misstree's_rambling_corner
misstree okay, this is going to be just a random rambling about this weekend in the woods, i apologize for taking up blather space, but if you really don't care, then stop reading now. otherwise you have been warned, and duly lost your ability to bitch, even in your own mind. so there, nyah nyah.

i went out with this group called nero. it's kind of like live action dungeons_and_dragons. i've done both swordfighting (with boffer swords with dagorhir/belegarth/combat club/those thugs i hang with) and live action role playing (larp), mostly vampire, with a few other white_wolf games and a two-session cthulu blowout.

hmm. that probably still left a lot of you confused. let me break it down another level.

a bunch of people go out into the woods, in this case a girl scout camp. (heh. heh heh heh heh. heh. girl_scouts.) everyone has a character they're playing (an elf mage or a gypsy fighter or whatnot), they hang about and wheel and deal and kill things and heal people and just pretend to be someone else for the whole weekend. and wear funny clothes. one must not forget the funny clothes.

okay. there's about twenty directions i could go here, but i think chronological is the way to go. if you're still here, buckle in for a hell of a ramble, because this might take a while.

as i said, i've been doing things similar to this for a while, and enjoyed the heck out of it. i had run into two wonderful peoples that i know from way back, cat and bo, on previous occasions, and they *really* wanted to drag me out. note that i said they were wonderful people. like, the kind that make me happy they exist because they bring up the cool level of the rest of the universe. anyhow, they said that, and i lost track of them for a while, but cat just started being able to come out to goth_night again. so she sez to me, "when are you going to come out and play nero?" and i, who have recently been losing the desire to go to the other swordfighting shiznit because of a series of long stories, say "next event, let me know, i'm there."

so the next tuesday, she says, "well, there's one this weekend." and we make plans to go, she's very excited, i'm very excited, she's going to bring me in as another gypsy, etc. gave her contact info, she says she'll call me thursday.

wednesday and thursday are spent in a sleep-deprived anticipatory state of high anxiey. i am going to go out and hang in the woods in a completely unfamiliar situation with a bunch of people i don't know and one, maybe two, that i do. this kinda freaks me out. i also have to step into combat situations (which i haven't done for a year) and be ready to role play, with no information about the world and no idea what kind of character i'm going to play.

thursday, kat says she might not be able to go. that she probably won't be able to go. that she *sigh* almost certainly won't be able to go. BUT! there's this person that i've met once or twice that's going out there, and he can give me a ride and set me up and things.

now, i'm told that many people would have chickened out here. many people don't have the hatred for boredom and ruts that i do, nor the desire to thwap people with sticks while wearing funny clothes. so she's going to contact me on friday morning, and that group will probably leave around 5pm.

the ex and i are doing coffee that night (compund stress? nooooo.....), and we come up with a character concept that combines gypsies and ogres in really cool ways and fits my clothing and the personality i want to portray. i get some ogre languace to memorize. i pack while in a distinctly uncomfortable hypercaffeinated hyperstressed state.

the next day, squeak and outlander come by to help me run around and do things and procure things, and by 4:15 i have spent over $100 and still haven't heard from cat. at 4:23 she calls, gives me sandy's number, apologizes for the lateness, and wishes me luck. i'll abbreviate here and say that leaving involved many misadventures and one pissed off cabbie and getting lost on the way there, but here is this: when the 3 guys showed up, i realized i had met all of them the last time i saw bo (1.5 years ago), and that they also helped up the cool quotient in the world.

i'm going to end this now, because distraction calls mightily, but i'll pick up at arrival. i promise it gets at least a little interesting. okay, no, i don't promise. i promise that it's interesting to me. no other guarantees. 		030921
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misstree just a quick note, it feels very strange to be back to blathering after my complete and blissful disconnection from reality this weekend. i was talking to real people! a bunch of them! and the strange men that took me out to the woods were k00l as hell! *sigh* good time was had, suffering post-event depression, don't mind me. 030921
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misstree i'm sorry, my brain is fried, i need to tell these stories to other people so i can truly hop about and wave my arms in an interesting fashion to explain my point and tangent wildly and have them make me fill in the gaps and things. apologies to my suspenseful reader. singular. someone got suckered in to this endless ramble, i like to tell myself. :P 030921
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misstree okay, my lazy-ass-bitch-card is still valid, so i'm going to play it on this one.

i emailed bits and pieces of the story to my coworker, i'm editing it down (both for length and content, and there's nothing you can do about it. :P ) i just want this done so i can be apathetic with no self-imposed obligations hanging over me.

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so i get into a car with a total stranger to go into the woods and "swordfight". ya. i had duct tape and rope. they had duct tape and thwacking sticks. they reassured me that bo would be there; i had some sort of anchor, and that's all i wanted.

so we go, patrick and i get lost, have a great time doing it, and finally arrive around 8:00 or 8:30. standing about at check-in was had by me, introduced to another person or two, then we headed towards the cabin area to find bo.

i'm going to pause here for a description of the campground. it was a girl scout camp, with cabins like i said. there was a main hall in the center, and the whole thing was cut off from the parking lot and sign-in hut by a bridge. off to the, i think north, were a bunch of paths leading up into the hills, where there were different fire pits and girl-scout structures and such, just good unpolulated ground for getting one's intoxication going.

actually, i'm going to pause here to stare at my computer and maybe process a claim or two. more in a moment.

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i guess i should babble more about the event. so, ya, i get there, and patrick and i are walking across the bridge to head to the cabin, and i see bo, and he does that weird little dodge like there's shitty lighting and you think someone is someone but you're not sure so you look from a different angle. and ya, i was me. patrick had bet me in the car that bo would be nonchalant about it, would try to play it off as nothing important, which was very much like bo. but, no, my powers denied such, and he ran up and crushed me in a bearhug, and was officially thrown off his game. *grin*

so, bo and i started carrying stuff to the cabin, taking setup time as a chance to catch up. i always have and always will have an inordinate fondness for bo, he's such an awesome person and there's always been this really neat but really thwarted connection between us. so we set up, i met the crew, got into garb, and we wandered out into the night. first stop was the woods for "tracking lessons", then a bunch of sitting about and watching the world go round while eavesdropping on conversations, things like that.

okay, my energy is drained, more in a while.

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...i ended up playing a gypsy who'd spent some time with ogres, like i said, which works really well because i've got all this satyr garb, it's not as frilly or brightly colored as gypsy stuff could be, and i'm a little bit on the crude side personally. we shall see what develops as far as the character; at this point, it's still entirely up in the air if i'll fight again. i'd like to, but life is like that sometimes.

so, the first night, i sat around and eavesdropped. kinda got the hang of things; i'm always really skittish in unfamiliar situations, and until i get the feel of the place i just sit back and observe. so i did a whole lot of observing. the guys were really concerned that i wasn't having a good time, but i eventually partially convinced them that i will entertain myself (heh. heh.), and they needn't worry or babysit. i think part of their concern was that a new player who was fairly cool and had boobs was just dropped into their laps, and they wanted to make sure i'd come back. so, ya, sat around for the night, eventually crashed, froze my butt off but managed to refrain from asking one of the guys to curl up with me. *sigh*

the next day, woke up and kinda mosied about, which was most of what i did that weekend, just kinda being there, which was exactly what i wanted and needed. i did as little of anything as possible, and it was glorious. i'll fill in more details later...

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so, on saturday, i borrowed the bag with the utensils in it and went up to the farthest clearing for a while, which had all these platforms around a central fire. i went to the one most hidden as you're coming up on the area, and smoked and just listened to the woods for a while and let my thoughts drift. i dozed a bit, i think. my brain was blissfully quiet for most of the weekend, that was my favorite part. very low fret factor. anyhow, after a while, i figure to myself, well, i'm out in the middle of the woods, it's a beautiful day, i can hear anyone coming up the trail, and i'm horny. and ogre pants loosen very easily. so, you do the rather simple math. i was in the middle of such when i heard voices coming. i stood up and retied my pants (badly) and adjusted the strip of fabric across my boobs so my boobs didn't show through my shirt too badly, and waited for the people to appear.

who would it be, who could it be, except bo and one of the marshals running the game. i managed to hide most of my grin when i saw him. they ran a scene, it was pretty neat, and then wandered over to talk to me. we chatted for a bit, and when they went to leave i called bo back. "you'll never guess what i was doing when you guys walked up," i told him. bo, aloof and self-posessed bo, blushed as he walked away. he was about 20 feet away when he hollered, "if it rhymes with masturbate, i'm going to be really angry!" all i could do was laugh.

when i got back to camp, most of the guys asked to make sure i was having fun, as i had seemed bored before i wandered off, and then was gone for 2-3 hours. i just grinned and told them that i had been entertaining myself. the first time bo overheard this, he just shook his head at me and attempted to scowl. i grinned at him. if you knew what to look for, it was obvious what i had been up to, and obvious that i had, erm, resumed the task once bo left. he blushed again.

the one thing that i kinda regret about my excursion on the hill, though, is that i had completely forgotten that it was a girl scout camp. that could have made for some interesting yummies.

anyhow, day progresses, feast was cool, things like that. i lose the initiative to write, so i promise i'll try to pump something coherent out in the next email.

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so, ya, saturday was mostly just sitting around, i did get to run from big badazz monsters twice, which was ohso exciting. did tarot readings for two people, still no idea if there was any accuracy involved, but i don't think the deck particularly liked being used in such a way. i've got another i can work with, i think, though it'll take hella work with a fine point sharpie before it's proper. read poetry for another person, and once i finally joined the rabble, he mentioned it and that it was good. this pleases me; spending the weekend quiet was much in character, being fresh back from the ogres and all, and that will give people a little something to chew on. i'm not usually very good with mysterious; it's good when it happens despite my ineptitude.

feast wasn't bad, roasted chicken quarters and