Chaos Attraction

The Last Pantheacon, Day 4: No Merry Meet Again

2020-02-17, 10:26 p.m.

Today’s ribbons:
* “So long and we’ll see you in Non-Ordinary Reality!”
* Fly Me?
* I’ll fly You =)
* Blessed Be.

Ribbons tend to be a popularity thing at cons. The more people you know (or run into, or go to classes that offer them, I guess), the more ribbons you get. I’ve seen people with so many ribbon they were wrapped around like a damn stole. I didn’t see anyone like that this year, but this year my ribbon total came to 24 and nearly hit the ground (and occasionally I had tripping/stepping issues). That’s a little awkward, but it’s my best ribbon haul EVER, so I am pleased. Thank you, free tables and walking by them at least three times a day at the right times!

I do wish I’d gotten around to getting my own ribbons made. I had two ideas for them, but I started looking into this and got confused at the pricing. I think it’s a lot? I dunno. Now I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity again to bother....well, maybe...if I ever figure out how damn much it is to order the things. The math for those confuses me.

First class of the day: Road Opening, was about crafts and how to get unstuck and unblocked. It wasn’t spelled out in the writeup that it was craft time, but I got excited about it at first.

Marcus had us make some kind of blessed coffee-flavored bath to use to unlock ourselves. The issue with this for me is that I can’t bloody stand the smell of reeking burnt coffee (why does everyone else like it? whyyyyyy?) and (a) you’re supposed to let it seep for like a week first in your house and then (b) not dry it off yourself but let it air-dry once you use it, and (c) you have to use it every day for a week. My nose doesn’t work that well but even coffee gets through it and I don’t know if I could stand that shit every day for two weeks. Sigh. So I may not be able to use it.

I did enjoy making “fairy doors” (the other half of craft time), though. You were supposed to write five things you want on popsicle sticks and then glue it all together and pick out a charm for the door. Someone actually handed me a charm with four hearts with spiral tops and said something like, “This is for you.” Since this is exactly the kind of thing I have been pondering putting into a sigil, that was PERFECT. Also, a guy at my table had a tattoo of a heart with an infinity sign on his finger, which is another thing I was pondering putting into the sigil. (I had this weird moment a few weeks ago when I cut a thread off a scarf, dropped it on the table, and it formed into this infinity symbol + heart thing.) So that was magically very cool.

The second and lass class of the day, Psychic Development 101, was done by Shannon McLeran, Katrina’s buddy that also works out of her shop. (Surprisingly enough, this was NOT yet another hoodoo class.)

Monica went to this one with me. Shannon covered how coincidences are not coincidences (she noted that another woman also had a “fire” dress on like she did), said that we get things wrong because we interpreted it wrong, but the download was correct, and we should write things down as an “anti-doubt manual.” She talked about meditation and quieting your mind, using telepathy to get her professional chef wife to want 7-11 pizza one night.

Mostly she talked about the different clairs and what their “superpowers” were, such as lie detecting, getting direct instructions with clairaudience, getting fast results with claircognizance...that kind of thing. Short but interesting.

After that, we had the final ritual. I ended up going separately because I was told a lost knitting needle turned up...but alas, mine was plastic and the one found was wooden, so I felt obligated NOT to take it. Monica ran to the vendor room and got waylaid buying jewelry and came in later, which was a little sad because I didn’t want to have to be alone for it. But what can you do.

I saw Zoe across the room with her daughter. She’d gotten Glenn an autographed tablecloth (people were invited to sign it after) and she was crying a lot. I thought about going up to her to offer a hug afterwards, but (a) I don’t think she’d want one from me, and (b) she disappeared after it ended anyway. It was a pretty emotional-ish ceremony. Glenn said she was going to take a “fallow” year and then get into community organizing, or something like that anyway.

There was no “merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again” at the end, which made me sad.

This is an interesting blog entry talking about the good and bad things about this con. I definitely related to the good things, at least, though I can’t really answer on the presentation selection since I, as a total unknown noob, got to present twice by myself and once with my coven back in the day.

Rest in peace, Pantheacon. May your next incarnation come off and also be awesome. May we all merry meet and merry part and merry meet again there next year.


I came home with about an hour to spare before the Bike City audition, looked up where the location was, and saw that Scott did sign up for it after all (an hour-ish later than the rest of us). So good for him there.

I got in and found that Robert (a few slots after Janene and I: she was #1, I was #2) was in there, so we shot the shit a bit while I did the clerical stuff. I asked about karaoke and frankly, it sounds like both of them are quitting it but straight up won’t say and were hedgey (Janene was all “I have an early Wednesday,” I pointed out that now it goes till 10), but sure, I can send a text tomorrow if I want to about it. Also Robert was considering doing the improv class running on Tuesdays that they were advertising. So...yeah. Take a hint and stop asking, Jen, they are quitting and won’t say why. I fear it may be because of the change in DJ’s, or winter, who the fuck knows. I think I have to wave the white flag and surrender on this one. Sigh.

As for the audition: folks in it were nice, they did not make me sing to an accompanist because I have no clue. I did my monologue, which was fun, but I stumbled over some words. Oh well, they got the gist and seemed mildly pleased at the time. My singing is ... my singing, that was never going to be my selling point anyway. I did the silly line about Anakin and the sand amusingly.

But that said, “thanks for coming in,” and I definitely got the Not For Us vibe, no comments about callbacks or anything. So...there’s another one biting the dust. Oh well, but not a surprise, I know darned well I’m not up to their caliber here when normally their group is the Shakespeare people. We’ll see if everyone else gets in. On the one hand, I’m fun and JR likes me and the accompanist though I was cute...on the other hand, I’m me. and I’m always inadequate in the non-magical, non-hippie world. Sigh.

I just have to remind myself of what Eric said: whatever happens is for the greatest good. Which is probably just to be in Winters or whatever, I suppose.

The whole thing was kind of a “back to reality” comedown kicking me in the head a bit after a fun weekend. I kind of wish I hadn’t had to go back to reality so fast and could have spent some quality time drifting around my house and thinking about hippie things and going through my new purchases and the like. Because after going to Pcon, I come back liking myself and feeling happy (people like me there, albeit a bit too much in some cases this year) and then, well, reality. Feh on reality.


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