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RIPOSTES 2006-05 (May)

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Alex Garg writes...

Late Saturday, August 7 - The Weekend, Pt. 2:
Gee, I wonder how many Disney cartoons he could have been talking about, given the activities in the hotel. I suppose they could have just gone on some drunken tangent about Duck Tales, but was pretty sure the guy was talking about Gargoyles and those of us attending the Gathering.

I am a magnificent eavesdropper. I know it's rude, I know I shouldn't do it, but it's just one of those things I do very well; and when the conversation relates (in some way) to me, well, I grant exceptions in my morals to listening in on people talking about me behind my back.

Their conversation started off pretty typically - what nerds, why bother, yadda-yadda; stuff I'm used to hearing being the Gargoyles geek that I am and things I pretty much ignore. I was about to tune out when as the conversation turned to what was going on downstairs, the costumes, karaoke and the like, but then they started talking about crashing the party.

*ahem*

I don't go to many conventions and see my online friends all that often, so when I do attend such events I appreciate them *not* being crashed. They passed around the straw to see who was going to go down and scout it out, come back and bring the others for a good ol' party crashing. They came to a guy who, apparently, had some connection with the group (I would find out what later) and spiced up the bet. The bet was that he couldn't come back to the bar in 10 minutes with a girl from downstairs and the pot was set at $17.

As the group was finalizing their plans, Keith David entered the bar and Ellen and Dylan began talking about inviting him over. All right, so, people were about to go downstairs to crash the party and an opportunity to share drinks with Keith David had just entered the scene.

Stop party crashers, drink with Keith, stop party crashers, drink with Keith...

Ellen and Dylan decided not to invite Keith over - Dylan instead opted to buy Keith a drink - and so my course was clear. When the crashing scouts left the bar, I followed.

Of course, I made no attempt to be stealth-like in my pursuit - the objective was an interception, not make sure they involve a fellow Con-goer in their sick little bet - and they, guy and a girl, spotted me. I was quick to let them know that I had overheard their conversation and wasn't going to give them a free ticket down.

They denied wanting to *crash* the Gathering but the guy did fess up to his boss' bet. Okay, let's back that up - this guy's boss bets him that he can't get a girl back to the bar in 10 minutes. Are you feeling a little repulsed by his boss, too? The guy turns on the charm and appeals to me man-to-man, thinking that I'm going to sympathize and approve of the bet to lure a girl back to the bar. He even tries to slip a bribe by me.

In what some might consider counter to a federal employee's stereotyped first instinct, I refused.

So he tries the backup plan - feign interest in the Gathering. All right, semi-weak spot, semi-opening to get him to leave: if you ask me about the fandom and the Gathering, I'll tell you all you want to know. My thought process was to use that to *maybe* get him to forget about the bet or bothering us and just part ways peacefully. It worked to some extent, however I talked it up a bit too much and they insisted on seeing everything that was going on. Plus in the course of conversation it was discovered that they were from the D.C. area as well, so we ended up talking a bit about all that was going on at home which, although it eased any tension that was between us, took away a bit of my edge.

In any event, we headed down to the ballroom - the two of them looking for their target, me looking for security - and then they revealed who their target was. "Kelly." Earlier I had seen the Kelly I've been hanging around with go to the bar in proximity of the guy, but she had gone to bed a while earlier; so I told him that Kelly was my roommate, asleep, and "probably not" going to go back with him to the bar.

He looks into the room - "No, there she is."

Ah, see, it didn't help that there were three Kelly's at the Gathering and that his "Kelly" I know as Sapphire. So... instead of diverting him, I led him right to his objective.

*heavy sigh of defeat*

Sapphire came over, greeted the guy and invited him in - you have to invite a vampire into your house before they can attempt to suck your blood - and I left; I don't need to be defending people I don't know and who are very capable of handling themselves.

She sums up the event in her journal as follows:
"I had to lay down for a while because I was feeling ill. I went to the bar to get something to settle my stomach. A guy, Nate, came over and started hitting on me, and wouldn't let me go back down to the convention. Once I left, he even came down to the convention to see what it was about (which is fine because I told him he could). Luckily he left shortly, I think we were too weird for him."

As I said, I went back to the bar feeling pretty rotten about the event - namely my handling of it, particularly in hindsight - and saw Dylan and Keith sharing a drink. Ellen shared an anecdote with Keith that had him laughing (it's actually very funny, but you'll have to have Ellen tell it because I can't). The guy, of course, came back to the bar without Sapphire and was chided by his coworkers - no big loss.

We stuck around the bar until it closed then went down to see if the ball was still going. There were a few people left but it was clearly winding down for the night (/morning - it was 1 a.m. at this point). Continuing my wallflower state I hung around while Ellen and Greg talked about baseball and his brother's website. Had I known that Greg was leaving early I would have spoken more - not that I had much to say, I just like the guy - but, alas, I missed my chance.

The party ended and we brought Kathy into the group - now just down to me, Kathy, Dylan and Ellen - as we headed up to Ellen's room to just hang out. The coffee I had sucked down plus my mind rolling over and over the earlier episode and how it could have gone even worse were keeping me up, so I gladly stuck around.

Again I didn't talk much - seriously, I love to listen more than chat. The three of them, among my inspirations for writing, talked back and forth about books they liked, writing techniques they used, etc., so for me, just kicking back and listening in on all this was great. Dylan left around 3 and Ellen booted Kathy and me out about a quarter to 4.

I was still very much awake at that point - again, more from continually going over and over the night's events more than the coffee - and just wandered around the hotel. At that point, it registered that the Gathering would be ending soon and, well, that just saddened me. Eventually my body cried out and my brain allowed it to return to the room to lie down.

So at 4:15 a.m. I plopped down on the floor and my eyes shut - brain very much stayed on. No sleep.

Next, "The Weekend, Pt. 3"

Greg responds...

Geez, that "boss". Creepy is right. Uggh.

Response recorded on May 22, 2006


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