As with any blundering virgin, mistakes were made; I didn’t realize, for instance, that the Masquerade was an actual contest, and not a Ball. I saved my most elaborate costume for that night, only to discover that the participants had written up skits and signed up well in advance. Ah well. Next time. Besides, it was nice to kick back and watch the pros do their thing- there were some amazing, detailed costumes out there. It’s definitely something to shoot for going forward.

Despite getting to the party way late (so late in fact winners had already been selected) I got what amounted to a runner-up ribbon the first night, and another ribbon and encouragement the Masquerade night, telling me to keep it up, and be sure to enter for real next time, that I had an excellent shot. So that was nice pretty damn awesome. Charlie said the grin damn near split my face in half when they pinned it on me.

It’s only fitting, then, that that first costume was a Seamstress’ outfit. Again, not knowing all the convention conventions, I took the ‘Seamstresses Ball’ literally- and since Seamstress is a euphemism for “woman of negotiable affection,” I was…uh…not subtle.

In fact, I was in a dither before I left, and Charlie encouraged me to wear a red monstrosity of a wig which totally clashed with everything I had on, but what the hell. If you’re out there, trolling for business, ya wanna stand out, right? Right? Please? Ah well. Besides, the wig matched the whip. It’s those kind of details you need a pro for.

The strange thing was that there were very few seamstresses in the crowd. Maybe they have better shame mechanisms than I have?

At any rate, I’ll put up several posts on the Con, mostly about the guest of honor, of course, and then there was the side trip to the Grand Canyon, but I’ll kindly spare you the vile grossness I got sick with once we got home.

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About a month ago, I found out about NADWCON, the North American Discworld Con through Neil Gaiman’s blog, and things just haven’t been the same since.

First there was the “Charlie ‘talking’ me into it” phase- a farce, really, where he pointed out how it’s likely going to be the only chance to see the man in the flesh, so even though this isn’t the ideal time for a vaca, we need to do it. It wasn’t exactly a hard sell.

Then came the “Great! Let’s book tickets” phase, rapidly followed by the “Oh SHIT I didn’t read the membership page properly- the convention’s sold out!” and the “wheedling, whining and whimpering” phases, which actually ended successfully, with tickets in hand.

And there was much rejoicing.

Short lived rejoicing, however, which quickly morphed into panic as I discovered that costumes are de rigueur. COSTUMES! OMG! The PTSD shakes set in as I had flashbacks to being the worst-dressed pirate EVER at PirateCon.



They need to be Discworld-centric, obviously, so at least (unlike pirates) there’s no actual Troll or Dwarf to compare them to to see how close to authenticity you came, which is a relief. On the other hand, 898 other attendees have had 2 years to prepare for the event, and I had only 3 1/2 weeks.

Also, the convention lasts 4 days, and…well, you can’t wear the same costume for 4 days straight, right? So, if we assume a minimum of two costumes each, with adornments and all the accompanying accessories…uh…well, it doesn’t take long to get out of hand.

Rough calculations are that I’ve gone through:

and last but not least:

Well. Now that it’s listed, I admit feeling a little sheepish about it all. But, what the heck. Sleep’s over rated, right? Sanity too, apparently. And it’s not like I’m doing it alone. I’ve kicked a bunch of stuff over to Charlie, who, despite having a deadline looming has set aside the real world today in favor of assembling his wizard’s staff (complete with glowing crystal ball at the top- I’m particularly proud of that detail) and turning his shoe covers into pointy toed monstrosities.

Oh, and the birds are most excited about all the chaos, too and have been doing their best to assist. I’ve read how Greys are scaredy cats and phobic with new things but Pratchett just could not wait to fly over and get into everything. He got all tangled in the ribbon, stepped in a bunch of loose beads- nothing phased him, and he just loves the chaos. The rotary cutter particularly excited him and I ended up taking the blade out and just handing it over. After taking it apart in no time flat he brought it over to me to reassemble so he could do it again. And again. And again.

Somehow, despite Pratch’s best efforts, I’m not even close to done and I find myself willing to settle for simply not embarrassing the hell out of myself in an aforementioned nightmarish flashback to PirateCon. Every available second is being used to hot glue or stitch something, even during a dinner earlier this week, prompting a friend to sigh, “Don’t mind my friend Tess, she’s a little OCD about her costumes.”

Actually, I was supposed to spend this month helping Charlie’s daughter Abigail with a website to market her phenomenal, amazing, fantabulously scrumptious cookies when I suddenly fell off the face of the earth. My chagrined apology included ‘dork’ and ‘geek’ as descriptors. Ab’s very kind reply was,

“I think it sounds great and will be a lot of fun. I don’t think you’re a dork; I believe official dorkage starts once you start playing dungeons and dragons. Until then you’re safe.”

I’m not sure she realized that I passed well into D&D territory a long time ago.