A Festival and a Shopfession

MAGFest was last weekend. As I predicted, I was bad with my shopping freeze. How bad you ask?

-Sparkly purple dice for upcoming Pathfinder campaign + two 6 sided dice        $14

-Super Art Fight program (autographed by several featured artists at con)                     $15

-Portal Tee with Cave Johnson’s rant about lemons                       $20

-Plush puppy cow (created by a Super Art Fight artist)     $10

-Mystery box (I kept the hairbow and candy)                                 $5

-Several charms (made by Super Art Fight artist)               $24

-‘Don’t Panic’ hand towel                 $14

-Fabric bracelets                                 $2

That equals a grand total of $104 spent at this con. I kept getting dragged into the dealer’s room where it’s hard not to spend money. I got a great birthday gift idea for The Boy but I spent way too much time around temptation. On the plus side, most of what I spent was cash instead of charging it so no interest. I was also putting money toward local artisans instead of some massive corporation.

I have no guilt over any of my Super Art Fight Artisan purchases. It’s one of my favorite things about some of these cons and all the stuff I’ve seen has been great. I’ve even turned some of my friends into big fans. Most of the folks I saw were small entrepreneurs making some really great niche products like the customized nerd towels. I have a birthday coming up in about a month and no major cons again until April so I should do better in February.

It was interesting to speak to one of the artists having just finished New Domesticity. She just quit her ‘real’ job to go full time at her crocheted coolness. It sounded like her husband still had the standard gig but she’s in such demand that she won’t need him nearly as much as some of the moms in Matchar’s book. 

Craftigurumi is doing so well that when I inquired about a custom order she said she probably wouldn’t get to it until March. Her impressive work ethic combined with her unique material and consistent con presence should keep her business booming for quite a while. She said she crochets at about 3 feet per hour for the scarves and she’s doing it for about 8 hours a day. I recommended 4 podcasts I absolutely love since she listens to TV a lot.

The con itself was great. Most of my friends were there and I got to see all of them for at least a little bit. I played my favorite arcade game, saved the earth from aliens with The Boy, checked out some indie games, and sat in on a panel about Girls in Geekdom. This con is always fun but this year it was especially great. Being with friends really just made the con for me.

I did a Con Bingo list of all the crazy costumes I saw. I was able to check off:

-A furry

-A brony

-A punny costume (Teenage Mutant Ninja Bros)

-The Doctor (4, 6, 7, 11)

-A member of the Disney Princess franchise (4 total)

-Guy with a Japanese body pillow

-Person on stilts (full Groot costume)

-At least 3 Deadpools or one with a twist (2 with twists, 2 women, and at least 2 standard)

-A pregnant woman who worked her pregnancy into the costume (Season 1 Khalessi)

-Unnecessarily slutty costume (Charmander)

-Waldo & Carmen San Diego (separate counts but bonus points if they’re together)

-A crazy expensive screen accurate costume (Master Chief)

-Gender bent costume (Princess Peach followed by Ash from Pokemon)

I missed:

-Man in anime girl outfit

-Hot guy in shirtless costume to show off abs

I found a few different cartoons that I might have to adjust and make an actual Con Bingo for my friends and I for Awesome Con in a few months.

And the Winner Is...

I heard someone on the phone at the gym recently bitching to her friend about how one of their friends has to everything better including when it came to their relationships.

She started dating someone suddenly her friend is dating someone. Not only that but she made a production on how he was taking her on better dates and doing more romantic things and here’s a bunch of super cute photos of us as a couple and look who’s relationship is on FB first. That last one got her going. Her friend said “It’s not real if it’s not on FB.”

They’re even having a contest over meeting each other’s families. She’s going to brunch with his parents over 4^th of July weekend and guess who is meeting her boyfriend’s folks on the 4^th?

Are you kidding me? High school called. They want their drama back.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. It sounds exhausting and more than a little insane. If shallow women devoted the energy used to compete with each other to better causes, the world would be in better shape.

I never use other people’s relationships as a yard stick for my own. Every relationship is different because all people are different. Comparing and competing undermines both the relationship and the friendship.

Why do women do this to each other? What are you proving? Does your success have more merit because it’s ‘better’ than your friend’s? Is your relationship more meaningful because it got a dozen likes first? How insecure and desperate for validation are you?

If I ever had a friend like a big part of me would want to screw with her. Make up a few things and see what she does. “This [random website] nominated us for couple of the month. Isn’t that great?” “Look at the great necklace he got me just because.” “We just had the most romantic dinner.” Another part would want to be the adult and let it all go. I wonder which side would win…

Music: Look At Me by Geri Halliwell

Guess Who?

As some of you may recall, I dated someone last fall. He brought you the date where I wanted to hyperventilate and cry and the Single in the Shire episode. After Single in the Shire, I was ready to wash my hands of him. Because a friend called and told him what was up and he then apologized, I gave him another chance. Generally, I’m not big on second chances. Most people use them to do what they did the first time around. He was no exception.

He still had his second job and barely spoke to me. When I tried to talk to him, I got almost nothing which lead to me being frustrated. At one point I finally said “It helps if you actually text me back.” He shot back that he was at job one, late for job two and “no offense but now is not a good time.” Offense taken. Time to get the hand soap.

He called a few days later but we kept missing each other. When we finally did catch each other, he wanted to “go on a hiatus” because my text messages had “an annoyed tone.” That was the last I heard from him, until last night.

If you haven’t spoken to somebody in 5 months, this shouldn’t be your opener: “By the way, I am sorry that I hurt you. I really do hope we can still be friends in the future.” That needs to be said within a month or less of the actual break-up. Not only have we not spoken in much longer, there was no break-up.

Most men who pull this crap are too cowardly to come back. Either there was a recent inspiration or he wants something. I had to know why. When I asked he said “enough time had passed for some introspection and I decided I owe you an apology.” You do and that’s nice but I’m not buying it.

He’s still on the mailing list for my gaming group on MeetUp. He thought about me and everyone else there. He wanted to come back and thought he’d see if he would “be welcome or at least tolerated.” I told him I’d thought about deleting his profile on there and asked ‘was it really that hard to admit you wanted something.’ I also asked why my group since he’s over an hour away.

I told him off. He had my feelings, trust and respect and tossed them aside without a thought. I said the way he failed to end things was cowardly and if he wanted to cross this bridge again, he should have used less napalm when he burned it. When he finally did decide to apologize, he hid behind text messages.

It’s rare you get to tell off your douch-tastic ex while NOT looking like a complete psycho. It’s less satisfying over text but still felt pretty good.

His reply was that he respected my opinion but he wasn’t hiding behind text messages. As for ‘why my group’ he has friends in my group. He ended things the way he did because he was ‘tired of every conversation making me feel like a guest appearance on a daytime talk show.’ If I don’t want to accept his apology, that’s my prerogative.

We went from dating to can’t-be-bothered-to-pretend-to-care. No clue why I’d have an issue with that. And homeboy didn’t end things. At all. Ending and disappearing is not the same thing although they do have a similar end result. It’s a crappy way to treat anybody and a crazy way for someone you want as a friend. If any of my guy friends did this, I’d give him hell.

I don’t think he’s sorry for how he treated me. I think he’s sorry his actions have consequences he didn’t like. I told him about a few gaming places near him if that’s what he wants. If he wants to be friends with my friends, talk to them! I don’t have to like you. I just have to be civil if they like you and we’re at the same stuff.

I told him everything I said here. There are a few things I left out. I suspect he was dating someone from the haunted house, it went to crap, and she kept all the friends so he’s left crawling back to me. Regarding my rejection of his apology, I genuinely don’t believe he’s contrite and if he was that situation again, he’d do the exact same thing to someone else. No lessons were learned.

He’s not a bad guy. He couldn’t buy a clue if you gave him a map, directions, and a dollar but he means well. If I’d never dated him, we could be friends. But I did date him, he behaved abominably at the end, and apologized months later when he wanted something. If he winds up in my life by extension, so be it but like The Band Perry says, I miss him being gone.

Current Music: Love Interruption by Jack White