Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Crowds of otaku at Otakon

Day Eight: Costumes and Tuxedos (Saturday, July 31)

Because he was running the Info Desk, The Gryphon got up early at 7:30. He asked me to choose a tie for him and leave it with his suit so he could change into it later.

I slept in with my sister and her fiancé. The plans were to check out Otakon and then go to the wedding. Of course, my sister would have to leave early, because the bridesmaids were required to show up a couple hours early.

Once we were finally all up, showered and ready, we searched for a drug store. My sister needed to buy a card and film. We were also hoping to pass some place selling food on the way. Little did we know that almost nothing is open in downtown Baltimore on a Saturday.

We headed for the store a staffer had told us about the day before. It wasn't open, so we asked some people who looked like they were in town for Otakon if they knew about another place. They directed us to a drug store a couple blocks away.

Being one of the only places open, this store was busy. You could figure out right away the things otaku like to buy. For example, the Mountain Dew was gone. We were able to find everything we wanted, though, and more, besides. We hadn't been looking at all for a Harlem Globetrotter, and yet we found one.

An extremely tall guy was waiting in line just ahead of us, waiting to buy a bottle of water, wearing a golden Harlem Globetrotters outfit. This was my second Harlem Globetrotters sighting this year. The Globetrotter wasn't just tall; he was also big, as if someone had dropped an ordinary man into growth hormone. Next to him, my sister's fiancé only came up to about his elbow.

Since the drug store didn't offer much to eat besides candy and crackers, we walked to the food court at the Baltimore Harbor and got something at a New York style deli. Even as we ate, we started to see some otaku, including two girls dressed like Princess Mononoke.

Once we'd eaten, we stopped by the BCC. My sister had less than an hour before she was going to go back to the hotel room, get ready and leave. The bride had told her to arrive several hours early. We had fun people-watching on the way to the Info Desk, where we dropped off a soda for The Gryphon.

My sister noted that many of the female cosplayers wore revealing outfits and yet had done nothing with their hair or makeup. She said it was like little girls playing dress up.

Even though we didn't have much time, I managed to introduce my sister and her fiancé to a few friends. Then we cruised around the BCC, looking for bulletin boards to hang up some Wild Violet flyers.

After my sister left, her fiancé and I hung around to check out more of Otakon, since we had longer before we had to go to the wedding, a couple hours, in fact.

One of the first things I did was take him to Video Ops, where I figured we could get a good recommendation of what to see. For once, The White Rabbit was seated, not dashing off somewhere. I introduced him to my sister's fiancé and asked for a suggestion of what to see. One of the Video Ops staffers referred to a laptop and read aloud the schedule.

When he said, "AMVs, Anime Music Videos," my sister's fiancé perked up. He said that he'd seen some of those on the Web, particularly for Trigun, and was interested in seeing more.

On the way down to Video One, we passed quite a few colorful characters. The AMV Contest was standing room only: or rather, sitting on the floor only. We took a seat on the cement, not far from the door. As we watched, dozens more people followed suit.

We got there in time to watch the Serious/Dramatic videos. I put my phone on vibrate and held it in my hand. This was a good idea, because The Gryphon did call. I left the theater to speak to him and had some trouble hearing him over the crowd. Finally, I conveyed where we were, and he told me he was helping out patrolling the Dealers' Room and would be there for awhile.

So when my sister's fiancé got tired of watching AMV's, I suggested we check out the Dealers' Room and called The Gryphon to let him know. He met us at the staff entrance.

Although my sister's fiancé knows quite a bit about anime, probably more than I did when I first started, he didn't want to get anything big for himself. He did, however, stop at a booth called Kawaii Gifts, which means Cute Gifts, to look for something for my sister.

After browsing for awhile, he settled on some refrigerator magnets with panda sushi. In other words, it showed cute little pandas inside of sushi, in this case shrimp sushi. We agreed that this was both cute and disturbing and thought it suited my sister's sense of humor.

I also found some "cute evil," namely two Hello Kitty clip-ons, one of which wore a red vinyl devil suit and the other wearing a purple bat suit with a black cape. I later showed them off to a staffer who loves Hello Kitty and who was LARP-ing, he said, as a gay character, which coincidentally gave him license to parade around the BCC in colorful skirts and tank tops, with Hello Kitty clipped to his bag.

From the Dealers' Room, I suggested we go to the Art Room, where we could visit Artist Alley and Art Show. First I walked through Artist Alley handing out cards for Wild Violet. I'm trying to convince more artists to send me their work.

Then we browsed the artwork at Art Show, some of which was really well done. The adult section wasn't worth seeing, being far too strange this year, whether it was yaoi or tentacle inspired. Enough said.

By the time we had seen everything we wanted to see in Art Show, my sister's fiancé was getting really thirsty. The Gryphon offered to get some bottled water and meet us in Video Gaming. Although he plays a lot of video games at home, my sister's fiancé was more interested in watching other people play. We wandered around and saw some entertaining things, including two guys competing on DDR who were so fast it was astonishing.

The Gryphon, as promised, arrived with the water. By now we had to admit that time was running out, but having enjoyed everything so much, my sister's fiancé wanted to know about gophering next year. I walked him up to Gopher Ops to talk to them about what was involved. He smiled the whole time, nodding his head. He was hooked.

Time was running out and we had to go back to the hotel to change. On the way out the door, we ran into two cosplayers dressed as the male and female versions of Ranma. I had to photograph them, because only the day before I'd told someone that would be a great idea.

These two Ranmas told me they hadn't known each other before the convention. Gee, I wonder if they have anything in common?

After we were ready, we took a taxi to the wedding, at St. Ignatius Church. In the lobby, we ran into an old friend whom I'll call Sven. He picked up that nickname from my brother, when they convinced people at a State College party that they were Swedish exchange students named Sven and Yuri. Neither of them looks Swedish, especially not Sven, who's Hispanic.

Sven, who's now in law school in Washington, D.C., was happy to see us. He asked me if I'd lost more weight, and I said yes. He said he could see it in my face.

When people started to file in, we found ourselves a seat. A little later, looking for the restroom, I saw the bridesmaids, all decked out, and I told them they looked great, which they did.

Back upstairs, I took some photos of the church. A Catholic church, it was lovely, with decorous touches like a ceiling mural.

But I soon discovered that I was back too far to take decent pictures. First of all, the church was too big for a flash to do much good. And of course, when I turned off the flash, any little movement produced a blurry image. So my photos of the wedding are more impressionistic.

Along with the wedding program, the ushers had given us a detailed map of Charles Street, to help us find the reception. The map also listed other businesses along the way. As we milled in the lobby afterwards, someone suggested we meet up at the Owl Bar in the Belvedere Hotel and get a couple drinks to kill time before the reception. Sounded like a great idea.

We walked up or drove, as the case may be. In our small group were Sven, my sister's fiancé, me and the guy I'll call The Hat. Before the wedding, I'd never seen him without his brown fedora. Sure enough, as soon as he left the wedding, he put the battered hat back on.

With us was also a friend of the bride's from Lancaster. She said she hoped we didn't mind her tagging along. I told her she was welcome. She and I got talking about how right the bride and groom were for each other, and how well their families blended.

We found the Belvedere Hotel, which was an historic hotel, it seemed. Inside, the place was all old, dark wood. A greeter asked us if we were the such-and-such wedding, and we said no. Apparently, they were also holding a reception there, for another bridal party. We took seats at the bar, since the tables were only for those having meals.

We women sat at one end of the bar and talked about dogs, primarily. Eventually, another couple joined us, the woman sitting on a bar stool next to me. She and I had met at the bridal shower a couple months ago.

The three of us ended up shifting the conversation from dogs to politics. I had a couple amaretto sours and was happy I wasn't driving.

Closer to the reception's starting time, we walked up. It was only a couple blocks away in the Preston Room. The Preston Room was a little stuffy once all the people arrived. I heard from someone that another party had just left before we got there, so the air conditioning was probably overtaxed. Of course, the bride and groom probably decided on the place last fall or winter, so how could they have known?

But the Preston Room was a classy place, with a hardwood dance floor. We were directed first to a balcony, where there was an open bar and hors d'oeuvres like cheese and fondue. I noticed a guy I'll call Mr. Fashion, who was wearing a trendy looking black jacket with white stitches. I made some joke about something, and he rolled his eyes.

Then we all moved downstairs to our assigned tables. Shortly afterwards, The Gryphon arrived, bringing along our wedding presents. He hadn't been able to spare the time for both the wedding and the reception, and the bride said that it would be best for him to just come to the reception. He was wearing the tie I'd picked out and looked happy to get there.

At our table were my sister and her fiancé, two other bridesmaids, Mr. Fashion and two cousins of the groom.

The best man, also the groom's brother, gave a really sweet toast. He talked about how much the couple has in common, about how he spent time playing a very intellectual board game with them, when the two of them kept playing when everyone else dropped out. And he shared a story about going to the art museum with them and listening to them talk about the paintings. He joked that he learned from this that he shouldn't let them pick the activity. But he also learned how right they were for each other.

Of course, after dinner was the cutting of the cake. The D.J., who'd been playing dinner music and lounge music, started playing dance music, mostly from the 1990s. My sister and I were some of the first on the floor, but a big group joined us, jamming out to the tunes.

The bride gave the bouquet directly to my sister, since she knew my sister was getting married next anyway. I also figured it was her way of avoiding all the hokey traditions that go along with throwing the bouquet.

As we danced in the stuffy room, we got very, very hot but didn't care, especially as long as the champagne kept flowing. The wedding photographers snapped lots of pictures of us. I'd love to see them, because mine didn't turn out that great. The room was too dark.

The Gryphon left before the rest of us, to return to his duties. A little less than an hour later, my sister, her fiancé and I headed out. We said our good-byes to the bride, who thanked us for coming.

They told us that someone at our table could take the flowers, so I asked Mr. Fashion and the other bridesmaids if they minded us taking them. They said that was fine. Mainly, I liked the glass vase.

We had been told by The Gryphon that the best place to catch a taxi was a block away, so we walked over there. It took a little while, but we flagged down a cab. A strange thing happened: next to us on the curb was a middle-aged African-American man, alone, who was also trying to hail a cab. He got in the back seat, and the cab driver made him get out, saying that he'd been pulling over because he'd seen us.

I felt really bad about this, but then another cab pulled up immediately afterwards and picked up the man.

Back at the hotel, my sister looked like a piece of wilted celery, in her celeron dress. She flopped on the bed.

"I guess this means you don't want to go back to Otakon," I said.

She made a grunting sound. She perked up briefly when her fiancé gave her the panda sushi magnets, but it wasn't enough for her to want to come back over. Her fiancé decided to stay in with her.

So I got changed, clipping Devil Kitty onto my shirt and Bat Kitty onto my bag, and headed back to the BCC. On the way, I ran into Batman, who told me about a room party he was having. I promised to stop by but told him I was going to try to convince The Gryphon to come along first.

By the time I got to the Info Desk, he was far too ingrained in his work. I hung out for a short while. He was very apologetic, thinking that I was disappointed with him. I told him not at all: "You've got to do what's right for you."

When I was ready to head out, I told him where the party was and to meet me there when he was done.

The party was in full-swing when I arrived. The Reg Queen was there, along with the Warrior Princess and a number of other friends, as well as some people I didn't know. I spent a long time joking with Agent Smith and some other people about a candy called "Smints," which I claimed stood for "sucky mints," partly because they were almost impossible to open for someone who'd been drinking wedding champagne.

One of the partiers was getting a bit belligerent. He asked me, with a hint of menace in his voice, if the red blotch on my right arm was a tattoo.

I informed him it was a scar from my smallpox vaccination. "Why would I get a tattoo that looks like a suck mark?" I asked him.

As the party wore on, various people came through, including The White Rabbit, who seemed to think it was a bad idea to jump on the beds, as I suggested; The Dormouse and with them (yay!) The Gryphon, whom I gave a big kiss when he came in.

Apparently, this full-mouth kiss wasn't enough of a hint for at least one of the party goers. He was talking to me at the wee end of the party. He was friendly, so I talked back. Even if I hadn't been dating The Gryphon, he was much too young for me. I and other people dropped hints about The Gryphon and I being a couple, but I suppose I should have been more blatant.

At the end of the evening, when he saw me and The Gryphon leaving together, he asked The Dormouse, "Are they together?"

"Yes, since last year, the Sunday after Otakon," he told them, surprising me with his recall.

"Oh," the clueless partier said. Pause. "So I guess it's pointless to ask for her phone number?"

Everyone there had a good time, but our host found himself teetering on the edge of the Pool of Tears which had so nearly drowned me last year. Fortunately, he had not only The Dormouse but a number of other friends to pull him to dry land and safety.

I didn't really want to go to sleep just yet, but the hotel lobby had brought down a metal gate, sealing off the hallway where the bathrooms are. We had little choice but to return to our room. We tried to do so carefully, not waking my sister and her fiancé, who had a long drive ahead of them the next day.

More from my Summer Vacation:

August 3, 2004 - Rainy Arrival

August 4, 2004 - The Poopdeck

August 5, 2004 - The Beach at Last

August 6, 2004 - Wetlands Hippie

August 9, 2004 - Intermittent Fun

August 10, 2004 - Overture to Otakon

August 11, 2004 - Delicious and Good Day

August 13, 2004 - Grand Finale

August 16, 2004 - Denouement

August 20, 2004 - More Vacation Pics

Musings on Otakon 2006:

August 8, 2006 - Bunny Ears of Command

Musings on Otakon 2005:

August 23, 2005 - All Aboard

Musings on Otakon 2003:

August 13, 2006 - Day One: Down the Rabbit-Hole

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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