Furry friends = phreaks!!!!!1!
Dec. 21st, 2005 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyesetzWTF is wrong with you guys? I post a cute little
frolic-in-the-flowers meme and what do I get? Comments about
soiling my pants,
having a pudendum in my face, and trolling à la
Snuhwolf (who has stated that he never uses LJ). Sometimes I
don't know why I bother with this journal. Once in a blue moon I
get some nice
comments, like those for the entry Surfing the web,
moral
judgments, umami. I suppose I'm lucky to get any
response at all. And I'm with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
avenginglioness
about LJers who don't comment and don't reply to your comments: they're
just deadweight on the friends list.
So now I'm going to post my report for DooDah '05. I've been holding this back for eight months. It's not a pretty picture of the fandom, or of me.And
there's no <lj-cut>. Don't like it?
Unfriend me.
Click on the
button. I won't mind. I don't need to be in a crowd howling at
the moon to feel like I'm a dog; I just am.
I had heard about DooDah as a fursuit parade. Ocean City NJ is not so terribly far from my home and it seemed like an interesting way to find out more about fursuiting and to finally meetxolo, so I asked him if I could
attend. He got me a backstage pass by telling rapidtrabbit that I was willing to work as a gopher.
It seemed odd that he would say such a thing without asking me first,
but going backstage sounded interesting so I let it slide. I
shouldn't have.
Later, Xolo unfriended me over a dispute about tracking GIFs. At the last minute he also backed out of attending DooDah this year. Coincidence? No way to tell. The backstage pass included hotel accommodations for the entire weekend, but I had Girl Scout activities to attend to so I just showed up for the parade day.
Hotel. As is usual (I'm told) for furry gatherings, things got off to a slow start, with lots of standing around in a hotel lobby waiting for folks to get ready.magnusdiridian played the piano
while wearing a skunksuit. I've sometimes thought about how one
could actually do such a thing and wanted to watch his paws, but the
piano was angled into a corner and it was impossible to see anything
without leaning over his shoulder, which seemed inappropriate as we
hadn't yet been introduced. I went outside and spent some time
with Single Speed Cheetah and another fellow (I'm terrible with
names). We talked about the weather, yadda yadda. More furs
came outside. I talked to quentincoyote and
some others (I'm not so good with faces, either).
Finally the troupe was ready to walk from the hotel to the parade-ground. The air was cool and the shore breeze was a cold tailwind upon us. As we walked, I kept tripping over the uneven spots. I've been stuck in a rut in recent years, following the same old paths day after day, and somehow I just couldn't get the hang of this unfamiliar street. Finally I localized the problem to my recently-obtained bifocals, which were causing the area in front of my feet to be blurry. I had to tilt my head down and consciously track the imperfections in the sidewalk as I walked up to them and over them. Eventually I learned how to walk again and my gait steadied.
Parade. The parade ground consisted of a very long line of vehicles, queued up and ready to begin the parade. We found our vehicle, to which was attached a banner that read
. For some reason (my memory is fuzzy after all these months),
they decided to take
the
banner off the vehicle and have some furs carry it at the front of our
troupe. I think it was mostly
Quentin Coyote and kody_wolf(?) carrying it. Suddenly I realized
that what I had signed up for was not an advertisement for the fandom,
sponsored by Mr. R.T. Rabbit, but an advertisement for his Rapid
T. Rabbit and Friends TV show, which I have never seen.
But it was too late to back out now. I had no rôle to play,
having neither fursuit nor camera, so I would just walk with the troupe
and wait for some use for my presence to arise.
While we were waiting in line, I talked a little withsmrgol_t_kirin, the only furson in the troupe whom I had met
previously.
Smrgol's kirinsuit has some fancy doohickey in the mandible so its
mouth actually moves when he talks. I've never been a fan of the
idea (promoted strongly by Disney) that people in fursuits should
always mime and never talk. Why can't I whistle while wearing a
dogsuit? Besides not having one to wear, I mean.
Eventually the parade began. To be a fursuiter in a parade, you basically scan the crowd, trying to make eye contact with children. When you catch a kid's eye, start doing your tricks! Basically that's it. Of course you have to practice your tricks beforehand, build yourself a suit, etc. And you have to nurse your sore feet afterward. But "That's what it's all about" is a phrase I heard whenever a kid squealed in delight. I'm sorry, but this goal of fursuiting doesn't attract me. I don't need to go through all that rigmarole to get kids to pay attention to me. Just putting food on the table and shouting "dinner" does the job. It occurred to me that I was probably the only fur present who would be returning to a house full of his own offspring when this day was over. Furry is a sad life for many.
mejeep has a wonderful repertoire of tricks based on
his Kangaroo
boots and rainbow bandana. I had trouble recognizing his
suit, perhaps due to a lack of experience with non-anthro
ferrets. Later I talked to him a very little bit in the backstage
area, but had no idea I was actually yerfing with one of my LJ furiends
until several days afterward!
The parade route consisted of three sides of a square, totalling about 2 miles (3 km). As we walked along the first side, the weather warmed. Along the second side the breeze picked up, becoming a strong headwind. Although our banner was being held vertical by furs at both ends, the gale was forcing the middle of the banner to be horizontal and thus unreadable. Aha! I moved forward so I was standing between the two end-furs. The wind tried to whip up the banner but I blocked it with my body as the three of us walked in sync. I'm fairly sure Rapid saw me do this, but he didn't mention it in his parade report.
The last side was the boardwalk, which had lots of people and lots of non-anthro dogs (allowed on the boardwalk only during the parade's hours). We walked past a podium where someone who sounded like Carol Channing was saying something (couldn't hear what it was). After a moment, we were let into the building behind her and up to the second-floor "cooling off room" (a.k.a. backstage area). The parade was over.
But that's not all!
Backstage. Perhaps you've read some fantasy stories about what happens in the dressing room after a fursuiting gig: everyone takes off their suits and then they all start groping each other. No, that didn't happen. Someone (tjcoyote?) had prepared the cooling-off room
beforehand by bringing in an ice-chest full of bottled water.
Everyfur took off their headpieces and started gulping down water to
cool down and replace their perspiration. There were lots of
complaints about aching feet and inadequate padding in fursuit footwear.
Suddenly, Smrgol told me that he had forgotten to bring his street shoes. All he had were the digitigrade hooves from his fursuit. His feet were killing him and he didn't think he could get back to his hotel in those, so could I go to his room and fetch his shoes? He handed me his keys. Well, I had nothing better to do. Smrgol's hotel was several blocks away. It took some time to get there. While I was in his room, I looked around but saw nothing that one would not expect to see in the hotel room of a middle-aged fellow. I noted that his roommate's name was "Lincoln Kliman", a name I had heard before but could not place at that moment. I grabbed the shoes and went back to Smrgol.
Upon my arrival I found out that the podium speaker actually was Carol Channing! She had finished her speech and had come up to the cooling off room. She had done a meet-and-greet with the furries, which I had missed while helping Smrgol out of his jam, and now she was sitting in a corner, sipping water, surrounded by yes-men who told her she was thin and beautiful and sparkling and had excellent taste and... I'd better stop this paragraph before I puke.
I had nowhere to go until the post-parade dinner. So I waited. Furs were coming and going, mostly going. I went out and got a Coke from a boardwalk vendor. I came back and waited. More furs left. I went back to the boardwalk for ice cream. When I returned, the door was locked, but the doorman recognized me from my previous trip and let me in. I think(?) I informed Rapid that the door was now locked and that's when he started fixing to get ready to leave. By the time he was finally ready to leave, there were only two of us helpers left and 2(?) Care Bear fursuits. (I don't remember what Rapid was carrying—the third Care Bear? His Rapid costume?) Rapid got some extra-large trash bags from the janitor and told us to stuff his Care Bears into them and then carry them back to his hotel.
I wish Rapid would offer suggestions for how to be helpful instead of giving orders like we were paid staff. I do not respond well to direct orders and clearly there would be some conflict in our future if we continued to work together, but for one day I could hold my tongue. As I started to stuff the bearsuit into the bag, the other helper (who had worn a Care Bear during the parade) announced that she would rather wear the suit than carry it. As she started to put it back on, I thought about doing the same. But I would have to ask for help in putting on the hard-shelled suit for the first time, and it could be quite difficult since I'm about 5 inches taller than the maximum occupant size for that suit—and Rapid was getting increasingly agitated because he had far overstayed his welcome in the cool-off room of a comercial theatre, whose owners had graciously alllowed him to use it for a few hours only and he wanted them to pretty please do it again next year. So I continued stuffing my bearsuit into a trash bag.
Big mistake! The thing must have weighed at least 30 lbs and was cleverly designed so that there was no way to carry it over one's shoulder without being continually off-balance. I won't go into too much detail here, but let's just say that my physician would not have approved of a hike across 7 city blocks while carrying a 30-lb off-balance load. Once again I debated whether to tell Rapid that I simply couldn't do it and would he please help me get into the bearsuit. But I was too proud and said nothing.
As we walked to Rapid's hotel, he seemed to have the lightest load (or best physical condition) and would walk ahead of us by a block or two, then wait for us to catch up. I walked somewhat slowly down each block, then rested at each corner while Ms. Care Bear caught up. She had to walk very slowly indeed. At the cross streets I walked with her, because her in-suit vision was extremely limited and she couldn't see if cars were coming. There was no way that Rapid could have failed to see all this, waiting up ahead looking back at us, but he didn't mention it in his parade report. In fact, he didn't mention me at all.
Somehow I got into the elevator and up to Rapid's room. The hallway outside it was full of furs, lounging everywhere. I dropped the CareBear-in-a-trashbag. I had completed the mission.
But wait, there's more!
Hotel. I went into Rapid's room. Every raised seating spot was occupied. A few floor spots were available, but my legs have never been comfortable with "sitting Indian style". I sat on the arm of the couch. The fellow next to me immediately moved to the floor so I could have his space, but I shall never know whether he moved out of deference to my advanced age, or because of my obvious exhaustion, or because my B.O. could stop a Mack truck. There were no further tasks to perform until dinner, still several hours away. I could just sit here until then.
But eventually I got bored and restless. I went to take a closer look at the background image onlilpup's laptop
computer. It was a drawing of his character. "Babyfur," I
said, based mostly on the character's head-shape and eye-expression (In
Li'lPup's reference drawing he is wearing a diaper and holding a
bottle, but I don't remember now whether those elements were in the
desktop image.) "Yes," he replied, for I had made a statement of
the obvious. There was a bit of a silence. He started to
talk about how he had created multiple user-login accounts on his
laptop so he could let other furs use it without having them screw
around with his files, but I didn't want to talk about Windows-XP
administration. It is a system that I try to use as little as
possible for political reasons. Since Li'lPup already owns a
Windows computer and is comfortable with it, I didn't think he'd want
to hear about Microsoft and the culture of oppression, so I just said
nothing. If he came away from this exchange thinking that I am an
asshole, well he's got factual evidence to prove it. But I said
what I wanted to say and didn't say what I didn't want to say and if I
had done anything else then I wouldn't have been me. That last
sentence sounds good but doesn't really excuse my unwillingness to make
small talk about Microsoft systems.
I heard Magnus talking about something that sounded like Linux, so I went over to see whether I could join in. Actually he was talking about BSD and how clearly superior it is to Windows in every possible way. Most of his arguments could apply equally well to Linux, but Magnus never mentioned that. I decided not to interfere. The statements that Magnus was making were correct as far as they went, and it appeared he was willing to spend much more time than I would have on haranguing this potential acolyte. Besides, I actually have no idea how much of my Linux knowledge is transferable to BSD. The two systems are mostly the same, but any random example I chose might happen to be one of the differences. If Magnus and I got into an argument, leaving his acolyte feeling lost in the snow, that outcome would be worse than if I just said nothing. So I said nothing and went back to my seat at the couch. Another near-miss at a conversation with a fur that I probably could have pulled off if I had felt like making the attempt. Maybe I was still tired from the Care Bear hike.
lowen_kind arrived. Lots of people talked to
him. I may have made some small talk as well. Eventually
some fur asked him for a private tour of the CMSL
railroad. Löwen Kind (who had recently changed his fur-name
from lionkingcmsl
because he was concerned that his identity was too wrapped up in his
job) was agreeable. I jumped up and expressed an interest in
accompanying them, for surely looking at a bunch of trains would be
less boring than refusing to talk about computers? I seem to
recall having had little difficulty convincing the lion to take me
along. Perhaps I uttered the magic keyword "Cape May Furmeet" to
show that I had some clue who he is. There were still several
hours until dinner, so the three of us hopped into Löwen Kind's
car and drove down to the railroad.
Chugga-chugga chugga-chugga choo-choo!
Are you getting tired of reading this? 'Cause I'm getting tired of writing. I've been sick all day with a sinus infection and incipient laryngitis, or something. Anyway my sentences above seem rather "stuffy"; maybe it's the pseudoephedrine HCl talking?
Railroad. So we drive. Löwen Kind talks continually. He says a few odd things, but I haven't heard them before so they don't bother me. We arrive and then spend a lot of time walking around the railroad yard. I swear, I must have walked ten times more miles on 16 April than on any other day in 2005!
At one point Löwen Kind is showing off the high-gloss shine on his waxed up, squeaky clean locomotives. I mention that it would be more authentic if the old engines were covered in dust and grime, like when they were in production use. It was apparently the wrong thing to say. I'm very good at doing that. Löwen Kind repeats what I said to his boss, who is also at the railyard on a Saturday although no trains are running. Neither of them says anything back to me about this.
Lots of other stuff happens during the two(?) hours we were there, but I want to hurry the story along now. During the drive back, he buys us some snacks at WaWa (thank you, Löwen Kind!). He talks continually. He says many odd things, and I'm starting to understand what they mean—but I don't want to. Like Spock trying for a mind-meld with the Horta, all I get is PAIN, WAVES OF PAIN, MORE PAIN. I couldn't wait for the ride to be over so I could get away from him. Löwen Kind, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I didn't have any empathy to spare for you, but I had my own problems at that time, which seem to have gotten somewhat better since then. Indeed, if your latest journal posts are indicative, your life-situation has also improved quite a bit. I am happy for you.
This is the song that doesn't end! Yes it goes on and on my friend.
Hotel. So we get back to Rapid's hotel room with maybe a half-hour to spare before the dinner reservations. The crowd has thinned out a bit. Now Magnus has a different(?) acolyte and is showing off his Hasselblad camera. I know nothing about Hasselblads and join the group as another acolyte. Magnus is explaining how the Hasselblad is superior to all other cameras in the known universe because of the geeky way you can take it apart and reassemble it for a slightly different function, and in general because absolutely everything about it is manually adjustable. Surely no one with at least half a brain would ever stoop to using one of those "automatic" cameras that never gets any picture exactly right?
I tried to explain—gently—that I prefer automatic cameras because I don't feel like spending the time to acquire the skills to use manual photo controls properly. It's just not an interest area of mine. I want to press a button and get something halfway decent. My current camera is a 3.1 megapixel job I got for $70 at my local supermarket. It's the best camera I've ever owned in terms of turning button-presses into photos that look mostly like what I wanted. (I usually end up post-processing the pictures to boost the gamma, but I probably didn't mention that at the time in question.) Magnus seemed to find it difficult to comprehend the idea of a "geek of software" who had no interest in also being a "geek of photography", but he didn't reject my arguments outright so I suspect there is hope for him. Then we went to dinner.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
Restaurant. So we all walk to the restaurant. The distance was a bunch of city blocks, I don't remember how many. I see which table Löwen Kind sits at and immediately sit at a different one. Smrgol sits down to my left and another fellow sits to my right. He turns out to bejbadger, whose RL name is Lincoln Kliman (this post hereby
becomes the 19th distinct Google hit for the query "jbadger lincoln
kliman"). JBadger is quite proud of his name and uses "Lincoln"
in a variety of jokes and puns, which unfortunately I've forgotten over
these many months. He is a good conversationalist. We talk
about furry politics for a while, but my well of factoids in that area
is a bit shallow. I mention something that unclekage said in his journal about a certain SF con.
JBadger discusses the event from the standpoint of someone who was
actually there and is an organizer of such cons.
While waiting for the food to arrive, I spend most of my time looking at JBadger, because of the 180° head rotation required for looking at Smrgol, who has little to say. Since Smrgol is the only fur who ever seems to be happy to see me at these furry gatherings, I feel like I should talk to him more, but JBadger is the guy with the conversation topics and I can't talk to both of them at the same time.
Across the table from me, a bit to the right, is Damian who wore a birdsuit in the parade. When engaging in "furry talk" his voice has a particular cadence, which reminds me of Pauly Shore ("I FELT like an oreo COOKie!"). Someone, perhaps Kody Wolf sitting at the rightward end of the table, asks me what my name means. I tell him that Песец means "arctic fox" in Russian, so I am "the dog named «Fox»". The table is silent. I try a Pauly Shore impression: "My name was supPOSED to be silly, but I hadn't realized it would be unproNOUNCEable!" This seems to go over well.
I think there were a few more comments about how making kids happy is what fursuiting is all about.sabotlours has
written on many occasions about how great it feels to put on a suit and
become the animal, but nobody at DooDah talked about that.
Eventually dinner ends. Rapid T. Rabbit is sitting far to my left, out of conversation range. I get up and go around the table to say good-bye to him. It is standard at such times for the event organizer to thank the gopher for his efforts, but the rabbit does not thank me. In fact he gives no indication that he was at all happy that I had shown up today.
And they'll continue singing it forever just because...
A maze of city streets, all alike. I was among the first to leave the restaurant. The pleasant spring day had turned to a cold spring night. I had never been to this city before and "innate sense of direction" is not one of my talents. I came out of the restaurant and started walking the wrong way. After quite a few blocks I arrived in what was clearly the "affordable housing" area of Ocean City. Then I turned around and walked all the way back to the restaurant and then continued all the way back to Rapid's hotel where my van was parked. Finally I was done walking for the day!
I got home and started up my laptop, surfing the web at random to try to avoid thinking about what an unpleasant day I'd had. The cell phone rang. It was Kody Wolf, who was looking for some doggies to hang out with to use up a spare hour he had. I told him I was 90 minutes away and by the time I got there his time would be up. It's too bad, really. Kody seemed like an interesting chap and it would have been nice to talk to him a bit more. But the most likely case seems to be that I will never cross paths with him again.
I have not attended any furry gatherings since. I don't know when I would ever want to try this again.
But you don't have to take my word for it:
Other descriptions for these events:
Disclaimer. In the past when I have written documents like this one, it has turned out that the events are described as happening in a different sequence from what others remember, and sometimes it seems the person I had actually talked to is not the one I named. But the geeky recollections tend to be dead on.
avenginglioness
about LJers who don't comment and don't reply to your comments: they're
just deadweight on the friends list.So now I'm going to post my report for DooDah '05. I've been holding this back for eight months. It's not a pretty picture of the fandom, or of me.
I had heard about DooDah as a fursuit parade. Ocean City NJ is not so terribly far from my home and it seemed like an interesting way to find out more about fursuiting and to finally meet
xolo, so I asked him if I could
attend. He got me a backstage pass by telling rapidtrabbit that I was willing to work as a gopher.
It seemed odd that he would say such a thing without asking me first,
but going backstage sounded interesting so I let it slide. I
shouldn't have.Later, Xolo unfriended me over a dispute about tracking GIFs. At the last minute he also backed out of attending DooDah this year. Coincidence? No way to tell. The backstage pass included hotel accommodations for the entire weekend, but I had Girl Scout activities to attend to so I just showed up for the parade day.
Hotel. As is usual (I'm told) for furry gatherings, things got off to a slow start, with lots of standing around in a hotel lobby waiting for folks to get ready.
magnusdiridian played the piano
while wearing a skunksuit. I've sometimes thought about how one
could actually do such a thing and wanted to watch his paws, but the
piano was angled into a corner and it was impossible to see anything
without leaning over his shoulder, which seemed inappropriate as we
hadn't yet been introduced. I went outside and spent some time
with Single Speed Cheetah and another fellow (I'm terrible with
names). We talked about the weather, yadda yadda. More furs
came outside. I talked to quentincoyote and
some others (I'm not so good with faces, either).Finally the troupe was ready to walk from the hotel to the parade-ground. The air was cool and the shore breeze was a cold tailwind upon us. As we walked, I kept tripping over the uneven spots. I've been stuck in a rut in recent years, following the same old paths day after day, and somehow I just couldn't get the hang of this unfamiliar street. Finally I localized the problem to my recently-obtained bifocals, which were causing the area in front of my feet to be blurry. I had to tilt my head down and consciously track the imperfections in the sidewalk as I walked up to them and over them. Eventually I learned how to walk again and my gait steadied.
Parade. The parade ground consisted of a very long line of vehicles, queued up and ready to begin the parade. We found our vehicle, to which was attached a banner that read
| Rapid T. Rabbit |
| and Friends |
kody_wolf(?) carrying it. Suddenly I realized
that what I had signed up for was not an advertisement for the fandom,
sponsored by Mr. R.T. Rabbit, but an advertisement for his Rapid
T. Rabbit and Friends TV show, which I have never seen.
But it was too late to back out now. I had no rôle to play,
having neither fursuit nor camera, so I would just walk with the troupe
and wait for some use for my presence to arise.While we were waiting in line, I talked a little with
smrgol_t_kirin, the only furson in the troupe whom I had met
previously.
Smrgol's kirinsuit has some fancy doohickey in the mandible so its
mouth actually moves when he talks. I've never been a fan of the
idea (promoted strongly by Disney) that people in fursuits should
always mime and never talk. Why can't I whistle while wearing a
dogsuit? Besides not having one to wear, I mean.Eventually the parade began. To be a fursuiter in a parade, you basically scan the crowd, trying to make eye contact with children. When you catch a kid's eye, start doing your tricks! Basically that's it. Of course you have to practice your tricks beforehand, build yourself a suit, etc. And you have to nurse your sore feet afterward. But "That's what it's all about" is a phrase I heard whenever a kid squealed in delight. I'm sorry, but this goal of fursuiting doesn't attract me. I don't need to go through all that rigmarole to get kids to pay attention to me. Just putting food on the table and shouting "dinner" does the job. It occurred to me that I was probably the only fur present who would be returning to a house full of his own offspring when this day was over. Furry is a sad life for many.
mejeep has a wonderful repertoire of tricks based on
his Kangaroo
boots and rainbow bandana. I had trouble recognizing his
suit, perhaps due to a lack of experience with non-anthro
ferrets. Later I talked to him a very little bit in the backstage
area, but had no idea I was actually yerfing with one of my LJ furiends
until several days afterward!The parade route consisted of three sides of a square, totalling about 2 miles (3 km). As we walked along the first side, the weather warmed. Along the second side the breeze picked up, becoming a strong headwind. Although our banner was being held vertical by furs at both ends, the gale was forcing the middle of the banner to be horizontal and thus unreadable. Aha! I moved forward so I was standing between the two end-furs. The wind tried to whip up the banner but I blocked it with my body as the three of us walked in sync. I'm fairly sure Rapid saw me do this, but he didn't mention it in his parade report.
The last side was the boardwalk, which had lots of people and lots of non-anthro dogs (allowed on the boardwalk only during the parade's hours). We walked past a podium where someone who sounded like Carol Channing was saying something (couldn't hear what it was). After a moment, we were let into the building behind her and up to the second-floor "cooling off room" (a.k.a. backstage area). The parade was over.
But that's not all!
Backstage. Perhaps you've read some fantasy stories about what happens in the dressing room after a fursuiting gig: everyone takes off their suits and then they all start groping each other. No, that didn't happen. Someone (
tjcoyote?) had prepared the cooling-off room
beforehand by bringing in an ice-chest full of bottled water.
Everyfur took off their headpieces and started gulping down water to
cool down and replace their perspiration. There were lots of
complaints about aching feet and inadequate padding in fursuit footwear.Suddenly, Smrgol told me that he had forgotten to bring his street shoes. All he had were the digitigrade hooves from his fursuit. His feet were killing him and he didn't think he could get back to his hotel in those, so could I go to his room and fetch his shoes? He handed me his keys. Well, I had nothing better to do. Smrgol's hotel was several blocks away. It took some time to get there. While I was in his room, I looked around but saw nothing that one would not expect to see in the hotel room of a middle-aged fellow. I noted that his roommate's name was "Lincoln Kliman", a name I had heard before but could not place at that moment. I grabbed the shoes and went back to Smrgol.
Upon my arrival I found out that the podium speaker actually was Carol Channing! She had finished her speech and had come up to the cooling off room. She had done a meet-and-greet with the furries, which I had missed while helping Smrgol out of his jam, and now she was sitting in a corner, sipping water, surrounded by yes-men who told her she was thin and beautiful and sparkling and had excellent taste and... I'd better stop this paragraph before I puke.
I had nowhere to go until the post-parade dinner. So I waited. Furs were coming and going, mostly going. I went out and got a Coke from a boardwalk vendor. I came back and waited. More furs left. I went back to the boardwalk for ice cream. When I returned, the door was locked, but the doorman recognized me from my previous trip and let me in. I think(?) I informed Rapid that the door was now locked and that's when he started fixing to get ready to leave. By the time he was finally ready to leave, there were only two of us helpers left and 2(?) Care Bear fursuits. (I don't remember what Rapid was carrying—the third Care Bear? His Rapid costume?) Rapid got some extra-large trash bags from the janitor and told us to stuff his Care Bears into them and then carry them back to his hotel.
I wish Rapid would offer suggestions for how to be helpful instead of giving orders like we were paid staff. I do not respond well to direct orders and clearly there would be some conflict in our future if we continued to work together, but for one day I could hold my tongue. As I started to stuff the bearsuit into the bag, the other helper (who had worn a Care Bear during the parade) announced that she would rather wear the suit than carry it. As she started to put it back on, I thought about doing the same. But I would have to ask for help in putting on the hard-shelled suit for the first time, and it could be quite difficult since I'm about 5 inches taller than the maximum occupant size for that suit—and Rapid was getting increasingly agitated because he had far overstayed his welcome in the cool-off room of a comercial theatre, whose owners had graciously alllowed him to use it for a few hours only and he wanted them to pretty please do it again next year. So I continued stuffing my bearsuit into a trash bag.
Big mistake! The thing must have weighed at least 30 lbs and was cleverly designed so that there was no way to carry it over one's shoulder without being continually off-balance. I won't go into too much detail here, but let's just say that my physician would not have approved of a hike across 7 city blocks while carrying a 30-lb off-balance load. Once again I debated whether to tell Rapid that I simply couldn't do it and would he please help me get into the bearsuit. But I was too proud and said nothing.
As we walked to Rapid's hotel, he seemed to have the lightest load (or best physical condition) and would walk ahead of us by a block or two, then wait for us to catch up. I walked somewhat slowly down each block, then rested at each corner while Ms. Care Bear caught up. She had to walk very slowly indeed. At the cross streets I walked with her, because her in-suit vision was extremely limited and she couldn't see if cars were coming. There was no way that Rapid could have failed to see all this, waiting up ahead looking back at us, but he didn't mention it in his parade report. In fact, he didn't mention me at all.
Somehow I got into the elevator and up to Rapid's room. The hallway outside it was full of furs, lounging everywhere. I dropped the CareBear-in-a-trashbag. I had completed the mission.
But wait, there's more!
Hotel. I went into Rapid's room. Every raised seating spot was occupied. A few floor spots were available, but my legs have never been comfortable with "sitting Indian style". I sat on the arm of the couch. The fellow next to me immediately moved to the floor so I could have his space, but I shall never know whether he moved out of deference to my advanced age, or because of my obvious exhaustion, or because my B.O. could stop a Mack truck. There were no further tasks to perform until dinner, still several hours away. I could just sit here until then.
But eventually I got bored and restless. I went to take a closer look at the background image on
lilpup's laptop
computer. It was a drawing of his character. "Babyfur," I
said, based mostly on the character's head-shape and eye-expression (In
Li'lPup's reference drawing he is wearing a diaper and holding a
bottle, but I don't remember now whether those elements were in the
desktop image.) "Yes," he replied, for I had made a statement of
the obvious. There was a bit of a silence. He started to
talk about how he had created multiple user-login accounts on his
laptop so he could let other furs use it without having them screw
around with his files, but I didn't want to talk about Windows-XP
administration. It is a system that I try to use as little as
possible for political reasons. Since Li'lPup already owns a
Windows computer and is comfortable with it, I didn't think he'd want
to hear about Microsoft and the culture of oppression, so I just said
nothing. If he came away from this exchange thinking that I am an
asshole, well he's got factual evidence to prove it. But I said
what I wanted to say and didn't say what I didn't want to say and if I
had done anything else then I wouldn't have been me. That last
sentence sounds good but doesn't really excuse my unwillingness to make
small talk about Microsoft systems.I heard Magnus talking about something that sounded like Linux, so I went over to see whether I could join in. Actually he was talking about BSD and how clearly superior it is to Windows in every possible way. Most of his arguments could apply equally well to Linux, but Magnus never mentioned that. I decided not to interfere. The statements that Magnus was making were correct as far as they went, and it appeared he was willing to spend much more time than I would have on haranguing this potential acolyte. Besides, I actually have no idea how much of my Linux knowledge is transferable to BSD. The two systems are mostly the same, but any random example I chose might happen to be one of the differences. If Magnus and I got into an argument, leaving his acolyte feeling lost in the snow, that outcome would be worse than if I just said nothing. So I said nothing and went back to my seat at the couch. Another near-miss at a conversation with a fur that I probably could have pulled off if I had felt like making the attempt. Maybe I was still tired from the Care Bear hike.
lowen_kind arrived. Lots of people talked to
him. I may have made some small talk as well. Eventually
some fur asked him for a private tour of the CMSL
railroad. Löwen Kind (who had recently changed his fur-name
from lionkingcmsl
because he was concerned that his identity was too wrapped up in his
job) was agreeable. I jumped up and expressed an interest in
accompanying them, for surely looking at a bunch of trains would be
less boring than refusing to talk about computers? I seem to
recall having had little difficulty convincing the lion to take me
along. Perhaps I uttered the magic keyword "Cape May Furmeet" to
show that I had some clue who he is. There were still several
hours until dinner, so the three of us hopped into Löwen Kind's
car and drove down to the railroad.Chugga-chugga chugga-chugga choo-choo!
Are you getting tired of reading this? 'Cause I'm getting tired of writing. I've been sick all day with a sinus infection and incipient laryngitis, or something. Anyway my sentences above seem rather "stuffy"; maybe it's the pseudoephedrine HCl talking?
Railroad. So we drive. Löwen Kind talks continually. He says a few odd things, but I haven't heard them before so they don't bother me. We arrive and then spend a lot of time walking around the railroad yard. I swear, I must have walked ten times more miles on 16 April than on any other day in 2005!
At one point Löwen Kind is showing off the high-gloss shine on his waxed up, squeaky clean locomotives. I mention that it would be more authentic if the old engines were covered in dust and grime, like when they were in production use. It was apparently the wrong thing to say. I'm very good at doing that. Löwen Kind repeats what I said to his boss, who is also at the railyard on a Saturday although no trains are running. Neither of them says anything back to me about this.
Lots of other stuff happens during the two(?) hours we were there, but I want to hurry the story along now. During the drive back, he buys us some snacks at WaWa (thank you, Löwen Kind!). He talks continually. He says many odd things, and I'm starting to understand what they mean—but I don't want to. Like Spock trying for a mind-meld with the Horta, all I get is PAIN, WAVES OF PAIN, MORE PAIN. I couldn't wait for the ride to be over so I could get away from him. Löwen Kind, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I didn't have any empathy to spare for you, but I had my own problems at that time, which seem to have gotten somewhat better since then. Indeed, if your latest journal posts are indicative, your life-situation has also improved quite a bit. I am happy for you.
This is the song that doesn't end! Yes it goes on and on my friend.
Hotel. So we get back to Rapid's hotel room with maybe a half-hour to spare before the dinner reservations. The crowd has thinned out a bit. Now Magnus has a different(?) acolyte and is showing off his Hasselblad camera. I know nothing about Hasselblads and join the group as another acolyte. Magnus is explaining how the Hasselblad is superior to all other cameras in the known universe because of the geeky way you can take it apart and reassemble it for a slightly different function, and in general because absolutely everything about it is manually adjustable. Surely no one with at least half a brain would ever stoop to using one of those "automatic" cameras that never gets any picture exactly right?
I tried to explain—gently—that I prefer automatic cameras because I don't feel like spending the time to acquire the skills to use manual photo controls properly. It's just not an interest area of mine. I want to press a button and get something halfway decent. My current camera is a 3.1 megapixel job I got for $70 at my local supermarket. It's the best camera I've ever owned in terms of turning button-presses into photos that look mostly like what I wanted. (I usually end up post-processing the pictures to boost the gamma, but I probably didn't mention that at the time in question.) Magnus seemed to find it difficult to comprehend the idea of a "geek of software" who had no interest in also being a "geek of photography", but he didn't reject my arguments outright so I suspect there is hope for him. Then we went to dinner.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
Restaurant. So we all walk to the restaurant. The distance was a bunch of city blocks, I don't remember how many. I see which table Löwen Kind sits at and immediately sit at a different one. Smrgol sits down to my left and another fellow sits to my right. He turns out to be
jbadger, whose RL name is Lincoln Kliman (this post hereby
becomes the 19th distinct Google hit for the query "jbadger lincoln
kliman"). JBadger is quite proud of his name and uses "Lincoln"
in a variety of jokes and puns, which unfortunately I've forgotten over
these many months. He is a good conversationalist. We talk
about furry politics for a while, but my well of factoids in that area
is a bit shallow. I mention something that unclekage said in his journal about a certain SF con.
JBadger discusses the event from the standpoint of someone who was
actually there and is an organizer of such cons.While waiting for the food to arrive, I spend most of my time looking at JBadger, because of the 180° head rotation required for looking at Smrgol, who has little to say. Since Smrgol is the only fur who ever seems to be happy to see me at these furry gatherings, I feel like I should talk to him more, but JBadger is the guy with the conversation topics and I can't talk to both of them at the same time.
Across the table from me, a bit to the right, is Damian who wore a birdsuit in the parade. When engaging in "furry talk" his voice has a particular cadence, which reminds me of Pauly Shore ("I FELT like an oreo COOKie!"). Someone, perhaps Kody Wolf sitting at the rightward end of the table, asks me what my name means. I tell him that Песец means "arctic fox" in Russian, so I am "the dog named «Fox»". The table is silent. I try a Pauly Shore impression: "My name was supPOSED to be silly, but I hadn't realized it would be unproNOUNCEable!" This seems to go over well.
I think there were a few more comments about how making kids happy is what fursuiting is all about.
sabotlours has
written on many occasions about how great it feels to put on a suit and
become the animal, but nobody at DooDah talked about that.Eventually dinner ends. Rapid T. Rabbit is sitting far to my left, out of conversation range. I get up and go around the table to say good-bye to him. It is standard at such times for the event organizer to thank the gopher for his efforts, but the rabbit does not thank me. In fact he gives no indication that he was at all happy that I had shown up today.
And they'll continue singing it forever just because...
A maze of city streets, all alike. I was among the first to leave the restaurant. The pleasant spring day had turned to a cold spring night. I had never been to this city before and "innate sense of direction" is not one of my talents. I came out of the restaurant and started walking the wrong way. After quite a few blocks I arrived in what was clearly the "affordable housing" area of Ocean City. Then I turned around and walked all the way back to the restaurant and then continued all the way back to Rapid's hotel where my van was parked. Finally I was done walking for the day!
I got home and started up my laptop, surfing the web at random to try to avoid thinking about what an unpleasant day I'd had. The cell phone rang. It was Kody Wolf, who was looking for some doggies to hang out with to use up a spare hour he had. I told him I was 90 minutes away and by the time I got there his time would be up. It's too bad, really. Kody seemed like an interesting chap and it would have been nice to talk to him a bit more. But the most likely case seems to be that I will never cross paths with him again.
I have not attended any furry gatherings since. I don't know when I would ever want to try this again.
But you don't have to take my word for it:
Other descriptions for these events:
Disclaimer. In the past when I have written documents like this one, it has turned out that the events are described as happening in a different sequence from what others remember, and sometimes it seems the person I had actually talked to is not the one I named. But the geeky recollections tend to be dead on.
