Alright well I've been wussing out about this long enough, I've got work to do so let's rip this bandaid off and spike it to the ground in triumph. To forestall all of these from turning into 30,000-word endless diatribes I'm channeling the indomitable warrior spirit of Erik from the iconic Internet Comment Etiquette Youtube series. If you're not familiar with his work, just picture me angrily pounding out all of this on my keyboard as fast as humanly possible while shouting it aloud. It actually worked pretty well for keeping me moving.

Furpocalypse 2016: Lookit All These Beautiful Bastards!

I started this one by brokering a roomsharing agreement with Spunky Shep from the Upstate NY Furs. He ended up doing a complication and said that he couldn't make it. Which was fine. I'm always prepared to pay for the room myself because complicatededs happen quite often to furries, but he actually called back to say that he'd worked out a swap and now he was putting in his place Snugs and Mugs, who were in fact NOT affectionate cuddles and branded coffee merchandise but actually a charming young couple with adorably matched names that I never thought to ask whether they were coincidental or not. I hear they actually got married soon after our encounter so I guess it's going pretty well for them in any case. Congratulations, you guys! Their substitution into my flop-space was a weird people-economy moment where the hot-swapping of individuals all happened outside my purview and I just had to go with it, but it all worked out in the end so best not to think too hard on it. We didn't interact a whole lot because cons are balls-to-the wall explosion festivals even at the most dreary of times, but at the very least stayed out of each others' hair and had a great con. Mugs even complimented me on my shower singing, which... hey, that's a thing that happened I'm not gonna tell you how to feel about it.

Anyways Furpocalypse is a smaller local sort of con so the play-by-play of it is a lot more socializing, schmoozing and hanging out than actual formalized events and as such things are a fair bit less cinematic. I won't really have a lot to put in here so this should be a short one. Yes, I know I've lied many times about that and I may yet be lying again! We'll just have to wait until it's the future to find out. Firstly, great big HUGE most high and honorable mention to two tiny ferret children who absolutely lit the place up with their boundless energy and inhuman enthusiasm. Skittles and Oreo dished out some of the most fun fursuit performing that I've seen all year, and that's a year that included my attendance at like 46 furry cons somehow! The energy that each one of them has plays off one another perfectly and their voices are exactly what cartoons would sound like if they stumbled into a hotel lobby out of a Space Jam toonland portal. "OUH myhgaad didjahear that she said we're cute that's so awesome we love being cute it's sooo muchfunyoushouldtryitaren'tyouhavingsomuchfuntoo-ohLOOKADOGWEHAVETOPETITRIGHTNOWBYEAAAAAAAaaaaaagh!" These two are basically made of 100% immaculate, soul-searing joy and they could probably raise the dead just by asking them to come play for awhile. Yeah that's right, they were so fucking cute they were actually in serious danger of accidentally becoming necromancers. Phenomenal!

I saw one of the ever-growing number of RadFox fursuiters in the lobby, they're kind of hard to miss what with their day-glow nightmare kaleidoscope of Technicolor radiation trifoils and all. I checked in with them because us nuclear furries have gotta stick together. This time around it turned out to be Rechner piloting Sievert. He was new to me but the whole RadFox crew is a pretty chill bunch of dudes so we got along pretty great. Later on he was debuting a pistol-grip nozzle that shoots beer a pretty impressive distance. So no mystery why he was so popular. I also came across Fibrekitty in passing, his fursuiting stage presence dramatically eclipsing mine in both height AND gregariousness. I came to find out that he's a fellow RPI alumni, so we had a lot to talk about. Gonna have to follow up with him some more in the future.

This note on the back of my con book just says "Mori: Find out who made this beautiful sassy fuck." So I guess that was my first sighting of him. But seriously though, HUGE fursuit crush right there, instantly. Like to the point where I was too nervous to talk to him much right then. That doesn't happen often. If you hadn't guessed I tend to visit voluminous words upon anyone within my blast radius quite readily at all times, entirely regardless of whether they would much rather I stop. There's also a hasty scribble on here that says "Zivom Werewolf" that I've yet to rediscover the meaning of. Much as that seems like a person's furname my search turned up empty, and I get the feeling that it was more of a concept or reference to some kind of content. Doing archaeology of my own past is really weird. If you're the one who mentioned that phrase to me or maybe that IS your furname please do me a solid and tell me what the fuck it means because I was apparently very interested in it at some point and really didn't want to forget about it, making my forgetting about it all the more distressing.

The fursuit parade happened. I was in that. Also in the fursuit parade was this giant-ass army surplus cargo truck, which we of course piled high with animal people and drove around the block in. As one does. 5/4 would risk losing arms again. Battsaults once again came in like a wrecking ball spreading high octane booze and free food in his wake. Seriously though he invited be to some totally baller shady nighttime parking lot barbecues which are totally things that happen somehow but hey this is some good kielbasa I'm not gonna dig too hard about what it's doing here. Or should I say grill people too hard about- okay I'll stop. Late that night I saw Farah and Kida and horrible silly-string-related things happened, the type of madness that scars men's souls. And uuuuh, fuck it, that's it moving on!

Further Confusion 2017: Bitch I do what I want!

I graduated from college at about this time. Woooo life accomplishments! That also meant that I had very little limits on exactly how long I could fuck off to go do furry things. Archai always said "Come by anytime and stay as long as you want." Naturally I was keen to put that to the test by hanging around at his pad for a jaw-dropping 23 days which, true to his word, he seemed more than happy to support. Jeeze, things are going pretty well for me but it's nice to know that I have a fallback for if I ever become homeless. I tried to do a bunch of things while I was there because sitting on Archai's couch the whole time would've been kind of a waste. Touring places, visiting Stormy Kittyhawk and Toby Snowwolf for a bit. Seeing like four different fraternity brothers who lived around there. Meeting up with my parents who coincidentally flew into Carmel right about that time. Some things worked some things didn't that's a risk you take when you live your life there's nothing to it but to do it okay moving on to the convention!

FC is still lazy as fuck and expects that you and all your rich Sanny Frisco Bay friends are just having enough fun circle-jerking each other to not notice that there are no events going on. For serious if it weren't for Archai being a gracious and charismatic host every time I would've gone to FC precisely one time ever and died happy knowing that it just wasn't worth the price of admission. The price of admission being coast-to-coast plane tickets and not the LITERAL price of admission in my case. Regardless I seemed to shoehorn my way into enough variegated social circles to keep myself occupied. Maybe someday I'll even BE one of these rich, insular Bay people. We can only hope! Seriously though, I did try to find a job in California. The one place that didn't robo-reject me right out of the gate totally told me to fuck off when I interviewed there. They said that I was "Overqualified and displayed insufficient interest in the position" which has gotta be like the least disappointing rejection ever. I just kind of thought "Um, okay? I'll come back when I'm stupid and desperate then?" So yeah, this is definitely a place to VISIT. I went to Titanium Tea XXVIIII and that was pretty dope. I threw back some fuckin' delicious cardamom spiced blend and talked to a bunch of chill dudes while wondering what kind of mixed messages the title of this event is going to send in a couple year when the number increments up to XXX. I guess we'll see. Oh wait never mind good thing it's already the future now so I can tell you, yeah they just took the number off for that one what a copout so totally super lame moving on!

Stormy hosted kinky discussion panels and I of course went to both of them because they were the less businesslike version of the late-night sexy writing panels that I've always had a special place in my heart for. I can really get behind loosening up and dropping the pretext of writing and skipping straight to the good stuff. Even if I have less sexual experience than most Mormon middle-schoolers it's still fun to talk about this kind of shit. I also did the fursuit parade because of fucking course I did you think I would come to this thing and then NOT dress up like a carnival parade float what are you kidding me? I had to be hospitalized before I considered not wearing a giant traffic-cone-colored bag of carpet all day, it's what I do, fuck yeah! I went to a panel called "What's Your Problem?" and for those of you viewers at home who have asked that question already HAH! Sorry to disappoint but that was just a cleverly-named writing panel and not at all any sort of redress for my deep-seated emotional issues and the unhealthy ways in which I repress them. The panel was meant to address the problems that stop you from getting published as a first-time writer. Really useful stuff to know for new authors, as the ability to write and the ability to get published both take up a very large number of talent points and are located in entirely different skill trees. And as Kyell Gold puts it, "The best way to get someone to publish your novel is by having already published a novel."

It was about this time that I met Dasos Lukos, Damien Husky and Terraluna. I'm sure they regret that every bit as much as I do. And yeah after that it was mainly just logistical catastrofucks to try and get people where they needed to be and with furries that can take entire days so that can all safely be skipped moving on!

Furthemore 2017: Trash Jackal for Life

Oh man this one might be even shorter because I worked at this convention so a lot of it is just iterations of me moving supplies around and finding shit for people who were attached to their work in some fashion sharecropper-style couldn't move around like I could. I stayed plenty busy, but not with anything that would be fun to read about. Didn't even have a chance to fursuit this time, but hey, did good work, had good times. I do definitely know now that I'm going to have to actually pick a department and get a real job next time I can make it to this one. The first two times I worked at FTM I just had this freeform "run around and pick up stuff that fell through the cracks" kind of thing going on. It worked fine for something so nebulously defined. Just taking care of all the random little widgets that nobody thought of ahead of time had me running off my feet. They've gotten shit together now though. If a thing needs to be done then it's accounted for and it's somebody's job specifically. There wasn't a lot of sluice work that just fell in my lap, I often had to go looking for loose ends because there just weren't that many of them. I even had a radio this time so I would be easier to summon for problems. Occasionally I legit ran out of work and just ran off to do fun con things for awhile, that's new! So good on those guys. They took a job that I did for years and organized it out of existence. Hell I got there decently early and loadout was already nearly done when I got in. Heh, things going well isn't nearly as much fun to talk about as disasters are, but this is unmistakably progress. That's some good shit-get-togethering you guys!

I will say that running around tackling everyone who was trying to record Boozy Badger's panel was pretty fun, and I got to watch him talk in exchange for policing it. Good stuff. He's a fun guy to listen to. Definitely catch his shows if you get the chance. I actually roomed with Mori on this one, completely by coincidence. He happened to be friends with Nunavut Tuktu, who was my landlord this time around, another RPI alum actually. That place has even more of a furry scene than I thought! So yeah, I got to actually have some face-to-face with Mori instead of just fursuit-crushing on him the whole time, which is nice. The great thing about the furry fandom is you can meet your idols and not have that ruin your image of them because most of them are still pretty chill dudes, even when they're not performing for their adoring public.

One spot wherein we never run out of work is packing up at the end of the con. There's a ton of stuff to move, everybody's exhausted, manpower is starting to fall off, it's a trying time. So yeah I really got a workout then. What put us at the end of our rope this time was that a lot of our retro games in the video game room use CRT TVs because the timing and screen latency of newer models can interfere with many games that are old enough to rent a car, and games that need the lightgun straight up won't work unless the TV is pointing an electron gun right at them. So to support our retro technology needs, we put out the call for old CRTs, which many folks were only too happy to provide. Naturally during the pack up phase, toting around like seven giant heavy-ass televisions was cramping our style a little bit. Those of us charged with removing them were quite bowed by our lot, especially since these were some of the last things to go on the truck.

Finally defeated, we resolved that we'd just rid ourselves of the three shittiest TVs and be done with it. That was a quick consensus, but there was a bit of back and forth as to how exactly we were best to disappear them. The dumpster at the loading dock was certainly tempting when we were in that state, and had it been just one I would've been all for it. Just like punching someone in the face, the first one is a fluke and is far more easily excused. It's difficult to make three look like an accident. I knew that blame would probably make it back to us if they found a bunch of what is actually no-shit hazardous waste left at the hotel, and that wouldn't be good news for our venue relations. The vacuum tube also explodes violently when you hit it, you'll never guess how I know that. CRTs are really not the sort of thing you want to mess around with. Since I was the one fighting hardest for us to do the right thing, I brought my car around and loaded it up with all the offending machines, their fate to be determined after some sleep.

My charge proved to be a far greater foe than I imagined. Consignment shops all have a pretty consistent reaction when you offer them cathode ray TVs. Best Buy at the very least answered their PHONE to turn me down from HERE. All three shops that I called didn't pick up and made me drive out to them to experience their spiteful middle fingers in person. Recycling and waste management places weren't much easier. Most e-waste places want proof of local residency and I was a long way from home. If we had known this would be a problem we could've put up some of the TVs as prizes for our video game tournaments. Probably could've suckered at least ONE person with one.

When I looked back at these accursed poison boxes I was just like "Well I guess I AM the one that insisted we not just ditch them at the loading dock..." God, being a responsible adult sucks. No wonder furries never want to do it! If this comes up again I'mma set the damn thing on fire and run away. And really having done this kind of thing before you'd think I'd know better. My trash service back in Portsmouth was going to charge a $20 'large item fee' for a TV that a previous tenant had left behind. So I got a barbell from the garage and turned the large item into a bunch of small items. Wouldn't recommend that method necessarily. CRTs are actually VERY dangerous to tear apart. Most people underestimate how bad TVs are because they seem so innocuous and pervasive. Like the way gasoline is far more dangerous to handle than dynamite, but people are more familiar with the former. CRTs have huge capacitor banks that will still shock the stuffing out of you for a LONG time after the set is unplugged. They have a mercury lamp, leaded glass screen, and probably about a third of all the other different toxic heavy metals in their circuit boards. And as I found out, the vacuum tube shatters explosively when hit because of the whole vacuum pressure thing.

Apparently the iniquities of this particular technology are very much NOT a secret. There were SO many recycling places that I called that said "Oh yeah we'll take any electronic waste. Except Cathode Ray TVs. Don't you put that evil on me!" It was SO stressful driving around with those things. They're big heavy blocks of old-ass creaky plastic, so whenever they moved around I was just like "Aaaaa the car is making bad noises aaaaaa!" It was kind of cool though, when I actually got them into a place. I was still wearing my staff shirt when I went to the eWaste place that finally took the damn things off my hands, along with some portraits of my good friends Mr. Grant and Mr. Jefferson. The girl at the counter, just from seeing the logo on my shirt, said "Oh, are you with Furthemore? That's so cool! How did it go?" So apparently we've got some positive brand recognition out there. That almost made it worth it. Almost.

Anthrocon 2017: I've done this HOW many times?

Oh God what a mess. Having been to SIX of these things now they're all pretty much a drunken, heat-exhaustion-smeared haze in my mind. I'm having to hit up the old reports a lot to stop other years' events from bleeding over thanks to temporal confabulation. Here's hoping this one will be coherent at the very least. Any entertainment value is purely a byproduct I assure you. I met up with a lot of the usual Anthrocon crew. I'm not going to list them all because they know who they are and it's a ridiculous list because AC's attendance is more than twice the size of the town I grew up in. So I'm just gonna roll this here highlight reel and hope for the best.

The Science Furs panel was pretty cool. It's not often that social mixer type events like that really land, but for some reason having a diverse pool of nerds rather than a selective one where they're all nerd for a particular thing seems to stir discussion a bit more and make for a pretty fun time. I guess there really is a danger in having too much in common. It's fun to tell new people that you split goddamn atoms for a living. I mean, the ability to say that isn't WHY I do it, but that's damn cool. In some of my downtime, I was really enjoying blowing bubbles over the balcony and watching fursuiters chase them around. That's definitely one of those 'simple joys' moments that you only find at a furry con. Though I can't say I recommend it at this particular gathering though, as it wasn't long before the fun police came by and scolded me because I was "throwing objects off the balcony" in violation of their code of conduct. Yeah, this is clearly the most dangerous thing happening right now. Good job shutting down that crime syndicate, guys.

Battsaults was once again bringing the party, and got in touch with me to ask if I could help him out with finding a use for his three casks of mead. He definitely hit one of my core competencies there! My interactions with him over the course of the con were varied and sporadic, but I'll just pick the top like four-ish out of the whole compendium of sidequests and collect them in the same general area here for the sake of convenience. (The Saké of Convenience is also a popular and easily-accessible drink at this convention.) He happened to be rooming with KibaKun, who I've chatted with online a time or two through the Hypnofurs chat, and we were both keen to get to know each other a bit now that one had fallen into the other's lap so coincidentally. Yes, this is definitely my home con. I can't stop tripping over people I know there.

I also happened upon a green gas cap in the lobby that I was near-certain that I recognized. Sure enough it belonged to Battsaults. That's a very emblematic furry con event. You find a green gas cap on the floor and think "Hm, I'll grab this because I think I know the guy who drinks liquor out of the gas can that this cap goes to." And have that be precisely the case. "Goddamn, man. You find everything!" Was Battsaults' response to my turning in the quest item. I was also hanging out with Archai at the time I was headed up that way, so I got to play the Japanese slice-of-life RPG angle of looking at your friends' stats and seeing if they'll get a bonus from hanging out with each other. They most certainly did! That's a good feeling. I'm glad that Archai got to experience Battsaults and his crew, because they are definitely an experience!

I got nudged in the direction of a big poppyfur party by Archai at one point. And by nudged I mean he pretty much pushed me in the door and shut it behind me as he ran off to go do other things. Talk about throwing me to the wolves. Wait, well I mean there had to be at least one wolf in there, it was a crowded room. So yeah that phrase still holds. The occasion, besides conventions being great places to get drunk and snuggle on the couches in a suite, was Avi's birthday if I recall correctly. What I realized during the orientation phase of my expedition was that there were a LOT of pretty well-known furries there. I had heard of a majority of these people before through the waves they make in the furrynet. Naturally I was completely new to everyone which means that I hold all the cards here! No preconceptions, my destiny is of my own making! I don't really see these guys regularly, so it's tough to tell how that went, but it was worth a shot! The star-studded cast that night included but was most assuredly not limited to Zanth, DiamondDog, Dash Tiger, bunnies of both the Frosty and Twilight variety, the indomitable Sunny-D, Leopold Lion, and Rondo Foxcoon, a crowd whose combined Twitter followers likely outnumber the population of the United Kingdom.

I leveraged my preternatural ability to avoid being asked who I am or what the hell I'm doing in a place I have no business being to slip into the role of de facto bartender, and likewise endeared myself to the assembled clientele. Spawts hollered a drink request from across the room of just "Surprise me!" They did indeed know very little about me. I took on that challenge with great zeal, exclaiming something punchy and elegant to the effect of "Bitch I'mma carve that on your tombstone, let's fuckin' do this!" I may have been serving myself generously as well by that point. Who's to say? In any case Spawts was shortly converted to run on E85 for the remainder of the night. Real victory for Mother Earth there.

After the crowd thinned a little and people were toasted enough that having a full-time bartender was no longer so much of an issue, I got to talking to Avi, who had at last grown curious as to the nature of my presence there. Fortunately if there's one thing I can do very proficiently while drunk it's talk loudly for a really long time. It's my default setting in fact, so I just cruised right along. I really seemed to be holding his attention though. So I guess I was being suitably sociable and entertaining with whatever it is that was in my head at the time. I really should follow up with Avi sometime. Seemed like a great dude, and months later I heard that he'd asked around about me. So it seems I left at least one solid impression within the conclave of luminaries. Well, other than the Spawts-shaped dent in the couch where he spent a good chunk of the evening in powersave mode.

I did a bit of fursuiting, both operating and ground crew. Archai has a lot of really spectacular but also unwieldy huge plush suits, so sometimes I get tapped to handle for him. It's worth doing a lot of the time, because giant plush suits are SUPER popular, and it's really fun to watch him work in them. I got to catch up with Angrboda and the TF crew where I was introduced to Raveyote and other cool doods. I also met Kirisha and the um... different TF crew I guess? I should make that my next friend-bonus mashup. I don't know why it didn't occur to me right then. And to close, the Furlibs panel was a really fun after-dark story construction game that was elevated from good to ascended by the addition of a few terribly misfortunate artists who had to draw the story on a whiteboard in real time as it was being developed. Their struggle to produce "a raccoon sensuously rubbing a tree" and other bizarre constructs in just a few moments was the stuff of legends. A good time was had by all and then we all buggered off the end.

Furaffinity United 2017: Complaining Constantly and Loving Every Second

Typically I don't go to this one because it's opposite RMFC and I've got my Colorado peeps to keep up with, but as a tepid mixed blessing this year that wasn't a problem due to RMFC riding dramatically off into the sunset. FAU had kind of a local con feel to it, likely due to the relatively modest attendance, which peaked in the low 700s awhile back. On the other paw EVERYbody has heard of FA, so it still achieved a pretty noteworthy degree of market saturation. It certainly carries itself like a bigger con, with good logistical support and a strong programming schedule. It also casts a net over some of my old stomping grounds in the Tidewater area, so I got to see a lot of those dudes that I haven't seen in awhile.

First up I did the trivia competition hosted by one such familiar Tidewater dude Tyr Kangaroo. My first time doing such a thing at a furry con, but I've gotta get to more of those things because I wrecked that competition so hard I kinda felt bad about it by the end. I won a huge swagbag and I'm still working on finding a home for all the cool toys and junk that was in there. I picked up a couple great fursuit props and silly accessories. There was even a fox plush that's a passable likeness of my suit, just by coincidence. I wish carrying things around while suiting wasn't such a pain. Having that with me would actually be pretty cute. If you can believe it, I saw Mori yet again. He probably thinks I'm stalking him at this point. And of course he's like, not... a hundred percent correct about that. Or whatever. But I did end up going to a party and snuggling on the bed with him for quite some time. I think mainly he was just overheated so I was like... emotional support? Yeah that works I'm sticking with that.

I suitably steeled my nerves and got dressed up for the fursuit games. One of the nice things about having an old suit is that you can really get into fun stuff like that. You're not worried about keeping your look all pristine and proper because you already know you a janky-lookin' fuck and you're proud of it. Plus people fawn over really nice looking suits (people like me! Hi!) so you know that if you've got a ratty-looking vagrant aesthetic then anyone who's hanging out with you actually has a genuine interest in the real you. Yeah, that's definitely why I look like that, so I don't send the wrong message about how fun I am to hang out with. Wouldn't want people getting the wrong impression, you know? I think that if you look at me and say "wow, he looks depressing" that's a lot better than being deceived. Unlike those living Tide pods of people that are so brightly colored, shiny and beautiful on the outside but are actually filled with toxic sludge. Come on everybody, be honest! Be toxic sludge on the outside!

I got to hit up an interesting game put on by Geo Otter. It was an escape room RPG. So you've got the usual Saw scenario where you're trapped in an elaborate puzzle room and you have to escape certain death by figuring out the killer's twisted logic. It was interesting to figure out all that stuff, and really fun to work together with people on a variety of puzzles. Geo projected a pretty good atmosphere, had all the right materials to give us the information we needed and kept the game moving along very well. I never would've guessed that this was a new thing he was trying out. It was very satisfying to see a bunch of ideas come together from all sides and have them work perfectly. In the end we made it out of there in time and only one of us died! Your valiant sacrifice will not be forgotten, whatever-your-name-was.

I saw Kelix while we were both suiting and he was glad to see me again. We got to be super fox buddies as we walked about a bit while we were coming down off the adrenaline rush of the pitched competition in the fursuit games. We had to take a break pretty soon because next up, for both of us actually, was the talent show. Kelix was one of the hosts of the show and I planned to do fursuit comedy. Not just planned, I did! Kinda. I got nervous and forgot a bunch of my bit, so the routine I actually ended up doing was like 60% about how nervous and freaked out I am. Adapt and overcome, dammit! And, unlike many of my previous performances, there's actually a readily accessible video of this one. So do check it out if you feel so inclined, and let me know your thoughts!

The big standout from this con was the convention war stories panel. I've ducked in and out of a couple of those at other cons and they were nice, but they weren't a huge amount of fun or anything. A lot of crusty veterans from the good old days just talking about how "Oh back in my day we didn't have all these fancy Bluetooth-enabled sex toys and live video chatting for our cybersex! We had a Usenet board and a piece of rubber hose. And we appreciated that hose, dammit!" Now, I can't hate on them too much. The old fogies like that are the reason that the fandom is the prolific, beautiful thing that it is today, and as a future old person I most certainly support them having their moment to talk about how we came to be how we be todee. Having that kind of talk go on for over an hour is kinda low energy though, and it really shouldn't be. Furry cons are exciting! So it shouldn't be that hard to make talking about them something fun.

So yeah, I didn't have super high expectations going in, but I figured it's always fun to complain. Well, this panel opened up with "Alright, we're just here to swap stories and let off a little steam. We're not going to publicly throw shade on anyone in particular, so don't identify any people, cons or hotels by name. Unless it's the Cromwell Super 8 because those dickheads had bedbugs in their rooms and they acted like it was MY fuckin' problem." Show 'em how I felt, Chris Pratt! Yeah, I knew that I had found my people. This was a whole bunch of the exact same shit that I do all the time. People talking about all the uniquely insane bullshit that you only ever have to deal with at furry cons, suffering that's now super fun to talk about because it's long in the past. "We had somebody in our group that would just eat everyone else's leftovers at restaurants because he was always out of money by like 2PM on day one." "One time I couldn't shower that morning because the shower was full of pooltoys. Like, floor-to-ceiling just stuffed with them." This. Was. My. Jam!

"Hey they're playin' my song!"
"Complaining is your song?"
"Fuck yeah! Have you MET me?"

So yeah, that was pretty fucking amazing. I'd very much like to give credit for a FANTASTIC panel to our gracious host Majikcraft. They really knew how to take charge and create just the perfect environment for this kind of thing. I was so inspired that I felt like I should apply to host a similar panel at another con.I've got plenty enough stories to tell that I could carry an event like this, even if I didn't get a ton of audience participation. For me telling an hour-long story to a crowd of people is something I do without even realizing it. If ever I get a handle on what my future is supposed to look like more than a couple months out I'll have to give that a shot. I'd love to spread the tradition of something like this a little wider. It was a great atmosphere for a little back and forth, and I threw in quite a few punchlines that went over really well in other peoples' stories. That's exactly my kind of dynamic, one where interjections are constructive rather than being considered rude.

I waited quite awhile for my turn, because I wanted to gather my remarks a bit before presenting them. I had SO much that I wanted to say, but I settled for a single story, because I knew exactly the one to tell, and because I knew that I could monopolize the whole panel if I didn't throttle back on all the stuff I wanted to say. I regaled those assembled with the epic saga of Marius the Invalid from Anthrocon Past, both because I've told it many times and know it well, and because I knew that it would totally smoke everyone else's story. For the record, it did pretty much bring the house down. The line that received the longest applause break was definitely "So I got to talk with Marius' dad for awhile. We discussed his previous three trucks, which he had pictures of, and also his previous two wives, which he did NOT have pictures of." And for those wondering, yes! I also have terrible summarizing problems when speaking aloud, so the epic poem was interrupted by the host saying "Okay could you wrap it up so that other people can go? I think that 20 minutes is plenty." I actually picked up a couple FA watchers because I told the audience where they could find the full version online. Pretty good advertising strategy. I wish I could say I did it on purpose.

After the dance competition I was helping an exhausted angel dragon fursuiter with some latent locomotion and heat rejection concerns. I remember her name being Tiny Geiger, but that hasn't flagged anywhere online, so either I disremembered or she's a mysterious shadowninja with no virtual presence. In any case, I saw her back to her room and she just so happened to be friends with Exavier Wolfhymn, who I knew from my time in Virginia. And just like that I had my new crew. I hung out and chatted with those guys for quite a while, we went and got pho-ked up to bring the night to a close. It was good times. I actually didn't have a room for the last night, so I had to be moving along. I didn't feel too broken up about it because by then the place had thinned out quite a bit, but of course, plans never last too long at a furry con. I got called over to a game of Werewolf in the lobby. It was a blast. It's exactly the right game to play when you're worn out but still want to have some fun and socialize with people for the short time you have left with them.

Fortunately enough, that extra delay had me in the right spot to see Jibade (Ja-bah-dee. I include phonetics because I had to ask) when he came by to join. For those who aren't familiar, Jibade is THE Anubis fursuiter. He is a god among gods. And when I say he has a fursuit I don't mean in the way you're thinking. His costume is based on the more contemporary Middle Kingdom depiction of Anubis, once they'd stopped being so wild and stylized with it after Mentuhotep II rolled through told everybody to calm the fuck down. That is to say, the design has a jackal head and tail with human everything else. Naturally with Egypt being a desert nation that predates air conditioning by a few strides and a nose, the traditional clothing with which Anubis is oft depicted is fairly revealing, so you're really putting a lot of yourself out there by doing a faithful recreation of that look. And by the gods is this faithful. Like, drop to your knees and fucking recognize kind of faithful. I don't often experience jealousy over someone else's body. Like, mine is fine. I don't have too many problems with it and my body is holding up really well given how poorly I take care of it. And thanks to the furry fandom I know that a whole bunch of men actually think I'm pretty cute. I'm kind of like My Little Pony in that way. I never meant to appeal to college-age men but I guess it's still pretty cool that they like me. You see, just like MLP I really meant to appeal to little gi- OH SHIT WAIT NEVERMIND! I take it back, no! On second thought that is not a good analogy at all nope nothing to see here. If I were a cartoon it would be something whose target audience is exclusively consenting adults thank you moving right along now.

Yes, as usual I've completely lost track of my point, which I believe was something about Jibade looking uncomfortably attractive in his Anubis raiment. Not at all a new phenomenon by the way. Like, YEARS before I was comfortable saying such things out loud I would see Jibade's Ja-body walk by and I would think "Oh holy Hathor that is a sexy, sexy man." I probably still shouldn't be comfortable saying that out loud because "Oh holy Hathor" is an inhumanly dorky thing to say. Regardless, yeah. Jibade is just like *inarticulate awestruck glottal noise*, and I got to chat him up for a bit which was nice. Fortunately my time in the fandom has given me years of experience in talking with people that I have near cult-like reverence for without completely losing my shit. So as such I managed to not talk like a complete brick-headed moron the way I did here. I actually AM capable of acting like it ain't no thing, though the transition where that practiced mentality jumps is pretty noticeable. "Oh holy shit you're JIBADE? I didn't recognize you with your clothes on." *one-panel beat* "I mean, hey. What's up man? You wanna play some Werewolf with us? There's not much else going on and there's been a pretty good crowd for it so far." Fuckin' steady as a rock. For real. So yeah, I thought that was pretty neat, if you hadn't gathered. I got home super late and was dead tired, but it was worth the little overhang to have some of those special little experiences that really stick with you, and come back in crazy high-fidelity even several months later. Wow I really wish I had a couple examples to illustrate that point, but you'll just have to take my word on it.