This year getting to Otakon seemed to be fraught with peril. The washer and dryer broke and nearly caught fire. I had to fix brakes and air conditioning in the car, and of course the AC broke again before I left promising a potentially very hot 700 mile drive to Baltimore. And on the morning that I was already late leaving and feeling awful, I discovered that the wheel lock bolt had not be replaced by the repairman, meaning that if I needed to change the tires on the highway, it would be impossible. So instead of hitting the road on Thursday morning, I was sitting in the Firestone parking lot waiting for it to open.
Things seemed pretty dark that morning, then some miracles started happening. The first one was when the shop owner/manager suggested replacing the lock bolts with regular bolts until we could address the issue after I got back. Yay! I was finally on my way. I was so happy at the realization that I nearly had tears in my eyes when I hit the Chicago Skyway. I still felt awful, but at last I was on the way.
The next miracle was the weather. Somehow, for 700 miles I had mostly overcast skies and nice cool air. It was awesome! Not only was it cool, I had virtually no traffic delays. The worst I had was a scary rain storm that lasted for maybe 10 minutes.
Finally, the car performed well and I settled down enough to get some food down and started to feel much better. I felt like my old self and really began to enjoy the drive. There’s something scary and beautiful about being out on the open road which keeps bringing me back year after year.
So even arriving much later than I had wanted, I was able to pick up my badge and meetup with some cool people from the MegaTokyo forums. The first thing I did though, upon entering my room, was fall to my knees and thank God that I made it in one piece after so much drama.
Friday:
My first challenge after waking up was to get cleaned up and into costume. This ended up taking me about an hour more than I had hoped. I was planning to wear my Kaname Chidori costume the first day (blue wig yay!) and while I had worn it at ACen months earlier, I was a bit nervous about going out in it because I hadn’t had to walk on the street that way with “normal” people around. Luckily, I was rooming next door to three young ladies (see photo) who were leaving at the same time as I, so I tagged along with them part of the way to the convention center. After that, I was good to go!
Friday was a lot of fun! I got to see my AMV in the AMV Overflow and it was well received and I also got to do karaoke in costume, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Best of all was the rave later that night where Kaname got a chance to really shake her groove thang! I scored some bonus points by making sure to send a few extra shakes in the direction of some BCC staff who probably didn’t really know what to make of me. Personally, I don’t think my features are delicate enough for me to pass as a woman under normal conditions, but I’m not really sure what the staff people, who kept passing nearby, thought. So I decided to mess with them a little, lol! ^_^ My dancing was good enough to attract a female partner for a little while, yay!
All of this fun though, would come at a high price. The shoes for my Kaname outfit are about a half size too small for me. They were the best I could get at the time, and I’d been able to endure them at ACen, so I didn’t think much about getting bigger shoes. Big mistake! I only had the Kaname outfit on a few hours at ACen. I had it on 17 hours at Otakon which included an hour or more of dancing. So by the time I left the rave to return to the hotel, my feet were on fire with pain and they still hurt even as I write this! I will never again wear shoes that are too small, but I will also never forget how much fun I had! :3