Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

The Chief of Staff, in another
staffer's hat, reads a report
while The Gryphon looks on

Saturday, we attended what's called the Panic Meeting for Otakon, which is the last planning session before the convention.

Now, all of my pre-con work was already done as of a few weeks ago when we finished the program book, which I edited. But I got to see some people I don't get to see that often, as it's one of the best attended meetings of the year.

We drove down with The Dormouse and Batman, with The Dormouse driving. It was relaxing for once not to be the driver. I didn't end up sleeping, like I thought I might. We got into too many interesting conversations, ranging from the current world situation to, of course, pop culture.

One of the best things, for me, about the meeting was finally getting copies of some photos one of the publications staffers, Nik Duarte, had taken of me during the Com Con in January, which is the retreat for Otakon staffers.

He'd been demonstrating the capabilities of the Photo Suite, which operates at the convention, and he'd given staffers an opportunity to have portraits taken of themselves.

So in the course of a photo session, we went from serious shots to much sillier ones, many of which I love. Here are a few. I'll probably share some more later.

I also got a chance to preorder some things from the Ota-Store, namely a baby T and two staff polos.

It seems like the meeting had barely gotten started when we had a half-hour break for lunch. But I was hungry, so I wasn't complaining. We'd stopped for breakfast at IHOP on the way there. I'd had an egg white omelet with nut and grain pancakes but could only finish half of it.

I asked The Gryphon what I could bring back for hima, because I knew it would be next to impossible to drag him away. He's head of human resources this year again, and this means people are always coming back to him with questions and concerns. When I pressed him about what he wanted, he simply said a sandwich.

So I grabbed the guy who'd written the article about food in Baltimore and asked him to suggest a nearby sandwich shot. He dragged me over to a window and pointed down the street at the place we should go, the Upper Deck. I headed over with a bunch of people, including a fellow Penn Stater and Monty Python Society member who was far enough behind me in school that we didn't meet until years later; his fiancé; and the recording secretary.

We discovered that several other staffers had beat us there, including the head of programming, the head of the costume contest, and the head of workshops. We joked around with them, and the subject turned to fitness, namely because a staffer was there who has, like me, lost a considerable amount of weight over the last several years.

The head of costuming, who's tall and skinny, claimed that he weighs 200 pounds, while the head of workshops, who's a tall, muscular guy, said he weighed 270. I had trouble believing this and told them so. Then I realized that someone at the counter had been trying to get my attention to get me pay.

"Sorry, I was distracted by their muscles," I joked.

We all moved into a back room, where there were some beverage machines, including a Red Bull machine. I got a sugar free Red Bull and, holding up the narrow, small can, joked that soon they'll be developing the Red Bull suppository. We all took off with that concept, joking about how it would work, and I'm fairly certain sickening the three young guys who were trying to eat at a nearby table.

"Uh-oh, they're trying to eat," I said, putting my hand over my mouth.

"That's so old-fashioned," someone said. "They'll have suppositories for that any minute."

Eventually, we all had our sandwiches and headed back to the meeting. As I soon discovered, my sandwich, a veggie sub, was very soggy. I'm glad I made the decision not to try to eat it in my lap during the meeting, which was resuming. Instead, I found a table in the lobby and borrowed a chair from one of the meeting rooms. As soon as I picked up the sandwich, the bottom fell out and the veggies piled up on the aluminum foil. Fortunately, the Penn Stater was nice enough to go downstairs and get us all plastic forks.

Every time I saw someone walk in who'd bought a sandwich at the same place, I warned them that their sandwich might explode.

A bit later in the afternoon, I went in for training on the updated POS system. While I'm not working in registration this year, as a former registration lieutenant, I'm fairly likely to be called in if there are staffing emergencies.

Of course, while we were going through the lesson, led by The Cheshire Cat, I kept speaking up with questions or additional information I knew from having worked registration for years and years. That is, until I became aware of what I was doing and made a conscious effort to be quiet and let the new trainees ask the questions. Sometimes my mouth just gets ahead of my brain; and it's a constant effort to curb that tendency, even though I'm aware of it.

Afterwards, I went up to The Cheshire Cat and apologized for being "an annoying brownnoser." He shrugged and said, "It's OK" and then added, gently, that it's important that the person who knows the most remains quiet and lets the others talk.

As we were leaving the room, the staffer who'd been sitting next to me during the training session said, "Don't worry about it. You were fine."

I said, "Yes, I do this all the time. I suffer from diarrhea of the mouth, and it's apparently incurable."

In fact, The Gryphon tells me lately I've been talking a lot in my sleep. He remembers what I says and often tells me in the morning. Sometimes it jogs my memory of the dream; sometimes it doesn't. Usually, it happens fairly early in the night, when I'm slipping into deeper sleep.

I'm sure there are very few people who are surprised I would continue talking during sleep.

Most of the rest of the meeting, I paged through Wild Violet submissions while listening to what was being discussed, raising my hand when I had a comment or question. The Invisible Man took a seat a couple chairs down from me, and we kept up a sotto voce banter. I get along with him much better now that we're friends than I ever did several years ago when we were dating.

The meeting covered all the important pre-convention aspects: from explaining important policies the staff needs to enforce to making sure people knew the processes for getting food and picking up badges.

At the close of the meeting, we gathered a small group of people to get dinner: The Dormouse, The Gryphon and I, Batman, and The Cheshire Cat and The Paper. We all walked down to a Chinese restaurant, Uncle Lee's, where you can usually get seated immediately and where we like the food. We got the same table that The Gryphon and I had the last time we ate there with a group of people.

About 10 or 15 minutes later, a group of Otakon people walked in, in a big file. I found that funny.

Dinner table conversation, of course, revolved around Otakon, as well as pop culture. We tried to reassure Batman about the upcoming convention. He's a little stressed out, because he's been away for a year and a half, and he's stressed out about throwing himself back into the fray. He's also looking at a long week of work coming up, and I think it was all too much for him. I think we managed to reassure him, though, that he'll get plenty of support at the convention.

Before we left, The Dormouse and I walked into the back room and greeted the other Otakon staffers, chatting with them for awhile before leaving.

The trip home was much like the trip down, except that we talked more about Otakon related stuff.

I'm honestly excited about this year's convention and the part I'll play in it. As human resources assistant, I'll get to move around rather than being stuck in one place, and I'll be able to use my people skills to help our staffers resolve conflicts. Primarily, though, I'll be doing whatever it is that The Gryphon needs me to do and, while he's taking care of the needs of the staffers, I'll be keeping an eye out for him.

A staffer and her plushie are ready for Otakon.

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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