I understand it has been quite a long while since I have updated this blog. Unfortunately, I have been out of town for every weekend for the last month, and I have two more to go. I've been to Chicago for Easter, St. Paul for new apartment keys then Chicago for a funeral, Chicago to fly out of Midway Airport to Furry Weekend Atlanta, and Chicago for my friend's housewarming party. The next two weekends consist of a weekend trip to Iowa, then the big move to saint paul.
Earlier this month, I got the keys to my apartment in Saint Paul, and honestly it's a nice place. It's fairly spacious at an affordable price in a good neighborhood, and my best friend lives literally upstairs and across the hall. It's almost completely empty right now, but all of the stuff I don't want my family to see when helping me move is jammed into one closet. Hopefully they don't open it. I will miss the city of Madison, but I miss my friend more. I look forward to ahving a new place.
The only issue I have with moving the furniture in is that I plan to put my computer in the living room. This leaves two bedrooms, one of which will be my actual bedroom, the other of which will literally be a "fetish room" that I use for things I don't talk about on this blog. It will be very hard to explain to my family what I use the spare bedroom for. However, it may come in handy for virtual reality, or even just storage.
The Monday after I got my keys, I made the mad dash home for the funeral of my great uncle. It was honestly a very well done ceremony, and the reception was at an Irish pub. The food was great, and the leftovers are definitely not being wasted; I have gotten out of cooking for a few days. Apparently he liked Jimmy Buffet, which I wish I knew when he was still around, but I guess with everyone you learn cool facts only after they're gone. There's also old family pictures of him in drag for Catholic Church fundraiser cabaret shows, which was definitely wild to look at in the family photo albums.
The Wednesday after that, I went to Furry Weekend Atlanta, which, although not trouble free, was a genuinely great time. My mother took me to Midway Airport at 5 AM on the Thursday, and I got through security okay, which I was surprised by considering it was my first time flying anywhere alone. I made the decision to book a cheap, indirect flight to Atlanta via Pittsburgh. On my Southwest Airlines leg to Pittsburgh, we boarded the plane as the more expensive Atlanta flight boarded at the same time, and as we landed, the pilot said "I don't know why anyone would have a transfer, but in case you do..."
I got lunch at the Marathon Diner in the Pittsburgh Airport, and ended up on a plan full of Pittsburgh furs. I could tell they were furries because they literally had their heads out in their carry on. I took the MARTA downtown, and met my good friend Meyneth in the Courtland Grand. The hotel room was a little worse for wear but acceptable. I had dinner at the Dairy Queen, waited an hour in the reg line to get my wristband, got stood up for one panel, then attended one panel, then went to bed tired.
Friday I just hit a bunch of panels and the dealers' den (i think). I had Dairy Queen for breakfast, which was kind of steep but surprisingly good. FWA's virtual queueing system had growing pains with people not following the directions and me suffering the consequences, but I got to walk through, buying a shirt and a weighted plush of a deer from Weighted Wildlife. I also had band rehearsal for the charcuterie party; I play trombone, and they have a band that provides live music, so I signed up.
Security actually moved us in the Hilton from the fifth floor common area to the basketball court because someone in the rooms was jealous at our very good playing. We were a bit loud but whatever. I then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in the Peachtree Center, which was very authentic. It was a bargain, being a lot of food for $10. I then attended a few after dark panels. The object sexuality one actually helped me understand myself a lot, especially in relation to my pool toys, and I'm happy I went. I then met up with my old friend Bees, who had his first convention. We walked through the pool toy room for about five minutes, determined the music was too loud, exchanged a handshake, then left.
On Saturday, I went to Waffle House for breakfast, and was impressed, as usual, with their fare. I then went to a pool toy panel, where I saw all of the stuff everyone else owns, including a very handsome deer owned by a gentleman named Eclipse. The toy of himself is very well done and very handsome, though only two exist. I sat on one. It was great.
After that panel, I showered and readied myself for the Charcuterie Party. I played trombone for two sets, and made small talk and enjoyed some fine charcuterie with all sorts of people. I think I played well. I had to cover drums for one song on the second set, but it was Moondance, which is literally a four on the floor swing pattern. I handled it well, then quickly had to run off to a pool toy suit tryout panel I volunteered to help with.
I will not detail the pool toy suit panel (run by Candy Coated Kink) because I keep my blog safe for work as much as I can. However, I did get to try one, and I am now very tempted to do very stupid things with my money.
Sunday was pretty good, I attended a few more panels, packed my stuff, then made my way to the airport. The airport experience sucked. My flight was delayed by an hour and a half, partly due to a runway equipment failure earlier in the day, partly due to the rainy weather, and partly because the plane that I was supposed to take to Chicago was late arriving from Houston. I tried to get a snack at the Auntie Annes, but they literally RAN OUT OF PRETZELS. HOW?????????? The pizza place next door kind of sucked, and was also almost out of pizza! What is wrong with this god damn airport????? I sat next to a stonemason on the way back, and talked to my mom on the car ride home - and got her a different Mother's Day gift, because her mug didn't fit in her car on account of the cupholders. Apparently you're supposed to wrap Mothers' Day gifts now? News to me. She was happy to see me though, between the gift and me having a silver tongue.
My friend bought a house and I attended his housewarming just this weekend. It's a small cape cod style in Hammond, Indiana, and the basement is chock full of wood paneling. It was nice to see a lot of old friends from high school, and enjoy the beer. He was very happy I went, and I liked seeing everyone. I'll be over there more for my band's recording sessions.
Pretty much, this month has been extremely busy. I'm hoping to meet up with a caribou around here, but I've just been straight up packed between work, moving, and all of the personal responsibilities in my life. Being busy sucks. Hopefully things will cool off soon.
Finally, an interesting thing that happened the Friday night at Furry Weekend Atlanta: I was sitting in the object sexuality panel sort of zoning out of focus, when I actually realized that "male" doesn't accurately tell the whole story of what my gender is. Like, it's fine, it's not that inaccurate, but it doesn't feel honed-in enough. After growing out a mullet and getting some art of Hobart looking really androgynous, I realized that I'm somewhere in the lump of genders considered non-binary. I rolled over from "barely male" in my mind to "male leaning but not male," and I honestly consider this another step in addressing the kind of person I truly am. It may be a hard road, but it will be worthwhile. For tax and legal reasons, I'm a dude. In most other contexts, I now consider myself non-binary, though extremely new to the whole concept.
Another interesting thing about FWA: what do you do if your hotel roomate and friend is lowkey very attractive to you but you don't want to say anything? Maybe I should make an email so people can leave me comments.
Next week's subject: I have no idea. Something will piss me off and I'll be inclined to write about it.