My tiny mid-life crisis

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:43:50 GMT

According to the Sakura Con website, as of this sentence I'm writing now, there are 13 days, 7 hours, and 31 minutes left until the festivities begin. For those unfamiliar with Sakura Con, or anime/videogame/sci-fi/fantasy/RPG conventions in general, a "con" is the ultimate expression of geekdom: a happy place for daydreamers, attention-mongers, would-be creative types, hunters of rare merchandise, obsessed fans, and the socially maladjusted. It is an ephemeral, boisterous playground for the fringe folk.

In the dark times before the Internet, conventions were a rare and valuable opportunity for like-minded people to meet and greet. To some, it was an emotional or creative outlet; to others, it was practically a support group. Imagine the wonder and awe of a social outcast -- say, for example, a "tween" girl in the late 1970's who loved science and technology but knew nothing about fashion, pop idols, or rock'n'roll -- as she enters a convention hall for the first time and realizes, my god, these people are all like me. The fact that somewhere on this planet, even if only for three short days, there was a place, a situation, a true community in which you were accepted, in which writing stories in your spare time was actually considered an asset, where nobody gave a rat's tuckus whether your blouse matched your pants, where a chance comment about Battlestar Galactica occasioned discussion rather than cruel jibes, and where nobody -- this is important -- not one person looked confused and asked whether Larry Niven was David Niven's son. It was like a secret geeky fantasy come true.

It was also somewhere you could dress up in fun costumes and be considered cool for it; after my first few conventions, I embraced this notion with a grasp like a steel bear trap. And that, in a very circuitous way, brings us to today's topic. Back in the day, when I was young and had all the free time in the world, I used to build costumes for these conventions. Of course, the challenge was building something exceptional with only my allowance, but I'd start working months in advance; I also had this crazy youthful attitude that optimism and sheer stubbornness would solve any problem. (Oddly, they usually did.) I remember this one time -- and this will only be funny to old geeks like myself -- I built a suit of "plate mail" armor entirely out of paper plates and envelopes, and called myself "Amana, the Radar Ranger". For you younger folks, 1) the first company to produce home microwave ovens was Amana, 2) their product was called the "Radar Range", 3) the ranger is a Dungeons and Dragons character class, 4) you can't put metal plates in a microwave, and 5) yes, this was all probably before you were born. I swear on my gnarled, age-spotted typing fingers that it used to be funny.

Anyway, over my teenage years, I attended quite a few conventions, met the boy I would eventually marry, made some fabulous lifelong friends, gained a surprising amount of self-confidence, discovered (and had the chance to meet!) some of my now-favorite authors, and yes, made a bunch of spiffy costumes. The last one I built was in college, when I was about 20 years old. I had just seen the movie Labyrinth, and was absolutely awed by the sets, creatures, and costumes. My then-boyfriend Bren (I mentioned him above; we actually met at a sci-fi club meeting in the basement of the local library, heehee!) consented with his usual good nature to be decked head-to-toe in a costume from the movie. Now, if there's one universal truth about students, it's a lack of any real money. The poor college student is as much a cliche as the dumb blonde, but has the (dis)advantage of generally being true. I typed papers for pocket money in college (which is another story all its own), but even then, there wasn't much to spend on costume supplies. I believe I ended up working with several yards of lightweight cotton (on sale), a few packets of RIT dye, a bargain-basement wig ($10, and looked it, ugh), some fake fur cut from a torn-up jacket I found at Goodwill, makeup that I theoretically "borrowed" from the theater department, and a can of blonde hairspray. I sculpted the necklace from clay that a friend swiped from art class (the same friend later snuck it into the kiln for me). We borrowed a crystal ball from a dorm-mate who was into the occult. In the end, the costume almost didn't come together because of the price of boots, but we scrimped and saved and eventually found a pair on sale. The final result was fricking glorious.

Okay, so fast-forward two full decades. I am no longer the spring chicken of my youth, and Bren -- magnificent creature that he is -- has developed into the lean-yet-stocky, bad-ass swordsman that most fantasy or anime fans only dream of being. (And I mean that literally: he's a kendo ni-dan. He takes after his mother, the fencer, who just scored a spot on the USA team for next year's World Cup, YAY, ELLEN!) We're both working in the videogames industry, which means that free time is a faint, fading memory of the past. But now Sakura Con is coming up in two weeks, and I'm turning 40 on Tuesday, and by god, I feel like putting on a silly costume and recapturing the fun I used to have. Call it a mini mid-life crisis, if you will, but I'm determined to "cosplay" (yes, that's what they call it these days) just one more time. And we may not have the spare time for building costumes that we had in our youth, but adult life offers one major perk that more than makes up for it: a steady paycheck. We're going to be showing the young-'uns at this year's convention how a really authentic costume is supposed to look, and we are going to do it in style.

As long as everything arrives on schedule. That's the only problem with purchasing custom costume pieces from out-of-state armorers and other craftspeople: there's a certain amount of stress as the day of the con approaches and you're still short a wig, a hat, a sake bottle, a pair of gloves, and a belt.

According to the Sakura Con website, as of this sentence I'm writing now, there are 13 days, 5 hours, and 16 minutes left until the festivities begin. Here's hoping that everything actually works out in time.

Cindy Lue Grue: Hobbies

My tiny mid-life crisis