Wow, okay. I have assembled my countless notes of the 31st into one complete entry. There were a lot of 1-2 sentence blurbs simply to help me detail the night. Without these who knows what I would remember or forget from the night. I don't blame the alcohol, I simply blame the fact there was so much going on. Before I dive headlong into the entry of entry-goodness, I want to first provide some background on this wonderful time of year.
First off, October has always marked the start of a new year for me. Partially because for me, this is the month I actually do complete another year of existence. It is also because this marks the turning point in the northern hemisphere towards a death and rebirth of things. Things begin with sleep, awaken, then flourish; much like paths we walk in our lives. It just feels to me more like the natural order. I guess because that one shred of optimism feels we start with nothing, not end with nothing. Anyway, for me October and November have always been really special months. Traditionally, on Halloween, I would simply stay at home and watch TV with the family, handing candy to the kids and playing games. Once my brother and I were too old to trick or treat, Halloween became a chance for our family to have one of those "Family Moments". It reminded me of the nights we would all play dice games, Life, or other board games. For the longest time, Halloween has been something special. This is the first time I planned to actively do things with friends.
I left ASAP at 4, planning to get most of my costume pieces together and ready before I had to go pick up Shey. I had to fly back to pick up Jake from ASAP at 5, and I finished assembling everything. While putting stuff together, I found out a bit of interesting information from Kat, something that hasn't fully sunk in yet. I suppose it will eventually, but currently my reaction is a bit of amusement speckled with curiosity. Anyway, by about 6, I was out the door and over at Sheyne's, and by 6:30 or so, we had Tony in the car too, and were on our way to Santa Cruz. The drive was pretty quick, especially considering the large volume of traffic heading into SC. We were at Matt's around 7:30 or so, and C and H were already there. We sat and talked, and eventually Matt made it back from class. H, Shey and Matt vanished into the back to finish assembling Matt's costume. I sat out in the main room a little on the bored side for the next few hours. The last minute costuming is cool, but I really should mentally prepare myself to watch a movie while waiting. Young Frankenstein made for good background noise, but I took several trips out to the car to add notes to my PDA before finally deciding to just bring it inside with me, where I played some MP3s and entertained myself in geek fashion. I made a few interesting comments while NIN / Super Mario Brothers played softly from the speaker. Eventually I shut it off to save battery power, and then left it at that. Finally, it was time to get to walking.
Santa Cruz was cold that night. I don't mind the cold, but this was cold cold. Like an everyone is drunk, nobody is warm, I can't feel my fingertips cold. I spent a good part of the walk simply trying to keep up with everyone. C and I had to dive around groups and take alternate paths in order to keep up. In consider these abilities "con skills". Nothing like wading through a couple hundred people like they aren't there. In my desire not to lose everyone, I lost a bit of the fun of walking among the masses, and wasn't thrilled about having my picture taken. (I think that's a lot about why I don't cosplay. Pictures of me never turn out well. -_-) So anyway, I made it through the pictures, we walked back to Matt's, and relaxed for a bit and broke out a bit of booze. After a bit, it was time to brave the cold again. I lent H my lab coat, which wasn't high warmth rated, but was at least something to help against the breeze, and we all walked a bit of Pacific again. This time, I was much more aware, and in much higher spirits. We walked about 1/2 of it, and reached a point where we chilled on a bench, relaxed, and soaked in the night air. When we finally walked back, we swung by the Stop and Rob near Matt's and grabbed additional alcohol to be supplemented with Corona and munchies. I fell asleep at some time in the morning, although a cool draft along the floor made for a very cold night. I draped my coat over H and gave her the blanket since she seemed to be really cold. I didn't have anything else to help, and I forced myself to ignore the cold for the night. The last mark in my PDA was around 2:30 am or so, before I drifted back into sleep.
When morning came, we ignored the early light and finally departed around 10:40 or so. Back in the bay by noon-ish, showered, going back to SC to bring everyone down here for tonight.
The weekend is just beginning!
In response to "Looking Back One Evening":