EDIT: Well, now that I've been informed that there's no real danger from lightning in urban zones, I'm going to just go ahead, thunderstorms or no. Whee!

After all the doubts expressed in my previous post, I've decided to attend regardless. I probably won't be making it on Friday due to the expected delivery date of a replacement laptop (remember this and this posts, yes I'm finally getting a solution for that). However, I'll show up on Saturday and Sunday.

I think I will try to turn a negative into a positive, and get some kind of "conbook" that I can use both to capture conversations and random sketches by others and whatever the hell. I still have one of the notepads I used from last year, actually, preserved for posterity. Ideas for the book?

I appreciate the suggestion of electronic devices, but they probably won't serve my needs as being more convenient than plain paper-and-pencil (the DS would probably be somewhat less so, actually). As for ASL interpreter of some sort, it's very short notice to acquire one, though if I do end up in an circumstance to attend next year (which's very up in the air, I might end up moving out of town, and at this point I'm still poor which puts a dampener on things), I'll see if I can plan ahead enough to get one.

But, really, I think I'll try to make it a point to be less shy about opening communications with other. Otherwise, I'm going to be doing a lot of sitting around while other people talk around me, like last year.

Wandered around going "Whee! This is a furry con! Whee! I'm here! Whee! Fursuiters!". Browsed the dealers and artist's alley (rather cramped together, that last one), bought some stuff, complimented some artists. Ate with a bunch of people I had known only via the Internet previously, did some back-and-forth chat-writing on notepads.

I'll have to see if next time I can bring something more sophisticated and easy to use (type directly on or the like). This is also a big reason why I'd consider a cochlear implant, really. More non-signing people I actually want to talk with than signing people. It's not like I have much if any vestiges of deaf culture left in me to worry about. ;) An option I really should seriously explore, the implant, though it'd still take me a fair while to acquire the language afterward.

Not much to say about my con experience. It was pretty exciting to a newcomer, probably not as exciting as it would've been to a newcomer. Tragically, I didn't get to do anything scandalous. ;)

Lessons learned:
Bring cellular phone to con and keep it charged. Make sure everyone has your number for SMS text messaging purposes and you have everyone's numbers.
Maybe make more plans to do stuff with people, maybe not. shatterstripes told me one tends to end up feeling out of touch on things unless one sticks to ones own "social clique" most of the time, and I sort of pulled a loner act some of the time. At any rate, it sounds like I missed a cool party at cargoweasel's Capsule, whatever that was.
Generally prepare more, but I was doing crazy moving stuff.
Maybe try and push for more social interaction in general. Openness to meeting new people not necessarily needed but fun? I met... a couple, not many, mostly I ignored the people I didn't already know from online.
Search my con bag more thoroughly for the program book. I completely missed it in among all the papers and the big con booklet and such until... Sunday. Sunday was when I found it.
Make sure I have food on hand or a route to food in case I don't end up on a meal run. Which I did most of the time.

Impressions overall of con:
Growing pains but reasonably fun. Future cons I'll probably mill around less aimlessly.

In short: I have less than three weeks to assemble a costume of a completely made-up anime character from an anime series that doesn't exist for Connecticon. I had thought it was more, but Connecticon's July 7-9. I've never cosplayed before. I suspect this particular deadline won't get met considering how novice I am at cosplaying. To those of you with more knowledge of cosplay and costuming in general, is this possible? I'm not constrained by having to rig together anything specific, at least, and can just go with whatever pieces I happen to acquire.

A trip to the local thrift stores will likely be in order. Vintage, maybe, if I can find one of those near. Something vaguely exotic. Memo to myself: acquire hair dye.

(Hey, bossgoji, you want to come up with me to visit my family for Connecticon? I do technically own a car up there, even if I spazzed out about getting a driver's license. We could bring it back. Or I could just go up there alone. There's always selling it after all, probably to my family.)

After the ending of Anthrocon, I and a bunch of friends ended up in someone's hotel having an informal 'party' and eating pizza. I talked some via paper pad and pencil but eventually my fatigue overtook me, and I slept right there on the floor for a bit.

I dreamt that shatterstripes was playing this game. It, well... It was all about some star-dog. And it was doing in this amazingly vivid style. All neon lines and outlines consisting pretty much the opposite of shatterstripes's lineless, solid filled shapes art. The way things were subdivided inside into smaller shapes reminded me of (insert link here), but the overall shape of the dog for example was less angular than that and more cartoony-round. And everything had stars inside them. The overall execution was actually fairly beautiful, like viewing some of the best aboriginal art.

I really wanted to play this game, but after I had finished with other distractions (including a game that made Peggy just start to go creepy like she did in a certain library, so that she ended up excusing herself and leaving briefly in order to avoid wigging out) and when I was just about to start playing, I woke up. How frustrating. ;)

As a side effect, the front lobby of the convention center's attached hotel had those automatic revolving doors with mirrors on their inside curved walls. As I walked out at night with the others staying at the house, the warped reflections made me dizzy... in part with inspiration. I got a mental image of some amazing floating fantastical castle with those dizzying rotating doors as a defense system or the like. I'm definitely adding that to what I'm working on.

Posting this from Anthrocon. I've had a lot of fun today, but things seem to be winding down for me for the day. Tired and all, and the others seem to mostly prefer talking to each other than going through the whole troublesome paper-and-pen routine with me. Mind, that's a normal thing with my deafness. I do appreciate those who made an effort to talk to me when they noticed me being alone, though! Anyway, they gave me access to this laptop so I have something to do other than idly scribble weird made-up alphabet characters.

So. I made it to Pittsburgh. Been a little busy being exhausted/adjusting to things to post about it. Lesson learned: the outside world with all its arcane bureaucracy and whatnot might seem terrifyingly easy to screw up in, do things the wrong way with the wrong forms and all, but there're more second chances than one might think. I detached my tickets in an attempt to make it one step fewer for the ticket-taker before I read the print on them saying "VOID IF DETACHED". However, I explained things to a nice worker at the terminal and she taped them back together then wrote "OK" on them with her initials. I made it onto the bus to New York... and missed the bus from there to Pittsburgh because I had assumed the New York terminal would follow the same direct and easy-to-understand gate number matching bus numbers scheme the Hartford terminal did. However, after waiting and then freaking out when I asked a worker and found out, I tracked down the information booth who told me that I just had to go to Gate 69 or 70 and get onto the next bus. And thus, I got to Pittsburgh, if three or so hours late.

Things were kinda chaotic at the house in Pittsburgh, due to Un having a whole bunch of guests over there. Mind, I really enjoyed meeting people I'd only known as names on the Internet. I really must remember to ask Un for a blanket, though, heh. And it was really flattering to have one of them declare me cuter than he expected.

Anthrocon is... Well, it's my first furry con ever. And I still get the same child-like joy that I get whenever I see all those people walking around brazenly in costume that I got at anime cons, only even more so. Some of you might be jaded about fursuiters (or not) but to this newbie they were largely cool and adorable. Heh.

Bought a few things from a few artists I liked (and got told I was awesome after telling one I liked her artist and that her calendar made me laugh so much while I read it over someone's shoulder that I had to buy it). Wandered around looking at things, and looking and looking and looking. Met a bunch of nifty folk from the Puzzlebox MUCK and such. Went out for dinner with them (the restaurtant staff were REALLY busy with all the con-attenders lined up, I would've loved to see their reaction to the fursuiter I saw standing in line). And now I'm sitting in one of those Puzzlebox folks' room, typing away on this laptop. And that's all, folks. :)

Back from my Ohio grandparents' house already, a few days ago.

For all of you attending Anthrocon, I will be there. If no mishaps occults in my travel plans.

I'm using "Hydra" on my identification badge, because it's a name more familiar to the Puzzlebox crowd (one of my characters on Puzzlebox) than my other alias. Those people're the ones I'll most likely encounter at the con.

There's another Hydra, who was a hydra and is now a wolf, I heard. So that you know which one is me, I'm the deaf one with the ear-length hair (memo to myself: cut hair back to that preferred length before AC). I'm not going as anything extraordinary this year, not enough preparation time. Maybe next year. If I like it and decide to go again. I've never gone to a furry con and since I'm moving right next to its hosting city at about the time it's being held, I might as well go and see what it's like.

Next anime con I go to (my dad, my sister, and I usually go to ConnectiCon in the summer), I'm thinking of cosplaying something weird. Ideas are:
1. a character from an anime that doesn't actually exist.
2. the boy-form of one of those guy (or 'guy') characters that crossdress.
3. something wholly nonhuman (we're talking 'critter' here). This would be the hardest and least likely to be pulled off one.

I don't have much confidence in passing as female without being estrogened up for sufficiently long enough (and I haven't yet started). I might or might not pull it off, and I'd rather not risk dealing with the social stigma associated with crossplaying (dressing as a character of the opposite gender, and most people tend to judge that by physical looks more than anything). However, dressing as a 'femmy boy' (of which there are plenty in anime) seems more doable.