The Working Title

Day 2: Unconventional Conventionist (10:00am-2:00pm)

I rushed forward kneeling down next to him, grabbing up 3 or 4 rolls. The man was startled and I could tell he thought I was going to lift his posters. “Can I help you?” I asked quickly, as I picked up a couple more. He looked relieved and said “Thank you, I’m all over the place today. I had a late start.” I told him it wasn’t a problem and we made quick work of picking up all the rolled papers as pedestrians moved around us, annoyed. In the end he held his box balancing 10 posters carefully on top and I carried the other 20 or so rolls.

        I was still working out the details of my half assed mental game plan, as the man got closer to one of the entrances to the convention. You are this person’s help. You have a badge. Of course you have one, why else would you be helping? My brain was screaming at me to be cool, be cool, be cool…even though I am uncool. (If it were possible my brain would have been hyperventilating) With some luck, unlike my usual, I managed not to have aneurism right there as the lady at the door was making small talk with the man I was helping. She seemed to know him and joked about how he was running late. Her eyes met mine and she looked down at the posters I had in my arms, making the connection. I smiled and she smiled back. My heart was in my ears thumping the blood to my face. She pulled out a small metal counter and clicked it twice as I followed the guy in. Yeah I did.

        While reading this, don’t think “Whatta boss!” or “That’s some smooth jive!” because the paranoia set in rapidly as Comic Con staff personal passed us and eyeballed us for badges as we walked quickly by. I probably looked insane. We were almost at a ballroom when the man I was helping bro-grabbed a Comic Con staff person who was right outside the door. They were talking about something I couldn’t quite follow in my state as I too focused on appearing relaxed. Soon enough we were through that door too and I allowed myself to breathe. Regaining brain function I looked around at all the cosplayers and other convention goers totally filling the huge room.

        The man balanced the box and posters with a knee and a hand as he pulled out his mobile phone and looked at the screen. “No bars.” He swayed dangerously as he slipped the phone back into his pocket and yanked the walkie-talkie I failed to notice from its holster on the back of his belt. He adjusted his handle on his box before clicking the button on the side of the device several times making it chirp. A crackly genderless voice that could only be compared to adults in a peanuts cartoon sounded and the man I was with told the other device which room he was in. More incoherent babble and the man sarcastically said “Rodger that. Over and out.” Before he clipped the walkie-talkie back into place.

        On two feet again he turned to me and thanked me for my help. I told him it was no problem at all and that I wasn’t in a hurry. He smiled and nodded instead of thanking me again which seems to be the standard awkward circular conversation between strangers. His eyes scanned the crowded vender hall but he stopped when he saw a short Indian woman walking toward us, fast. The young woman took the posters from me without even making eye contact and told the man to “hurry up”. With that, they were gone. I waved goodbye but they were already turned around and heading to a different room.

        I had made it in. I was shocked. Everything had happened so fast and so seamlessly it still seemed unreal. I felt high on the excitement and started work on the convention hall floor- talking to various cosplayers and picking up an incredible amount of swag (lots of Dexter stuff. Me and my mudder really love that show). Unfortunately, anything I wanted to buy was severally out of my price range. 

       I went to my first convention when I was 12 and I’ve loved them since. The community and the entertainment brought to you by people of like interests is second to none. Any nerd willingly looses themselves at a convention.

       Armed with free stuff and cosplay ideas for the future I decided it was time to leave the big room I was in and explore some of the other rooms. I exited the door with a large group of slow moving people. When I could I dodged to the right to get out of the throng. A middle aged woman with curly brown hair was trying to get into the room I just left and we exchanged humored, teethless smiles as we both waited to move on. She had tons of pins on the lanyard of her staff badge and I watched as her eyes looked for my badge.

        ”Did you loose your badge hun?” She asked genuinely. With great control I let my smile slightly falter and my hand raise up near my belly button where the badge should have been before I looked down. “I guess I did” I frowned and my eyebrows furrowed. I felt my cheeks blush but I decided that was fine. “What do I do about that?” She told me it wasn’t a big deal and to just go get a temporary one printed at registration. The human traffic had progressed enough that we could move and I thanked her as we passed each other. With that, I headed straight to the exit.

Mission: Success. Lesson: BUY YOUR OWN TICKET.

Day 2: Captain Planet (8:30am-10:00am)

         My head had bled enough that when I pulled my hand away from my face, when I woke, I was met with some resistance. Vaguely grossed out, I put in my contacts and looked at the damage. It looked foul. Everyone else was awake or waking up and talking about the convention. I was pretty dead set on going to the beach since I wasn’t able to go do the convention thing (not to mention being strapped for cash). Everyone save for Jeff and Ace were off- on his way out Jarvis said he would hang out with me after they went to some Scott Pilgrim t-shirt event.

Left in the room, we talked about the laughs at hand with the Comic-Con protest scheduled that day by the Westboro Baptist church. Silly Baptists, don’t they know comic book people are pretty much the internets. I considered going down to the protest dressed in the panda suit carrying my own sign- but alas, decided that the suit would be a bother if I did end up at the beach. Ace left and I followed shortly there after.

I made my way out of the hotel and onto the main street toward the convention. Passing the Marriot I was bombarded with tons of people with fliers and even more shoving people dressed in costumes waiting at the various entrances. There was man wearing a panda mask on top of his head as he excitedly talked to a couple; who clearly, were trying to get away. Somehow they did manage to get away and the man looked very sad. I must have been looking too long because his eyes met mine and he let out a strangled cry of joy. Oh God. I scooted to the side trying to get out of his path; I watched in horror he shoved a small Asian boy out of the way with the back of his paper heavy clipboard.

“You!” I gave him an unthreatening smile-without teeth-hoping not to throw him into fits (I hear that happens). “Me.” “You!” This was already tired, “Yes?” “I love your backpack.” Oh right I was wearing that panda backpack- don’t know how I had already forgotten (it was heavy against my back concealing a snack, a weapon, my wallet, my ndsixl among other necessities). We shared a moment of silence- I looked at him more closely he dressed like a beach bum, his blonde hair was more long than short and there was a feather poking out of it- with a trimmed beard that had a reddish tint to it. In his right hand he had a clipboard, in his left, a lemur stuffed animal. Hippie preacher (I shiver).

 We spoke at the exact same time “Um thank you.”/“Can I hug your panda?”   “Wait…What?” He transferred the lemur to his right hand and extended his arms (Jesus-like) and repeated, “Can I hug your panda?” “No.” Perhaps I didn’t say this with much conviction because he hugged me from behind leaning down so he could snuggle the top of the panda’s head. This is not acceptable behavior for strangers. He pulled away and asked me “Do you want to hug my panda?” My eyes darted to the mask on his head. “You…you want me to hug your face?” This was unacceptable. He leaned forward and embraced me. “Panda friend.” He said fondly. He is out of his mind.

“Well- off I go.” I turned and he dramatically yelled, “Wait!” “What?” “Do you love the planet?” “This planet has been okay so far.” “Do you love these little guys?” He held up his Lemur and shook it slightly. He was asking the wrong person; I had spent the past two semesters thoroughly involving myself in physical anthropological studies (for the lols?).  I know so much more about higher and lower primates than Snapple bottles know facts. I had a feeling anything he said was going to be upsetting.

“This little monkey (I’m sure he meant Strepsirrhini primate) is having some problems (probably. Compared to the rest of the primate order they are dumb as rocks) their home in Indonesia is being destroyed by fires and other signs of global warming.” I couldn’t not say something. “I see what you are trying to do here and it’s cool, but Lemurs are exclusively found in Madagascar and really their main threat is deforestation. The forest fires in Indonesia are a problem for wild life and the economy but most of the time is induced by man made fires in association with logging activities not so much global warming.” (Made me wonder what he thought global warming did exactly.)

I stopped, holding back the torrent of field note quotations I was prepared to dictate to make the point- I thought he was silly. To my surprise he didn’t look embarrassed at all rather he just smiled and put a fist on his hip while saying “Wow, you really know a lot about the Earth Mother.” Oh God. “I’m here with Greenpeace and we are recruiting people like yourself to join us in making our world a better place.” Of course he is. I really love when people are trying to “make a difference” but I can only love it when people are aware of what they are fighting for…at all.

Thankfully, I actually had an out with this one. When I was 18, I had donated to Greenpeace and ever since then the organization has had my contact information (and am considered a member I suppose). I told him this and he looked entirely pleased with himself. Concluding with a  “Thanks for saving the planet!” he made the lemur plushie wave. He turned to two cosplayers dressed as Hellsing characters and gave them a gregarious “HEYA!”- I walked swiftly on.

Riding my excitable, nerdy high I was contemplating (daydreaming) the possible options I had to get into the convention. Maybe I could use someone’s badge…maybe I could rent someone’s badge…Honestly, I knew it was a lost cause- Comic-Con tickets were essentially gone since December of the previous year. Slightly disheartened (understatement), I crossed the busy street walking toward the SyFy area.

Sensing disaster (spidey sense?), I watched as a large white man (who looked to be in his mid to late-thirties) ascend the steps. One of the rolled up posters he was carrying on top of a box started to slip. Trying to stop its decent he tilted the box in such a way that all 30 of the rolled up posters slid off. Before the last one hit the ground, I was pretty sure I knew how I could get into Comic-Con.

Day 2: 52 Girl Pick-Up (1:55am-2:00am)

So I was sleeping; despite it being freezing in that room- sub-arctic I imagine (though cold usually puts me right to sleep, this flavor of cold just made me stuffy initially). At some point I suppose Dane, Jarvis, Brent and Ace had come back to the room (vaguely recall hearing them) and they started playing with the large stack of porn cards, giggling in the dark (no homo).

         Weirdly enough, the porno cards were my contribution to the room. I had recently come back from Las Vegas (again) and I had literally hundreds of “business” cards from the ladies of the strip in my backpack by the time I got back home. These cards had the girls name on it and “how much”. There was not nearly enough ironic places to send these cards so I decided to bring a stack of them to Comicon and distribute them. (Now that we are filled in…)

         They must have been throwing the cards (distributing them about the room festively) because in my semi-conscious state I kept thinking that there were birds flapping around the room. Suddenly (!),out of nowhere a card hit my cheek I assumed a rather upright position rapidly and smashed my head on the desk above me. It must have made quite a noise because everyone got quiet.

         “Nobo…You okay?” my head was throbbing and I was still very sleepy “Mmmmhm.” “You bleeding?” “I…don’t know.” “…..” “Night, night.” I was much too tired to be bothered. I would check out my head in the morning.

Day 1: T.G.I. Wednesday’s (9:30pm-11:50pm)

Back at the mall Jarvis and myself walked with purpose up some stairs and across the quad area. I was still mentally prepping myself (lame, I know) when a huge group of people came into view in the otherwise deserted mall. I ducked behind Jarvis instinctively and followed him toward them. Several of the people called out to Jarvis commenting on the hat, others shouted greetings to me. We met somewhere in the middle and I stepped out from behind Jarvis. Probably looking like something between a deer and a crack addict, I looked at everyone forming a half circle around us. Putting a person to the voices I had come to know, I connected everyone gathered: Christina, Laslo, Michael, Alyx, Chris, Jeff, Flitz, Dane, Ace, Josh, Norm, Rob, and Brent (their powers combined…). Everyone suddenly being real people always ‘hits me for a six’ when it comes to meeting people for the first time. (Ohmygosh you have bodies.)

            Like the stuttering ninny I can be- I made the meeting as uncomfortable as possible. Epitomized by Flitz going in for a hug and me ducking out from under his arms before said hug could be executed. The general consensus was that it was dinnertime and I realized just how hungry I was (no food all day and Dan had taken my water). T.G.I. Friday’s Ho!

Everyone was talking excitedly about “Inception”  (which sounded like an awesome movie) as we walked. I trailed behind the group a bit, focusing on not tripping and making a greater fool of myself. Christina and myself sped up joining the rest of the crowd. I noticed Norm had a bandaid slightly above his left eye. “Norm, what happened to your face?” a “Daaammn” was in order for my poorly constructed question before he said (with an almost straight face)“Skateboarding accident”. Rob responded immediately “He lie.”  Everyone spoke at once; to amend the fib- he had hit his face on a wall. I laughed, happy to know I wasn’t the only klutz to grace NK’s presence.

T.G.I. Friday’s was several blocks away but it was nice to walk around after spending all day on my butt. With 15 people in tow we had to wait a few for a table to support us. In the mean time, the night people of San Diego who were selling watches and asking for money in general entertained us.

            They readied a long duel-sided-last-supper-esque table and everyone sat down. Like he had been warned of the potential of our tomfoolery, the waiter appeared almost immediately- passing out all menus with conviction (a large group of nerds wasn’t going to bring him down tonight). The chaos of everyone talking at once was comforting to me despite it being a feat to follow anything.

Drinks all around (ice for me. Mmmm ice) and food ordered (I ordered the bacon cheeseburger like 60% of the table). Across from me Ace, Jeff, and Laslo were looking at something on a mobile phone with expressions of upset and amusement. I asked them what they were looking at and unfortunately saw what was the beginning of a rather obscene gif. Flitz said he’d do better and he pulled out his phone, which apparently has copious amounts of pornography on it. He kept trying to show me but I would have none of it- Alyx told me not to look back (ha-ha).

The food came and we all ate. The burger was good (I had never eaten there so I went with something that would be at least decent). With 15 separate tabs, the waiter deserved his tips. On the way back to the Hyatt we had to drop Rob off at his hotel, he had a plane to catch to next morning so he wouldn’t be conventioning it up with the rest of the nerdiest-kids over the next week. We embraced and saw him in before leaving for the other hotel.

Stopping at the Hyatt was more like a pit stop for everyone who wasn’t staying there because they realized they had to go to the convention in the morning. With still no word from either of my sleepover buddies I joined the ranks of room 20-something. I brought out my panda suit for everyone to try on. Brent and Dane put it on and took some pictures.

Not entirely tired Jarvis, Brent, Dane, Ace (now in the panda), and myself journeyed to the pool like the rebels we are (Jeff and Josh stayed behind to sleep). Unfortunately, my day of travel had suddenly seemed to catch up with me and I went back to the hotel room to catch some z’s myself. As I left I caught something about them filming some sort of real world parody in the panda suit.

To desk I went.

Day 1: Round one. Fight! (8:35pm-9:35pm)

            This mall was utter madness. I had never been to the Westfield Horton Plaza before and felt very lost just standing there among the shoppers on the second level. A group of bros walked by me I asked one of them if he knew where the cinema was. He and his friends stopped talking before exchanging bemused looks and laughing shaking their heads “no”. I thought this queer until I realized I had that silly bison hat on. My hands darted to the earflaps, poised to lift the hat off my head before I remembered I didn’t care.

There seemed to be ramps, stairs, escalators, and elevators everywhere I turned and it was rather hard to tell what level you were on once you started walking around. I was reminded absently of the moving staircases in Harry Potter. I kept asking people where the movies were located but unfortunately it seemed that with the convention in town a good many of the people weren’t locals or didn’t want to acknowledge my question (or both). Getting rather annoyed with it all, and wondering if there was even a cinema in this mess- I spotted four kids skateboarding/knocking over chairs in what appeared to be a closed eating area. Tourists don’t skateboard and make rowdy in places they shouldn’t. Kids aren’t without parents if they are traveling. Wonderful-San Diego youth. I walked toward them; they stopped and stared blatantly (bisonheadedgirl bisonheadedgirl). Be brave.

 Standing a nice and awkward 10 or so feet away, I shouted, “Hey, where is the cinema?” I was startled at my projection and the kids looked taken aback. “It’s on the forth floor.” One indistinguishably ethnic kid said sounding annoyed. “Th-thanks.” I pulled the handle of my bag and turned around. “Hey Crazy, got money?” The same kid asked me, a hint of violence in his voice. Did he really think he deserved a tip for telling me to ascend a floor? I told the miniature conmen “No” (<- rather awkwardly. Like I do.) and headed to the stairs.

Nerdiest kid Jarvis, had texted me and I received them all at once (my phone would continue to malfunction for the rest of the trip). The texts collectively said to message him when I got to the theater and that he would come outside. Not wishing to interrupt the movie, I told him to watch it and that I would just wait outside for everyone. However, he insisted that he was going to come out because I didn’t need to be waiting out there for an hour. Despite my financially conscious pleas (movies cost so much now-a-days) he came out and greeted me. I think I managed a “hello” before it degraded into ungainly babble. I know I am rather shy and meeting people I have never met in person is always a doozie. Be calm. Be cool. (You are definitely not cool)

He asked if I wanted to drop off my stuff at his hotel room so I didn’t have to carry it around- a good idea. I was in San Diego and my two sleepover options were hanging in the balance due to a lack of communication- so I had no where permanently to put my stuff. Holy poor planning Batman! He took my luggage and commandeered the bison hat (Jarvis, not Batman) and we were on our way.

On the way, I told him briefly of my trip thus far- laughing randomly because the fact that I was in San Diego talking to someone I had never met kept dawning on me. Without the pedi-cab the trip took about 15 or so minutes walking briskly. (Jarvis simply said “No” when I told him we could get a ride for free if we saw Gecko.)

The elevator of the Hyatt ascended to the 20-somethingth floor at a dizzying rate. Staying in Jarvis’ room would be Josh, Ace, Dane, Brent, and Jeff their stuff was laying in various piles around the room and I rolled my own luggage under the desk.  Jarvis said that if I didn’t end up hearing from the people I was suppose to stay with, I was welcome to join their party. I thanked him (at this rate it defiantly looked like I was going to need to take him up on it) and told him I would be perfectly well under the desk. He then told me “*Explitive*er, you’re not sleeping under any desk.”. I simply had to insist- If I was to stay in a room that I had not arranged to I should be as out of the way as possible. In time he shrugged it off with a “do what you want.”

Soon we were  in a cab (a super sweet van) heading back to the mall to meet up with the rest of those nerdy kids.

Day 1: Free Rides (7:55pm-8:35pm)

Unsure I was getting off at the right stop, I stepped onto the platform looking for a sign. The only sign I could see was a giant one on top of the station building that read “Santa Fe”. I didn’t want to get too far from the tracks for fear this wasn’t me but I had no choice as everyone shoved me to the main gate- before they all went their separate ways. Thankfully, I recognized the trolley car across the street and knew I was in San Diego. 

Next. Where am I going? This is a fair question. Like I said previously my Comic Con plan for this year had been destroyed and then turned into a visiting-friends-trip (nothing wrong with that I’mjustsaying). Originally, I was going to work for a local-ish comic shop dressed as Chun Li from Street Fighter to promote their booth at Comic Con. Unfortunately, one of the owners (unforeseeably) got a girlfriend and gave her my ticket, this was after I had made plans for that those days. I found this out one month before go time and there was no way I was going to get a convention ticket at this point (without having to part with all my Earthly possessions).  That night’s plan was go to see the movie ‘Inception’ with the people of Nerdiest-Kids.

Sadly, the movie had started by the time I got in and rather I was going to meet them at the cinema. I hopped on the trolley and took a very short ride to the convention center (thinking that was a nice central jumping off point).  Alas…Getting off was probably not the best idea because immediately I was bombarded with offers from many-a foreign Pedi-cab people. Trying to extract some sort of useable directions from any of them was near impossible and I started walking toward what I assumed would be the “mall district”. Not wanting to get too ahead of myself (I was not traveling lightly) I decided to ask one last Pedi-cab man.

The guy saw me walking toward him and he jumped out of the seat of his cab. He was probably four or five inches taller than me-very tan, with short hair (covered by a beanie) and a full beard.  (I have a crippling fear of mountain people- if he was wearing flannel there would have been a problem.) “Need a ride?” He said it in perfect unaccented English. “Nope- directions.” He didn’t look surprised. “Where are you going?” “The cinema” “Which one?” I don’t know why his question surprised me. My own city is a bit smaller than San Diego and it has 5 cinemas. “How about I take you to a few and you can figure it out?” I figured that would be his angle “Ah, I really don’t have money for transit. I’m sorry” He laughed and put my obese bag in his cab. “For free.” then he paused helping me into the cab “just hold my drink and talk to me.”

So for the bargain price of holding a half full Arizona Tea and talking to a stranger he pulled out into traffic. We introduced ourselves and got a 5 sentence synopsis’ on our lives. Originally from Montgomery, Alabama he moved to San Diego to pursue creative careers in tattooing and skateboarding (and pedi-cabbing as it would have it). He ditched his southern accent, real fast, upon his move- but can’t help it when he’s inebriated. People call him Gecko. He loves it in San Diego. He drinks Mandarin Orange Green Tea with Ginseng & Honey Jasmine.

Riding through traffic in the cab was a awesome. It was how I imagine biking in the street would be but with more authority (though car cabs were still pretty rude to us). It seemed anyone I made eye contact with had something to say about my magnificent bison hat. Most memorable being a homeless man who accosted us at a red light demanding I tell him where to get a hat like my own. I told him his best bet would be to make it and gave him the worlds’ fastest explanation on how a person would construct horns out of fabric. Looking impressed and drunk he waved us off as the light turned green.

We reached a cinema in no time at all. Just as we pull up I get a text from Nerdiest kid, Jarvis, he wrote that they were in the theater at the mall. I relayed this to Gecko who promptly picked up my previously set down baggage and put it back into his cab insisting to take me the couple blocks remaining to the other theater. The sun was setting very rapidly and by the time we reached the outdoor mall it was dark. He told me that if he saw me again he would give me another ride anywhere I wanted- A friend indeed! I said I final goodbye to my generous cabbie and wished him luck in his pursuits.

Off to the cinema- I ascended the escalators as graceful as anyone with baggage can.