Linda says, "No thong day this year", but let's hang anyway! Sakura-con (and stuff)

Beware: I have been maudlin. I have held my hand to my brow and sighed. I blame the Victorian Fiction I have read, yes books, full of all sorts of words.

Today, I decided that having spent my first two decades linking ‘dressing up’ with “Corsage” instead of ‘Corset’ IS the definition of a tragic life (don't worry, lots of starving and sleeping on floors but still, 'Corsage' a 'yes', but 'Corset' only a puzzled look - it torques the heart and makes me want to start a telethon!) These books make my brain buzz, mostly with, “You HAVE to get better Elizabeth and write more books!” So many good ideas with failed potential, alas. I don’t get outside, I am rather chained to my bed these days. Linda thinks we should try having me actually SEE the sun perhaps once a week or so. If the sun would co-operate.

I am awake. I changed the HTML on Screw Bronze, or tried (to make it easier to read with bigger pictures).

I am fever free. And have been for 36 hours. Yes, I wrote that fever free.

I sent out, er, about 100 postcards, um, recently so many people should get one soon. I was a little behind and now I am caught up….almost. But between that, and weeks of doing odd impressions of a fish out of water on the floor and lying in my bed doing the roller-coaster of a heart gone funky I am sort of mixed up on days/months stuff. I have electric heart autonomic failure so when I get fatigued the heart goes…..well, on the monitor there are beats and beats and then nothing and I look at Linda and she looks at me and we look at the monitor and wait to see if the heart will beat again before I pass out. That is the ‘clank, clank, clank’ of the roller-coaster car pulled up the slope. Then after a few beats it will just start beating about 4-10 beats a second, and if it goes on for more than a second or two Linda goes, “Whoa” and that is the big downhill. It makes you a little sick feeling and one arm turns purple. So I have been under watch and only getting computer access when I can.
Still, decided, I am not going to die, I am going to live and I am going to meet people at Sakura-Con.

The Pre-Registration for Sakura-Con closes on March 3rd, and through the sale of several items I plan to pay for registration of myself, Linda and Cheryl. Sakura-Con goes on in Downtown Seattle from April 2nd-4th and the pre-registration of $50 is for all three days. Or you can pay for a single day. Youth 12-6 are 50% off and those under age 6 are free. There are special planes which bring Japanese fans to the Convention. I know because we flew to Japan with many of Japanese from the Convention.

Sakura-Con, not only is one of the ‘Big Three’ Cons, but the first big Con of the season, so best time to get the goodies from the vendors who just travel from Con to Con. Plus the creators of Sakura-con are fans who decided to make the ultimate fan based experience. So there is everything from ‘Cosplay Chess’, to rooms full of computers and game stations linked to play games together, dance machines (all free – you paid for it with the entry free), it takes over every room of the Hilton and Hyatt Seattle and the displays of Japanese culture, martial arts, to hobbies, as well as films not available in the US, animation not released here yet, Masquerade Ball and 3 days of 24 hour programming. Seriously, one reason NOT to stay at the Hilton is to avoid watching an Anime Series through the night instead of sleeping, and then getting to the goth loli fashion show, before the judo display or go and see the ‘Best Cosplay Costume Costume?’ There are autograph sessions with the dozen guests, and multiple guest bands. Last year, I thought someone was Cosplaying the technical punk with the red surgical masks with a health X on it, and it turned out to be the band checking out the guest Japanese Band checking out the exhibitors hall. There is full accommodation regarding disability.

I was going to post this in the first weeks of Jan but something happened, I think it was an injury and then Linda’s job and the fever so not quite the 4 months I wanted. But still, about 50 days, and if you want to book a hotel at the Con Rates, you have until March 3rd to make a reservation (which requires no deposit). Linda, Cheryl and I will all be going (Linda did not go last year but wants to go this year). Linda is saving for ‘contingency’, what ever that is (I think it is a name for ‘rent’) and Cheryl, um, well Cheryl is my sister and good friend but has blown all her money on cocaine (no she didn’t! Say no to drugs, because one day...one day...it will be YOUR turn to ‘treat’). I can’t pay for the hotel room (we got a one room with fridge last year) or the gas, but I will be there. Even if Linda has already said that bikini day is OUT and, unlike last year there, will be NO thong day (did I post that picture on the web?). Bummer. But still if you want to drive up or down or over for one of the days, or come to the Con, let’s hang, okay?

Big problem, I have to come up with NEW outfits for this year. I have already been working out. Turns out that Cosplay girl from last year in the divine pink dress was Cos-playing from Black Butler when young male Lord must cross-dress at a ball to find a killer (and is seduced, ‘my little robin’). So the girls were looking fab, cross-dressing as a boy cross-dressed as a young noble lady (you get used to it, honest!). Oh, and there is a room where you have to get a ‘safety tag’ on any weapons you bring, and promise not to attack any mortal enemies of the person you are cosplaying. And this year, I WILL behave myself, honest.
The ‘Guests’ from last year ranged from Abe who did Serial Angel Lain (and did signings), to the guys from Penny Arcade, the organizers keep signing up guest appearances until the last week. So from three days hard core gaming to Otaku heaven, or just hang with the Girl’s Gotta Fly gang. I am not boring in person, honest.

Stuck in the bed, I have been watching Lost season um…. something. All I know is that I REALLY want to meet the guys the Dharma Project got to subtract building half the stuff. Seriously, how was that work order written up? All I know that if I watch an entire season of a TV show, and can’t remember to tell you what matters except that there was addictively bad writing, I am the one who LOST (time). I hate, HATE shows where there is a bad guy, and everyone KNOWS they are a bad guy, that they lie all the time, and nice people die, and they aren’t killed, and they get captured and lie again, and more nice people die, and they STILL don’t get killed. See, people like that don’t actually last in a ‘lost’ situation but in government or in big corporations where they can be weasels. The reason they don’t last in the wild is because I or someone like me gets off the plane.
In my life I have met some, what in Britain would be called ‘Hard Men’ and one “Hard” Woman. Hard men don’t say, “You shouldn’t have done that.” They look at the situation before and they say, “Don’t do that.” They tend not to talk a lot, and because they don’t have a lot of guns (Scotland is the highest per capita knife killing city in Europe) if you do it then they just throw you out the window. Particularly when you live on the ninth floor, and they don’t check out the window or watch, they throw, then just pour a drink and sit down.

People who pour gasoline or light fires and set things on fire and put them through your mail box, those aren’t ‘Hard Men’ – those are drunks, who used to go after gays after closing. Bigots who used to break into our car just to sit inside and smoke and smash things, just because we loved each other. But I am not a ‘Hard’ woman, except the part of me which is, which is why we tell workers not to wake me up in arms reach. I mean, when Cheryl talks about having to work to pry my hand off her throat and I am not even awake, how embarrassing! But still, it is a nice island and I think I could have a lot of fun going around and searching stuff out. And let the British SAS guy three rows back take care of stuff. My friend was in Guards (like the Marines), and they were charged with guarding planes against the SAS. They KNEW the SAS was coming, it was a two day exercise and they had every plane and spotlight positioned, and every guard detail so NO ONE could get on that airfield much less near the planes. After a day, they called, ‘Exercise Over’ – and every single plane had an explosive hidden in it somewhere, and no one had found one or seen the SAS, never saw them after either. They come, they do the job and they go. And they at least have an order, many ‘Hard Men’ don’t.

Okay, that just isn’t cheerful. I think that means my pain meds are wearing off. Time to go soon.

Today, Linda brought back the post of a couple weeks (the boat was being repainted), and I have post. I was in a little world where I slowly drowning. There are times when, trapped in a bubble of pain or fatigue, or so much going so wrong it is hard to believe that tomorrow matters, that the next minute matters. That’s why I explained to Linda that instead of gifts this week, I needed to send as many postcards as possible. Because I could send six gifts or send fifty, or seventy, or more postcards as gifts - I chose the little bit for more people. Drown no more. Because I know from each letter I get that even though I can’t see you, a family of people appear around me, a community as I read about the action of this person’s cat or that person at school: Thank you for every postcard, every letter, every post, every communication. I have been trying to think of how to be ‘kind’, how to be ‘fun’ and someone people would like to get to know. I have been trying to think of how to be a good friend. And consistency is part of that. If you haven’t heard from me, I would like to hear from you (try to remember, God used my brain for a hockey puck so I have some memory issues). Or we could make memories and pictures at Sakura-Con?