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egypturnashThis is gonna be pretty image-heavy. You've been warned. It's "My Day At RenFaire".
Saturday. Morning. Waking up, showering, getting dressed, deflation of the air mattress. I had selected a particularly fetching ensemble for this day - not exactly period by any means, but it had a certain... something.
There was another photo with better perspective, but the pose and lighting was better on this one. The overall effect is of a background character in an Edward Gorey drawing, I think. Note the contrast between the t-shirt tan of the arms and head, and the pale, pasty, sun-virgin flesh of my shoulders and chest and back. This would prove to be a problem later on.
(By the way, since a couple of people asked this in the comments on the previous photo of me - I'm about 5'10", barefoot. On the tall side for a girl, but not completely into Bitchzilla scale.)
We departed. We decided to stop at Pandemic so Ken could grab a hat he had lying around; he keeps his hair buzzed short, and was worried about a sunburnt scalp. Since I hadn't been to the massive new offices yet, I got the tour. The place is two and a half floors of a building; one is ultra-luxurious, the legacy of a dot.bomb who remodeled the floor before they ran out of venture capital ("What'd they do... leverage the synergy of b2b interoperations with the multimedia power of the internet or something?" "I dunno. As soon as I heard they were a dot.crash I stopped listening."), with a crazy multi-layered ceiling that counters the fact that it's all metal and concrete; the other is ordinary cubicle farms, though fairly decently-sized ones. Ken's team is currently on the latter floor. The place was absolutely dead; the only other people we saw were a couple guys amidst tangles or wires in what must've been the network room - everyone had been crunching for E3 demos; one of the three teams had gone gold for E3. There were some gorgeous city views from the windows.
We nearly forgot to get the hat we came for in the first place, only remembering when we were in the elevator back down to the garage!
The overall effect of the Battlezone 2 LAN party commemorative hat when added to Ken's usual attire was stunning - with the little case for his new camera hanging around his neck, he was the Ur-Tourist. It was impressive. He'd just gotten the thing this week due to an unexpected bonus.
And we were off to the highway. Mostly the 101. Or the 1; they merge. It was hazy so the ocean views were kind of... eh... but it was still a pleasant drive. Twenty minutes or so before Santa Barbara, there's one point where you're in the mountains and suddenly find yourself on this bridge that leaps out between two peaks - the view is amazing. Unfortunately the bridge is a narrow two-lane thing; there's nowhere to stop and gape. There's a vista point a little further on, but we were disappointed to find that it has a lot of trees surrounding it, blocking the majestic view.
Since we were stopped for this disappointing view, we stretched a bit. Ken tried out the 'panorama' mode on his camera; it tries to give you hints for making a good one, and the software that comes with it is supposed to be able to auto-stich for you. I tried to stitch them together myself, but I wasn't willing to put work into it, so enh.
I was standing posed "majestically" on the top of one of the rocks Ken's standing on, but he chose a tighter shot than I did for him, so you can't see the full pose.
It was a really nice day - partly cloudy, but still warm enough in the shade to be quite pleasant.
We drove through Santa Barbara and up into the mountains again, to the Faire.
Where the tickets for us were not under the expected names at Will Call. Oops. I got to scurry in, looking for Roon, who was luckily finishing up the first of his shows as Tobias the Adequate. I heckled him a little bit, because what're friends for?, then when he was done putting his props away, we went to the front, where he vouched for us. Turned out he'd written down the name, but neglected to bring the piece of paper it was written on. And all he could remember as a possible last name for me was "Urnash"; few people online know me as "Trauth"! Oops. He'd emphasized the PINK HAIR!!! to the woman who was handling Will Call, but it didn't connect until after we'd resolved it.
And we went in.
Maypole.
Roon.
And there were people dressed as nobles and falcons and, of course, people selling lots of stuff, especially period clothes. The overall feel was a bit of sf/comics/furry con, with people running around in costume and in character to various degrees, mixed with a crafts fair, with people hawking their probably mostly hand-made wares.
Including, of course, saucy wenches selling bodices.
Yes, I had a bodice fitted.
There are no photos.
Wisely enough, the people who fitted it have a no photos-unless-you-buy-it policy. So only Ken and Roon have seen me in a bodice. With a fairly amazing amount of cleavage.
If not for Kevin being away at E3 most of the week, I would have had money, and been severely tempted to find just the right bodice/dress/skirt combination, purchase it, and flounce around the rest of the day in period garb. And there would be photos of such. But sadly, I am a broke thing. So, dear readers, you are teased, and denied. Instead, you merely get a photograph of me carefully aiming a chicken catapult.
I came very close to getting one in a basket and winning a tacky prize, but I failed. I did, however, have fun playing up the taking-of-aim and carefully judging my hammer's blow.
Speaking of having fun playing things up, immediately before I failed at my attempt at using a dead chicken as a seige weapon, we caught the jousting.
Four knights took the field; each chose a quadrant of the audience to be the one they were fighting for. Thus, everyone had someone to cheer, and to boo, and no knight was deemed the Designated Bad Guy Who Everyone Booed. This handsome fellow took the honor of being our champion. And immediately declared himself to us to be an underhanded rogue with no respect for chivalry or fair play. Which is fine by me. I have to wonder if they all do this, to be honest, or if they regularly switch the roles around. Partway through the event, cheering myself hoarse for an utterly arbitrary association, I began, perhaps, to understand the appeal of spectator sports. On the other hand, I quickly forgot the name of our knight. On the other other hand, when this vile knave came to taunt our quadrant of the audience, suggesting that of course all the women, especially that pink-haired wench in the front were secretly rooting for him, I quite enjoyed bantering with him. Especially when I ended up suggesting that the only thing I found comely about him was mare he was riding.
This is the kind of thing that pops out of your mouth when you're a xenophile, and having fun being silly.
The jousting devolved into pro wrestling about halfway through. Yes, that's our underhanded champion leaping on a defenseless, unhorsed opponent. I think at some point I hollered for someone's head. Ken tried out the movie mode of his camera on the jousting and on the chicken-flinging, but iPhoto didn't grab those. There's probably some way to get them off (install the Mac version of the drivers, use a USB card-reader to poke at the individual files on the memory card...) but we were just exhausted when we got back to my place; we went out to eat, downloaded the photos, and then he went home, pretty much.
Other notable events of the day included Ken competing with a burly Scotsman at stone-throwing - which he won, earning him a certificate claiming him a complete tosser (is that going up on your wall at work? hee), catching Roon's act, an insult juggler, and a Punch and Judy show, during which I inevitably thought of Ashy. How could I not, when a baby is turned into sausages?
Anyway, it was fun, it was silly, it boosted my gender confidence enough that I used the ladies room at a gas station on the way home when I had to pee - I got a fair amount of appreciation from lusty Renaissance men. Though I was just as interested in ogling the lusty Renaissance wenches as I was in the rogues. I was a bit of a shameless flirt at Roon a few times, too. Renfaire is generally full of innuendo, I've realized, something I didn't clue in on when I went once before while young!
Something interesting happened on the way home, too. All the hollering I did at the joust left me with a sore throat. My voice cracked for a bit, and suddenly I was in a slightly different vocal space; I think overusing the usual vocal cords made me shift to the other, femmy ones. So that was interesting. Normally, my voice is in an androgynous zone, but the resonance felt different. In fact, it still feels different. Now if only I could zero in on how it feels different, and get the hang of this different throat-shape, and make it casual and normal... that'd be another definite layer of girl cues. I don't have a deep male voice, never did, so it's not as dramatic a change as it is for some MtFs I know (including one who's had facial surgery, but still has this horrible Texas male voice - she passes perfectly, until she opens her mouth, and a giant dick flies out of it), but it's still something I know I need to work on... it was a little weird, knowing I might at any moment break into definite male voice, but it was cool to feel like I sounded like a girl for a while.
Saturday. Morning. Waking up, showering, getting dressed, deflation of the air mattress. I had selected a particularly fetching ensemble for this day - not exactly period by any means, but it had a certain... something.
There was another photo with better perspective, but the pose and lighting was better on this one. The overall effect is of a background character in an Edward Gorey drawing, I think. Note the contrast between the t-shirt tan of the arms and head, and the pale, pasty, sun-virgin flesh of my shoulders and chest and back. This would prove to be a problem later on.
(By the way, since a couple of people asked this in the comments on the previous photo of me - I'm about 5'10", barefoot. On the tall side for a girl, but not completely into Bitchzilla scale.)
We departed. We decided to stop at Pandemic so Ken could grab a hat he had lying around; he keeps his hair buzzed short, and was worried about a sunburnt scalp. Since I hadn't been to the massive new offices yet, I got the tour. The place is two and a half floors of a building; one is ultra-luxurious, the legacy of a dot.bomb who remodeled the floor before they ran out of venture capital ("What'd they do... leverage the synergy of b2b interoperations with the multimedia power of the internet or something?" "I dunno. As soon as I heard they were a dot.crash I stopped listening."), with a crazy multi-layered ceiling that counters the fact that it's all metal and concrete; the other is ordinary cubicle farms, though fairly decently-sized ones. Ken's team is currently on the latter floor. The place was absolutely dead; the only other people we saw were a couple guys amidst tangles or wires in what must've been the network room - everyone had been crunching for E3 demos; one of the three teams had gone gold for E3. There were some gorgeous city views from the windows.
We nearly forgot to get the hat we came for in the first place, only remembering when we were in the elevator back down to the garage!
The overall effect of the Battlezone 2 LAN party commemorative hat when added to Ken's usual attire was stunning - with the little case for his new camera hanging around his neck, he was the Ur-Tourist. It was impressive. He'd just gotten the thing this week due to an unexpected bonus.
And we were off to the highway. Mostly the 101. Or the 1; they merge. It was hazy so the ocean views were kind of... eh... but it was still a pleasant drive. Twenty minutes or so before Santa Barbara, there's one point where you're in the mountains and suddenly find yourself on this bridge that leaps out between two peaks - the view is amazing. Unfortunately the bridge is a narrow two-lane thing; there's nowhere to stop and gape. There's a vista point a little further on, but we were disappointed to find that it has a lot of trees surrounding it, blocking the majestic view.
Since we were stopped for this disappointing view, we stretched a bit. Ken tried out the 'panorama' mode on his camera; it tries to give you hints for making a good one, and the software that comes with it is supposed to be able to auto-stich for you. I tried to stitch them together myself, but I wasn't willing to put work into it, so enh.
I was standing posed "majestically" on the top of one of the rocks Ken's standing on, but he chose a tighter shot than I did for him, so you can't see the full pose.
It was a really nice day - partly cloudy, but still warm enough in the shade to be quite pleasant.
We drove through Santa Barbara and up into the mountains again, to the Faire.
Where the tickets for us were not under the expected names at Will Call. Oops. I got to scurry in, looking for Roon, who was luckily finishing up the first of his shows as Tobias the Adequate. I heckled him a little bit, because what're friends for?, then when he was done putting his props away, we went to the front, where he vouched for us. Turned out he'd written down the name, but neglected to bring the piece of paper it was written on. And all he could remember as a possible last name for me was "Urnash"; few people online know me as "Trauth"! Oops. He'd emphasized the PINK HAIR!!! to the woman who was handling Will Call, but it didn't connect until after we'd resolved it.
And we went in.
Maypole.
Roon.
And there were people dressed as nobles and falcons and, of course, people selling lots of stuff, especially period clothes. The overall feel was a bit of sf/comics/furry con, with people running around in costume and in character to various degrees, mixed with a crafts fair, with people hawking their probably mostly hand-made wares.
Including, of course, saucy wenches selling bodices.
Yes, I had a bodice fitted.
There are no photos.
Wisely enough, the people who fitted it have a no photos-unless-you-buy-it policy. So only Ken and Roon have seen me in a bodice. With a fairly amazing amount of cleavage.
If not for Kevin being away at E3 most of the week, I would have had money, and been severely tempted to find just the right bodice/dress/skirt combination, purchase it, and flounce around the rest of the day in period garb. And there would be photos of such. But sadly, I am a broke thing. So, dear readers, you are teased, and denied. Instead, you merely get a photograph of me carefully aiming a chicken catapult.
I came very close to getting one in a basket and winning a tacky prize, but I failed. I did, however, have fun playing up the taking-of-aim and carefully judging my hammer's blow.
Speaking of having fun playing things up, immediately before I failed at my attempt at using a dead chicken as a seige weapon, we caught the jousting.
Four knights took the field; each chose a quadrant of the audience to be the one they were fighting for. Thus, everyone had someone to cheer, and to boo, and no knight was deemed the Designated Bad Guy Who Everyone Booed. This handsome fellow took the honor of being our champion. And immediately declared himself to us to be an underhanded rogue with no respect for chivalry or fair play. Which is fine by me. I have to wonder if they all do this, to be honest, or if they regularly switch the roles around. Partway through the event, cheering myself hoarse for an utterly arbitrary association, I began, perhaps, to understand the appeal of spectator sports. On the other hand, I quickly forgot the name of our knight. On the other other hand, when this vile knave came to taunt our quadrant of the audience, suggesting that of course all the women, especially that pink-haired wench in the front were secretly rooting for him, I quite enjoyed bantering with him. Especially when I ended up suggesting that the only thing I found comely about him was mare he was riding.
This is the kind of thing that pops out of your mouth when you're a xenophile, and having fun being silly.
The jousting devolved into pro wrestling about halfway through. Yes, that's our underhanded champion leaping on a defenseless, unhorsed opponent. I think at some point I hollered for someone's head. Ken tried out the movie mode of his camera on the jousting and on the chicken-flinging, but iPhoto didn't grab those. There's probably some way to get them off (install the Mac version of the drivers, use a USB card-reader to poke at the individual files on the memory card...) but we were just exhausted when we got back to my place; we went out to eat, downloaded the photos, and then he went home, pretty much.
Other notable events of the day included Ken competing with a burly Scotsman at stone-throwing - which he won, earning him a certificate claiming him a complete tosser (is that going up on your wall at work? hee), catching Roon's act, an insult juggler, and a Punch and Judy show, during which I inevitably thought of Ashy. How could I not, when a baby is turned into sausages?
Anyway, it was fun, it was silly, it boosted my gender confidence enough that I used the ladies room at a gas station on the way home when I had to pee - I got a fair amount of appreciation from lusty Renaissance men. Though I was just as interested in ogling the lusty Renaissance wenches as I was in the rogues. I was a bit of a shameless flirt at Roon a few times, too. Renfaire is generally full of innuendo, I've realized, something I didn't clue in on when I went once before while young!
Something interesting happened on the way home, too. All the hollering I did at the joust left me with a sore throat. My voice cracked for a bit, and suddenly I was in a slightly different vocal space; I think overusing the usual vocal cords made me shift to the other, femmy ones. So that was interesting. Normally, my voice is in an androgynous zone, but the resonance felt different. In fact, it still feels different. Now if only I could zero in on how it feels different, and get the hang of this different throat-shape, and make it casual and normal... that'd be another definite layer of girl cues. I don't have a deep male voice, never did, so it's not as dramatic a change as it is for some MtFs I know (including one who's had facial surgery, but still has this horrible Texas male voice - she passes perfectly, until she opens her mouth, and a giant dick flies out of it), but it's still something I know I need to work on... it was a little weird, knowing I might at any moment break into definite male voice, but it was cool to feel like I sounded like a girl for a while.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 01:12 pm (UTC)Of course, I say things like this, and I can't dress myself AT ALL. But that's okay! That doesn't mean I can't appreciate people who can!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 01:16 pm (UTC)It's the sneakers that make me feel like a Gorey character.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 12:50 pm (UTC)Also... GUH! Those nights are H0T!!!! Also also umm. The voice thing is normal. Happens to singers.
alsoalso! Woot! Glad you hadda good time and about flirting with Roon, ask him about the gnome hat and toolbelt some day. >:D
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 01:14 pm (UTC)The camera might've mounted as a drive, too; we were just too lazy to really poke at it.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 12:52 pm (UTC)they do the joust bit at every faire, i'd guess, and ours too had a 'rogue' and the hokeypokey fist fights and stuff. reminds me of medieval times, goofiest dinner theater on earth.
i think the only difference i'm seeing between your faire and our faire is that ours has a tiger show, featuring baby tigers and even a liger. pretty neat.
also--"...she passes perfectly, until she opens her mouth, and a giant dick flies out of it..." forced me to bust out laughing, and those shoes and that dress is A+++ ADORABLE
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 01:05 pm (UTC)The gleeful cheesiness of the renfaire is part of the charm, I realized. Nobody's taking it all that seriously.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if every jouster played the part of the secret rogue!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 02:20 pm (UTC)Cool pictures!
Date: 2004-05-16 02:47 pm (UTC)"The place is two and a half floors of a building"
Does that half floor perchance have a tiny door, hidden behind a filing cabinet, that opens onto a passageway that leads into John Malkovich's mind? :}
"Maypole."
Maypole. Maypole, you spun me round and knocked me off my axis mundi.
"And there were people dressed as nobles and falcons"
Oh, heh, I was half expecting people dressed as falcons.
"On the other other hand,"
Hey, I resemble that remark!
"she passes perfectly, until she opens her mouth, and a giant dick flies out of it"
What a bizarre image! Why, I can't imagine (http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Doug-Winger/Mall007.gif) such a thing! (link NSFW, as if you couldn't guess) :}
Re: Cool pictures!
Date: 2004-05-16 03:00 pm (UTC)Re: Cool pictures!
Date: 2004-05-16 03:11 pm (UTC)Also, cute new icon!
All I can say...
Date: 2004-05-16 02:56 pm (UTC)I hope your using Aloe:)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 05:06 pm (UTC)I like your pink hair, but I'm not so sure if all of your body was hot pink!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 09:01 pm (UTC)My shoulders are almost as red in places, and you ca definitely see where the straps of my dress were and how far down I kept the neckline. I don't think I'm going to be wearing a bra the next few days, not will I wear a shirt around home. Ow.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 01:57 am (UTC)This was of course intentional =)
The worst sunburn I ever got, was when I was a lifeguard. Second summer I was 'promoted' to pool manager. The reason it is in quotes, is that I was the only person at the pool, ten hours a day, five days a week.
I quit the second day, I was so nuked I was blistering everywhere and I'm not someone that burns easy. I literally was sick (sun poisoning).
Incidently it was during the recovery of said poisoning that I decided Pathia would be a red dragon.
She actually has an orange 'underside'. The laws of physics may be bent about breastsize, but not about the tensile strength of bikinis!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 11:02 am (UTC)(FYI, ultraviolet is ionizing radiation, which mangles the DNA in your skin cells with free radicals. The ones that can't repair it recognize this and self-destruct... except when they don't. You'll never think of sunlight the same way, huh?)