Eminence concert, which I'd been interested in seeing.

The main event for Press Relations on Sunday was a press availability for AAA, which is a Japanese pop group consisting of seven young people. This was scheduled opposite the Eminence concert, which is why I couldn't go.

I went with the head of Press Relations, BB, at the beginning of the day to scope out the room and arrange for adding some chairs for the press to sit. We were using one of the autograph rooms, after they were done with it for the day. Autograph rooms don't contain chairs.

When it came time for the interview, BB headed up and I went along to assist him. When we got there, he spoke to somebody in Guest Relations, who told him that he'd be actively moderating, rather than just introducing the group. So he gave me his Otakon radio and cell phone to monitor and directed me to stand outside in the hallway.

After the press and the guests had all arrived, I stood outside the closed door, struggling to keep my eyes open. But I figured at least I could keep people from wondering into the room while the press conference was in session. I also answered a number of questions from members as they walked by.

I also snapped a self-portrait in front of the closed door.

One of the people who passed was a staffer who'd served as a proofreader for me the previous year when I was program book editor. I don't recall ever seeing him in person before.

He said that I looked really tired, and he suggested I grab a nearby chair. I told him if I sat down I'd fall asleep but thanked him for his concern. He was on some sort of a mission and kept walking towards the Dealers' Room.

From the hallway, I could hear occasional laughter. Things seemed to be going well. I also listened to the radio to see if there was anything going on I should know about. I heard that someone was looking for an item in the room we were in, so I radioed back and said I'd look as soon as the interview was over. Turns out, I looked and it wasn't there.

After the interview, I was happy to turn the radio and phone back to BB. Carrying that big brick of a radio was one thing I didn't miss this year, not being assistant to the head of human resources.

By the time we got back to Press Relations, there wasn't much more to do. The members of the press we'd seen all weekend, such as Otaku Life Radio, had been in to pack up their stuff and say good-bye. Also, someone had been in to collect the sound equipment that had been set up in the room, which never got used.

We packed everything into the plastic tubs that would be stored at the Otakon storage facility. And between the five of us, we carried them all up to Con Ops. One of the tubs was really heavy, and I couldn't lift it. The Pottermaniac, however, hefted it easily, just to show me up, I suppose. She would have carried it the whole way, but BB traded something lighter for it.

Everyone but BB took the elevator, but he walked briskly up the steps into the Pratt Street Lobby. Interestingly, the escalators hadn't worked all weekend, so we walked up more stairs than we probably realized.

We dropped the boxes off in Con Ops, and aside from BB turning in the radios, we were done. I called The Gryphon, to let him know I was done and was heading back to the room. I did stop first, though, in staff support to grab a bit of lunch.

I went back to the hotel room for some much needed sleep, napping for a couple hours before waking and calling The Gryphon to check in on him. He said he was almost done, and he arrived as I was taking a nice, relaxing bath. He took a nap, and then we both got ready and headed for the staff dinner, catching a cab for the few blocks to the site.

As we waited for the dinner to begin serving, we milled in the hallway with other staffers. I had them snap this pic of me and The Gryphon.

The party which we traditionally call the Dead Dog party (since everyone is dead dog tired), started with a dinner. Instead of a buffet, it was a seated dinner, but with no set serving time. Whenever somebody sat down at a new setting, they could be served a salad, entree and dessert.

I joined a bunch of my friends, including The Gryphon (of course), The White Rabbit, The Cheshire Cat and The Paper, The Dormouse, The Voice, and The Punster and his wife. We chatted about the con and how it had gone. Most everyone looked refreshed, so I must not have been the only one who got a little rest that afternoon.

(from left) The Dormouse, The Voice, The White Rabbit,
The Cheshire Cat, The Paper, Sir Jim (standing),
The Punster and his wife

That's when I learned the significance of the "bread" I'd picked up in LARP on Friday night. It was actually infected with alien nanotechnology, and anyone who'd eaten it had turned into an alien! I guess now I know why The Cousin, when she saw that I had this bread, had cautioned me not to eat it. Of course, I'd just told her I wasn't really playing, so there wasn't any danger.

The dinner consisted of a salad with a Thai peanut sauce dressing, and an entry of breaded chicken breast, broccoli and rice. Dessert was green tea ice cream. The sauce, incidentally, also worked on the chicken. I was a little surprised they would have included peanut sauce, since some people are highly allergic to it, but I guess anyone that allergic would keep an eye out for such items.

The dinner was very satisfying and fairly healthy, although I would have preferred the chicken not be breaded. Still, it was a lot better than pizza.

Meanwhile, The Gryphon was keeping busy. Even though he's no longer head of human resources, he helped out the person who was running Dead Dog, as she had to sort out some organizational problems. He was also helping to card people and give wristbands to those of age who might want to drink later. They had collected donations from those who were interested in having a drink.

He also had to distribute items that staffers had given him to have signed by the guests. I did, eventually, persuade him to sit down and eat, though.

The Water Ballerina arrived a little late and brought some food with her, since she'd been under the impression that if you weren't there on 7 p.m. you wouldn't get served. She ate it upstairs and then came back down to tell me how the performance had gone.

Apparently, a couple more employees from Charm City Cakes, the business followed by the Food Network program Ace of Cakes, were there that night, and one of them even ran the sound.

Usually at these dinners, the con chair thanks the staff for the work and, in turn, the staff presents him with a present. In this case, they'd arranged something truly unique. This year's president, Hellbunny (in red in picture, below), goes by that name and has for a long time worn a plush hat with ears on it. They'd had specially made hats made with rabbit ears and horns, and had also ordered them for all the members of the board, who donned them.

I think it looked particularly good on The Gryphon, but hey, maybe that's just me. Here he is, standing next to The Paper, who also wears it with dignity, I believe.

Then came the speechifying, and finally, a raffle for a number of items donated by dealers. I won one of the items, a bag containing some manga and a DVD. I don't know how good they'll be, but I'll check them out.

The Water Ballerina and I happened to be sitting on the table right next to where they were handing things out, since we'd moved there to talk. That was also the table where they put the unclaimed items, along with the winning ticket, placed on top of each prize.

A staffer who had been out of the room looked through the tickets to see if one of them was his, and indeed, it was. He'd won, along with a poster, a T-shirt. Unfortunately, it was a small, which was too little for him.

At first, I offered to trade the T-shirt for one of my items, but he didn't want any of the items I had. Then he was going to just give me the shirt, except that I confessed I probably wouldn't wear it anyway, since it was a regular T-shirt and therefore would be too boxy on me. The Water Ballerina also didn't want it, because she likes to wear her T-shirt loose.

Then I had a brilliant idea: why not see if the other unclaimed T-shirts were the right size? The first one I looked at was a medium, which was his size, so we swapped. What's even funnier is that the slogan was, "Yuri, my anti-drug", which he said was perfect. (For those who don't know, yuri is a type of anime that features girl-girl love stories.)

After the raffle, we were invited to go upstairs if we wanted to engage in further socializing. You could also play board games downstairs in the alcohol-free area, the dining room.

I talked for a while with a staffer I hadn't seen in a little while. He's one of a set of twins, and he says he's jokingly referred to as the Evil Twin, because his brother tends to be a real goal-setting achiever, whereas the Evil Twin has a much more laid-back attitude. We had a long conversation that started with me noticing his college ring, and he told me about his college years and why he was so proud to wear it.

This was, incidentally, the second time this weekend I'd seen someone wearing a college ring, the other one being the Cosplayer. I don't know if they sold college rings at Penn State, but I think that if I'd known about it back in the day, I would have bought one. My experiences at Penn State were definitely life altering.

Even though he'd originally said he wasn't going to come upstairs and socialize further, mostly because his brother and his wife weren't there, after a while we both headed up to see what was going on.

People were milling in various rooms and in the hallway, socializing. I found The Gryphon, and he secreted my bag in the same place where he'd put the signed items he was still trying to return to people.

It was a pretty typical Dead Dog: lots of silly conversation, including at least one room where they were exchanging back massages and another where they were having an animated game similar to Truth or Dare.

The Gryphon only relaxed for part of the party, because the rest of the evening he was running around helping to put out fires, so to speak. Sunday night people are often emotionally exhausted, and that's when the Drama Free Zone explodes and people need a kindhearted, understanding, sensible person like The Gryphon to help them out.

I spoke for a while with a Spec Ops staffer who gave me her assessment of how things had gone. She won't be able to make it to the wrap-up meeting, so I encouraged her to share those ideas with her department head.

In the hallway, I hung out for a little bit with Kapow. We found a set of pink cat ears that had been abandoned by one of the Gopher Ops staffers. He'd won them in the raffle, along with a matching tail, but he seemed to think that, while the tail was fine, the ears were too feminine to wear.

I put them on and posed for some pictures, but the rubber band that went around my chin was too tight. Either they're made for children or it's yet another drawback to having a big Irish head.

Eventually, I drifted back to the main room, where I joked around with The Pirate and then with The Invisible Man. We had a really interesting conversation with a staffer who I believe is new this year, and was dressed in a 19th century-style suit. The Invisible Man, who is African-American, was talking about how one of the guests had wanted to find a hip-hop club, and this got us talking about race. Particularly, about what you can and can't say.

I explained to the 19th Century man that, when I was dating The Invisible Man about five years ago, he'd once come up to me and said, "What's up, my nigga?"

I'd replied, "You know I can't say anything back."

This got us all laughing, and just then, a biracial staffer came up to us, and the 19th Century man said, "What's up, my nigga?" For half a second, I thought the 19th Century man might end up with his cane in a very uncomfortable place, but the Invisible Man and I quickly explained and the staffer relaxed.

All in all, it was a pretty relaxing evening, just what I needed. We left at about 2 or 3 in the morning when a bunch of other people were heading back to our hotel, and we all walked together for safety. I noticed that one of the guys, whom I'd worked with in Registration several years ago, was secure enough in his masculinity to be wearing the pink cat ears.

The Gryphon with a tape outline outside the Dealers' Room

More on Alyce's Otakon Experiences:

Musings on Alyce's Otakon Experiences

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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