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Saturday - Not Quite Girls Gone Wild
As much as I would’ve liked to see the Parade, sleep was a higher priority on the list. We still had to be up and bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed for the Fabulous Girls’ interview with Matt and John that was scheduled for noon. Again, copious thanks
go out to Tribe Red Dragon for setting this up for us. So we arrive and everyone else exits the room so it’s just the
guys and the Fab Girls. And well... I guess you’ll just have to wait for the interview to be put up, won’t you
now? Suffice to say that they came in thinking that we hated them and that you can tell the exact moment when everyone relaxes
because the swear words start to sneak in. Many laughs were had and we left feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
And I needed that because Saturday afternoon was to be my first time as a panelist at the Girlpower in Tribeworld panel. Eep.
But of course I wasn’t alone and honestly with all the chairs pulled into a circle it didn’t feel intimidating
at all. And everyone there had something to contribute and it was just an awesome discussion. I was so excited. Yay! After
that panel we hung around for Matt’s Q&A then headed back to our room to rest before the evening plans.
The evening plans were kind of like two worlds colliding. See, I’m used to DragonCon being pretty Tribe-centric but
a few of our friends from LJ-land and Buffy fandom were coming in for the day. So Dreago and I met up with Aninnocent, Escape,
Nongenius and her beau, and Teleri and also got to meet Chris and Alan who Escape and Aninnocent had met on a Buffy cruise.
Many laughs were had over yummy Mexican food despite the ineptitude of our waitress. C’mon you shouldn’t have
to sit there looking at your food after already having asked for silverware once. Post-dinner, we thought we’d go check
out the Buffy Prom. We walked in the door, looked around, walked out of the door. It was no Shindig, let me tell you. Eventually,
we decided to split up - it was great to see/meet everyone but there were things we wanted to do.
Things that involved another change of clothes.
Dreago and I went and changed into more bellydance appropriate clothes and headed to the drum circle. Whereupon I was struck
with terminal shyness. Now, back when Dreago and I were taking dance classes together, it was taught by New Age-y feminists
and every class ended with the dreaded ‘circle dance.’ In circle dance, they would put on music and everyone in
the circle would take a turn dancing and everyone else would copy them. Dreago always complained that she didn’t know
how to ‘dance what she felt’ because her mind would go blank. However, out there in the drum circle, she was amazing
- sensual and confident. I, on the other hand, turned so graceless and clumsy that I have to stop talking about it right
now. After we’d had enough, we left only to get sidetracked by the free caricature artist. Dreago spent the rest of
the weekend asking people if they’d seen the girls in the sketch because we didn’t know who they were. In all
fairness, I blame us. See, we didn’t have to sit still or anything so we started chatting and of course we’re
telling all these crazy stories which I’m sure were very distracting. It’s a lot like my last two haircuts. The
first one, Dennis and I had been gabbing up a storm and I ended up with hair that was pretty uneven and I mean that literally.
At my most recent haircut, his partner was there so we were quieter and my hair came out beautiful. Moral of the story - don’t
distract the artist.
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In Russia, horse lands on dancer! --Saturday, DragonCon 2005
Let's get one thing straight. Us Fabulous Girls? We're old. Yup. Old. We've got professions, bills, real estate, spouses and
the occasional grey hair. In our youth obsessed culture, we are at a disadvantage. Luckily, there is one major plus in our
column when we contemplate being grown-ups. Simply, put, we do things because we can. We've been there, done that and we're
just too frickin' tired to worry about what people are gonna say about it the next day.
Or at least that is what we tell ourselves when we get ready to ask the boys of the band, Last Picture Show, how big there
ummm, gigs are.
The interview goes well. In fact, too well. As Matt Robinson is talking, a horrible thing happens. I begin to believe he is
being genuine. For a split second, I am horrified for him. He actually believes his own b.s.! That's actor mistake number
1 ! Then I am horrified for myself. Did I just fall for his b.s.? That's interviewer mistake number 1! I was very torn. It's
not that I didn't like him the previous year. I just thought he was playing the game. And I thought he played it very well.
But what if it is not b.s. at all? Holy Crap, can someone actually be that charming and be sincere? At the time, I just couldn't
figure it out. And then I couldn't figure out what the hell I was going to write. I mean, it is hard to snark on someone you
actually like, no? So in the end, I have chosen to concede. Matt really is as nice as everyone says. Or he is a hell of an
actor and clearly The Tribe has failed to fully impress that fact upon me. Either way, I don't know and I don't care. Dreago
0 : Matt Robinson 1.
Besides, I figured I would let a couple of weeks go by and soon, all the warm fuzzies would fizzle and I'd be back to my old
snarky self again! There was no snark at the next event, the GirlPower panel. This year, princessbride24 shared the mod duties
and she did a great job as I knew she would. The panel went at a really fast clip and we had quite the crowd. In fact, I think
we had a bigger panel crowd this year than last year. Maybe next year if we get a Tribe actress we could invite her to sit
in our circle and share her opinions about the women of Tribe. Because the women of the Tribe fandom are an opinionated bunch!
That evening we met all aninnocent, escape, nongenius and her beau, and teleri025 and also got to meet Chris and Alan
who Escape and Aninnocent had met on a Buffy cruise for dinner. We had dinner, drinks and tons of laughs. We wanted the party
to never end, but the Buffy Prom officially killed our fun.
The Buffy Prom was terrible. But that's just my opinion as my prom was not held in a gymnasium. There are those who say that
the Buffy Prom recreated a high school prom perfectly. It's true that when we walked in, there were kids lined up on one wall,
and there was a similar line seated on the opposite side. A couple of sad balloons floated along the floor. The room smelled
sweaty. Only a couple of people milled around on the floor. This is what happens when the geeks who sat out at the Prom decide
to host one themselves. Everybody sits out then. Our band of geeks-that-were decide we had enough of high school the first
time around and leave. We make plans for brunch the next day.
Kel and I run upstairs and put on our belly dancing clothes. All year long, whenever we have felt frustrated, when our hips
fail to extend themselves, when our arms got droopy, when our zills failed to trill, we told ourselves, "we can do it, we're
practicing for drum circle." We had never been before but we had heard such wonderful things! We hoped our ability to draw
a figure eight with our hips in three dimensions (horizontal, vertical, saggital) would give us some cred considering we were
beginners and I cannot dance what I feel at all.
We get to the circle. We get cold feet. There are hardly any dancers on the floor. Except for the heavy set Tribal dancer
whose shimmy was flawless and the very skinny lyrical dancer who had so much heart you couldn't deny her passion for expressing
herself through dance, most of the other dancers were all belly and no beledi. And that's all I am going to say about that
because I don't want to criticize fellow dancers, especially when it may have been impossible to follow a beat because frankly,
the drumming SUCKED.
Still, Kellygirl and I persisted. Just when I am finally getting into it, just when I lose my inhibitions, just when I am
on the floor, on my knees, arching backwards, snake arming my little heart out, another dancer lands right on top of me. I'm
amazed I didn't break my back. Granted, she landed on my front and luckily for me, I'm plenty fleshy so I wasn't hurt, but
the wind was totally knocked out of me and I was knocked on my ass.
Dazed, I look up at the girl, expecting her to say I'm sorry and to help me up. I look at her. She laughs and looks at me.
I look at her. She looks at me. I LOOK AT HER. She says, "well, come on honey, you are supposed to get back on the horse."
Kellygirl, who is a graceful, dainty and delicate dancer who knows that belly dance is a grounded dance and would never fling
herself at you whilst dancing, helps me up. How was I supposed to know the horse was going to land on me?
We leave the circle and sit down in front of a caricature artist. We proceed to tell him the naughtiest stories we can think
of. It helps that most of our smutty misadventures are actually true, so we deliver them with straight faces and a bit of
a wink. Sadly this means our caricature looks nothing like us. We look Disneyfied which in my case, means they erased all
my ethnicity. I'm trying not to think too hard about why the artist associates sexy talk with Snow White. So who am I supposed
to be in his picture? The dead chick or the dwarf?
Kellygirl and I head off to bed, completely oblivious to the drama brewing in the bar. So continuing with the Fabulous Girl
trend of doing things because we can, I'll let you guys in on what I heard. Apparently, in a hilarious sitcom-like turn of
events, four separate dinner dates were made with a certain Tribe guest. At the same time. Needless to say, everyone was stood
up, at least for the moment. I don't know if there was bleeding or crying, but I do hear that the man of the hour wandered
some time later, earning forgiveness and charming everyon ewith a musical number. Awesome.
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