If you are me (and after today’s attempt to wash the cat, I know many of you are glad you are NOT me) then you most likely cram way too many unimportant and unessential things into your too small suitcase, wander away for a bit, and then come back and repack all of your items into a larger suitcase. And then overstuff your carry on.

All of this means that you get no sleep and end up sleeping on the plane. With your head thrown back and wedged between the cabin wall and your seat, your mouth hanging open, and softly snoring the whole way from Boston to Atlanta.

I left Boston for the ATL on Thursday afternoon. Living in a post-Sept. 11th world not only means that Dick Cheney can tell you that a vote for Kerry is a vote for your firey death, but it also means practically stripping naked in front of security guards at the airport. Let this be a lesson to all fashionistas everywhere. Don’t wear low-rider pants that are so tight and low that your wide metal belt is the only thing keeping you decent. Also, don’t wear your cute, pointy toe shoes with the metal buckles on them, unless you want to pull a Britney and wander the airport barefoot. Ewww. Also, you’ll have to take off your jacket, your earrings and pray that your bra wasn’t so costly that the underwire will trip the metal detector. Basically, after I finished taking off all the metal I was wearing, I realized that yes, I was that girl. You know, the one who pays with pennies at the supermarket and holds up the line.
I flew AirTrans which is cheap and….well, it’s cheap. It’s like flying in a cardboard box with wings. The seat cushions are lumpy and narrow, they barely recline and in some places the seams are non existent. Just as we landed, taxi-ing on the hot tarmac, a baby threw up. An acidic stench hung in the hot air as we waited for permission to get the hell out of there. I can see the commercials now: AirTrans, we fight homesickness by bringing you the joys of your home town’s public transportation to you! Choose AirTrans. The commercial would show Bostonites boarding a morning flight and being greeted by a drunk who insults every ticket holder and yet has a group of admirers sitting right behind him, rooting him on. The pilot would be reading a newspaper while he navigated the skies. Passengers out of San Francisco would feel right at home when they board a plane and wait because the staff has promptly gone on strike. Don’t even bother wondering about LA AirTrans because they never go where you need them to go and when they do, they take the long way. Rather, the commercial would cheerily show the “fruitful” talks between the company and the passengers who organized themselves into a union. I could go on and on [insert your home town’s troubled buss/train woes here].

But the flying part was fine and none of my luggage was lost so perhaps I should shut up now. Closer2myself was kind enough to meet me at the airport and all I had to do in exchange was to wait with her, Priderocs, and Calzephyr for a couple of hours until our first Tribe Cast member flew in, Matt Robinson. I thought it was a fair deal: meet three awesome girls who I immediately felt as if I’d known all my life and then meet a pretty boy? Shoot, I do that everyday!

After the airport, I behaved obnoxiously and loudly on the MARTA as only a Los Angeleno/Boston commuter can on a Southern train. Actually, I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I needed a segueway. Most of the Tribe events were at the trak room in the Marriot so the girls and I headed off to our very first on site staff meeting. I was very excited to be a part of the team this year, especially since Closer2myself aka Scapebabe, the track director, had been pimpin’ the wonders of staffdom all year long. She knows just how to convince me- mostly by stroking my ego. She said I could use my mouthy ways for the powers of good. I figured it’d be a nice change of pace. Since Scape had everything under control and the meeting went smoothly, I was off to my hotel (sadly I couldn’t get a room at the DragonCon hotels so I stayed at the Amerisuites two blocks away) to meet my roommates for the next week.

Gentle Readers, I have a confession. I have bad roommate karma. Don’t get me wrong, usually I travel with the wonderful Rocknrollgidget whom is never anything but gracious, organized and considerate. However, other roommate experiences have been disasters. Long time readers may remember a con where one of my roommates threw up and left the mess for me to clean up. Or perhaps the college roommate who loudly fellated her lip gloss at five a.m. Of course, no roommate experience is complete without the girl who threatens the apartment residents with weapons. Good Times.

God must have taken pity on a poor soul ‘cause this year my roommates where deeeeeeviiiiiiine! I stayed with Divagypsy, Diamondmeadows and her mom. Super cool, laid back and just plain interesting. They told me all about different fandoms I knew nothing about. I love learning new things. J-rock, comic books and Voltaire. But more of Voltaire later.

The staff was supposed to meet the rest of the new cast at midnight, so I toddled off to the Marriot with my Big Ass Taking Up Important Room For Shoes In My Suitcase Bag of Candy For The Guests From Kellygirl At Pop Culture Palace. After some sitting around, stretching and zoning off on my part – as well as assuring people that just ‘cause I was a social worker didn’t mean that I spent all my time psychoanalyzing the people around me, the cast showed up!
I almost didn’t recognize Tori Spence (Salene). I know this is horribly unfeminist of me, but she looked so much taller and thinner in real life. Plus she was blonde. That threw me off. She was all smiles and laughter. Danny James seemed really quiet but he greeted us with a sweet smile. He seemed overwhelmed by the size of the hotel from the first moment he got there. I had already met Matt earlier, but he showed up to say hi to his old castmates. The minute he came up amongst us girls, we all got really quiet. Which to me was hilarious since the silence was extremely loaded as well as obvious. I assured him we most certainly had not been talking about him (honestly, we might have been, I don’t remember) and then people laughed and he was his usual outgoing, charming self. And then there was their handler Emily. I didn’t get much of a read off of her other than she was really short. I’m short too, so I’m not being catty here. That’s just what I remember. I handed her my bag of candy and went off to my room. To finally get some sleep in a non-upright position, without having to stow my carry-ons.

That night, as I lay in bed, my final thought was, “I’m getting too old to not get enough sleep.” Last year I was all giddy and crazy from not getting enough sleep, but without Kellygirl there to egg me on into doing stupid and humiliating things to myself (luckily, after a couple of days, Calzephyr would fill this role nicely), the sleepyness just became crankiness. Like I said before, I’m only one quarter of the Fab in Fabulous Girls Productions.