And so it came to be that I struck out once more into the wilderness in search of adventure. Actually I just drove to Massachusetts but I’m trying to make this more cinematic. This just wouldn’t be a furry con without a massive catastrofuck of terrible planning from beginning to end, so I made sure to get a head start on that. I’d only found out that Fur Xoticon existed very recently, and I’d been on the fence about attending for some time. They’re a new con, so it’s tough to get a read on what they’ll be like. It certainly wasn’t encouraging when their website had no events listed, or that it breaks often and seems hastily designed. Convenience of location ultimately won out, as it often does, despite how hard I worked to make this difficult. The con is actually quite close to where I go to school. The problem being that the school seems to think that I ought to leave when the semester ends. It would’ve been very easy to stay an extra week and just hit the con from there directly, and I got some entirely-too-late advice from my friends on how to do that. Apparently if you say you’re attending commencement they let you stay, no questions asked. Given the way they run late checkouts out of town on a rail I would’ve thought there would be more to it than that. Maybe it’s not super surprising. I stuck around an extra three days by lying about what finals I had, so they seem pretty chill about it. Alas, it was too late for such a plan and I was forced to head home. Perhaps that was for the best though. I really hate having everything I own in my car, especially if I’m going to be in a strange place for a couple days. That’s pretty much begging for it to be stolen. Nothing I own is really all that expensive, but some of it looks expensive enough to motivate someone to break my windows in order to later be disappointed when they try to sell my five year old computer only to be met with a counter-offer of being charged to dispose of it.

In any case, I dropped off all my stuff at home, including some stuff that I actually needed to bring with me but didn’t because moving is fucking horrendous and you can’t rationally think about anything other than how badly you want it to be over. Particularly when you will be presently driving right back to the place you came from. A plan like that seems defeatist, but heading back to school gave me a place in the middle to stop and sleep. That’s what made the timing work out. I spent a lot of that break time working on plans for RMFC, actually. Very new, hastily drawn plans at that. Awhile back the FurtheMore guys asked if I'd like to run their table at FA:U. I couldn't think of a reason not to, so I said I'd go for it. In a shocking turn of events, I recently learned of a reason not to do it. That con happens to be the same weekend as RMFC. It seems like I've made a habit of attending RMFC, and I might even have been said have some fun there on occasion. I asked about it and the staff said it's cool if I can't make it to FAU. So I checked in with my spirit animal high in the mountains of Colorado to see if he's still in a good position to have me loiter around his place for a bit in support of actually doing this thing. Ryoken seemed willing to put up with me again, so I had a bunch more stuff to worry about on that end now that I had new plans. So yeah, I spent much of the trip to this con worrying about scheduling things for my trip two cons from now. Ever get the impression that I’m too into this sort of thing? Me neither.

From there it was on to Springfield, which was relatively easy to find. The hotel however seemed to have a stake in remaining hidden. They had giant signs that said Clarion in all manner of locations, except for nearby or affixed to the actual building that WAS the hotel or convention hall, making one’s approach a bewildering and unnerving experience. I went with my best guess at the correct building and checked in there. They had my name at the front desk, so either I guessed correctly or stumbled into a very clever kidnapping plot. I had trouble getting to my room as it was somehow not in the same building as the front desk. They also gave me a room number with three digits in it and directed me to a place that had only four digit room numbers. I was struck with the impression that they’d just hastily given me a fake number just to get rid of me, which is kind of a rude way to handle a hotel check-in. When I asked about it I came to find out that I had to walk through the pool to get to my room. I pointed out that that was really dumb and they told me I could also go outside and walk through the parking lot to get there. That’s less dumb but not really better. They actually seemed quite concerned about that and were looking into what they could do about it. For the most part I was exaggerating, so before they could lose their shit too much I told them that they could just find whoever designed this floorplan and tell him that it’s stupid. They seemed fine with that plan.

I apparently presented a supreme challenge to the assembled convention staff as I poked around trying to find my room, or indeed any rooms, the vast majority of the accommodations being hidden behind the secret pool corridor for reasons known only to the demon cult that laid out the design of this compound. The insurmountable task that I presented the staff with was registering on-site. Something that I was assured was for some reason much easier than picking up a pre-reg badge at the time by the person working in registration. What was a little disconcerting was the fact that he had to enlist four other people to assist him in this endeavor before they managed to complete it. I’d hate to think of what lengths they would’ve had to go to if I’d found out about this con earlier and convinced myself to come to it in time to preregister.

Thinking back on Furthe’More, whose success was one of the things that convinced me to take a chance on this new con, I recall that one of the things that impressed me about it so much was that I never would’ve guessed that it was their first year. Well this year was absolutely Fur Xoticon’s first year. Perhaps even their zeroth year. I go to registration:

“I’d like to register.”

“Okay, let me find the guy who does registration.”

“Okay, let me find the guy who can get this tablet to turn on.”

“Okay, let me find the guy who can work the credit card terminal.”

“Okay, let me find the guy who has the wifi password.”

“Okay, let me find this one dude who’s dressed as a Charizard right now but he’s probably actually the best guy for this job.”

They eventually did get it, but that process was worthy of a little concern. They had like six people on staff, so I was forced to wonder how they could afford to have everyone only know how to do one thing. I should really check and see if that payment went through correctly. At this point, not paying for registration feels like stealing from a doddering old lady.

Against all odds I did eventually make it to my room and used my disquietingly featureless key card to enter it. I’m not sure why that bothered me. I guess there’s not a huge amount of practical reason to have a lot printed on a room key, but having an entirely white and smooth chunk of plastic just seems wrong, like they’re trying to hide something. Maybe they were trying to make me feel like a secret agent to fit with the 007 theme. I guess I’ll think that from now on. It’ll hardly be the first time I’ve lied to myself to make the pain and confusion go away. I noticed there was a bottle opener attached to the wall in the bathroom, so this place is pretty old school. That or they just really know their audience. I certainly can’t fault them on the water pressure, the lack of which is usually a good cheap hotel marker. I was trying to fill a glass and the stream knocked it right out of my hand. Must be they need some pretty stout pumps to maintain an onsite waterpark. Oh yeah also they have an onsite waterpark for reasons apparent to precisely nobody. I noted that I was in time for a panel, ‘Creating a Fursona’. Seeing as I’ve made it this far without ever properly crafting a fursona for myself and there was only the barest handful of panels to be had, I went for it. Spitfire and Con Chair Krank put on a fairly entertaining shell-shocked ramble. Not really structured or on topic, but still somewhat interesting to see. I believe I caught them at peak “oh fuck what the hell are we doing?” An understandable sentiment to have when running a first-year con.

After that was the timeslot that the opening ceremonies were hastily moved to right after the dozen people in attendance realized that Friday morning was not the ideal time to host such a ceremony for the benefit of essentially no one. There was slightly more than no one at the ceremony, and our hosts kept up the “Oh God are we seriously actually doing this thing right now?” theme. I noted that the evening had a headliner of Niic the Singing Dog. Apparently he’s quite the public figure in the fandom. Fans, merchandise, the works. I’d only recently learned that his name is pronounced “nice”, so I can’t say that I was quite on board that hype train. However, there was very much nothing opposite his show’s timeslot, so I went for it. In technical or musicality terms I can’t say I was blown away, but I think that’s entirely a function of the reputation preceding him. Had I not been primed with this apparently vast media empire that underwrites this particular green akita (had to look that one up. Breeds are hard to parse out when they’re dayglow green.) I probably would’ve thought that he was pretty good. I’m sure a lot of what I was hearing was an effect of “I’m dancing around in a fursuit and am at a dangerous shortage of oxygen”, which I identify with greatly these days. He certainly has a thunderous stage presence and a ton of energy. It’s unquestionably obvious that he’s been doing this for a while with the way he conducts himself. If I had to name the show I’d probably go with ‘Niic: Guts and Enthusiasm’, as that’s what really comes through when he’s out there. It’s certainly better than the equally applicable ‘Niic: Transistor Amplifier Clipping: The Musical’. Their sound system was kind of rough is what I’m saying. Their AV setup looked pretty professional and the lights were dynamic, but it really sounded like they were overdriving it when they didn’t need to. It was a small room with most of the audience within 30 feet of the performer. They could’ve easily gotten away with very little or no amplification. In the end, it was still a really fun show. The canine personality suits him well. Whenever he’s not singing he has that unrelenting optimism that all dog lovers will recognize. “Ohmygosh I’m so happy right now are you happy too? I want you to be happy so BAD pleasepleaseplease come be happy with me BEING HAPPY IS THE BEST AWMUHGAWD!” You could see plenty of fluff that had been shaken into the air in the course of the show, so it’s plain to see that he’s really giving it his all out there.

It was pretty quiet on Friday. Most everyone was planning to make a day-trip of it, so there weren’t too many attendees there that early. I was glad for Moosefet bouncing about in the lobby energetically. At the time he was one of very few things making the place actually feel like a furry convention. I saw him giving out MOSFET ribbons, which made me curious enough to investigate. Turns out that they mean exactly what I thought they mean. His name is based on Mixed-Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors, because he’s an electrical tweaker and I guess his passion is showing through there. I never managed to catch up with him out of suit, which is a shame. He seemed like an interesting character. I poked about a bit at the Dealer’s Den, mostly just chatting with folks who were happy to see someone willing to engage with them a bit. I talked awhile with Cadmium Tea at his booth and he said that he recognized my username from FA. Always a flattering thing to hear from someone new. I may actually achieve a notable presence in the fandom one of these days.

I also came across Seth Drake, someone who I’d met not long before the con in a rather amusing coincidence. It actually is a pretty surreal feeling to run into someone from the fandom just by chance in your everyday life. A few weeks ago the choir had brought him on as a hired gun to sing the solo in Bach's Chirst Lag in Todes Banden. During one of our breaks he recognized Heather Bruton's art on my shirt, meaning that each of us instantly knew the other was a furry. He asked if I’d like a cup of tea sometime and I took him up on it eventually. It took a long time just to arrange that one short meeting. Would’ve been nice if our paths hadn't happened to cross at such a busy time of year. He’s working on a PhD at RPI though, so he’ll be around for a bit. He’s an interesting sort, weighed in on a wide variety of things. I came to find at the con that he was actually a guest of honor, so I suppose I could say that I was honored to have made his acquaintance. I came to find that he was hosting a panel about writing and cartooning with Gray Muzzle, who was handling the latter subject. It was an enjoyable time. Certainly fulfilled my desire to have at least one writing panel per con. It was amusing that they occasionally stopped to ask us if we’d like them to stop just rambling on and on, but really listening to that was all I was there for.

The Late Night with Zen variety show sounded pretty interesting, too bad it didn’t happen. Which of course left us with no more events for the day. I heard Seth discussing food, so I jumped in on that. Gray Muzzle rambled a bit in his description of a potential eatery for us. After he was done running through the whole sales pitch I sought to summarize a bit in order to make a better-informed decision.

“So what you’re saying is, quality: average, selection: average, cost: average?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“I’m in.”

So I joined our two panelists along with Dyxxander and Palanth for a quiet late-evening dinner. I was glad that I took them up on it, as this was the only occasion during the whole con wherein I went out to eat with someone. I was at quite a severe shortage of people I knew at this con, and the con being in quite a severe shortage of people in general meant that I couldn’t do my usual thing of just quietly glomming on with a huge group of people who were unaware that none of them know me. For the record that dinner was only 3 out of 4 people who didn’t know me. When we got back to the venue pretty much all that was going on was the dance, wherein DJ Bleedingears was bringing down the house. By which I mean I believe that he was trying to literally collapse that physical structure with the volume of his music. Once again, small venue, few people, not necessary to use Hydra-designed sonic weapons as a means of entertainment. I hung out in the lobby a bit, finding that the 30 yard separation from the main ballroom tamped down the music to a pretty reasonable level. The venue was metaphorically if not literally pretty quiet though, so I called it for that night.

The next morning I found the curtains in my room to be profoundly inadequate, the intense sun that was gearing up to make it insufferably hot that weekend seeing fit to wake me up just before 6:00. A profoundly unfair act, given that sleep is quite fleeting at conventions and that I knew there was fuck all going on until noon on Saturday. Just as I was barely managing to shuffle off the burdensome mantle of consciousness a second time I got a text from a friend whom I’ll call Patrick Star such that his identity remains safely hidden from anyone who doesn’t click this link to his userpage. Naturally, Patrick’s text woke me again. He responded with befuddlement at my entirely reasonable response of telling him to stop sending me his inane Nazi bullshit at fucking stupid hours of the morning. His reply was so dazzlingly stupid I almost stopped being mad, as though one’s rage odometer can roll over back to zero at a certain point. He came back with “sorry I don’t understand time zones”. That message was broadcast live from SOUTH CAROLINA to MASSACHUSETTS, which astute observers will recognize as being in the SAME GODDAMN TIME ZONE. Ugh, I swear if he didn’t comprise roughly 12% of my active fanbase I’d drop him like a bad habit.

I proceeded then to a highly contentious continental breakfast. The con’s website said that breakfast wasn’t included with rooms, but they gave me a voucher for it when I checked in. One which they never bothered to collect before I obtained food. So in the course of my tumultuous morning I went on to either rightfully enjoy or accidentally steal a profoundly average continental breakfast. The scrambled eggs and homefries were about the same consistency, and for the life of me I’m not entirely certain which one of the two that is an indictment against. The bacon was pretty good though. I’d say you can’t screw up bacon, but once I sailed on a navy ship to Britain and watched both of those institutions passionately and gleefully fuck up bacon in disturbingly creative ways. Producing a product that could be tied into knots or seen through, their means of doing so likely best left to the imagination. So yeah, kudos to these guys on being true Americans and crisping up some delicious pig belly slices. It was hardly an ideal morning, but no matter. I’m sure every true champion starts his day with three hours of restless purgatory, furious text messages and a bacon sandwich.

The only thing allegedly going on that morning was the meet-and-greet with the honored guests and important folk. Naturally, unwashed plebeians such as myself were barred from it, which felt a little spiteful, honestly. Truly, I realize that there has to be an incentive to fork over some more cash and that’s never bothered me before, but when there’s literally nothing else happening at that time and I know damn well there’s going to be like six people actually attending that thing it really feels like that’s more a slap on the wrist to everyone else than a benefit of slugging registration in the face with your massive wallet. They ended up rescheduling that event anyway because nobody showed up, which I was surprised that they were surprised by. They made it a morning event when anyone who’s there was there on Friday and as such is hungover as fuck, and all the day-trip people hadn’t gotten there yet. Have these guys been to a furry con before? The first thing that happens is furry daylight savings time where everybody turns their clocks back five hours so they can sleep from 4AM to 11AM like Raptor Jesus intended. I came to find that such changes were now being tracked on a whiteboard in the lobby. Not a bad means of dealing with constant schedule flails, really. With such a small venue it’s pretty much guaranteed everyone is going to come through there pretty often, so that was actually a much more effective solution than any fancy technical stuff. Things were beginning to pick up slowly as the morning wore on, it was just barely enough to justify me throwing on my fursuit and getting down to brass tacks, which at this point are all that’s keeping the zipper attached. I bounced around a bit in the lobby, having some fun with those assembled. Togi was a standout as someone really engaging and fun to goof around with. That was good to see. A lot of the time people with Fursuiting.com suits are the sort that slowly plod by doing the dainty princess wave and never do much else. So good job to him on trying to break me of my ignorant fursuit stereotyping.

I made it to the photoshoot in good time to be a part of the group shot. I was a little disappointed to find that nobody was doing individual photos, as I’ve yet to get a good shot of the few hasty mods I’ve made to Blackjack in order to get him out of the shadow of his predecessor. I’d really like to have a couple good pictures to post so that people know what’s up. Ah well, that’s a task for another day then. I also got to participate in the glamorous 20-pace impromptu fursuit parade. That was pretty much just a dude with a camera who told us all to walk by him so he could use it in a music video. That was good enough reason for all of us! I met the indomitable Danruk Rooface there, someone I’d seen at many cons but never really had the opportunity to engage with before. Both of us being in fursuits was a wonderful icebreaker, so we had quite a time together. Now that I have a suit of my own that I can throw on just whenever and run off to do my own thing, I find that I underestimated what a social catalyst suiting can be. One of the things that I love about fursuiting so much is that it’s such a fun way to interact with people, and you certainly gain some distinctiveness by dressing up as a brightly-colored animal. That greatly accelerates and helps cement the process of making new acquaintances, something that happens with dizzying frequency at a con. It was really nice to get a chance to explore that effect in a place where I’m not just being mistaken for Ace constantly.

Next up was a “why the hell not?” event that I stopped in for, Halla’s fursuit dancing panel. It was really more of a discussion than instruction, but it was fun nothetheless. It’s always interesting to hear enthusiasts talk about why they do what they do. When they threw us out at the end, I was informed that they were throwing us out so that they could use the room for the talent show, an event of which I was previously unaware. Apparently I hadn’t been keeping close enough tabs on the all-mighty lobby whiteboard. Mainly that’s a function of the fact that there’s no room for glasses in my fursuit head. I’d previously given some brain-service to the idea of doing a standup bit for a talent show at a furry con so this idea was at least moderately enticing to me. Finding that out whilst being exhausted from having fursuited for a big chunk of the day and with less than 10 minutes’ notice was not ideal, but I was still riding high from all the fun I was having paling around with all the other fluffy folk that morning. So I went for it. Or I suppose in today’s gaming/mimetic parlance “You watch the animal people bouncing around happily. It fills you with determination.”

It was quite a harrowing experience to extract myself from my suit and hose off quickly before being thrust before my adoring public, but I made it work, and managed to put together a pretty darn competent routine in the course of it. I actually talked a fair bit about the confluence of events that led me to the stage once I got up there. I was a little nervous having to come up with something off the cuff. I stuck to mostly furry con-related things, since I had the truly brilliant intuition that that subject might resonate with my audience a bit. Unfamiliar territory of course, as long-time readers know that I’ve only been to a couple fur cons and have precious little practice at turning convention experiences into an entertaining narrative. Nah, never done anything like that at all. My nerves kept the pacing up, which I think actually leant itself to the act quite well. I kept moving right along so there was very little time for silences or awkward pauses. I talked over a few laughs but in my book that’s the right problem to have. Not exactly a proud moment that the biggest laugh came from me talking about Rainfurrest that one time, but I think it went over really well. Everybody clapped and lots of people told me that they really enjoyed it. I’m glad that I went for it. It was really great to get to try that out in a lower-pressure spot with a small audience so that maybe I can try it out at a bigger con someday. Someone did appear to be filming me, so maybe you guys will get a chance to see that if it shows up online sometime.

Next up after my entertainment debut was the dance competition. They actually managed to pull together a pretty all-star cast from the small pool of attendees and put on a really great show. I’ve been really amazed at the consistency of these. I’ve never been to a dance competition that I didn’t enjoy. I don’t know what the mojo at work was, but everybody seemed to have a really good sense for their song choice. Everyone’s tracks matched their characters and style so perfectly it was mystifying. Big shout out to the dancer just calling themself “Satan”. Pretty bold choice of a name, but I understood it a lot better once I saw the routine. I’ve never seen commanding presence like that before. Lots of people can get the crowd psyched up, but it’s rare that someone can command utter silence with just a wave of their hand. They really controlled that room. Truly a stunning display. After that I had my eye on TaurenTom’s panel called “Being a Good Social Potato”. It sounded like exactly the right kind of nonsense for a furry con. Unfortunately that was another event that ended up not happening. They actually moved the meet and greet that us shambling proletariat masses were barred from into that timeslot. Come on guys, you’ve got far too few events for them to be stomping on each other’s toes like this.

Once again I was out of events long before I ran out of day, and not keen to suffer the indignities of having my bones rendered into chalky powder by the music at the dance. I wandered listlessly for a bit and hung out in the lobby. That was really the only zoo-like generalized social space that the con had. Fair enough that the con had rather little need for such a thing as there were only a few people there, but I can see that becoming a problem in the future. This con is sure to grow, and we’d be tripping over each other out there without some place to be. I managed to come across Danruk again, who was in a mood for some games that evening. That sounded great to me, so we dug up a suitably-sized group for a couple games of King of Tokyo. My formidable opponents in the game that day included Mog and Cynders. Both of whose names were common enough to make their pages impossible to find. A couple others cycled through, but I didn’t manage to retain their identities as well as I usually do in scenarios like this. We were ushered out of the game room at 10:00, which seemed unnecessarily early to me. I can’t see what kind of harm we’d be doing in there with our board games and other tools of mischief. They were nice about it, but made it clear that we were done there. We could’ve easily played the game anywhere else where there was a table, but there was no such place available. Again, no social common area. So yeah, we were unquestionably done and then the night turned where all long, tired nights eventually turn, Cards Against Humanity. It was… pretty much the usual. A quick reminder of why I’ve had a falling out with that game of late. I used to really love it, but it was another one of those things like Undertale or Overwatch where the hype killed it for me. The only recall there other than the refugees from King of Tokyo there was Steve, or Kool Kat, who again, has too many matches for me to narrow down exactly who he is. I guess it seems as though my memory declines in effectiveness as the hours wane on into the night, which makes sense I suppose.

My extensive fiddling with the curtains that night yielded only marginal success. They seem to just be too small for the windows and there’s nothing for it. As such, Sunday started with another early morning and another disappointing breakfast that I may or may not have been actually entitled to. I planned to get my feet wet in my first fursuit competition that day by taking on the fursuit games, which just so happened to be just about the only thing happening that day. I got my feet wet a bit earlier than planned by way of the puddle that formed in front of the sink while I was shaving. Apparently the drain was confused about its purpose in life and was conveying water to the floor instead of the wall. That or there was also a waterpark in the bathroom that nobody told me about. I called it in to the front desk, more to deflect blame about the water damage than because I actually cared or expected it to be fixed. They asked if there was anything else they could do for me and I said a late checkout would be nice. The response being “too bad, that’ll cost ya”. SUPER helpful. I managed to haggle them up to 1 PM, which smoothed out a few things, but didn’t solve the morning’s big problem.

As eager as I was to get out there and show off my athletic skills, suiting on Sunday came with a unique set of complications for me. It had been inhumanely hot and humid all weekend. I could feel the wall of heat over by the window in my room. Made it feel like the world was ending out there. Every time I saw fursuiters outside I was pretty much counting down the seconds until they burst into flames. The issue with that was that nothing was drying ever. Even the stuff that’s made of super thin fancy synthetic fabric went a whole day without drying out. So suiting on Sunday meant both wearing a damp suit and packing it up to head out still damp. That’s a great way to invite some mold to join you on your next fursuiting excursion. There was also the matter of the hotel getting it into its head that I ought to check out of the room because I didn’t have Sunday night booked. That left me in the unenviable position of having to either drive home in fursuit or get naked in the parking lot. I’m fairly certain that someone would’ve eventually taken issue with either of those plans. So I had to get creative. I’d never really liked partial suiting much, and my suit doesn’t lend itself very well to that. It was really the only reasonable solution in this case though. It worked out okay, apart from a little phantom-tail syndrome and feeling a bit goofier than usual. I had a lot of fun at the fursuit games. They’re right about the sort of thrashing catastroflail you’d expect them to be, but that’s still a ton of fun. I didn’t even hurt myself! A sadly rare outcome given what I heard from some of the other participants. Good times though. I think I’ll get to those whenever I can in the future.

And so I got out of the portion of my suit that I’d used for the games and got everything stuffed back in my car in order to head back in and coast the rest of the con out. There was nothing going on other than more Cards Against Humanity, which I find to be damn near unplayable at any reasonable hour of the day. There was still a sizable collection of bored fursuiters running about though, and they tend to come up with some interesting antics given some time. So I elected to hang out for a while and see what might come up. It wasn’t a bad activity for a wind-down day, but that can only keep you going for so long. I was glad for the chance to finally catch up with Elbi and talk to her for a little bit. I could hardly justify never sitting down with someone who’s actually from my neck of the woods at a little con like this. We’d been there at the same time for much of the con but were pretty good at missing each other. She was impressed enough by the con that she wants to work there next time around, so I’ll call that a ringing endorsement. I mentioned at one point that I really needed a badge for Blackjack to help establish the character’s identity, and perhaps with a little luck and time, get him out of the previous pilot’s shadow. She said that she wasn’t doing badge commissions right then, but she’d be happy to make one for me. There was a conspicuous silence during the portion wherein one would typically discuss the cost of such a project, and I came to find that there was no cost! I was touched that Elbi would create something for me just because she knew how happy it would make me. Nowhere else have I ever encountered a group wherein I find so many people that make me say “How in the heck did I end up being friends with this person?” so often, with tones of either exasperated rage or breathless awe. It’s an exciting place to be.

I had thought that I’d stick it out until the closing ceremonies as I had relatively few matters pressing on my time, it was simply an issue of hanging out a bit until 4PM, or 5PM, or 6PM, or 6:30PM… The closing ceremonies were rescheduled frequently is what I’m saying. I’d done an extrapolation on it and though the reschedule rate had begun to taper off to a value less than the rate of the actual passage of time, suggesting that the ceremony theoretically would actually occur at some finite time, but I lost faith in it quickly. Most everyone I knew or could credibly claim to have gotten to know by the end of the con had left by 4 and the place was clearing out quite thoroughly. This made the extra hours seem rather unattractive, particularly since I knew that I’d need my sleep that night. So when my friends from college called and said that they’d all be going out to dinner and asked if I could make it, that was all the excuse I needed to push me out the door. I took off from the con, went to dinner and had one last hurrah with whomever was still left on campus before I had to take off early the next morning. The reason I was in a hurry to get out of there was because it was memorial day and I was on the docket for that. It is in the moments when one is hastily moving aside the giant day-glow orange fox uniform in the trunk of his car and retrieving a blue digital camouflage uniform to put on and carry a flag in a Memorial Day parade that a man is forced to stop and look at the sum total of the outcomes of events in his life and puzzle at how this all possibly could’ve come together. How does leading a stuffed animal parade get cut short in favor of beating feet back home to lead an actual parade through one’s hometown? What even am I at this point? Ah well, fortunately I have a long relaxing summer ahead of me to figure out those difficult quandaries. Can’t waste too much time though. I’ve got two other cons to get to!

Now, I’ve talked a lot of shit about Fur Xoticon over the course of this, but that’s mainly because such things are entertaining to read and because they make it so darn easy. I asked about why the con is named that and they came back with “Oh yeah that’s part of our theme. … which we haven’t implemented yet this year. Sorry!” Oh, these guys are just adorable! I made light of this being very obviously a first-year con, but that’s because most all of the things that went wrong are all very clearly first-year con problems. There are a lot of things that you’re inevitably going to screw up just because you’ve never done them before. And really none of those things irrevocably crippled my convention experience; I’m just really good at complaining about them. Experience is the best teacher for complex coordination like this and I could see the staff learning and streamlining as the convention went on. The real point is that everyone was motivated and seemed to be on top of their shit, even when they were scrambling to make sense of the ever-changing schedule of events. Every time I talked to a staff member they knew what to do, or at least who to find, which really is just as valuable. I was astonished to find that the staff listed only eight official members. They got a hell of a lot done for such a small team. These guys have got a TON of drive and spirit. They really want to get this thing to work and I very much believe that they can. Now that they’ve got a year under their belt to iron things out and appease the early skeptics I’m confident that they can pull in enough manpower and attendance to make next year’s event really something. I’ll be there for sure, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with!