Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
August 25, 2005 - Descent
Saturday at Otakon, The Gryphon and I walked over to the BCC together. I checked in with the Big Kahuna to find out what he wanted me to do. He had condensed the registration stations and put me on the station taking at-door admissions.
Somewhat surprisingly, we had a little bit of a line backed up just after opening the doors and had to open a second line to clear it out. At this point, we expected most of the people we were processing to be pre-registered, and we were right.
I wasn't keeping an exact eye on the time, but I believe I did the last at-door registration at about noon and a sign went up immediately, letting people know we'd reached our attendance cap.
At this point there was very little to do at registration, so the Big Kahuna told me I could leave and come back at noon the next day. Through the grapevine, I heard some additional workers capable of using the point-of-sale system might be needed at the Otakon merchandise table, so I wondered down to the Dealers' Room with The Gryphon.
The date of our second anniversary, August 17, actually passed before the convention, and we'd agreed to get each other presents in the Dealers' Room. I headed straight for a jewelry, Undiscovered Treasures, from whom I bought the beautiful necklace I'd worn to my sister's wedding. I chose a really nice necklace and earring set.
The Gryphon, for his part, wanted to get some imported CD's, and he got three. I believe the one I actually paid for was music from the very cute videogame, Katamari Damacy.
I picked up a few other things, like the first volume of the Kare Kano manga. I love the series but had never read the manga. And when we stopped by the Otakon merchandise table, I bought this year's baby T and The Gryphon got along-sleeved button-down Oxford shirt.
I told the person running the table that I was available. She said they didn't need me right then but they had a shift change at 2, so I should come by at 2:30 to 3 and see how they were doing then. But she didn't anticipate needing me.
We had a nice look around and then The Gryphon had to get back upstairs. I was exhausted from another late night, so I went back to the hotel and took a nap before returning to check in at the merchandising table.
The nap made a world of difference, and I was feeling much more positive when I returned. This may be one reason I had a better experience at Otakon than I've had before. Although previously, last year's convention was my best one ever. As I've told The Gryphon, any baggage you bring with you becomes that much worse when you get to the convention. Recently, my personal life has been very good, thanks mostly to him.
When I returned
to the merchandising table, I was told once more I wasn't needed. I took
a more thorough look around the dealer's room but couldn't find anything
else I wanted to buy, though I did get some more photos of interesting
cosplayers, such as Inspector Gadget.
A quick check of the Art Room also revealed they didn't need my assistance staffing their registers, so I actually looked through the program book for something to see. The Para-Para contest looked promising. We'd been doing it for a couple years, and I'd never seen it in person. It's a type of dancing heavily reliant on precise arm movements. It reminds me of American cheerleading, except without the emphasis on kicks and gymnastics.
They had selected some finalists, who competed in the first round and received comments from three judges. As it turned out, one of the contestants, an Otakon Information Desk staffer, was competing in a Card Captor Sakura costume. He and I always talk about Hello Kitty when we see each other, so his Musing nickname will be Mr. Kitty.
Mr. Kitty
actually did well enough to advance to the finalist round. While he didn't
place in the top two, he was a crowd favorite.
I checked in then with The Gryphon to see about dinner. Now, he and I had talked about going out someplace on the town, dressing up a bit. But as it turned out, it was enough to just get him away from the BCC for a short while, so we went somewhere close, a sports bar across the street. There wasn't much waiting, and when they saw our staff badges it seemed they were extra nice to us.
It was good to get away for just a little bit, and to give him a little moral support, as I could see he needed. The nature of his job, as I'd discover later, meant giving emotional support to others, helping them figure out crises. He really needed some support himself, as well.
After dinner we were going to cruise the Art Room to see if there were any prints we wanted for the apartment, but things came up and he couldn't come with me. I looked through it by myself, walking up and down all the aisles. While much of it was really good, it just wasn't what I'd hoped to hang in our dining room.
I decided to stop by the Masquerade, which was another event I'd never seen in my years at Otakon. Mostly, I'd tended to avoid it because I heard it was a lot of in-jokes about various series. But I decided to give it a shot.
There were a couple series where I got the jokes, such as Fruits Basket. And there were even some skits where you didn't need to know the series. For example, there was a cute sketch done by a father and his daughter. She was dressed as a dog and he was trying to get her to go through a hoop. She refused until he offered her Pocky as a reward. Then she hopped through the hoop, to massive applause. She was so overwhelmed with the response, he had to gently drag her off the stage. That last bit, I'm fairly certain, wasn't rehearsed.
And there was a really funny commando style sketch where two characters are on a mission to Otakon to get some Yaoi for their commander.
But I gave it less than half an hour before deciding to leave, to check in with The Gryphon and see what he needed. It was a wise choice. By this point on Saturday, staffers were reaching their breaking point. They were hitting the steep descent, plunging to their emotional nadirs. As we walked around, helping with these concerns, it began to seem as if every time we entered a room someone would break down in tears. I'm hoping it's because they saw some friendly faces, there to offer them support, and not because there's something about The Gryphon and I that make people cry.
Of course, some people found entertaining ways to relieve the stress, such as the funny signs that had appeared in the various Ops rooms. One group of people relieved stress by making a target out of some spare cardboard and hurling a rice ball at it, which was wrapped in plastic and remarkably resilient. No matter how many times they struck the target with it, the rice ball stayed intact.
In between crises, I tried to give The Gryphon some support, through backrubs and hugs and telling him what a great job he was doing. It made me wish I'd been there for more of the day, to give him more support. I think he'd been running himself pretty ragged.
Compounding the descent, at the very end of the evening, we had an additional operational concern. The Ravens-Eagles game was going to be letting out, and in the past this has typically meant a lot of door-crashing of the convention. So there had to be a plan laid to head this off. Some exits were closed or blocked off, while others had more staff presence posted.
The Gryphon and I walked around to help enforce it. Despite his physical and emotional exhaustion, he kept going, staying on top of things, a trait of his I really admire.
It helped when we got to return to Con Ops as we waited for different parts of the convention center to close down so rooms could be swept free of members for the night. One of the staffers was joking that her shoulder kept talking to her, since she was wearing one of the communication radios. Whenever it made a sound, she took a pen and made jabbing gestures towards it, cracking me up.
By the time
we got to bed, once again late, we knew we only had a short time left
to ride out.
More from Otakon 2005:
August 26, 2005 - Riding It Out
August 30, 2005 - End of the Ride
Musings on Otakon 2006:
August 8, 2006 - Bunny Ears of Command
Musings on Otakon 2004:
August
10 , 2004 - Overture to Otakon
Musings on Otakon 2003:
Moral:
Sometimes the most you can hope for is someone to catch you when you
fall.
Copyright
2005 by Alyce Wilson
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