Too Little, Too Late?

Last week imploded all over me. I'm not certain I'll ever get the messy Wednesday remnants completely out of my hair. Also not certain why my week imploded--aside from how when I got back to my house on Monday it looked like a complete disaster. My utter, complete shock was utterly and completely not there. On the up side, the kids didn't look like refugees who hadn't eaten or bathed in three days. But yeah, week implosion equals no blogging. I think I have all my ducks back in their appropriate rows. I think, at least.

Emerald City ComiCon was excellent, and blogged awesomely about here (scroll down to start at bottom) and here. I'm too lazy to string together full, cohesive paragraphs, so I'm going to list the awesome stuff out.

• handing out packets all day Friday and Saturday is an interesting way to achieve Zen. Repetitive action does wonders for the subconscious mind.
• Jeph Jaques? Freaking adorable. Also, constantly surrounded by a throng of girls. His girlfriend cannot be comfortable. She was quite nice, though, since she was the one who snagged the packet from me for their booth.
  
• The black jerseys all the senior staff got were completely awesome, even if they tended to put a huge bullseye on me whenever I attempted to escape to the bathroom on Saturday. Seriously--bathroom trips took no less than fifteen minutes and the bathroom wasn't more than a hundred feet from the registration booth.
• Notice To All Con Attendees: Information Booth doesn't mean I'll find your bus stop for you. It doesn't even mean I'll attempt to try. Information does not equal Seattle-Information.com.
• Dinner on Friday was accompanied with a bright green drink in a dual-faced tiki glass. He was very, very unhappy when he was empty. Weep. And it was almost as good as a mojito. Almost. So far, though, nothing's better than a good mojito.
• Quiana and I have almost exactly the same taste in foods. Except for . . . bak choi? Something--it's a weird mushy green vegetable that was not very delicious.
• Adding 'ish' to the end of directions prevents wrongness, according to Technogreek.
  
• I lose street cred when I want iced coffee instead of hot.
  
• Saturday morning-to-afternoon registration was insanely busy and chaotic, but overall it went really well. No big problems like last year and we managed to keep the line for check-in from getting too long. I might be insane, but it's also pretty fun. Even though lanyards are a special punishment from Hell.
  
• I learned that in case I need an extra hand at registration, Hotness is the first person I should find for help. She moves like a perky dervish without the destruction.
• I made a lot of awesome friends and was reminded that I really, really miss living in Seattle. Though there is awesomeness here in Puyallup that I need to contact and drag out for food and fun shenanigans.
• Wil Wheaton was insanely awesome to have at the show and everyone adored the crap out of him. He did completely break my heart by being super-popular and awesome and running out of books before I and a bunch of other volunteers could snag one. As soon as I recover, I'll still love him. Me? Masochist? Shut your mouth.
• Ed Brubaker's wife is beyond nice. And really funny and polite and oh, right, super-nice.
• Having dinner with a bunch of other volunteers on Saturday, exchanging funny stories and getting to know them better completely made my oh-so-pained feet feel better. As did the alcohol.
• We were walking back from said delicious dinner and got almost-accosted by a lady who really did look like she was from Walking Dead (she looked like she'd escaped from the hospital, as she was still wearing the gown and had various sores all over and was very, very, very thin. Very.) as observed by FerretNick. I was startled (and reminded that maybe I need to up my expectation standards) by Technogreek's awesome chivalry when he walked between me and the terribly sad and creepy Walking Dead lady. Much appreciated. Less appreciated are the doctors/nurses/terrible security persons who let her out of the hospital.
  
• FerretNick, Dr. Zoltar and their wives-who-have-no-blogs-but-should are really awesome. And hilarious.
  
• I'm too Irish.
• Having people freak out at me regarding the whereabouts of talent is not awesome. Having George effectively take care of pest problems with more politeness than I've seen in months while still saying 'Hell to the no, thanks for trying'? Definitely awesome.
  
• Freak outs over who got handed the check-in packets for booths? Not awesome. This means you, group of females I won't name who unsuccessfully attempted to drag me into their group drama over what turned out to be nothing. Note to you: remember high school is over!
• Suicide Girls? Awesome and really very nice, most of them.
  
• There were a pair of men who entered into the costume contest who were clothed in whitey tighties and suspenders. Nothing else. They blew glitter at people and one lit their other's chest hair aflame. And they needed a tan.
• The pinnacle of Creepy Basement Nerd asked to take a picture of my hair. From the back. While I was sitting down. This fetish is . . . indefinably creepy.
• I got stopped and thanked a lot for assistance I didn't always remember giving, but thanks to the blue-purple-etc hair, I know I wasn't easy to confuse with someone else. Also, they usually stopped me by name.
• Tim Sale prints sell like good street drugs.
• I forgot my sketchbook. Not. Awesome. At. All. Got no sketches. Also didn't remember to bring the few comics I stashed aside to get signed. Next year, I will not be forgetting any bags.
• Sunday, at the post-show dinner, Quiana and I were table hunting and I spotted one of our regulars at The Stop, Shane, and his boyfriend, the awesome and really very nice Steve Sadowski sitting, so I beelined over there because a) they're great and b) I was feeling way, way too much like a twelve year-old trying to find a cafeteria table. We sat down and there was the uber-fun FerretNick sitting with someone else who I spent fifteen minutes trying to drum up the name to go to the face, knowing I knew him and finally got some whisper assistance to get the job done. Thank you FerretNick. So, it was totally Phil Jimenez, who I totally adore and totally had Infinite Crisis and a few from his run of Wonder Woman in the Forgotten Bag Of Doom to get signed. I'll drop the word 'totally' now, but not awesome. There was really excellent conversation with all of them centering around comics and even dropping over to soap operas and it was all really, really awesome. I loved tossing around words with them and hope next year I'll get an opportunity to do it again. And? Phil is really, really one of the nicest guys in comics. And adorable. He gave me some really wonderful advice about breaking into comics via the written word that I'm beyond appreciative for too.
  
• Monday morning I got to revel in not having to get up at four am to drive people to the airport. I did have two very talkative backseat passengers at seven, though, one of whom took advantage of the fact that I missed him to hit me up for McDonald's pancake breakfast. Bratling.
• Being sad in front of Palindrome disturbs him. Even if he forgets about it entirely later.
  

I'm very certain I'm missing a few tidbit stories that'll occur to me later, but I think that's the highs and the lows. Overall, ECCC is definitely one of the highlights of the year for me, it was a lot of fun and the guys ran the best show yet this year.

I think that's long enough of a post. Welcome to my over-compensation for not posting at all last week.

Also: I think I'm sad. I'm not sure why and it's strange because I am very, very, very rarely sad. It's also annoying.