Okay then, we now return you to our previously scheduled furry convention report already in progress. Be sure to catch up on the start of this adventure if you haven't already and/or actually care about how I got to this convention.

Further Confusion was kind of tough to draw a bead on. Having never been to California before, I had precious few contacts in the area. FC is mostly bay-area furs, though it’s not like some other cons where being unable to travel very far and it being the only con in the Seattle area are the only reasons for attending. For FC the overwhelming proportion of locals is merely a function of that area somehow getting all of the furries ever, edging out the travelers just by overwhelming force of coincidence. Many of the people who travel to get here are simply trying to extract money from the endeavor, though I suppose that California has a long history of travelers from the east trying to extract money from it. The bay is still a goldmine though, in a figurative sense. From what I can see, it’s saturated with lucrative tech-sector jobs thanks to the overwhelming influence of Silicon Valley. And if you can’t get one of those fancier jobs, I’m sure there would be some money to be made in scavenging the refuse from companies that are well known for throwing out perfectly good server stacks. I’m probably going to mention that another half a dozen times or so because it’s just blowing my goddamn mind. I once spent several days of arduous labor troubleshooting and repairing a circuit card which I confirmed to be slightly older than me and these guys are going around just throwing out entire practically new processor arrays like it ain’t no thang.

I may or may not have mentioned that my discovering the convenient location of Archai’s domicile and the potential utility of that fact was a very recent revelation. And now I’ve mentioned it for certain. Hah! Take that, undefined quantum superposition! In any case, I was very glad for his presence there at the con. Now that I’ve got a solid amount of experience, I’m pretty comfortable doing my own thing a lot of the time. Being a stranger in a strange land at FC though, it felt a lot like I was back at AC 2012, scrambling about without any knowledge of whether or not I was going in the right direction. As such, I really did have need of a best friend at this con. Someone that I knew I could come back to check in with every once in a while, and who could let me know what the fuck if the status of the what being fuck or not ever came into question, as it sometimes does.

Archai being local was extremely helpful, as I got a base of operations, transportation, and a wise Sherpa guide out of the deal. That last one was a helpful reference for when I came upon aspects of the west coast experience that baffled me. When I say that things about the place confused me to no end, bear in mind the very significant detail that I came to this place at great expense to meet the people who draw my porn and to play with the adults who dress up in cartoon animal costumes as a hobby, and Cali still managed to come up with practices and behaviors that I found to be weird and nonsensical even given my own purpose there. I’m not sure what Arc got out of our arrangement, necessarily, other than the chance to enrich his life via the influence of my magnanimous presence. Which, to be fair, is far more valuable than all the fancy new soon-to-be-refuse server stacks that money can buy.

Friday started with a liquid breakfast, which is not such a bad thing as it sounds. I’ve been trying out Soylent, which is the all-in-one nutritionally perfect beverage that science fiction has always promised us. Or at least it purports to be. It actually performed quite admirably at FC. Forgetting to eat at cons is a big problem for me. My only saving grace is how going out to eat is very common among the people I'm hanging out with. If I didn't have so many people around reminding me that food is a thing that I need I'd probably hit the floor before recalling that on my own. This fancy nutrient sludge makes a perfect con breakfast, really. Breakfast is really hard to coordinate with other people because everyone stumbles blearily out of bed over a very wide range of different times, and God help you if your text message asking about food wakes someone up. So yeah, shuffling to the fridge to grab and chug a vaguely food-like liquid first thing in the morning is actually a pretty good way to start the day under the circumstances. I've realized that getting up after a profoundly late night and thinking "Ah fuck I need to jam something in my face that will induce temporary not-dying and I need to do it right goddamn now because I have to go do ALL the things all day" is the perfect mindset to be in when trying to drink the stuff.

FC was quite light on events, it seemed, but socializing heavily at cons has become a thing for me of late. So I got no shortage of chances to try that out. One of the end results of my self-imposed immersion therapy for social awkwardness is that I now feel pretty much okay with walking up to people I’ve never met and saying “Hi, I’m from the internet! We should hang out.” The status of the people in question feeling pretty much okay with that is kind of hit-or-miss, as you might expect, but it works WAY more often than you’d think, a majority of the time, actually. It worked great with Felekar, and half a dozen other people whose names I can’t remember. The thing about having random encounters comprise the bulk of your social interaction is that details get lost quickly. My memory is largely associative, so if I’m only barely starting to form a picture of people it’s kind of difficult to get anything to stick in regards to them. At the end of the day you end up with this kind of thing: “I actually don’t remember how I came to be in the company of these guys, but they seem pretty cool and we’re going to get pizza. Want to come?” It’s worth noting that despite the sparse schedule, I went to bed at about 2 AM every day of the con. So I certainly found ways to fill the time, even if I can’t remember what all of them actually were because I wasn’t performing proper brain maintenance during that period.

The first event that I went to was Friday afternoon. It was called ‘Save the Cat’ and was based on the book by the same name. That book has been basically the bible of screenwriting for the last 25 years or so. You can blame it for the fact that cinema has taken “foreshadowing” to mean “if you don’t give away the ending of your movie as quickly as possible you’re doing it wrong” and for the way all movies appear to be becoming more and more similar to each other such that they appear to be approaching some sort of singularity wherein the coming Orwellian dystopia will contain only one movie that has been determined to be the ideal pinnacle of filmmaking such that no further movies are necessary. In any case, a book doesn’t gain that kind of reputation by being entirely worthless. There were a lot of insightful points brought up. It’s astonishing how specifically you can pigeonhole so many aspects of the writing and storytelling processes. It makes the act of creation seem so rigid and sterile to think of it in the clinical terms that the book presents. Really though, it’s useful to know the rules that everyone else is playing by, and if you’re trying to appeal to an audience, it’s helpful to know what they’re going to be looking for. Thinking about the process in such terms can help you organize your thoughts and get everything in order. Though it’s quite a romanticized image, just sitting down with some blank paper and expecting everything to just come to you by providence is kind of irresponsible if you really think about it.

Friday night was mostly spent hanging out with Arc has he bounced around the convention wearing Brinkley, his border collie. Just following a suiter around isn’t necessarily a way to paint the town red, but it actually worked out okay. I had my labcoat on and did my best to remain as unflappable as I could, no matter what Brinkley’s antics were at the time. It made for a nice Abbot and Costello sort of angle with me serving as the reserved, low-energy foil to his cocaine-addled excitement torpedo. I think it made for a good performance.

“Would you like the ball?”

“Aw mugawed! Yes I wouldverymuchliketheballyesyesyesyes!”

“I’m not yet convinced. I don’t think you’re quite serious about this ball.”

“NOOOOO! You have to pick me, Ineedtheball Ihavetohaveityoudon’tunderstandit’sSOOOOimportant!”

“Hmm, you do make a compelling argument. Let me take a quick straw poll and see if anyone else wants the ball more than you.”

Et al.

The labcoat actually performed quite well at this con. I’m not sure if they’re rarer in the west or something, but I never saw anyone else with one and a LOT of people noticed mine. A whole lot of different reactions too. I had to work on my Kage impression because so many people expected me to have one. I can see that though. Drunk, close cut hair, directionless rambling, labcoat, what could I be doing besides cosplaying as the Good Doctor Conway himself? Lots of people walked by singing a few bars of the Portal song to get me to join in. Good thing I know the whole thing. Thanks, Rock Band! There was a suiter with a big plushie Companion Cube that wanted a picture with me. Somewhere out there there’s video of me being interviewed about a recent zombie outbreak. A security guard asked me if my research was responsible for all the weird animal people. In an elevator I heard this snippet of a phone conversation immediately after getting on. “Hey, you know how the new suit is going to have a labcoat? We totally need to sew an Aperture Laboratories logo onto it. That would be the coolest fucking thing.” So yeah, slam dunk on that one. The Bay definitely knows how to science.

After we put the dog to bed, we headed up to the party floor. That’s not normally a place that I’d go, but once again FC was kinda short on alternatives. The whole fourth floor of the hotel had the floor covered in plastic, so that’s a whole bunch of “knowing your audience” points to the Marriot. The BLFC room managed to attract quite a crowd. It was a little difficult to navigate, but it seemed like a nice place. They had quite a few good drinks there. Unfortunately they were quite secretive about the mixes, so I didn’t really learn anything useful from it. I do wish the biggest little con was better timed, as I’ve been hearing from a lot of people that it’s a great time. I saw CasidheVixen there at the bulufkuh room, which was a treat. Both because he’s a great guy, and did me the honor of being familiar with my work and recognizing me. That’s always an unexpected honor. Despite my gregariousness at cons, the power of my celebrity doesn’t broadcast very far.

A group of Klingons also hosted a party room, so that was our next stop. It was funny to hear that a few years ago a bunch of navy guys had shamed them by drinking them dry. Heh, they’ve gotta remember that they may drink to have fun, but the navy does it professionally. The Klingon room was nice because they had access to a balcony. That meant lots more room and a chance to enjoy the beautiful California weather. Everyone kept talking about how cold it was, but they were all hilariously wrong. I met up with AceFox and a few other friends out there and got to have a great time with them. Ace went to the bathroom, so naturally I stole his head and paws while he was gone. I was enjoying those quite thoroughly with those assembled. Arc came back from getting more drinks and spent much effort in trying to figure out what drugs I had taken while he was gone. In his words:

“Okay, when I left you’d had like two drinks and you were standing there quietly. Now you’re bouncing off the walls, you’re all over these people, you just punched that guy in the nuts and you’re just completely out of control. What the heck is going on?”

So yeah, having even just part of a fursuit makes something of a noteworthy change in my personality. I snapped right back once Ace came to reclaim his accessories. I’d forgotten that Arc had never seen me do any fursuiting before. Apparently it’s quite a trip to see that happen for the first time. In any case, we called it a night not long after that, but of course the con was just getting started.

This is quite unusual for me given my apparently-obsessive attention to detail, but be damned if I can’t remember what I did Saturday morning. It wasn’t like everything dissolved into a nauseous blur with the assistance of all like four drinks from the previous night. I’ve never gotten blackout drunk and I’m pretty sure I have far too weak of a stomach to pull that off regardless. I think it’s just a matter of the fact that I always use events as a landmark to pin together these accounts after the fact, and Saturday had absolutely fuck all of interest until the fursuit parade in the afternoon. Meaning that until then everything is kind of uncharted territory.

My recall on this con isn’t as sharp as usual, likely because I think this is the most severe sleep deprivation I’ve ever had at a convention. That exceeds even AC, wherein I often find myself literally running from one event to another to try and jam everything in. I’d say it’s mainly a matter of my finding an excuse to stay out stupid late every single night and the fact that the time difference was stopping me from sleeping late in the morning. So yeah, most of my days started with going to bed at two and then waking up at 8ish thinking “Goddamnit everyone else is still asleep and there isn’t anything to do for another three hours. Fuck you, circadian rhythms!”

Speaking of the oppressive conditions that I suffered, have I mentioned how dry it is there? It’s kinda freaky, actually. I don’t remember Texas being anywhere near this dry, and where I was in the Big T was considerably further from any oceans. It was probably about the same absolute humidity as it was back home, but it was about 60 degrees most of the time, which made the dryness devastating. I got sidelined with nosebleeds on more than one occasion. Usually during the “why in God’s name am I awake right now” part of my day, so it wasn’t a huge burden. Still though, dangerous lack of water around those parts. You’d almost think that we were bordering on some sort of desert region or other. Good thing we’re in America though, where tap water is a clean and ludicrously plentiful resource. That’s what let me draw up two inches of water in the bathtub just to see what would happen. I left it there and it had evaporated down to a little ring around the drain by nightfall. That is just… not natural.

Speaking of unnatural things that happen in California, the first event on Saturday that was actually worth turning out to (or remembering, apparently) was the fursuit parade. I always go to those because it really is quite a show, and there is an unnerving preponderance of fursuiters (hundreds, easily) that I’ll only ever see in the parade. I don’t know what they’re here to do if they just want to show off their suit the one time and keep all these fantastic creations in the closet the rest of the time, but whatever. I’m still happy to see them out there. Big props to that critter who was in the parade blasting Maroon 5’s “Animals” out of his boom box. Point one because that is the absolute best song choice for this event ever. Not only is it thematically appropriate for obvious reasons and a totally bitchin’ song, if you listen to the lyrics even somewhat closely you’ll note that while they are predominantly harmless nonsense they’re sometimes intensely sexual in somewhat deviant ways, so yeah, great representation of the audience. Point two came from him using an actual full-size shoulder-mounted music bazooka from the 90s. Yeah, I know that these days they make Bluetooth speakers that cost $1.29 and are the size of my uncle’s pacemaker. I’ll start giving a fuck about them when they stop sounding like a pennywhistle being played by an asthmatic possum at the bottom of a well.

I suppose that I could go into exhaustive detail about the parade. Hell I can go into exhaustive detail about pretty much anything and make it somewhat readable, but you wouldn’t really get much out of hearing about the parade secondhand. Everybody goes by too fast to catch any names, and even I’m not good enough to make just a simple verbal description of the event at all compelling. “Tennis-ball-colored saber-toothed tiger wearing a polka-dot vest” really just sounds like I’m just stringing together random words to fill time. It’s all about the spectacle. Me trying to describe this in text would be like trying to describe a David Copperfield act in text.

“Yep. The Eiffel Tower disappeared. … I don’t know, it’s just fucking gone! Deal with it.”

Speaking of the third paragraph in a row that I’ve started with “speaking of”, let’s move to the next brain landmark. That would have to be the writing panel by the title of “The First Fifteen Seconds”. This was one that I really wanted to get to because it’s a very critical concept in the process of one’s getting published. When your work hits the desk of a slush pile editor, their goal is not to find the next great American novel. Their goal is to be done reviewing the slush pile as quickly as possible because they have 200 submissions on the table in front of them. This means that for most of the things they find on the table, they’ll flip through a couple hundred words. If you fail to impress them in that time, you get pushed off the desk back into obscurity.

My writing does have a tendency to cold-start because of the way I build momentum in the exposition. Even this narrative, you’ll notice, meanderingly stumbled out of the gate with a bunch of irreverent minutiae about travel, and likely excessive vocabulary as well, seeing as I just managed to put “irreverent” and “minutiae” right goddamn next to each other. That kind of thing can be lethal when trying to get something published, so hashing all that kind of stuff out with a few experienced authors was useful. Judging by their accounts, getting published is a profoundly miserable process. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though. Extrapolating from my present pace, I won’t have a completed manuscript to publish for another 20-odd years.

After that I had errands and commerce and such. The Dealers’ Den could best be described as a gently circulating slow motion stampede. Much of the room was shoulder-to-shoulder crowds and navigation was quite a challenge. I was thinking it was just an opening rush, but the people who have been to this con many times before said that was about typical and it would only get worse. Apparently it’s quite common for the den there to just get exponentially more crowded all day long until closing time when they break out the riot gas. Laaaaame. Fortunately though I was under very little time pressure vis-à-vis, having nothing else going on for a long-ass time. I managed to get my cargo delivered to Sidian okay. Apparently she’d heard from a number of people who met the description that she was asking after, so maybe by the end of the con she was simply awash in exotic sweets. I do hope that the diabetic coma won’t interfere with her work. I never really got the chance to ask if that ended up being the case, since after completing my delivery and every point from there on I found myself in the position of obstructing people who were trying to give Sidian money, a spot I work very hard to never be in. None of these guys come to my job and step all over my toes while I’m trying to get shit done. I feel they deserve the same courtesy.

I also visited SummerCat at the Neon Phoenix booth. I said that I’d stop in and say hi, and indeed I did. I managed to pick up a copy of Anthropomorphic’s Review Magazine, which is as yet my only publishing credit. That made it immensely valuable to me, though it looked not to be the case for most everyone else in attendance. I doubt we’ll be seeing any more issues of that. In somewhat less depressing news from the Phoenix, they were doing a brisk trade in Furry Fuel, their furry-themed energy drink. Naturally my metabolism was plenty out-of-sorts by then so I didn’t have any interest in the stuff. Still, Hoshi Kitsunuki, the artist for the can design, was there hawking the drinks and I guess technically promoting her work. We got to talking and I somehow became an impromptu sales associate for a while there. People trust a guy in a labcoat, y’know? They sold out of their concoction by Sunday, so I’ll call that a job well done. It was in my temporary apprenticeship there that Reese Tora came by and we got to chat a bit. Quite a bit of luck just coming across him like that. I’m always glad for a chance to see someone from the Cross Time Café though.

That evening Archai’s curiosity got the better of him and he got it into his head that he ought to test out just exactly how much my demeanor changes when I’m properly dressed for an occasion such as this. Naturally I was ecstatic for the opportunity. I had fallen in love with the new caribou character he had acquired recently and I campaigned passionately for the chance to take the wheel on him. It took a little while, but we finally arrived at an amenable compromise.

“I just don’t feel comfortable sending you out unsupervised in Jake.”

“Unsupervised? Who said anything about unsupervised? You damn well better not send me anywhere unsupervised, I have not the slightest idea what I’m doing!”

“Ah, well that’s different then.”

“You have a herding animal at your disposal. Grab him, and as Neil Patrick Harris would say ‘Let’s suit up’!”

And indeed we did. And it was glorious. Jake Caribou is one majestic son of a bitch and looking in the mirror made me feel inadequate just by the sheer brilliance of my reflection. I would’ve never guessed this, but hooves are just the best, you guys. Seriously, they are the BEST. Like… one time I called a small, family-owned pizza shop in the city to find out their hours. At the end of the call, kind of as a joke, I asked “So, how is your pizza there?” He in his classic, emphatic New Yorker accent, forcefully stated “Iz da fuckin’ best.” Before ardently slamming down the phone to punish me for having the hubris to ask such a stupid question. THAT is how “the best” having hooves is. Oh my God. If you want a good sense of my demeanor, it was pretty much like this. So yeah, hooves. That’s a thing. That caribou have. And that I got to wear. Carbon fiber too, not even the stock model!

Anyways, part of Archai’s concern was that the suit had been pretty popular using its previous name ‘Lou Caribou’, under the piloting of Soki. He was worried about the snags that the character’s former celebrity had caused. Heh, well of the five suits I’ve ever worn, it’s pretty much an even split between women and gay men for their actual owners, all of whom were quite popular. This was actually kind of a step down in terms of potential awkwardness due to reputation. What with Soki being known as rather reserved and not particularly inclined towards touchy-feely stuff, and his being, as Archai put it “stoutly and emphatically straight”. So yeah, I stayed pretty light on my hooves with such a light burden of publicity to bear. Yeah, a dozen or so people thought I was Soki. Who cares? I have HOOVES goddamnit! Even I don’t give a fuck who I am!

I actually did get to meet Soki during my adventure. He was wearing his latest and greatest caribou as it happened, giving a lot of people a reason to doubletake. I was baffled by how the Jake suit could be so short on me given that its original owner looked like he had his dramatic entrances punctuated by that heavy low-brass orchestral sting that they use in movie trailers to let you know that a massive radioactive something-or-other is about to totally waste your city. Yeah, you know the one. Soki possesses an imposing frame is what I’m saying. That’s what made it so distressing that I’d not yet been enlightened to certain aspects of his personality before our impromptu meeting. Namely that he doesn’t particularly care for bodysnatchers that he just met climbing all over him with only the barest provocation. Yeah, I overdid that. And also everything, but I overdid that one thing in particular. I’m really glad that my face was covered by an artifice for which Soki had a good deal of reverence. The outward caribou face was probably all that kept the inner stupid human face from being punched resoundingly at least once. Even though Archai had his expressions similarly disguised, I still picked up a pretty strong “See? This is exactly the kind of shit that I was worried about.” Vibe from him. Oops.

Oh well. Nobody got hurt. To my utter astonishment, really. Though I did come to recall my earlier complaints about Jake being a bit too short for me, specifically vertically in the torso. The effects of the constriction in areas wherein I conduct little side projects like breathing and pumping blood to my head were lost on me whilst I was out among my adoring public. Okay well it was somebody’s adoring public I didn’t care much for the details. Anyways, once that zipper cut loose I became acutely aware of the significantly higher pressure setting to which my cervical vascular system had been adjusted whilst it was under constriction. With obstacles to its passage removed, there was a wild stampede of fluids up into my brain, the likes of which my fatigued and dehydrated gray matter was unprepared for. It took a lot of sitting very still and some improvised yoga exercises to mitigate the pain and resolve the dispute plaguing my circulatory system. “Okay heart, I know that you and my brain have had your differences, but you need to stop trying to make him squirt out through my ears. My brain has passed precious few hydrostatic pressure tests and I am in no mood to find out exactly where the limit lies.”

So yeah. The hangover associated with Jake Caribou is kind of lame, but I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed the experience. A fact that did not escape the notice of the border collie that had been kindly shepherding through the experience. A few unvarnished quotes, as best I can recall them through the miasma of brain damage that I was sustaining at the time:

“That is easily the second-highest energy level I’ve ever seen Jake at, and I only say that because Soki used to do the dance competition wearing him.”

“Yeah, you were prancing like a motherfucker out there. That was really impressive.”

“You know, it’s okay to touch the ground every once in a while. There’s no need to be airborne the entire time.”

“It’s a lot easier for people to interact with you if you… stop, every so often. Or ever. If you go streaking past them at near light speed to the point where they can barely see you then they’re not going to be able to engage with you very well.”

“Seriously though, we need to get you suited up as a dog, because it is painfully obvious that no matter what suit you put on, your energy level defaults straight to ‘dog’ the entire time.”

He makes a good point. Were I dressed as a border collie then spending the entire time bouncing off the ceiling and slathering everyone I see with euphoric affection would be completely normal behavior. I’m pretty sure that “near light speed” and “dog” are comparable velocities. The fact that Jake tried to murder me for offending his previous helmsmen would also seem to push me in that direction. In any case, needless to say I was quite done for the night by then. I poked around and chatted for a bit, but intense aerobic training whilst being slowly strangled will really take a lot out of you. I tried to drop in on the room party that Artica was hosting at the Hilton, but I was there nigh on two minutes when the place got shut down because of noise. Well, you know what they say. The party don’t stop ‘till I walk in.

So, Sunday morning then. I managed to drag myself out of bed (after sleeping from 2 to 6 and then 8 to 11) in time to attend the Egyptology panel. Sleepy John claims that he was there even though I saw no evidence of this. Although assuming that Sleepy John is around at any given time is usually a pretty fair guess. After I finished learning all about the pantheon in which my preferred mask spends his summers, I actually exchanged enough info with SJ for the two of us to encounter one another. There was a whole hell of a lot of nothing going on by then, but we were both hungry so we went to eat a thing.

I feel as though he got a profoundly disappointing experience at the con since he only showed up for Sunday. That day was the most barren in terms of events so far, and the art show had closed by then too. He said that he showed up pretty much exclusively to see me, which was flattering but also a little bit troubling. I do have a pretty winning personality, but I’d hardly say I’d recommend a long trip just to come experience it. I can send all of this schmooze through the internet pretty well for most purposes. It kind of makes me wish I had something more to offer him in terms of conversation and witty asides. I’m not always this entertaining when I’m bereft of the chance to proofread my remarks, and I was pretty burned out by then. I think that the persistent lack of sleep and water was showing. Could just be social fatigue too. Sticking my neck out there for every Tom, Dick, and Furry I come across just because there isn’t shit else to do really will wear on you after a while.

I think I also underestimated the challenge there. Coming up with a good, fresh topic of conversation is easy when it’s somebody new. I could mention literally anything about myself and it would be news to them. Great place to start too. I really like talking about me and damned if talking about me isn’t a tremendously interesting subject. That leaves me in a tough spot though, when I run into someone I’ve never met who I’ve extensively internetted at and thus already has all the important details and quite a bit more besides. That’s kind of an unsettling scenario when you really think about it. Maybe that’s why it felt kind of off.

Really though, I do wish he’d shown up during the earlier part of the con when things were happening and I still had all my most useful brain cells available to me. As it stood I kind of felt like I was putting him out. He came out just to see me, bought me lunch and gave me an adorable stick figure Anubis drawing. And here the best I could do in return was remain mostly conscious and struggle to string words together. I do hate to disappoint but this con really did shred me up after a couple days. Still, chances to meet other Café denizens are quite rare, so I’ll take any that I can get, even if they do pop up under less than ideal circumstances. It was good to see you, Sleepy John.

I poked around a bit after lunch, not really having much direction to move in. I managed to come across Catmonk Shiro, Moth Monarch and a bunch of the other folks I saw at the Transformation Art Jam at AC. It was nice to have a good crowd and a spot to chill out for a bit. I got to play a card game called ‘Love Letter’ for a few rounds. I never did figure out why it was called that, but I did figure out that it should really be called “Goddamnit!”. It has some frustrating game mechanics is what I’m saying.

In any case, the long amount of time that I spent sitting there, coupled with the lack of competing events and incessant pressure from my friends to get a fursuit led me to attend the “My First Fursuit” panel, because that previously unfathomable scenario is becoming a distinct possibility for me now and what the hell else was I going to do? Turns out that panel was critically mislabeled in the conbook description, because it was a fursuit construction panel, and not a fursuit operation panel as I’d been led to believe. Still, useful stuff to know, I guess. Though actually constructing anything is pretty much beyond me. Not only is suitcraft a highly-specialized field that takes a tremendous amount of time and materials to get good at, I’m starting a fair bit lower than most on that front. I’ve never been any good at building things. If I already have a thing and it doesn’t go, by God I’ll make it go, but I’m sure as hell not going to start with no things and end up with any more than zero things.

After that adventure was the ‘FC Unleashed’ variety show, wherein they grabbed a bunch of people who claimed to have talents and threw them up on stage in front of a live audience. Yeah, pretty good architecture to start with. I thought it was worth a look. The crowd was a hoot in itself. Whenever there was a lull you’d get some call going out. Some nonsense word or sound or meme that came from the back and got echoed all around the room. The “mine!” from the Finding Nemo seagulls was a popular one. References to anime and Youtube series were also up there, as well as dozens of other pop culture viscera. When sound problems kept coming up, the seagulls began calling “Mic, mic, mic?” It got to the point where someone from stage crew would show up to fiddle with the thing just based on the pestering of the seagulls alone. It actually shortened the turnaround time between acts considerably. The whole disasco (I guess I smeared together disaster and fiasco) that was our audience is really the best demonstration that I can come up with of what would happen if the internet were actually just a room full of people. Everyone takes their turn parroting meaningless nonsense, and yet somehow we find a way to make that entertaining and useful.

Lots of class acts up there on the stage, as I expected. I really liked how the host changed fursuits three times during the course of it. That was a cool idea. A duet saw one singer propose to the other during a performance of A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. That’s a hell of a finale. There was also a wolf-suited guitarist that had the most stunningly perfect rolling, gravely voice, both for his character and for the song. He did a spectacular rendition of, what else? Sam the Sham’s Hey There Little Red Riding Hood. I’ve never particularly cared for that song or style of music, but you can’t hear someone commit to something with their very soul and completely nail a song harder than anything has ever been nailed and not respect it tremendously.

Next up after that was more fursuiting. Archai had this dangerously saccharine chibi dragon called Sesame, who is about the size of a VW Beetle, that he wanted to try out, and I asked if I could play the herder this time. Normally I wouldn’t impose, but I was totally out of things to do and I wanted to test his assertion that being a dog was my destiny. He agreed, likely because he could really use some support in the giant plushie he was climbing into. The Sesame suit is off-the-charts cute, but lacks both hands and a fire escape. Meaning he can’t get out of the thing or really do much of anything unassisted. That pushed Brinkley into a more helper dog than herder dog role, but I think that he can handle it. Yes Brinkley can do it, yes he can. He’s a good boy. Yes he is. Oh-yes-he-is.

Anyways, I’d been suited up for about two thirds of a second when I realized that Arc was totally, devastatingly right about dogs. Brinkley just slid right on without a hitch, and he had tremendous freedom of movement. I’m confident that I could’ve held my own against any surprise ninja ambush while wearing him. The head was well-sized and quite forgiving as well. I couldn’t get over how smoothly that went. The next thing I couldn’t get over was how adorable his paws were, and how adorable his face was, and this adorable bandanna that he wears and awmughawd Ihavenocharacteristicsthataren’tadorableBRAWHAROWARGH! So yeah, it was nice. I kinda liked it. Arc had a tighter grip on the leash this time around, which is good, as I likely would’ve been out running through the streets had he not reigned me in every so often. Leading off with: “Okay, breathe a little slower. We haven’t even done anything yet.”

Sesame was a big crowd favorite, and for good reason. I’ve never seen anything quite like her. I guess I’m glad for the fact that there was someone pulling some of the attention off me, as I most certainly didn’t need any reason to get any more psyched up. At one point I learned, courtesy of Nevermint’s sergal Ravenholm, that it doesn’t matter how playful and energetic you are, taunting zombies is not a good use of your time. Great show by him though. Four stars, would get eaten again. It’s amazing to see some of these guys in action, particularly when you’re among them. Whether it’s conveying a ravenous desire for the flesh of the living, or just a hunger for some delicious pancakes, there’s always someone doing something interesting out there. Sesame’s “doing something interesting” was pretty much “existing out in public”, which to be honest was still quite a feat given the complications of the suit.

We made it to the headless lounge in short order, or perhaps I should say I headed there because I was burning out again. I found Ace there and got to chat for a bit. He was impressed with my fursuiting, going so far as to say I was a better performer than him. I don’t know as I’d go that far, but I certainly put more into it. Still, it means a lot to hear that from the guy that introduced me to fursuiting. I got some more advice from Archai when he came in to cool down. Very useful stuff, actually. My comical insanity makes for a pretty entertaining disaster whenever I fursuit, but I’m pretty thin on the “actually knowing what I’m doing” end of things. That might be what makes me stand out in a crowd. Most everyone else knows that they shouldn’t do all the stupid crap I do in suit because they know it’ll have them heading back to their room on their hands and knees in 45 minutes. In any case, that was probably the first occasion on which I’ve ever received fursuiting advice beyond “Calm down, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Though I suppose he also did say that often. I really need to get to work on actually developing particular characters. It doesn’t really matter what suit I’m in at the time, the character I most resemble is probably Gir from Invader Zim.

Arc asked if I wanted to hit the dancefloor. That’s something I’m always reluctant to do and that night was no exception. Usually when I “hit the dancefloor” it’s with my face, multiple times. Of course, Brinkley really liked the idea of going out on the dance and he didn’t check with me before running off to do that. So, dancing it was. I’ve never had anything resembling skill, or even competence really, at dancing, but any moron can dance in a fursuit. And by God I wasn’t just any moron, I was a dynamic, super-high-energy moron with nothing to lose. I danced my tail off. Not literally of course, Brinkley is quite well put together. Obviously I wasn’t long at that, but I had a really great time. At one point my paw slipped and broke me out of my rhythm, juxtaposing two very important realizations. “Whoa, this floor is kinda slippery-Ahh! Also I NEEDOXYGENTOLIVEBLURGURURRRR…” Key factor to remain aware of, that. I bailed out to the headless lounge again, wherein I was showered with compliments about my dancing, oddly enough. Way too many of them for it to have been sarcastic or ironic, too. So yeah, apparently somewhere in the midst of that perpetual stumble I was doing out there, some people were entertained. I’ll call that a win.

The other thing that I won was the endurance test, apparently. An equally baffling and unexpected victory, to be sure. Arc tapped out and we went back to his room to retire our respective characters for the night. To my astonishment, I came out of Brinkley very much not entirely destroyed. I could still think and move around on my own power and various other auxiliary functions that I often just wrote off as a loss after suiting. I was astonished by the time as well. We’d been fuzzed up for about two hours at that point, easily one of my longer excursions. I guess Arc’s sage tutelage was paying dividends already. I looked at the late hour and asked Arc about our plans for the immediate future.

“We’re going to meet up with some of my friends from work and get totally sozzled with them.”

“Okay. No problem with that. Great plan, actually. I was speaking more of the slightly less immediate future. Like, tomorrow morning at 11, also known as eight hours from now, when the nice folks at the San Jose Hilton will ask that I leave the premises.”

Turns out Arc had a suitable plan for that too. He had reservations for Monday night, and were I in his position I would’ve used that opportunity to continue to be unconscious straight through into Tuesday before packing up to leave. He was a bit more ambitious about it though. Apparently we were to spend the night in San Francisco and then have the morning to explore that lovely city. It sounded good to me. Since I had a plan, I forged ahead with the getting drunk part of it that, quite sensibly, formed step one.

I never would’ve expected to so quickly be presented with an even furrier workplace than Ryoken and Nevir’s print shop, but one stood before me that night. I was running into Arc’s friends from work constantly throughout the con, and got a chance to drink with three more of them that night. They kept the place quite well stocked, so even my finicky palate was able to find a few things that it really enjoyed. Now then, there is a certain culmination of critical details that merit repeating at this juncture. I mentioned how me forgetting to eat at cons was a thing, and also that California has murderously dry air, thus I was having great difficulty keeping any appreciable amount of water in my body, and how I was recently dressed up in a rather poorly ventilated border collie costume for like, a really long time just before this adventure. To this set of factors I then added a big shelf bristling with liquor. So yeah, the thing that I learned was, if you really want to save money on your alcohol budget then all you’ve gotta do is not eat for most of the day, head out to a desert, then wrap yourself in shag carpet and do intense crossfit for like two hours. You will get drunk immediately as soon as you’re in the same room as some booze and it will be amazing.

Seriously though, I blazed up the BAC meter at nearly the speed of dog, to the point where responsible people were telling me to lay off by like two drinks in. Good thing I still had Arc there to stop my enthusiasm from consuming and ultimately destroying me, as it had threatened to do on many occasions before. Still though, despite (perhaps because of) having been drinking at warp 7 the whole time it was a pretty good night. I had a lot of fun hanging out with those guys and just kind of coasting down off the high I had from snorting a few too many lines of Brinkley. Important process, that.

That was the first night that I actually slept quite soundly, and late into the day as well. Turns out that depriving your body of literally all of its most basic survival needs all at once is a great sleep aid. Of course, the one night that I slept well would have to be the night wherein I had a very good reason to get up that next day. Not because things were going on at the con, quite the opposite of that. Monday was as dead as the wit in this analogy for an extremely dead thing. No, the alarm I’d set on my phone reminded me of the ticking clock that would soon brand me as a trespasser in my room, so I had to set about fixing that. Being that I lacked the crippling hangover I had expected, packing proceeded apace and I actually got out of there in quite good time. Arc offered up his room as a place to stash my stuff temporarily, such that I would be free to… well, not do much of anything, actually. I believe I’ve mentioned before that I had run into a shortage of things to do. So the sensible thing to do is take that concept and mention the sweet merciful fuck out of it right now.

I’ve had a lot of philosophical differences with FC, and despite its being a predominantly good con, this one really got to me. I heard one person laud “Oh I like FC so much more because it’s so long. Anthrocon is nowhere near long enough.” Alright, first thing you got wrong, person who I didn’t stop to argue with because we are clearly polar-opposite human beings and would as such have absolutely nothing productive to say to each other, is your ridiculous assertion that Anthrocon is too short. AC is already at its absolute maximum survivable length, and making it any longer would be criminally irresponsible. If you feel like you need more con still at the end of Anthrocon then you clearly didn’t Anthrocon hard enough. Never in my life have I mocked someone for being a little bitch and not partying hard enough, but that is the only possible explanation for this perception of yours existing.

Secondly, AC packs about five days’ worth of events into three days, making for a non-stop thrill-ride of everything you’ve ever secretly (or openly) wanted to do in your life. They don’t take two days’ worth of events and stretch them out over four days to make what would’ve been a nice quick weekend con into a sparse, lethargic and unnecessarily padded Hobbit trilogy slog, and Anthrocon sure as hell doesn’t just push the dead dog back a day in order to claim that their con is an extra day long while adding absolutely nothing to the experience in so doing. That’s essentially all FC did with Monday, just delay the official end of the con until Monday night so that they could go to it on the calendar and stick a victory flag in that day. Yeah, the con was technically still “going on”, but the art show had closed the previous morning, the marketplace, dealers’ den and atrium had closed the previous night and there were FOUR events scheduled the entire day, and with that assessment I’m being very charitable in assigning needlefelting the title of “event”.

The content Monday was nothing that you couldn’t accomplish by simply loitering in a hotel with a sufficiently large group. Tacking on a bullshit extra day stuffed with packing peanuts and lingering disappointment does not make you better than Anthrocon! Yes, come to FC’s vaunted bonus day! Sit around in lobbies, wander around the convention hall wondering why it seems like anyone with any common sense has gone home! Experience the hollow disappointment of knowing that you’re prolonging the suffering of this shambling zombie convention that is being kept on its feet against its will! Eat out with friends, find some new friends and go out to eat with them! Find still more entirely random people because you’re desperate for companionship in the cold emptiness that remains in the con-void that you remain trapped in! Then go out to eat with them even though you just ate an hour ago because you’ve got fuck all else to do! C’mahn! It’ll be “fun”!

There, now that was rather passionate and opinionated, so let me temper it a bit by saying that in no way do I find that particular sin unforgiveable. I still managed to have some fun that day just by virtue of there being enough furries around that the volumetric fun density was still rather significantly above average around there. Really it’s just that the experience was insulting more than anything else. It certainly could be an East Coast/West Coast thing. I know there are quite a few venerable pastimes of the west which any self-respecting New Yorker would greet with “Quit wasting my fuckin’ time, hippie!” For all I know most locals were frothing with glee at the prospect of digging into the vast preponderance of sawdust and month-old macaroons that Monday was stuffed with to keep its thin veneer of legitimacy from collapsing in on itself. Really though, I think a lot of the things that I continued bewilderingly crashing into like a poorly-mapped zone border at the edge of the game’s map were just artifacts of the fact that this con was not for me. For a long time FC was a local gathering and it only rose to national attention because of how large it became and, presumably, because they are good at things.

Even going out to eat with a group of people and not eating anything was surprisingly fun. It’s kind of nice to get the whole restaurant social atmosphere without all that messy and inconvenient eating nonsense getting in the way of it. The group that Archai assembled for that excursion seemed to get along with me pretty well. Half of them asked me for my twitter handle, something that had been requested of me probably a dozen times that con. It’s flattering because people I’ve known on the order of minutes are saying they’d really like to hear every little thought that pops into my head, narcissistically broadcast out onto the net for their consumption, and it’s a little embarrassing because I still lack one of those. I guess that’s the silicon valley spirit talking there.

In addition to the matter of buying a fursuit, the decision of whether or not I ought to join all of these twits in their twitterpating is another matter upon which my resolve is being persistently worn down by those I associate with at furry cons. I know a good handful of people that have twitter as their only reliably-checked means of communication, and it seems like a pretty effective means of keeping my finger on the pulse of my various social circles at conventions.

Arc pointed out that the Twitters can be hacked upon such as to twitificate to archaic telegraphs like the one that I carry with me in my pocket. I’d never even considered the idea of trying to read all of this interstellar sub-space comm-traffic off of the tickertape that my machine puts out, but apparently it can be done. I don’t much fancy the idea of my phone just bursting at the seams at all times with all the random irreverent nonsense that twitter seems to run on, though. The only reason that I can leave my phone on when I go to bed or during lecture is that I have no friends and so no one is ever trying to contact me during those times. Presumably there’s some way to stick a binder clip on Twitter’s beak during times I don’t particularly need to hear from it, such as literally any other time besides when I’m attending a convention. I may have to look into that. Realistically I don’t even have to Twit any actual words. I can just use it to keep up with the furry fandom’s many Joneses and have an actual response when people want to use it to keep in contact with me, which very much is a thing that I want, regardless of my general distain for the Twitverse in general.

Later in the afternoon I did the whole handler/geneticist-showcasing-his-latest-creations thing and followed around Arc and one of his friends as they did the whole fursuiting/imitating-a-grievous-research-ethics-violation thing. Not something I’d ideally like to fill a huge chunk of a day with. Watching other people have fun in a mostly-empty convention hall wears thin quickly, but as discussed before, I had nothing else to do and thanks to my eviction that morning, nowhere else to go. Still managed to have good times, and found free brownies that were crazy good, bigass chunks of chocolate and the whole deal. Made me think that they weren’t free, or intended for me, but them’s the breaks when you leave your refreshment tables unattended. After Arc got out of his fur and dried out a bit, we did a few runs to throw gear into the back of that armored personnel carrier that brought it here and ran it all back to his place.

Now, I’d selected a return flight on Tuesday with the intent of leaving some time to explore San Francisco a bit before coming back home. This was before I knew about the secret day they had added to the end of the con after they’d constructed it in the back room from defunct engine parts and old milk crates. I figured that such a trip would be a wash now thanks to the extra delay. Apparently I underestimated Archai’s desire to display that lovely city to me, as he spent the evening working tirelessly to move heaven and Earth to jam a little San Francisco into my remaining time.

He found me a spot at his friend’s place actually in the city so that we could sleep there and already be where we needed to be at daybreak. For the life of me I can’t remember my host’s name from there, but you know, huge sea of new faces, myriad different forms of brain damage, etc. We’ve been through this before. The logistical snag about it was that it seemed as though a half dozen or so other people had also claimed a spot to stay there for the night. As such the location was critically short on trivial things like sleeping space and blankets. On the trip over, Archai was explaining to me that one of the last-resort plans they had in place was for some of us to sleep in fursuits for warmth. I had high hopes for a trip in which the worst-case scenario was THE MOST AWESOME IDEA I’VE EVER HEARD.

Not quite the stellar performance as that lead in had set me up for, but I was okay with anything by then. At about 3 in the morning we ended up in a basement walk-in closet that I’m sure charged rent comparable to the five-bedroom house I rented in Portsmouth. It was in one of those bars-on-the-windows, your-car-will-almost-certainly-be-broken-into areas that I normally associate with the neighborhoods bordering naval shipyards. We might’ve actually been close to one for all I know. I was paying very little attention by then. We spent a fair amount of time shuffling about and getting all of the furry flophouse’s denizens in order for the night. I never stepped on anyone, which was really my only goal as far as hospitality was concerned.

I’m certain that the other guests that night gained an awful impression of me, as I was far beyond my limit of exhaustion. Once again, it was untenably late and I had my throttle set at “Anthrocon: power through three days and then collapse into your own grave” not at “Further Confusion: make sure you leave enough gas to coast through the extraneous day distended off of the end of this con like a cancerous protuberance”. I felt kind of bad because I was technically a guest during all my surly shamblings about that place. Arc said that he hoped the conditions would be alright, but they were far from my worst sleeping arrangements ever. They might make the top 5 narrowly, but I could manage it. Hell, right then I probably could’ve slept pretty well if my accommodations were just a trash can with an ornery raccoon in it. I’m sure that I could’ve befriended and/or strangled any rodent guests as necessary to get some rest if that was the case. The only really irredeemable thing about the room was that they were running a dehumidifier. Remember how the desert air was slowly mummifying me over the weekend? Yeah, that thing was still a thing. Don’t get me wrong I don’t really blame anyone for it. That’s an absolutely brilliant way to dry out a fursuit, but I still woke up in quite a bad mood based on the fact that it felt like I’d spent the whole night trying to breathe a handful of broken glass.

It took us a little while to get moving out of there in the morning. Can’t fathom why… But in any case my tour of the lovely city of whatever-San-Fran-is-the-city-of was somewhat abbreviated. I’d say Arc was more disappointed than I was. I’m not usually much for sightseeing. I’m usually more of a sightdoer, and there wasn’t really time for that. We got to head down to the beach and walk there for a bit. That’s always a favorite stop of mine. My passion for beachfronts and the ocean was one of the things that pushed me into the navy, wherein I was continually disappointed by how few beach-and-ocean-related things were actually involved in the job. It is a pretty city. Combine that with the almost creepily ideal weather in most of the state and I can see why it costs about as much to live there for three weeks as it does to get open heart surgery. That sort of stuff is valuable, and rightly so. We got to traverse the Golden Gate because I’m pretty sure that’s legally required for visitors. The overlook point near there was quite stunning, definitely worth a stop. Spots like that are another fascinating artifact of California’s “hey let’s just plop these mountains right next to the ocean” geographical stratagem. It’s quite a sight to see.

The issue of food came up, because apparently I did still need regular reminders of its existence. Time was running short though, so I opted for something near the airport instead of the much more culturally steeped food trucks along the boardwalk or under the freeway overpass or wherever it was they were. In-N-Out Burger sounded like a great idea to me. Anyone I’ve met who has so much as flown over California at low altitude has been stark raving mad about In-N-Out. I’m pretty sure that any one of them would’ve murdered me in cold blood if it meant they could have another double-double from that place. I pretty much have to try it when the hype is that cartoonishly exaggerated.

The place certainly was doing a brisk business when we got there. I saw a guy holding a whole potato back there, the purpose of which I couldn’t fathom until I saw him cutting it into fries, right then, in front of me, seconds before they went into the fryer. That’s a clear sign of a foodery that is very much not fucking around. Arc told me about the “animal style” cheatcode on the secret menu which, apart from being quite thematically appropriate, means that your burger comes slathered in thousand island dressing and grilled onions. Of course I ordered it like that. Why isn’t all food available like that? When my order got to me, it turned out that they’d taken me up on making ALL of the things animal style and had animaled up my fries as well. Not that I could complain. They were pretty damn good. In the end, it was an above-average fast food joint that seemed to actually give a couple fucks in an age where that is quite rare, but it fell well short of the orgiastic praise that I’ve been mired in by essentially everyone who’s even familiar with the place. Ah well, it got the job done and I was close enough to the airport to not have to worry about the time any more. I’ll call it a win.

Apparently my worry was justified, as the lines at the airport were quite substantial, and very poorly organized. I wasted a lot of precious time trying to figure out which rat-maze led to the unwashed proletariat line, as it was thoroughly lost among the several dozen different levels of super-air-plus-double-chocolatey-fudge-coated-ultra-platinum-mega-bonus-enhanced-gluten-free-magical-partybus lines. I was toting some substantial quantities of sand from the beach around in my shoes at that time, which I got to muse upon while I moved slowly through the queue. I didn’t feel right taking it so far away from its home, so I managed to surreptitiously upend my shoes and shake them a bit when they had to be inspected by security. Hey, that’s how it works, man. You make me take off my shoes, I get sand all over your airport. Thug life.

Going coast to coast is quite a long ways, even with the advantage of metal wings and not having to worry about trying to ford a river or any of my party members contracting cholera. I actually got out my laptop and drained the battery all the way down using it during the flight, mostly working on this dramatic account of my travels that you now see before you. Usually I don’t bother with it, but as I mentioned, I had a long way to go and I lacked the diversion of stopping to shoot some buffalo or trade with the natives. I connected at Midway, an airport I’d never been to before. For those not in the loop it’s better known as “that one that’s not O’Hare.” It was a nice place and it seemed well run, but in the end fuck them for not having free wifi. It is the future now goddamn it! Infinity free internets should fall from the sky everywhere I go!

Now for the second leg of the journey, recall once again, again, the humidity deficits that I encountered during this particular incredible journey. Now adding in the night that I spent in a slightly more uncomfortable version of a dairy processing plant’s desiccating room immediately followed by the still drier air and repeated rapid changes in pressure associated with prolonged flight and it all basically adds up to a gigantic suckerpunch to all of the delicate repair work that my platelets had been doing on my abused, crusty sinus cavity that weekend. Protip you guys, if you’re going to start spewing blood from your nose, do it NOT on an airplane. It freaks them out a little bit. However, if you have your heart set on high-altitude nasal hemorrhaging, Southwest is not a bad choice. They keep up their lighthearted and congenial nature even through the worst of times, and that made it kind of bearable.

“Yes sir, what can I do for- ah, you’re bleeding. Excellent use of the call button, sir. You wouldn’t believe what frivolous things people press them for. Come with me and we’ll get you taken care of.”

Once they got me up to the front of the plane they got a little more serious as they did a fair deal of what I’m pretty sure was treatment for shock. I think they interpreted my calm (from having had this happen a hundred times before) and lethargy (from doing all of the everything and irresponsibly abusing my body) for symptoms of it. That was nice of them, but unnecessary. I suppose I can’t blame them though. It pays to fail conservatively with someone in your care who may or may not be in the process of dying horribly. It got us into an earlier landing spot so… yay fragile capillaries I guess. The mood lightened a fair bit when I told them that it was from overexerting myself practicing my telekinesis. They actually mentioned that when they got on the announcing circuit to tell everyone that I was going to live. The best was: “Alright everyone, we’ll be landing in Rochester in about ten minutes, provided our friend up here hasn’t succeeded in teleporting it to another location.”

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In a completely unanticipated twist, FA has once again proven unable to handle all of the mad crazy words I be spittin' atcha. I'm appending the rest in a comment, as it hardly merits a part three.