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Comic Con 2007: Fibromyalgia Version

I had a great first day seeing giant things and shopping for items I had to buy or hate myself forever. The Bender coin bank for the Husband for instance was a no-brainer as was the giant Cthulhu backpack that can eat my head and has a broken zipper. Sale? YES! I know some day some friend of mine will fix the zipper. I just know it.

Sadly the pain began to creep ever further into me so that I could barely stand. I caught a cab and went to an expensive but fantastic organic vegetarian restaurant that does Raw dinners with enough notice that was around the corner from the couch I stayed on.

The next day I found a Mexican owned and run drag queen wig store. I got TWO fantastic wigs for less than the price of any others I've ever purchased that are as insane as the ones I got.

The red one went magnificently with my red dress (that Dave from DES shot me in) and my new Fleuvog's that I got for half off and look wonderfully burlesque. With the devil tail and horns added on I had people asking to take my picture all over the place.

It also made it easier for me to get the attention of people I want to interview. People really notice a woman who is professionally made up (I broke out the heavy duty tools of the trade) that is effectively an anime come to life. People kept asking about my "costume" and I had to specify that it wasn't really a costume. It was just ME dressing up.

I met up with "Click" Hamilton yesterday, a fellow traveller of the Model Mayhem madness who knows many of the models and photographers that I do. We ran around together as I tried to keep my pain levels in check. Sadly I barely wandered the floor the second day and instead tried to keep my body from crumbling to pieces. Stan and I did make it to the Roman Dirge discussion for a while, but the pain was just too intense. He took me out to eat at an out of the way Italian Restaurant and then we went to visit a bar where his friends usually liked to hang out. Unfortunately they only had a week left before the small comfy bar closed for good.

My new Sony video camera showed up on time but the pain kept me trapped in pain so bad that I couldn't head down by myself. I mean I HURT. Even though I had all those interviews I could go do and a ton of cool panels it could not happen. My left leg is bruised all the way from the upper thigh down to the top of my foot. That is BAD. And the new FMS Lyrica™ just doesn't work for me. So I'm not really sure where to go from here.

At least I picked up water and iced tea at Walgreen's. I really wanted to not give in and and go get get dressed up for the following day and head over to the Con with my video camera and regular camera in hand. My back unfortunately couldn't handle it.

Exhausted and in pain I flew home early. I didn't see any of the panels I specifically wanted to see and I also missed movies, play time, and everything else. This has led to an agreement with the Husband that if I go as press again for 2008 I will have at LEAST him as my assistant. My body can not handle me as a press person covering things by myself and that really just is that.

The last day in San Diego my allergies to the cat and the fact I had to use Vick's Vapor Rub™ to breathe when I woke up and the fact I STILL hadn't found an assistant and basically I super stressed and didn't have somebody meeting me to help out or even to hang out with just wrecked me.

So the Husband called AA and I called a couple shuttles until I found one that picked me up around 2 p.m. and then I headed out close to 4 p.m. and then I got home around 11:30 p.m. CST.

Yay.

Shawn promised to have Protein 2000 from Veggie Heaven waiting for me and a hot bath and I made enough contacts to not stress the things I missed this year. They told me I'm in as press already for 2008 and I'll have an assistant for sure then and I talked to the Penny Arcade guys and their press person and I'm in with my assistant for sure THIS year. Plus I spoke to a million other people and I'll meet them at other Cons, I'm pretty sure.

So, wrecked, a little sad, but happy I got to hang out with both Click and Stan and do a small bit of random shooting as well as random modeling. It's all good in the long run, really. Better to take care of myself now.