Well, I hooked a substantial audience of mostly people who were actually there and already know what happened with part I. So that brings us to the thrilling conclusion. If you read the first half you know that I had just arrived at the con when I ran out of space in my journal. And if you didn't read the first journal then you're a poopyhead for skipping ahead to the good part.

Thanks to a shuffling of rooms and other arrangements that I never even fully grasped in the first place, much less retained well enough to reproduce here, my problem of where to lay my head had been solved just slightly in advance of my arrival. It ended up that there was an opening in Nevir and Ryoken’s room. When we discussed it, Nevir asked if I’d be okay with sharing a bed with a girl. Okay? That’s great! Way better than my typical convention sleeping arrangement. I’d yet to meet this girl, but the wondertwins there seem to attract some pretty good people, so I was pretty optimistic. Well, on her arrival, Redd Pandafox most certainly did not disappoint. I suppose her general bearing can be best summarized simply by the few moments that we spent getting her to the room.

“I’m totally not a Brony though,” she asserts, slamming the doors of her car, both of which were covered by a sprawling, five-foot Rainbow Dash decal, as she hands me a hamper containing a Rainbow Dash hooded bathrobe.

Her next assertion was the still-more-questionable, the claim of “I packed light.” As we filled a luggage cart to the point of crushing its own wheels with her supplies, four fursuits and entire suitcase full of booze. Yeah, she came prepared. At least it was easy to direct our caravan to the room. I just had to find the door that had our names and likenesses hanging from the door handle.

After apparently making a very good first impression on her over the ensuing 20 minutes, I helped her get together the Ocean’s Eleven crack team of various animals that we had packed into the baggage cart. She was very enthusiastic about her latest addition to the menagerie, a male deer-fox combination that looked teddy-bear-cute and extremely well-crafted. She speculated idly on which of her remaining characters might fit me, and we shortly got to testing that out. A red panda called Pocket was a good fit for me, and she was a good karmic balance given that Redd was also running with a gender-deceptive choice. This was obviously an opportunity that blindsided and thoroughly overwhelmed me, so in my staggering state of shock I pretty much just threw on the head, tail and paws over whatever I happened to be wearing at the time, making a right mockery out of what I’m sure is a very treasured character of Redd’s. I really will have to give more careful consideration to this sort of thing in the future. The last way I want to react to such generosity is with inconsiderate disrespect like that. I went out there wearing shorts. Shorts, in a fursuit! What the hell is wrong with me?

Regardless, suiting was a blast, as it always is. Having the precious Pocket Panda’s proper player presiding at the occasion was a unique opportunity for both of us, I think. Redd really seemed to appreciate what I brought to the character, so I do hope that I earned some redemption in that respect. I didn’t do anything special, necessarily. Followed my crew around, danced, socialized and generally did silly furry things. Nevir had counseled me about the altitude and the fact that it would necessitate an adjustment period. I hadn’t noticed it at all until I wrapped my head in carpet and started doing aerobic workouts. Funny how limited oxygen will put a harsh cap on such activities. Also, I’d swear that this elevation puts us measurably closer to the sun, as it was just beastly outside. I had this confirmed later when I looked at the UV index. It was an 11, which I didn’t know was possible. In any case, in spite of my rapidly-increasing recovery times, I like to think that Pocket Panda and I did her momma proud.

Pocket has a strange knack for public relations, I found. I was walking through the hotel and I noticed Ryoken amidst a small group talking adamantly. Not an uncommon occurrence with him, really, but I thought that I’d check in on the action. It turned out that it was one of those bewildered “just what the heck is going on here?” conversations that pop up on occasion when furries overlap with the general public. I rather enjoy such things, and people who will actually engage in a conversation to obtain this information are somewhat few and far between, so I joined in. Ryoken eventually ran off to satiate his short attention span with other activities, so I was carrying the conversation for a little while until Kota showed up to join in as well. We talked about everything under the sun, for far longer than I ever thought I could discuss such things.

My inquisitor for this little exchange was a middle-aged gentleman in a pastel polo shirt and khaki shorts named Jamie. Either vacationing or retired by the look of him. He kind of looked like the bald guy from Curb Your Enthusiasm. In any case, he was fascinated by the scene taking place before him, and I did my best to explain it all to him. A lot of the questions that he wanted answered are things that vary widely from person to person, and I did my best to bring that across; describing the general trends that I’d observed and going over my own situation in detail. The one that he kept coming back to was “What do you all get out of this?” an interesting query that I’d never heard phrased quite that way before. I admire him in the way he made me dig deep and really get to the heart of the reasoning behind why we were all doing whatever it was we were doing.

He apologized again and again for taking up so much of my time, but I really could think of no better use for it. So many people judge furries out of hand without ever even speaking to one of us in person, so I really treasure those few people that undertake the effort to ask these questions, get to know us and generate some truly informed opinions. That’s a rare opportunity, and I could hardly allow it to go to waste. I don’t often have the occasion to put these things into words, but that’s a really fun experience, to be honest. I mean, everybody loves talking about something they love. There were a few questions that I didn’t have answers for, some of which stuck with me. When it came up that I don’t tell my parents what I do here and he asked why, I was kind of stumped. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a particularly good reason.

Lots of people have extremely good reasons for keeping this sort of thing under wraps, like parents who would disown them or cut them off from the money they’re using for college if they found out. Still others have parents who attend with them, or at the very least support this particular oddball enthusiasm. I’m somewhere in the middle, I think. My parents would most likely think that this is just another weird thing that I do and not really look into it too much. It’s a lot less of a big deal what they think of my actions now that I’ve gained some independence. Well, I had independence for awhile there. That kind of evaporated when I left my job at the navy to go back to college. Now that I’m living with them during the summer I can’t really claim that they’re not involved in my life anymore. Maybe that’s where some of that pressure comes from. Ironically, I think it has a lot to do with my fear of doing for my parents what I so easily do with strangers, explaining exactly what the heck is up with all this furry stuff. I’ve always had a very good relationship with my parents, and I never realized what a rare and precious thing that was until I got out into the world a little bit and heard a lot of the much more tragic stories of my contemporaries. I guess that’s why I value it so much now, and I’m wary of anything that could potentially put a strain on that relationship. This certainly isn’t a secret that I plan to take to my grave, but it’s something that I really ought to wait for the right time to talk about.

In any case, we spent a long time indeed doing our little chat. It was half-past tomorrow by the time we ran out of things to talk about. Jamie started off really distressed about not being able to see my face as we talked. At the end, I offered him the chance to come with me to the headless lounge so that he could have that chance. He actually declined, saying that he felt he knew me plenty well now and no longer felt the need to see my face. That really felt like progress to me. Making a complete stranger feel comfortable talking to someone in a cartoon animal costume is a pretty tall order. It’s nice to know that I rose to the challenge in that respect. I had my success confirmed by an onlooker of this little production. SketchyWolf mentioned a few times that he was very impressed with the way that I represented the fandom. I’m glad that I did well. This is one of those scenarios wherein I don’t even claim to know what I’m doing, and yet I seemed to have a pretty good handle on it, and I really enjoyed the experience.

After a little cooldown with Kota in the headless lounge I headed back up to the room. It was undeniably bedtime by then. For the first and only time that con, I actually got to bed at a time sort of close to that of my roommates. Everyone was in bed already, so I kept the lights off and was as quiet as I could be while navigating the cluttered minefield of fursuit debris on my way to the bed. Sleep is really important to me, so I try to do what I can to not deny it to others. I didn’t realize what a rarity that was until I talked to Redd the next day. Apparently it just blew her mind that I’d actually think to quietly slip into bed and do my best not to wake her. Great to know that I’m such a gentleman, apparently. So yeah, as con sleeping arrangements go, this one was all aces in my book. Not that the competition in that respect was terribly fierce.

I’ve yet to fully break myself of the habit of waking up early, and at this rate I may never succeed at doing so. That’s a big part of why I like to get to bed at a sort of reasonable hour at cons. Waking early is an encumbrance for the most part, but I figured that I may as well take advantage of it. What really got me out of bed that morning was that the recipient of my lecture the previous night had invited me to breakfast, should I manage to rouse myself in time for the early bird special. I was only a little bit late, actually, but still managed to miss him. This still left me in a good spot for registration though, so everything has got a silver lining I suppose. On-site registration was actually not a disaster, which speaks very well for how the con is run. 2 Gryphon was also prowling about the venue at that unholy hour. It took a little bit for me to work up the nerve to approach him, but as the first familiar face I’d seen at this convention I could hardly let this opportunity pass. I should’ve gotten a picture with him. I could’ve titled it ‘Photo 1, of 2’.

When I finally did get the chance to sit down to talk to 2, too, I was reminded of what a fool I’d been for hesitating. Despite his somewhat abrasive (if we’re being charitable) stage persona, he’s actually quite personable if you can catch him in his natural habitat. He talked a great deal about his disappointment with living in California, and how he had high hopes about becoming local to RMFC. He and his betrothed have moved to Colorado Springs just recently and he seemed pretty excited about it. I really enjoyed the chance to sit and talk with him for awhile. Like so many furry luminaries, he’s a great conversationalist and always has an interesting perspective to share. It really was a great way to start the day. Maybe I’m starting to understand some of the insufferable smugness that morning people exhibit all the time.

First up was easily the most efficient opening ceremony I’ve ever been to. We got through special guests, announcements, introductions, statistics and embarrassing the charity people all in the space of about five or ten minutes, and I was on my way once more. Normally I wouldn’t go for this sort of thing, but the early timeslots were sparse and I really didn’t like how I knew absolutely no one here. I really liked the idea of going to a meet and greet, and the singles one was the only such event that I actually fit into the demographic for. It was about what I expected, that is to say, mostly gay men, but it was still a fun time and I got a few laughs with the dossier I used when it came my time to introduce myself.

“Hi, I go by Bucephalus around these parts but you can call me Beau because I’m entirely aware of how ridiculous and unpronounceable my name is. I’m from just outside Rochester New York though I can’t say I’d recommend being from there if you’re in the market for a place to be born. A year ago I completed my tour in the Navy and before you ask, yes, there are a decent amount of gay people there and no, nowhere nearly as many as there are at a furry convention. Since then Uncle Sam has been signing some pretty big checks in order to let me pursue my degree in nuclear engineering, so thanks a bunch sucker- I mean taxpayers! My fursona is a jackal, but I’m wearing this red panda tail because, well look at it! It’s awesome!”

So yeah, not a lot to be said for that one, but it was still a lot of fun. The tail that I was wearing was one that Redd generously loaned me. It was a massive and voluptuous red panda tail that I immediately fell in love with. It had to be four feet long at least, a fluffy and wonderfully audacious creation that I wore pretty much the whole con. After the singles meet-and-greet was the only writing panel I managed to make it to this con. It was decent, but once again I’m spoiled by the cons with highly developed writing tracks like… all of the other ones I’ve ever been to. This one was a lot less structured, with it basically being a single author who wanted to talk about writing for a little while, and so we did. There’s nothing wrong with something simple like that, really. It’s always nice to hear someone else’s perspective, especially on something as diverse and subjective as writing.

In any case, next up was the dance competition which was… quite disappointing actually. Mostly forgivable things, but just so many of them piled up as to make the overall experience profoundly average. The place had some bad visibility because it lacked a stage. That would’ve been a huge issue if the place had had a bigger crowd, but as such it was only a moderate imposition to find a good vantage point. Now that I think about it Anthrocon is the only place I’ve been that could manage a stage for the dance competition, so maybe that’s harder to pull off than I think it is. I’ve been spoiled by that Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom, I suppose. They had to change technical directors at the last second, and that most certainly showed. Not knowing what song to play, not being able to get the files to work, lots of problems on the technical end. “Oh, the file got corrupted.” Seriously? What year is this? I can’t remember the last time that happened to me. It’s been years since I’ve had a file just give me the finger and irretrievably stop working out of the blue. Computers are better than that now.

After the whole system went down they just ended up playing the tracks on a cell phone through the headphone jack with a fraction of the signal strength needed to drive the amps. It was a tinny, disappointing sound whose most prevalent tone was transistor saturation clipping. The emcee was also brand new, so I’ll forgive him a certain amount of performance anxiety. He also had the great misfortune of experiencing these difficulties in front of 2, who pretty much ran him out of town on a rail for it. They also ran short on time, prompting that ever-disastrous decision to cut out the judges’ commentary. It’s so hard to watch someone put in a great effort and do an awesome job to be answered only with “Yeah that was nice, get off the stage.” Perhaps if time needed to be saved it would’ve been prudent to have some prelims, or at the very least auditions? They pulled in some pretty good talent, but there were people in that competition who very literally couldn’t keep their head on their shoulders during the dance. Nothing against the novices, but we could’ve streamlined this production a lot by screening some of them out.

Right after that was Purry Fictionary, also known as Furry Pictionary, also known as “I can’t understand this motherfucker.” Or alternatively as “I can’t understand this, motherfucker!” The difficulty was that this hotel featured a large and expansive atrium right in the middle. It was a really nice room, but it was absolutely vacuous and just ate up any sort of sound that was produced. You can’t overcome bad acoustics with good intentions, nor can you use a speaker the size of a car battery to be heard in a room the size of a battleship. I gave it a sporting chance, but I quickly tired of having no idea what was going on. Fortunately, that event overlapped with one called Fur Your Entertainment that I was keen on attending, so I was able to slip out in the middle of the frantic sketchfest. FYE was a show put on by a local improv group called the Unmentionables. They put on a really good show that left everyone wanting more. Great games, great creativity and energy, I was a really big fan of these guys.

Friday night was sort of quiet. A bit more prowling around and socializing, a few games of Fluxx in the tabletop room and things like that. A quiet night was fine with me though. I knew that I’d need my sleep because the middle day of a weekend con is always the crazy one. Judging by the schedule this one was no exception. Everyone really put programming in a bind because they only requested Saturday slots for their panels and events, making for an incomparably dense day then. I had run out of ideas and energy, so I was planning to make an early night of it, in hopes of better surviving tomorrow. I really should’ve known better.

I got in an hour or so of sleep, which honestly made that whole effort worth it. I was later, predictably, roused by Redd coming in and parading past me the half-dozen or so followers she’d accrued during her adventures that day. She’d brought them by to sample her fantastically well-stocked bar, and to get a little cooldown break, as many of them were fursuiters like herself. She apologized profusely for disturbing me, which I appreciated, though I really didn’t mind all that much. By now I know what I’m getting into when I get into a roomshare at a convention. I bore it with what grace I could muster, and I’ll admit that it actually was kind of fun to have the party come to me. Redd had left the head of her new Fox-Deer suit on the bed, and so naturally I wore that for most of the exchange. Wearing a fursuit head in bed was oddly soothing, though I can’t fathom why.

Eventually the chaos moved on and I had to give Redd her head back so she and her entourage could return to whatever shenanigan that they had been in the middle of before their break. To her credit though, I went more or less undisturbed for the rest of the night. Largely coincidence, but I’ll give her the benefit of assuming that she was being considerate. Really though, the change was that Ryoken had to run home to do laundry and run other such sundry errands, so there was a space for her in the other bed with Nevir. An arrangement that she actually didn’t know was new until the next morning. As I mentioned, I dazzled her quite effectively with what a gentlemen I had been that first night. When the truth came to light, it actually seemed like quite a shock to her.

“Oh that was you next to me last night?”

“It was. Though fortunately we are in a context wherein not remembering who you just slept with doesn’t actually carry any negative connotations.”

“No, I mean, I just thought that it was Nevir. You were so respectful and quiet I never would’ve guessed it was you.”

“There was a compliment in there somewhere, I know it.”

“Well, it’s just not what I would’ve expected. You know… thank you though. That was nice.”

My assumption that first night had been that she’d just want to be left alone so that she could sleep, since I apparently project my own desires onto people I don’t know very well. I kept to myself as best I was able and I thought that it was a pretty equitable arrangement. Once the subject was broached on Saturday morning though, Redd mentioned that her comfort zone was much smaller than the one I had afforded her, so I needn’t have bothered. That was a relief, certainly. I knew that I’d need sleep by the end of the big busy day, so having a better timeshare arrangement worked out in advance was of some comfort to me.

The thing that dragged us out of bed Saturday “morning” was the fursuit parade, which I was actually a part of because Pocket was still happy to host me for the day. The parade struck me as another badly mishandled event, much like the dance. For one, the staging was in the atrium, which is hot and, as I mentioned, extremely difficult to hear anything in. That’s a pretty big deal when you’ve got a handful of handlers trying to herd a couple hundred fursuiters through a cluttered space into a photograph-shaped cluster. The route was short, and yet still managed to obstruct access to all hotel rooms and the headless lounge. So when you finished the parade, you were essentially trapped in the hot, cluttered, crowded atrium. So I really hope you didn’t burn yourself out on the parade because you’re just fucked if you need someplace to go.

This sounds a lot like complaining, but that’s just the rote, analytical portion of my brain that records everything to tell stories about it later talking. I had a blast and wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I used the crazy long tail this time because I had pretty much committed myself to never taking it off. And of course I pranced and loped energetically all across the hotel as I made my way through the parade route. I was actually somewhat relieved that the route was short by the end, as I managed to overheat quite spectacularly from my antics during the parade. It’s always so much fun to go around in suit. I thought that suiting as a female character would be awkward, but I really enjoyed it. I suppose the whole point of suiting is to dress and act like someone else, so it’s even more exhilarating when you get to act like someone way more else than usual. Pocket was a lot of fun, and I do hope that I get the chance to meet her again in the future.

After a noteworthy recovery phase, I thought that I’d try out the nutrition panel. FreeFox, RMFC’s resident gourmet chef, (no seriously that used to be his job) was having an open discussion about all things healthy. Nutrition is one of those subjects that I don’t necessarily find keenly interesting, but could nonetheless talk about all day long. I thought that it would be a nice panel to visit as I do find myself doing a lot of cooking for one these days, which is difficult to do whilst still turning up anything that looks like it was actually meant to sustain human life. I didn’t really learn too much on that front, but it was still a good way to spend an hour. I did learn about a dozen things that you can do with avocadoes, and that they are perhaps the best thing to happen to nutrition literally since sliced bread.

The next show was “The Amazing Pickles” in which the titular Pickles dazzles you with something that could not inaccurately be called magic. There were few actual magic tricks to be had, but the show was thick with dark comedy and some spontaneous slapstick that I just couldn’t help but love. It’s an effort that you respect just due to the sheer balls of pulling something like that off. It was like when Splat did “I’m a Little Teapot” in the dance competition. Sure it wasn’t good, but one has to admit that they could never pull off something like that. Incidentally, did you know that song has a second verse? Yeah, that’s a thing. Also apparently you can dance to it.

2’s set was up next, so of course I had to see that. He always puts on a great show, and his “origin of furries” bit was tremendously clever. I thought it was great, but it apparently wasn’t enough to keep Redd terribly engaged, as she spent much of the production asleep on my lap. Poor thing, she’d been having a hard day, I’m sure. After the show I had the chance to hang around a bit and talk to the star, as well as the star-adjacent Toast the Rabbit. I’d met him before more than two years ago, but held out little hope that I’d stick in the memory of someone so popular.

“Oh yeah! You were one of the two navy guys from Anthrocon. Of course I remember you!”

“That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”

So there ya have it, folks. I actually, verifiably existed at some point. Even though it wasn’t long before those two had to run, it was really nice to hear that I’d made an impression on at least one of them. Of course I had places to be as well, the 18+ version of fursuit charades, namely. It was a great idea. The hundred or so people that turned out for it certainly seemed to think so. This was another fumble though, unfortunately. Small, hot room with a few dozen fursuiters and three times that many spectators, wherein we have to keep the door shut because of the evil, deviant goings-on within. Yeah, no potential for problems there at all. Adding to the oppressive atmosphere was the no-camera rule. Now, I very much understand the necessity for that rule, I simply take issue with the way it was enforced. Posting a sign or indicating it in the pocket schedule would’ve been perfectly sufficient, I think. Perhaps have the guard at the door who was checking IDs remind people about that restriction. Pretty much anything would’ve been preferable to having the host of the event yell “If I see anyone with a camera out I’ll have them removed from the con!” every five minutes, followed by the inevitable audience dogpile on anyone absent-minded enough to check their text messages or facebook status or whatever on a phone containing a camera (read: all of them). It all made for a generally unpleasant experience, so I left.

This time I didn’t have a backup plan, but after a little poking around, I saw Toast and 2 at the bar, so I sat with them and had a drink. Other visitors dominated the conversation, but it was still a nice time. The pair were taking a break from the casino set up in the atrium. Toast was talking about how he’d gotten burned out on it and had just given away his chips to a passerby. I wondered aloud at how long one had to hang out with those guys before I got a couple hundred dollars in poker chips. As it turns out, the answer was about 34 minutes. 2 was bought another free drink by an admirer from down the bar, and given that he was just drinking vodka on the rocks he knew he’d be there for awhile. He surrendered his chips to me in good time, which was a nice surprise. Honestly I would’ve much preferred to stay and drink with him, but 2 had given me an ultimatum to make the most of his winnings, so I took off once I finished my drink.

“Alright guys, I’m done drinking. Now I’ve gotta go gamble.”

Man, furry cons are awesome!

Now then, the reason that the $700 worth of chips that just got dropped in my hands weren’t really such a big deal was that they actually weren’t worth anything in cash. It was a charity event and the fact that it was being played for a prize drawing was what made setting up an impromptu casino right in the middle of the atrium actually somewhat legal. $100 in chips bought you a raffle ticket, so there was still some incentive to play. I was pretty late to the game, so I only got in about 15 hands of blackjack, but that was fine by me. I picked blackjack because that’s about the only game wherein I have some reliable assurance that I won’t rapidly hemorrhage money all over the table, and that was actually somewhat true. I ended the night $125 ahead, though that was pretty much all due to the fact that I heard the “last hand” announcement so I bet $200 on that hand. In any case, I won nothing at the raffle so nothing ventured, nothing gained, it seems.

The Unmentionables had their own 18+ panel in the same location as the preceding disaster. I worried a bit about that, but I figured that they could pull it together. And pull it together they did, with an unexpected burst of brilliance in the form of:

“Hey, this room sucks. Let’s go get a bigger one.”

And indeed we did! We got a nice fancy conference room thing that’s called an “Amphitheater” so that you’ll pay more money to reserve it. It had risers with desks so that everyone had lots of space and could see well. I took advantage of the shuffle to get a seat right in front, which let me get involved in the action a little. They took a lot of my suggestions when such things were called for, and my snarky outbursts were welcomed the majority of the time. It was a great time for all involved. Some of the con bigwigs dropped by towards the end, I guess because they’d run out of things to supervise by then and had nowhere else to go. Later on they told us that at karaoke nearby they try to get as many people as they can to sing Bohemian Rhapsody at the end of the night. Literally everyone was up for that, so we flooded the room and just moshed it out to one of Queen’s greatest hits. Great way to end the night, but of course the night couldn’t actually end then. Hell, it was still today! What kind of night ends then?

Ace had finally arrived by then, having been delayed by a flat tire as he was driving to the con. I’m glad that I got to see him again, and this time on a level playing field wherein neither of us knew anyone that was there. Of course Ace knew a few people because he knows everyone ever forever, but that made things run a little smoother than when we were at the party. He was also mostly coherent, which also helps with most aspects of social interaction.

Ace had brought more of what had nearly killed him at the party, some kind of Swedish version of Everclear that I’m pretty sure he needed a HAZMAT clearance to cross state lines with. It was one of those “you can’t even taste the alcohol” things in mixers, allegedly. Every time anyone has said that to me it has been an outright lie because I can pretty much always taste the alcohol in everything. That’s why I drink mostly cocktails with near-lethal amounts of sugar in them. This fancy foreign one though, actually came pretty close though. I had a cup of it cut about half with Mellow Yellow and sure I could taste it, but I never would’ve guessed that there was something you could use to run a diesel engine mixed in there. Ace was really impressed with how I’d handled that. He was looking at me like he expected me to burst into flames after the three drinks I’d had with him. The secret is a fresh liver. Not drinking yourself stupid all day leaves you much better able to fight off the lighter fluid that you’re offered at the end of the night, and it certainly beats trying to steal a liver off someone else. Lots of people seem extremely attached to theirs, despite how unrepentantly they abuse them.

This time I beat my roommates back to the room by a much narrower margin. So I guess you could say that I was getting into the groove of things. When she came to bed Redd mentioned that I needn’t give her a million miles of personal space and leave her completely alone the entire night, so we hashed that arrangement out a little better. I made such a good impression on her that she was completely comfortable with me getting pretty darn close. She said that cuddling a little was okay, and I liked that idea too, so off we went. ‘A little’ turned into ‘the entire night’ with very little provocation, but she didn’t seem to mind. I really enjoyed that. Having the chance to wrap your arms around a cute girl all night isn’t an opportunity that I’ve gotten often, or ever before in my life for that matter, so I really enjoyed that. I’ve written in fiction a few times about how nice it is to sleep with your arms wrapped around someone else, because it suited the story and I hear nice things about it, but it’s nice to not have to take that on faith anymore. Honestly I think that just in the gap between midnight and 2 AM I very nicely encapsulated the whole con experience. Laugh and have tons of fun with total strangers, meet old friends, drink a lot, stay up late, cuddle. Yeah, that’s a furry con in a nutshell!

Our new sleeping arrangement worked so well that it took a great deal of time to extricate myself from it. I didn’t want to spend the whole day lying in bed snuggling. Well, actually I did, but I knew that wasn’t feasible. I managed to blearily stumble into the furry statistics panel Sunday morning. This one was a place where the guys from [Adjective][Species] pore over all the results of the furry surveys (furveys, natch) that have been collected over the years to see if all the things that people say about furries are true, or just as often, find out things about furries that no one says at all! The panel was called ‘Exploring The Fandom Through Data’, which of course led me to find no end of amusement in the fact that the host is a dead ringer for Brent Spiner. Kinda sounds a little bit like him, too.

Childish humor aside, the panel actually was quite interesting. The data doesn’t support that everyone in the fandom is a gay, male, broke, antisocial loaner who lives in his mom’s basement. The statistics in most categories actually follow the bell curve in most places pretty consistently. The most pronounced bias after gender (still overwhelmingly male, that’s undeniable) and age (the fandom is still young. Give it time), seems to be the species-bias in favor of doggies, with greater than half of respondents being some form of canine. Even the one that I receive oh so many examples of, the bias that most people in the fandom are anything-other-than-straight, wasn’t entirely accurate. The question on the subject actually showed an almost perfectly even distribution across the Kinsey scale. Granted that’s considerably more gay than the general populace, but it’s a fair bit short of the idea that everyone is a rainbow-shitting leg-humping horndog, which is the impression you’d get from spending 20 minutes at a furry convention. The fandom attracts such… unique personalities, it’s easy to see how it could suffer from a severe vocal minority distortion when trying to draw conclusions just from observation, so it’s interesting to see what shakes out in the end when anonymous, impartial numbers are turned against the quandary of the fandom.

Later on I found the fursuit games in full swing. They suffered from the sound-eating nature of the atrium as well, but fursuiters trying to accomplish any coherent task is pretty reliably entertaining in any event. It wasn’t long though, before I wandered off towards something more interesting. FreeFox was back, this time with a full blown cooking show where he actually had food and heat in front of him on the table and was combining them in fascinating ways. I normally wouldn’t have given such an event too much thought. Actual cooking is quite beyond me, but I really did like his style when I saw him earlier and Sunday was pretty thin on events, so I went for it. This was the sort of event that would’ve been a total drag if not for the fact that furries were putting it on. When you really know your audience you can make just about anything fun. Granted, most of it was sexual double-entendres, but I never said those weren’t fun! I actually did learn a couple interesting things about cooking. I’m unlikely to employ them ever, but they’ll at the very least add a little spark to my small-talk in the near future.

Conveniently enough, the Town Hall Meeting and closing ceremonies were in the same location as the cooking show, so I just had to loiter long enough for the rest of my evening to come together all around me. The meeting was the bitch box for con feedback, which if you’ve been paying attention you’ve probably guessed that I took liberal advantage of and if you haven’t been paying attention then WAKE THE HELL UP I’m doing a thing here. Now, just because I raised my hand to complain about eight times that doesn’t necessarily mean that I thought the con was bad. I’m just really good at complaining and I apparently have a very detailed memory for stuff like this. I didn’t go there to skewer the staff and make them feel bad for their many faults. I just knew that if no one told them about these problems they’d never get fixed. So I’ll include the same disclaimer here that I did with my feedback at the con. I went through a lot to get to this con, as you well know because I just told you about it, and I would call that time and expense quite well spent. I most certainly plan on heading to Rocky Mountain Fur Con again in the future. The vast majority of the problems that I noted were pretty much just growing pains from moving to a new venue this year. I certainly won’t fault them for that, because the new hotel they have is a fantastic con space, and besides the little snafus related to the transition scramble, it was overwhelmingly well run.

The closing ceremonies were smooth and efficient, mirroring the opening ones, and then it was over. Except for screw that this is SO not over. I got word through the grapevine that The Unmentionables were doing an improv workshop where they revealed all of the dark and terrible secrets behind their wild success. It was really just a collection of the games and exercises that they use to hone their thinking-on-their-feet skills. It’s all about recall and being able to come up with something quickly, and not being afraid to say something stupid. It’s more balls than talent, really. The worst thing that can happen is you clam up and come up with nothing. At the end we did a bunch of open-participation games like the ones that they do in their shows and that was an absolute blast. Thanks to three days’ worth of con I took no time at all to loosen up and really get into it. I got a lot of laughs and a handful of people complimented me on my performance afterwards.

After that I bounced around a bit to various contacts here and there, seeing what was going on. I got to see Nevir trying out Shawshank, a fascinating crux suit. He was really into it, by which I mean creepy as all hell. He wandered through a dark abandoned room at one point, and when I went in there after him I found that there were motion sensing lights in there. Shawshank didn’t trigger them because he clearly has no soul. I figured it was best to let Nevir be weird and terrifying in peace, so I wandered off after awhile. Once again I knew it was far too early to try and go to bed, but I did head back to the room for a little breather. Redd was there, and she brought along a friend of hers, one of the improv performers. His name was Rune… something. Damn, I’ve been so good with names so far. Anyways, he took the opportunity to let me know what a great job I did at their events. He actually asked me if I’d like to join The Unmentionables, which was quite flattering. I asked him if he’d like to move them about 1500 miles closer to me and he seemed reluctant to accept my terms. Ah well, missed opportunities. Such is life.

Earlier I mentioned to Redd how the jacket I wore with her fursuit (the only thing I had with me that had long sleeves) looked kind of stupid and didn’t really work with the suit. I also got the nice white tip of her awesome panda tail dirty oh God I ruined all of Redd’s nice things whydoessheputupwithme? Anyways, when she agreed that the black jacket didn’t really work with the suit and said “Don’t worry, I’ll find you a better one.” I never thought for a second that she was being serious. Well, I came to find out that she was indeed picking up another fursuit head, for which I was afforded the incomparable privilege of breaking it in. The lucky newcomer was a stately Doberman that there actually isn’t a name for yet. We were just calling him ‘Grumpy’ for the moment.

Anyways, Redd turned Grumpy and I loose on the world, which made my remaining time much easier to fill. When I met up with Ace one more time and he saw me in a different suit he asked “You’re addicted to fursuiting now, aren’t you?” Well, I’m certainly a fan by this point. Addiction is kind of a strong word, though maybe this is the free hit that the crack dealers are always offering to get the new customers hooked. And Redd is a fursuit maker too! Crafty… Ah well, if that’s where I’m headed, I may as well enjoy the ride. Case in point, I had no interest in karaoke, until I had a brand new fursuit to do it in of course. I invited Ace to come with me and requested something I knew really well because I can’t read for shit in a fursuit. Despite the fact that Grumpy has a comically large head, there still wasn’t quite room enough for my glasses. At least, I thought that I knew Hey Jude really well. After powering through the song and pushing myself to the “near death experience” flavor of exhaustion, as I so often do in fursuit, I was hit with a rather distressing realization. The file they had on the machine was some 8.5 minute version that I would’ve found to be quite a challenge even under normal circumstances. As it was, I simply reeled in betrayed shock at the revelation that there are words after the nah nah nah part! I bailed on that one, but I think I did pretty well with the part that I actually knew existed.

I really do like doing karaoke, what keeps me away from it is being forced to listen to other people doing karaoke. Though we actually had a really good crowd that night, I found. Not what you’d expect at all. Plenty of people were pretty good, and made my lengthy recovery a bit more pleasant. There was a guy who did a touching rendition of Puff The Magic Dragon as a tribute to a lost love, and a pair of pirates who did some truly fantastic opera pieces, to include the indomitable Phantom of the Opera. Ace did a passionate tribute to Freddy Mercury, none other than Radio Gaga. I have long resisted the temptation to say this about Ace, but dear God he is such a fag. Karaoke was far too popular for me to get in another request before they had to close, especially disappointing was that they had half a dozen Lion King songs but no Be Prepared. Seriously, am I the only person in the world who loves that song? Anyways, by the time I came up with another request it was too late. We did a great big exhausted, somewhat drunken rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody to close the night out. A really great way to close the night out, actually.

I was the only wuss to turn in by 3:30, but I was also by a wide margin the one with the most functioning brain cells in the morning, so a fair trade. We heaved to first thing in the morning and… asked the front desk for a later checkout. Twice. And then we actually managed to leave. I do wish I’d programmed in a little more time in Colorado, as the con soaked up pretty much all of my stay. Denver seems like a nice city. Clean and well designed, at least to a cursory glance. We had a day to work with though, and we made a good day of it. We went out to eat at a nice little bar and grill place. I’d certainly call it local flavor. Arashiin let us skim the top off the gallon of Starbucks he buys daily, and we took a trip up into the mountains.

The countryside out there really resembles that of the much smaller mountains that I’m from, so I was keen to get up and see some of the really big peaks that the area is known for. Colorado certainly didn’t disappoint. It’s amazing how much you can see from up there. Whole cities, neighboring states on a good day. It’s pretty crazy when you think about it. I’ve always found it fascinating to see rock strata lifted up to such oblique angles in areas like this. Rock is only laid down in horizontal layers, so any rocks with layers at a higher angle are that way because of uplift; the tectonic upheaval that created the mountains. It’s amazing to try and wrap your mind around the way that mountains are being made and ground down to dust all the time beneath our feet, just on a timescale too vast for us to grasp.

Alas, I made plans out of necessity, so the time came shortly for me to leave. Even if I rather did like the idea of staying a bit longer, I had a week before school started, a long way to go before I got there, and a lot to do before I was ready for it. Nevir was kind enough to ferry me to the airport in the morning where I got another irritating little jab from Frontier Airlines in the form of how they handle baggage. There was a tremendous line outdoors spanning across half the sidewalk to check baggage. Having an as-always terribly vague idea of how long the slog through security would take, I was a bit concerned about the wait. I was tempted to try the “hey I fucked up please help” method at the gate again, but that’s really not something to be relied on. Some quick recon turned up a baggage claim for them inside that most people didn’t get to because of the bizarre honey pot placed outside at the curbside dropoff. I managed to make it through that line and then security in pretty good time.

From there I just had to proceed to Gate: ****. Oh thank you so much helpful boarding pass! Fortunately I remembered from my trip in that Frontier parked their craft at concourse A, so I at least knew where to get off the train at. Some quick, semi-frantic research got me an actual gate number and everything was copasetic from there. I even had enough wiggle room left to have some Panda Express. They have orange chicken with bacon now. That’s a good omen if I’ve ever seen one. Cliff the mountain goat was there to welcome me to my return flight. That’s about the only good thing about Frontier. They paint animals on their wingtips, making them a fantastically appropriate airline to fly to furry conventions with. I actually had some amount of consciousness to make use of on this flight, so I got a bit of work done in my novel for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long. I was really hoping to get more done over the summer, but it just didn’t shake out that way.

Once back in Ohio I cringed at the over $100 in parking fees I had accrued in my absence, and after that I had another abbreviated visit to breeze through before I had to hit the road again. Just like last time, staging a visit after a furry convention was quite a bit straining. It made for a quiet visit, but there’s nothing wrong with that. We played some Hearthstone, trading some strategy pointers on it and then went out to some German place where we played menu roulette, just shouting Einbahnstrasse or whatever and eating whatever came to us as a result. My friend there also introduced me to Sword Art Online, which I found out was actually not some sort of DeviantArt knockoff just for pictures of weapons, but was an anime about people trapped in an evil MMORPG and slowly losing their lives to it. So you know, sort of like a lot of my friends when they started playing World of Warcraft. It was pretty interesting, and of course we got through like eight episodes in one sitting because Netflix has quite thoroughly obliterated the concept of moderation. I learned that my navy and high school friend there in Oxford plan to continue to hang out as the school year begins, so that made me feel a little less guilty about shoehorning the two of them together with my visit.

In any case, I heaved myself out of there and managed to cover the nine-ish hours to home with my sanity intact. I never had the best understanding of why medical insurance was such a big deal until I arrived home to find that the bill for my appendectomy had arrived in my absence. It had been so long I was starting to hope that they’d just forgotten about the whole thing. It was staggering for me to think that even a simple operation that went perfectly and entailed only a 1.7-day hospital stay could cost $14,700. Utter nonsense! So yeah, whilst I talk with the college about my upcoming classes I’m also going to be bandying this figure about with their healthcare machine to see about how much of it I’m going to be responsible for. That’s cool, it’s not as though starting another year of college has some large startup expense associated with it or anything. I’m sure that everything will be fine.

In any case, I covered a total of 1700 miles during my various adventures, a total that I rather underestimated during the planning phase for this one. I also put over two weeks and an amount of money I don’t even want to tally into this. And you know? I don’t regret a thing. I know I’m going to be trying to get an internship or somesuch next summer, putting a little more time pressure on me, but I’m going to work hard to be able to do something like this as well next time around. Here’s to another year!

Update:  sketchywolf has furnished me with the pictures that he took of me dressed as Pocket Panda. Go ahead and check them out! The quote that I think best captures the experience came when someone in the headless lounge when someone asked how I was feeling. "I am slowly dying, but I've never felt more alive!"