dragon con: 2001

(from my journals written at dragon con)

well. katherine has never been to kansas, but this sure ain't it either.

i have developed a sweet little troop of Fans of Xena that follow me wherever i go, which has been a delight seeing as i am here alone. but what i learned in rome, i learned again. you are never really alone if you bring your curiosity, a video camera and a big ass smile. so, i am having a gas gas gas.

on the plane ride over i sat with mr. elvira and elvira's asst. elvira sat in first class. but she was often seen hovering with us plebians in coach. out of makeup, she's a very nice almost whimsical woman, with bright blue eyes, long red hair and long black nails. whenever she sees me now, she calls me "plane lady," which we all find very amusing. her husband is a producer with a ready smile and a love for video taping those in costumes by throwing himself on the ground and shooting upwards. false perspective. that's how i appear 5'9" to some. the elviras have an elvira film coming out soon and i hope it does very well for them.

the convention is spread out into two hotels. one has all the merchandise - rooms and rooms and rooms of vendors of toys, tshirts, comic books, trading cards, etc. one t-shirt said I Love Lucifer inside the I Love Lucy logo. i felt a sudden rush of love for my sweet sister p. how goes it sister p? my sister p rocks. have i mentioned that?

i hung out with the rocky horror picture show group, letting them know i once played janet in high school. i lip-synched "toucha toucha toucha me i wanna feel dirty thrill me chill me fulfill me creature of the night." i was immediately accepted!

the xena track folks are all very solicitious and kind. i told them to give missy good (a xena writer) a message for me - knowing fifteen people would run up to her and tell her to "Call Katherine, it's Extremely Urgent!" when i finally caught up with missy eating her spaghetti, she was absent her usual smile when she saw me.

i have taken my video camera all around and asked anyone in costume to say, "Hi Mika" (a young actress in Carolina). they all readily oblige -- and now Batman, Stormtroopers, Fairies, SnakeLady, Court Jesters, Hellraiser Girl, the Matrix Team, Powerpuff Girls, Klingons and Jedi Knights have all said, "Hi Mika." i am very very pleased. i also hop up and down at the appearance of the Costumed Ones, which amuses my followers greatly. i suspect though some may have thought of me only as Spiritual Girl, so all my unbridled geekiness is going to either make me horribly endearing or horribly disappointing. i vote for the former.

friday night took me to my first scheduled event. My Sister’s Room – a legend already. but wait - first, Driver Mary picks me up at the hotel then we head out to the bar. the nice lady drives around a corner and what do i see? KRISPY KREME! and not just any Krispy Kreme, the Krispy Kreme to end all Krispy Kremes. a huge sign, a huge factory, i cry, i laugh, i point, i scream...but driver mary keeps going. i bang on her window in angst, watching my beloved slowly dissolve into the distance... but driver mary was not stopping. i pout.

at the bar, i just want to get down, boogie oogie oogie. i love to dance. mister bill - i so wish you were here to dance with me! but instead of dancing we are treated to a Kissing Party. not that I mind kissing. kissing is one of the finer pleasures in life that are still free. sometimes. here at the charity auction kissing is not free – it's delivered to the winner of the auctioned off for charity prize.

claudia christian, alex tydings and claire stansfield set the bar impossibly high for paris jefferson and me, the last to be auctioned off. paris and i devised a little plan to kiss each other instead of an audience member, figuring, hey, we like each other and you just never know who might win. but alas, we forgot that paris didn’t bid on my auction item. instead, sue/blade did. but a curious thing happened. when i realized sue had won, the same sue who had written the most beautiful synopsis of WFC i have read and states that WFC is her favorite episode ever, well, i remembered, hey, i like sue! i'll kiss her. so i did. sue was a fine kisser - and it was done. the evening ended with me watching WFC on a giant screen, watching it with an audience. a first for me. to paris - who had not seen WFC yet - i gave a running commentary of the parallels between the original xena world and the alternate WFC world. (oddly, it seems paris and the Whoosh! people have the same hair washing/shoe buying schedule that prohibited them from viewing the episode.) overall though, seeing WFC with others was a surreal experience and oh so very alternate world all its own.

saturday. first up was the group xena panel. enjoyable, yes, but somewhat distancing. a tall stage, the audience faraway. distance. what I do remember is alex tidings and i both chose the color red as our favorite color. and that several lovelies in the crowd pronounced my last name correctly for claire. funny what you remember.

the Costumed Ones continued to amuse me as i waited for my solo appearance in the xena room. while shooting more Hi Mika Footage, i noticed that my documentary pal, Steven Sears, discovered himself the unfortunate recipient of a malfunctioning camera that only took shots of breasts, lots of breasts, especially those encased solely in cellophane.

my xena panel. went very well, i think. i won't go into great detail, because those who were at DragonCon are skimming already. but i read an excerpt of my script, showed the section on screen, then detailed how it was condensed for time. i also held up my very own strand from the loom of life that i was able to pluck before gabrielle’s wrath obliterated it. i spoke for about an hour and answered thoughtful questions. the interaction was very electric and took on a life of its own. i do remember thinking, the xena fans truly are an educated, articulate bunch. that and feeling that xena, as a pop culture TV show, certainly did a good thing.

then i headed over to the writer’s track, finding myself with serious published writers and screenwriters addressing a crowd of serious writers and screenwriters. so, i wore my black rimmed (prescription) trendy writer glasses and my black jacket to keep my identities separate. (that and changing in phone booths is highly recommended.) the debate became slightly rancorous as the Joyful Girl tangled with the Writing Sucks Boy. but i do hope thought that i was able, if nothing else, to remind the crowd that other people get paid for writing books and movies, so why not them. disappointment stories and all.

that night, i drank some amaretto sours, waved glo sticks and raved with 18 year old boys in Insane Clown Posse t-shirts until 3am.

the next morning, wearing my red slip and braids, i crashed claire’s talk with tim omundson. i admit i made no special efforts to warn alex tydings she was being set up to do an irish jig on a shaky table to raise money for blind orphans. but i will say this, alex is gorgeous. much prettier out of her aphrodite wig than in it, so dance, baby dance. i think alex even gave blade in her see thru negligee aphrodite get-up a run for her dollar bills in the g-string department. then, lo and behold, what should appear? Driver Mary and her wife Elizabeth of the NewsCoverage, with a box of krispy kreme doughnuts!!! all for me me me!!!

but by the time i get to the box, it’s empty! i pout again. claire says the F Word. i love claire. did i mention that already?

that night, i went to a lovely grown-up dinner with paris, jennifer who won TV’s reality show Boot Camp and her husband, steve. we talked about politics, the film business, murder, fate, and all things intellectual under beautiful trees with falling spiders. one knows a falling spider is in one's hair when one's other dinner guests stop talking and pretend to be calm. paris, kind, intelligent, worldy, beautiful soul with mesmerizing blue eyes, had to de-spider me more than once.

atlanta natives steve and jen then gave us the deluxe tour of atlanta, where we happened upon...My Krispy Kreme. i would not be denied. inside he doughnut factory, paris feared for my sanity when i clapped ebulliently at the sight of the doughnuts entering the sugar waterfall. beauty, pure beauty. i wept. paris grabbed her cell phone, muttering words like “help” and “white coats.” sadly, i did not see paris again.

paris? paris, call me hon.

and that only brings us to monday. yes, there was more, there's always more.

but for now, i leave you with this: i entered a world where i had never been. the rules are different but much the same. we all want to find our people. and when we do, we feel fine.

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