Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

When I returned to the swimming pool area of the hotel Saturday night, all of the publications department was gathered in the hot tub, all except for the head of the department. While we waited for him, we soaked.

It started to get pretty hot, so a friend of mine I'll cal The Mad Hatter slipped outside and grabbed some snow and passed it around. I jokingly called him "ice chip boy."

The Publications Head finally arrived and called the meeting to order, such as it was. There were a bunch of other people there from different departments. But it didn't matter, because primarily it was a brainstorming session about how to use this year's theme.

Considering we were in the hot tub, the brainstorming was fun and loose-wheeling.

But eventually, people started to get warm. This time, when The Mad Hatter dashed out to get some more snow, he was reprimanded by the pool staff and told not to do that. So instead, we gradually moved to the swimming pool, which was heated but much cooler.

A couple people swam some laps, but then we just started playing like 12-year-olds. The Mad Hatter and I came up with the idea of synchronized contortions, where we would twist ourselves in various ways while humming a tune. This led quite naturally into silly walks.

One of the guys was carrying around any woman who came within reach. I managed to stay away from him until he decided to come after me as payback from splashing him. When he picked me up, I played it for laughs, crossing my arm and getting a bored look on my face. I'm sure this was less fun for him than someone who was shrieking, so it didn't take him long to put me down.

Immediately afterwards, a younger staffer decided to turn the tables on him. She was carrying him around for the rest of our time in the pool, doing various things to abuse him, while we other women stood by and said, "Sorry, we'd help you if we could, but we're stuck in cement."

We found endless amusement in the strangest things, like for example, the Publication Head's hair. His long, kinky, blonde hair, when it gets wet, is twice as long and hangs down in his face like seaweed. But then he shakes his head a little and it resumes its usual body. We joked that when he was a kid and didn't have a toy to play with, his parents just told him to go play with his hair.

There was also a family in the pool with three small children. The boy, who was about 5, decided that, with a pool full of playful, energetic young adults, he should be able to get a game started. He stood on the edge of the pool and kept trying to throw the ball to us, but everybody, guys included, would scream and run, the ball falling with a splash on the surface of the pool. Once, I put my hand up in front of my face, as if to protect myself, and hit the ball, lofting it back into the air.

The joke became that the kid kept trying to throw the ball at me, probably because he enjoyed my comic reactions (and also because I seemed to be the only one interested in hitting it back). The ball was only partly inflated and didn't hurt in the slightest bit, especially when you consider that the kid wasn't trying to hit us. Instead, he was lofting it high and ease for us to return it.

Poor kid: he didn't realize he was dealing with a group of people who were all probably "A" students except when it came to Gym.

We ended up playing with some of the kids' pool toys. They didn't seem to mind, because we always gave them back when asked. We came up with different things to do with the innertube and came upon the idea that someone could hold the innertube up and then someone else could try to get the ball through the center. Of course, given this group, the person holding the innertube got hit in the face more often than the ball actually went through the hoop.

We also did a lot of slow motion martial arts fighting, like a big slow motion barroom brawl. Once, someone grabbed my foot when I kicked up, so I leaped over that leg with my other and mock kicked him twice in the face, to great applause and laughter.

From this, we decided that a great way for a director to save money on special effects would be to shoot his martial arts fights in a water tank.

Finally, the pool staff began to dim the lights on us. "Is it last call?" we asked. We all got out with about 10 minutes to spare.

After another shower, I changed into a different outfit. I wanted to be warm but wear something fun, so I wore a wool pleated knee-length skirt that was formerly too small, with a red velour top, stockings and a sweater. A schoolgirl look, I suppose, but Madonna was doing it when she was 10 years older than I am now, so it's all good.

I went on a search for the Griffin, and naturally, he was in another meeting, this time with the Special Ops staff. He assured me it wouldn't take much longer, so I sat in on it and waited. Just as we were leaving the room, someone else grabbed him for a discussion!

While I waited, I tried a couple samples of Acqua-Vita, which a staffer had with him. He had two different types, and they were both tasty. I liked the blend of spices, especially the dill. The drink warmed me up. I was also greatly amused by him challenging a fellow staffer to a thumb wrestling match.

The Gryphon had taken a chair, so I knew it was going to be awhile. I entered the video game, where The Doctors' Daughter was playing a videogame that involved playing the bongo in time with music. It was entertaining to watch.

The Mad Hatter played the bongo game then switched to a two-player game where you pick a monster from the Godzilla series and fight. This was also entertaining. While I watched, I talked to a younger staffer who bemoaned the fact that he has trouble meeting girls who share his interests. I told him to cheer up; it would happen. If he keeps participating in things he enjoys, he's likely to find someone else who likes them, too.

Later my ex-boyfriend, The Invisible Man, came by. We were joking about various things. Someone had left a blue inflatable dolphin on the table, with a sticker on it that said something like, "Drinking Rule No. 3: People are prettier when you're drinking than they are the next morning." We started calling the dolphin Christine. "Tonight she wears a miniskirt and speaks French. Tomorrow, she's a blue inflatable dolphin."

Whenever a guy entered the room, we introduced him to Christine. This had us laughing hysterically, and one friend even got into the spirit of it.

The Gryphon finally finished up with his meeting and, seeing as how it was by now terribly late, we went upstairs to get some shut-eye. I told him about all my fun adventures of the evening, and he chuckled, enjoying the hot tub meeting by proxy.

More from ComCon 2005:

January 31, 2005 - Walking on Sunshine

February 1, 2005 - Meetings and Feasts

February 3, 2005 - Blue Inflatable Dolphins

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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