Everyone comes to a convention with expectations, even if it's just to meet people and buy art. Even new attendees come in expecting to have a good time.

matthiasrat told me to arrive after 7:30, so that someone would be home. I expected to be on the road by 12 and have 4 hours to kill, factoring out drive times and food times. I was a bit starved for things to do that would be free, until I realized I could just sit and read in a library. So I pulled up a public library on my phone.

Surprise! Parking meters everywhere! I found another public library several miles further, that did have free parking, where I killed 2 hours (now factoring out detour times!). I got a bit nervous as I approached, when the "check engine" light popped on. I had made sure to get the whole car checked before driving; I remembered last year, when the fluid in my transmission system leaked and I had to scrap my whole car in Ohio. I wondered if I could get it looked at tomorrow; I did need something to fill the time.

Now, Matt would have several roomies for Anthrocon, but I would be the first to arrive. I slept in the guest room, and looked forward to when we'd get our hotel room, which I had still not heard anything about.

Turns out, there was some miscommunication between us. I had assumed, based on the fact that Matt was charging for roommates, that there would be a hotel room. I never got any clear info on the hotel room, because there was none. Matt lives 30 minutes from Anthrocon; why get a hotel at that distance?

This... kind of threw a wrench in my plans, as:
A) My fursuiting plans kind of hinged on having a room to change in;
B) I'd really really wanted to go to the transformation after dark panel, because I've always had a shaky relationship with TF, and I would really love to calibrate that relationship with some, dare I say, outsider interests.
C) I wanted to shower every day. Would I have to use Matt's shower and soap and shampoo every day?
D) Was I going to have to play with Matt's daughter every single night? Not that I didn't enjoy playing with Angie; she is energetic, imaginative, and devious, and playing with her is a highlight of my visits, but I was hoping for some time alone to write or come up with commissions.

On all four issues, I bit my tongue, because I didn't want to complain about something that, ultimately, was my fault for not making sure. None of these were deal-breakers, and I wasn't going to suffer Matt for them.

Wednesday, July 3rd

I slept in. Or at least I chose not to get up. I woke up around 7:00 and spend an hour and a half on my phone. I found Matt and Angie in the basement, playing Nintendo Land for the WiiU. I joined in for a bit, and then we took Matt's car to the airport to pick up lurkingwolf.

I rode in the back with Angie. I remember trying my hardest to both keep up a conversation with Matt, and keep Angie entertained. Though Matt and I talked a little bit about the Bash, Matt ended up doing most of the talking about what he'd been up to lately. Angie made imaginary bombs to explode the cars and the woods and the entire world, which I kept "throwing" back at her. I believe at some point, we took a blanket and played tug-of-war, and Angie took her crayons and, with all the deviousness of master criminal, dropped them one by one behind her seat.

Ahem. After we picked up LurkingWolf, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch. I'd never been there before, and was a bit disoriented to walk into a gift shop. The food was good, though not memorable. (A second visit will help.) As we rode back, Matt and Lurking talked between themselves and Angie kept my attention. I lost interest in her, though, as soon as MattRat and Lurking started talking about Metamor Keep. You see, for the past 21 months I'd been writing summaries for Metamor Keep and become very engaged with the story. In fact, I'd been hoping for a chance to get to talk to Matt about some of the stuff I'd found, and just let me vent because I'd been reading this thing all by myself and had no one to talk about it until now!

Except... oh right. I was only on story #220 in the archive. Stories that were written 20 years ago. Matt and Lurking are talking about stories they made less than 5 years ago. While Matt is going on about Yajikali and William Dupre, and Lurking is talking about his plans for his character, I am just sitting in the back, completely out of the loop.

Matt chimes in to say that he loved my parody of his story Liturgy of Blood. Which, yes. I deliberately posted before Anthrocon, specifically so I could talk about it. And apologize for it. After all, nearly every single line in my parody was about all the criticisms I had with it, and I wanted to share with him all the good stuff I found in it, and not the bad.

I do wish I were better at conversation. Not that I don't know how, but I tend to ramble a lot, and unless I get straight to a point, I notice people tend to change the subject. I've found it easier to limit what I say to quips or minutiae. Most of the time, I just played with Angie. There is a couch in her living room that acts as her "base", which somehow makes her safe from my tagging her. The dogs didn't care much for our game of tag, but Angie didn't care. In all the excitement, of course I forgot about the engine light; since it looked like my car wouldn't be used anyway, I put it off as low-priority.

Eventually, Angie left for her aerobics class, and the house was quiet again. Sitting downstairs, Lurking and Matt and I decided we should pass the time by watching a movie. When Matt found out neither of us had seen Fire and Ice, he had to put it on. It was an animated classic by Frank Frazatta. I had only known it was a Ralph Bakshi film. It was a very cliche Conan-the-Barbarian-style story, and I went back and forth between mocking it, and admiring certain shots. Watching a movie also requires you be judicious in what to say and what not to say, and whether to say anything at all. Halfway through, to my disappointment, killer.narwhal and sasha_driften arrived, and the movie was never finished. We (or they) chatted until Angie arrived, and soon after wolffriend arrived.

It was around this point I started to realized there would be no hotel room.

Only fulminar had yet to show up, and he wouldn't appear until tomorrow. Still, I decided to move down into the basement with the rest of the roomies, who set up on the couch, on cots, and in sleeping bags.

Thursday, July 4th

Narwhal started off the morning by preparing his chili recipe, and setting out some homemade strawberry oatmeal bars. I'd already had a few Pop-Tarts, and I was mostly just waiting for the group to get going.

We agreed to take 2 cars over, but by sheer force of momentum, most people ended up going in Sasha's car, except for Matt and me. No Angie! Alas, most of what I had to say was exhausted from yesterday. Mostly we made small talk about living in Pennsylvania, about music, or about the TSA Bash. Once we got closer to Pittsburgh I was able to segue into talking about the Metamor Keep wiki and about the summaries I'd been writing, though I don't know how interesting he found my narrative analysis.

Matt used a certain parking lot that was only a short walk away from the convention center, but wasn't publicized much by the convention. As we pulled into the parking lot, who should arrive but salvestro and his carpool for AC! He had three buddies of his own, including a British man visiting the US for his first time! We set out for registration, chatting all the way.

As we waited at the traffic light outside the convention center, I realized my pockets were feeling surprisingly bare. I had my phone but... uh oh. I searched through my bag, but I had shifted its contents around the night before. In all the bustle, I had forgotten my wallet! No wallet meant no ID, which meant no registration!

There was nothing really I could do, though, except stand in line with Matt in registration. The guy just behind us in line was an outdoorsman from Pennsylvania, and so he and Matt quickly talking about outdoor adventures. I mostly took pictures of fursuiters and looked up info about July 4th traffic conditions in Pittsburgh -- info that Matt appreciated, but ultimately never needed. The other roomies had gotten in line before us, so I joined them once Matt left for his registration.

After we had our registration, -- that is, they had theirs -- we went to Jimmy John's where we -- they -- had sandwiches. No wallet means no money. I took out my sketchbook and drew a couple weasels while the conversation went from plans for the con, to a tense but sympathetic discussion of politics.

We went to the waterfront, where we talked some more. Salvestro's group joined us, and everyone was talking now. Me? I took the opportunity to discuss the con with a few people, and if they had any thoughts on TF commissions. (The gist? Salvestro wasn't into it, and Lurking didn't plan ahead for such things.)

It was hours until we left -- actually, it was hours earlier than Matt usually went, but Matt was watching his health and his stress levels, and wanted some time to relax. jackthelizard had suggested I share the song that personally inspires him to write Metamor Keep, a song from Company called Another Hundred People, a song about "a city of strangers, some come to stare, some to stay". Matt's interest lay more in melody than lyrics, though, and we went into a long, fascinating if opaque discourse on his favorite late 19th century composers. He mentioned a symphony of his own composition, and offered to share a few movements with me from his computer.

I wasn't sure if he was serious, especially after everyone else arrived. But after a false start (he hadn't expected the chili dinner to be ready so soon!) we went down and listened. Though, once again, it became a balancing act between sitting and listening to Matt, and playing tag with Angie. Eventually, Matt just decided to let us play, scooping blankets and pillows around each other, playing with the lights to turn day into night, imagining there were ghosts in the closet, becoming wild dogs with our own cave in the corner, playing with Matt's old Lego sets.

After Angie went to bed, Matt showed off Ghost of a Tale, while Narwhal and Sasha and Wolffriend took Lurking aside and made a duct-tape dummy of him. Where this came from, I had no idea, but as someone who wants to commission his own fursuit someday, and who had last looked up the process years ago without understanding it, I was fascinated by the process.

Wolffriend had a cool laptop setup, literally cooling off his laptop as he played a space-travelling game and some kind of futuristic car-racing game. Everyone else had phones to look at. Matt reminded us all, before bed, that he wanted us up very very early tomorrow. The Dealer's Den opened at noon, but he always ALWAYS got there the very second the convention center opened at 8, so that he always first in line, so he would always commission darknatasha for an MK picture.

Friday, July 5th

I made sure, this time, to have my wallet on me at all times. The plan was simple; I'd wait in line with the rest of the group, until registration opened at 10, so that I could get everything. I also volunteered to carry Matt's fursuit case. The plan for that was to store it under Heather Burton's table, since she was a friend of Matt's and would usually have extra room. If I brought my fursuit, she could just have enough space to store it as well. This solved one problem, storage, but left open the other problem, dressing.

We were briefly sidetracked when the parking lot we always used was closed off for tenants only. We had to pay a few dollars extra for parking in the convention center garage, but we didn't lose much time. We actually got there with a few minutes to spare. However, this was one of a few times when AC dropped the ball; there was confusion about which direction from the doors would be the supersponsor line, and which direction would be the regular attendee line. A couple poor attendees thought they got a lucky break when they were first in line; the odds were slim they'd be commissioning Dark Natasha, but Matt refused to risk it, and we quickly sorted out the issue, though we warily watched the other line.

To pass the time, we brought games to play. I brought Sushi Go Party, though I didn't end up bringing it out. Lurking had a game for us to try out, a Kickstarter card game based on the Apple II Oregon Trail game. I grew up with 2 versions of the game, the Apple and an Enchanced version for Windows 3.1. wolffriend brought up a soundtrack of the Windows version, which tried in vain to start conversations over. The game itself took 3 times as long as the soundtrack to finish playing; we got sidetracked by conversations with outside people, and trouble clarifying the rules.

Matt's favorite game is Betrayal at House on the Hill, so we played two games. I forget the details, but in one game I got pinned down and had to wait for someone to rescue me, while the rest were collecting up keys to deadly collars on our necks; in another game, we had to fight our evil doppelgangers, and through early-game bad luck, and subsequent buffs, I ended up one of only 2 players who could do decent damage to them. The first game we easily won, the second just barely.

I left around this point to get my registration. I remember we had about an hour left to fill, so we taught Wolffriend how to play Hearts. Finally, after playing a few games on my computer, I had a chance to not come in dead last! Matt really didn't care about scorekeeping, but I kept it anyway. There wasn't much point, as we only got in 3 rounds ... and it ended with Lurking shooting the moon.

As soon as the Den opened, Matt was gone (taking his case with him), and so was everyone else. I did my customary walk through the Den, trying to get my bearings, and decide what exactly to commission. I didn't get the chance to finish my Nick the griffin reference, so even though he was on my mind, I had to go with my usual fallback, a badge of my weasel self. But even that is difficult. What pose do I go for? What features do I focus on? What am I getting a badge for, that my other badges don't provide? How do I communicate everything I want to an artist? And how much should I repeat it to myself so that I can remember to say it?

A half hour around, I stumbled back into Matt, who had me give references of my weasel self to Heather. I held up my two favorites, which were both side profiles, which might be why in the sketch I'm looking to the side.

After maybe 2 hours of wandering, through both the Den and the Artist's Alley, I commissioned an artist to draw my weasel self, holding up my big tail, and showing off my weasel feet. Satisfied, I ate the Jimmy John's sandwich I couldn't have, and hurried up so that I could make it to Matt's rodents panel. I could count on being on friends there.

I left partway through to make it the transformation panel. Alas, I hadn't found anyone to go with, and when I got there, it seemed just the usual topic of "what TF stuff have you seen?" that every TF panel has. And once someone mentioned that, sorry, they couldn't go into too much detail to stay SFW, I realized this wasn't the panel for me.

I went back just as Matt's panel was wrapping up. Matt decided to change in a restroom, and Lurking and I followed him there. I made a mental note on the size of the stalls; not great, but big enough. Along the way we finally met Fulminar, and all four of us went out for a lunch at Jimmy John's. I had no trouble eating a second sandwich, and saving my chips for later.

We headed back to the Dealer's Den and went our separate ways again. I had no further plans for a commission, so I had more money to burn. I didn't find any good shirts or books to buy. There is already so much stuff that I own, and I worry that just buying stuff indiscriminately will gain me nothing but a regretful purchase, a little bit more baggage to carry around, and slightly less money for life-critical necessities...

Ooh! A tail! An actually good tail that I could reasonably pass as a weasel tail! Sold! Having a tail that sagged from behind was an instant thrill, and having it bump and drag against my leg only added to it.

After more wandering through the Dealer's Den, I went and bought a weasel decal for my car, too. Everyone else decorates their cars, so why not me?

I left to find Matt again. Lurking was watching a floor game, while Fulminar was sitting in the board game room putting together a puzzle. Matt finally appeared, with some time to kill before we all met back up for the night. Fulminar, Matt, and I played a couple games of Forbidden Desert. We played on Easy, and we barely won off our careful strategy. We returned and waited around for our three friends to finally show up. Wolffriend took a bit longer than usual, as he was fursuiting. By that point, we were both tired and a bit hungry, so Matt and Fulminar and Lurking and I stopped at Sheetz for a quick bite.

We were given more leeway to sleep in tonight. Angie was long fast asleep. Soon, so was I.

Saturday, July 6th

Matt's parking lot today was open for non-tenants again. Possibly the landlords were only concerned about weekday parking conflicts, or maybe someone had contacted and worked out a deal. In any case, I brought over my fursuit case and stuck it under Heather's table, while the rest of the group again disappeared. I had several hours to kill, so after some wandering around, and stopping at a Fursuit Fabrics panel (in case I do make my own fursuit), I went looking for Matt or Fulminar around the Dealer's Den. The Fursuit Parade was today, and I wanted to join them in the parade. In hindsight, I should have gotten their numbers and texted them. I wouldn't find out until afterwards that they had opted out.

With 45 minutes left for the parade, I finally took my fursuit case and went looking for a restroom. There were two restrooms in the Dealer's Den, but they were both in constant use, and I didn't want to take up a lot of time, or attract a lot of attention, by changing in there. After waiting and hoping for more people to leave than to enter, I finally went out looking for a restroom elsewhere. The restroom from yesterday was also crowded, though.

I realized that what I needed was a restroom that most people would overlook. So I went up to the top floor. Near the east escalators was a restroom that I finally changed in. I was running late, so I carried my case with me over to the hall where the fursuiters were lining up. I looked around in vain for Fulminar and Matt, but sensing that my usual bad luck was kicking in, I just found a place towards the back of the line to wait for the photoshoot.

In my Tucker suit, I always have at least one thing to fiddle with: my rainbow-colored scarf, or my travelling case (which I keep trying and failing to integrate with Tucker's character. What should he be carrying?). This time I brought both. And this time, Tucker was carrying a hydration pack. This turned out to be a very good idea, because today was one of the hottest and muggiest days of AC.

The parade itself was... not great. The crowds were fine, and the most of security was good at directing us were to go. But I turned out to be walking just a couple spaces ahead of some guy in a Ronald McDonald chicken outfit, that got everyone's love and attention. I don't really like McDonald's, and their clown is hideous, so having that image in my head as I'm getting increasingly dehydrated and exhausted and starving (should have eaten before the parade!) was... not great.

At the end, I stumbled around looking for my two friends. The last time I was at AC, Matt was talking with Catmonkshiro, and several other friends of his were hanging around as well. I went around twice, and even checked the meet-and-greet briefly. I finally gave up and asked someone for directions back to the convention center, I was very badly turned around, and very very hot. I didn't want to drink more than half of my hydration pack, so that I could still fursuit tomorrow. This was a time, though, when I badly needed a handler to tell me to drink up.

I walked through the crowds in shame and humiliation. I didn't want to spoil the magic for them, and walk around half-dressed in fursuit. But I couldn't put it on again. I wanted to tear the whole thing off. But I waited until I got back to the hall, back to my fursuit case with water bottles waiting for me.

The hall was completely deserted. Only the occasional security guy or janitor was walking in. I had a vague sense that something was wrong. But on the other hand, cool blessed water and soft breezes against my damp shirt was making everything alright.

I had just finished mixing some disinfectant together when a couple security guys, and a man in a suit, come up and ask me what I'm doing. The implied threat being that whatever it is I am doing, is something that I should specifically not be doing. They say that the entire hall is closed off, and that I am absolutely not allowed to be here any longer. The suit, whose job is apparently to know nothing about furries, looks at my fursuit case and comments that it looks like I brought my whole house with me. I say nothing and pack up as quickly as I can, and head straight back to the Dealer's Den, furious that at the indecency of this convention.

Though I drop my fursuit case off at Heather's, after a few minutes, I realize that there are plenty of uncrowded spaces along the walls. I take out my sweaty fursuit back out and give it a proper disinfecting, top to bottom, as no doubt people watch me from all around. At least I already changed my shirt. I keep my fursuit head so that I can head up to get a fursuit badge, more for the sake of having it than to wear. They're free, after all.

Having started to cool down, rehydrate, and think properly again, I headed up to the game room, where for the first time in hours, I find Matt and Lurking and Fulminar. Matt is busy playing a House on the Hill game, and Lurking is in a game of his own with someone else, so I have nothing to do but sit and wait. When Lurking finished his game, I finally got a chance to introduce him to Sushi Go, along with another person playing for the first time. After 2 games, I headed out to attend the mustelids panel, proudly wearing my "Take It Weasy" shirt.

The panel was fun, though a bit rambly. A few people were able to talk about their experiences with mustelids. I never got to bring up my favorite webcomic Nature of Nature's Art, in particular its latest story arc Syconium, with several mustelid characters; nor did I get to bring up Robert E Fuller's work, which I had just discovered recently, along with some of his cute weasel videos. Thankfully, I have journals to post them! (As a special thank you for reading.)

Back at the game room, we had to decide what to eat for dinner. I was hungry enough to eat anything, like Thai food. I had never tried Thai food, but Fulminar and Lurking were happy to go with it, though Matt was feeling less adventurous since the last AC. Jimmy John's was good enough for him. The three of us set out, found out the Thai restaurant was packed and would require a 45 minute wait, so we took a 15-minute walk to a pizza place and waited 30 minutes for pizza. We figured that we could split a large pizza between the three of us. After two slices, I was already a bit full, but I went ahead and ate the last piece, so that no one would worry about leftovers.

We came back to the game room, where Matt was finishing up a game of Rabbit Island. I joined a smaller demo, and found it to be a lot of fun, a mix of several of my favorite game elements: building, item-collecting, path-navigation, territory control. One problem, though: my stomach was feeling very upset at the amount of food crammed into it. As soon as the game ended, I hurried off to the restroom, and after spending several agonizing minutes on the can, Matt came and asked if I was okay. It was a few more minutes before I finally felt composed enough to exit. But I definitely wasn't going to the Transformation After Dark panel.

Perhaps it was for the best. Sasha's group would stay for another half-hour, but Matt and Fulminar and I were already out the door. Matt said I was free to have some Pepto-Bismol back home. He and Fulminar did most of the talking, reminiscing about old times. There was a horrible driver who nearly ran into us as he was passing, and Matt swore as he did. But that wasn't the worst of the night.

The roads in Matt's neighborhood seem to be a constant cycle of construction and disrepair. As we drove up a hill, his truck plowed into a giant pothill. The engine began roaring loud and hard. The lining in his muffler had been broken. And it was a Saturday night, so there would be no repairing it until Monday. Matt was able to drive it home, but his vehicle was now down for repairs until then.

I took up residence within his bathroom while Matt handled the crisis, and explained it to Sasha's group when they arrived. I finally felt well enough to take a shower before bed. Matt, if you're reading this, please forgive me for using your soap and shampoo without asking permission.

Sunday, July 7th

Sunday was the day Angie would be visiting the convention. I remember 2 years ago, as Tucker, promising her that she would see Tucker again. But I decided that wouldn't happen today. After my experience yesterday, I decided that fursuiting without a hotel room was more trouble than it was worth.

Having read Matt's AC journals in the past, I wanted to attend Catholic mass with him to see what the church was like. But before we could coordinate schedules, we had to coordinate which vehicles we would take. I volunteered to take Fulminar, while everyone else volunteered to take Sasha's car. I drove carefully, hoping whatever engine trouble there was wouldn't be aggravated. As we pulled into the convention center parking lot, I asked Fulminar where we'd be meeting Matt to go to church. Fulminar said he had no idea, because he wasn't going to church. In fact, he had no idea what their plans were. By volunteering to take Fulminar, I had inadvertently volunteered not to go to church.

So I had two options: stay with Fulminar at the Dealer's Den line, or go through the city on foot (to avoid extra parking) and find the church. Of course I took the latter. I separated from him at the crosswalk, dropped my furry stuff off in the car, looked up the name of the church from Matt's journals, and set off.

I entered while they were doing the readings, and sat in the back, seeing the group up towards the front on the other side of the church. I avoided drawing attention to myself, and didn't approach until Mass had ended. Matt took my appearance in stride, and the much larger group -- Salvestro's group of friends were also there -- all walked back. After picking up my bag from the car, I rejoined the easily-gregarious Matt at the escalators, talking to another friend of his. From there, we went to the Dealer's Den, where Angie began hugging fursuiters, posing for pictures with them, and occasionally playing with them. Highlights were Matt's friend tiptoe in his new wrestler-rat suit; a rabbit suiter who played fetch in the hallway; three Last Guardian cosplayers with two Shadow of the Colossus players getting photographed on the garden balcony; and two partial suiters who played a game of hide-and-seek with Angie. Angie got herself her first tail, big, pink and purple. She wanted to get the $2000 realistic bear fursuit, but Matt told her to wait until she was a bit older.

We left early, and that was fine. There was just nothing left to do. My commission was digital, so I didn't have to worry about pick-ups or delivery. The pressure of Anthrocon was starting to wind down.

For our last dinner, Matt threw out two suggestions: a Thai/Chinese/Japanese restaurant that Matt had rarely visited but which his wife had coupons for; or Bob Evans. As much as I enjoyed Bob Evans, I was determined to try Thai food, as the more I researched the more I wanted it. They had plenty of variety, and I think everyone was satisfied. (I know it wasn't my decision alone, but I always feel responsible for these kinds of suggestions.)

Angie had a gift for me: cucumber slices from their garden, in a bag adorably labeled "Rim". She and I played some more outside, finding bugs in the garden and showing off her archery set, though she seemed to have just as much fun throwing the arrows, or just sticking the suction cups to the fenceposts.

Monday, July 8th

It was a nice quiet morning, just me and Matt and a couple of roomies, all with their own plans to leave. I remember this time having a long conversation with Matt, about Furnal Equinox and other conventions he'd gone to, the last long drive he'd gone on where he listened to an audiobook on the history of classical music, the podcast that I had been listening to about Babylon 5, and some reminiscing about the show from when Matt had first watched it, back when Seasons 4 and 5 were airing.

Angie didn't want me to go, even when I had an hour left to pack. She must've hugged me at least 4 separate times, each time finding an excuse to play with me again. Her last hug came when I had my driver-side door open, when there was absolutely no doubt that this was the end.

I drove Lurking to the airport, still uneasy about driving. The fact that there weren't any hideous noises helped, though I was paranoid every time the brakes seemed to kick in slower than usual. We discussed a bit about writing, about his latest novel, and about Metamor Keep -- hard to discuss when Lurking remembered virtually nothing from before the Winter Assault, and hadn't written in MK in a couple years. I'd seen his posts on the forums from 12 years ago, a time when he had just finished reading Liturgy of Blood. If only I could have met that LurkingWolf!

No hard feelings, Lurking Wolf. Everyone changes over time. If you had asked me 2 years about Metamor Keep, I would have given you a blank stare. (Okay, maybe a polite smile.)

It was a 6 hour drive back home, with more Babylon 5 podcasts to go. The car gave me no trouble, and I found out a day or so later that that "check engine" light was merely an automatic reminder, turned on every several thousand miles, to get the oil changed (which I had already changed 16 days earlier). I breathed with relief. A stressful but ultimately successful AC.