I ended up hospitalized day one and missed everything. While in the ER, a nurse was taking care of me, and he struck a conversation about my Eevee backpack, which led to ingress, and he commented about it being a new show on Netflix. When I outed myself as an animefreak by discussing details, he asked if I was going to Kumoricon. Talk of cons led to me mentioning I was missing out Furlandia. He stopped, leaned down with his hands on his knees so he was eye level with me in my wheelchair, and slowly, enunciating every word, quietly, clearly, with a tone that was both the patient voice of a perplexed parent as well as the secretive voice of a commiserating friend, " 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕒 🅵🆄🆁🆁🆈 ?"

No. No, I'm not. But my friends are. And it infects me to my traitorous bones.

They wanted to keep me in the hospital overnight in case of emergency surgery, but after a few more hours of rounds of tests, draws, shots, scans, and nonsense, Nobby was a free elf. I made it to Furlandia for day two! I took my scooter, so I wouldn't stress out my body by walking. I wasn't able to get my usual ears or tails out of storage, so I wore a cute kitty earband with flowers that match the blue and purple and pink in my hair, and a white kitty dress with a rainbow bow, rainbow stockings, and a little bobtail pinned to the back of the dress. I felt stylin.

This year I was very excited to be able to meet up with some neofriends! It turns out I knew one of them, Wolffie, from SMYRC, as well as several other furries that frequent our queer community. It turns out PDX is very queer and very furry. I also saw Derp as Cosmo the cat, and we wandered around checking out the Dealers Den and Artist Alley until Cosmo was stolen away by the Fursuit Parade. Mystery Mutt was there as Ripley, and I was pretty sure a few other people I knew were there, but we didn't run into them.

I did get to see my Jesus Kitty and Rotty Noah in Artist Alley, and I showed off my first binder from GC2B, in radical red, which I am extreemly pleased by. I'm hoping they release a hot pink. Noah had the purple, which I had considered, but red matches my hair better. Jesus saved me as usual when I was missing a purple to finish the background on my con sona badge. I'd brought a bunch of markers to doodle throughout the day, but overlooked a color for backgrounds to make the rest pop. Next time I'll have to consider that while packing my con bag!

Saphy ran a pin swap, which was the highlight of my day. I've developed an enamel pin addiction. I collected them in the 90s, and the nostalgia has hit me, paired with the beautiful, creative, and suitably modern nihilistic designs artists are releasing these days. I have 25 pins that are my pride to wear on con lanyards and my backpack. I traded for a Student Council pin from Saph, and he also gave me a Furlandia pin, which I'm excited about. A friendly face traded me a Rose Festival pin from my birth year, which pleases me greatly for my own vanity. I bought four new pins in Dealers Den: a pentagrammed grimoire, a sparkly cute skeleton cat, a Noface saying, "Senpai, notice me," and a floral tombstone reading "Here lies all the fucks I give."

I ran into Lumio in the game room, where, sadly, there was no Magic this year, but we did have a nice conversation, and I got more hugs. I'll have to check out this whole meditation thing he's into. Maybe it can help my health.

I'm hoping my body will be in better condition next year. I want to run a booth in Artist Alley again, and hopefully run a Neopets meetup! I'm clawing my way to recovery, and trying to get my life back, so I hope to see yall again soon.