My weekend of geekdom
An essay
By Joel

If it makes this all seem more grade-school-ish imagine me laboriously fretting over each word of this as I engrave it on a piece of low quality elementary school green paper with the blue and red lines to guide young hands in the formation of their letters. Further, if you really want the whole image then picture the paper being marked up with a very fat #2 pencil……..thick enough that it could be mistaken for a Lincoln Log were it not for the flaking blue paint on the exterior of the pencil. Having set the image of academia, it’s somewhat difficult to know precisely where to begin writing about the weekend in Eugene for Lizapalooza. No this was not some weird girl-band folk music fest……though I am sure Oregon has no short of hippy dippy crystal toting patchouli drenched music fests throughout the year……this happened to be a gathering of geeks. Not just any geeks, but Elizabethan Period Clothing Geeks! That should send some readers running for the door pretty fast. I absorbed so much information, so many observations that had previously hovered on the periphery of my consciousness that just needed to be prodded into fully formed thought by a catalyst like the talks this past weekend featuring the wonderfully informative Drea Leeds.
Now first off there was the “getting there”, which if you look at a map of the west coast and follow the shortest route between Seattle and Eugene OR you will see is about a 5 hr drive. I had decided to be travel buddy/navigator for my friend Stephanie who also had registered for the weekend. It was an excellent chance for the two of us to talk since we had 5 hrs each way to gab. I had on many occasions at various events had passing conversations with Stephanie, but as we each had differing responsibilities at these events we never had great length at which to “geek out”. So the car ride was ideal. And to my great pleasure my suspicions were confirmed that Stephanie is a true kindred spirit and as interesting in conversational detail as she seemed in passing previously! Not to mention I learned quite a few accounting and book keeping ins and outs that are going to make my fiscal 2008 far less headache inducing than 2007 was at times, Stephanie is an excellent accountant with that rare quality of being able to articulate business terminology in a language us artsy types can understand and assimilate! SO we drove. And drove……and then drove a bit more, and just for giggles we also drove.
To escape Portland rush hour traffic, and to give us something pretty to look at, we stopped at Millend Fabric Outlet. This was both a wonderful and a terrible idea all neatly wrapped in one. I had resolved at the start of the year to renew my efforts this year to not go on “OOOOOOH……Shiny, Pretty!” fabric buying sprees. My sewing room is filled to the gunnels with fabric that needs to be used for some project or another, so more fabric is as useful to me as a screen-door on a submarine or a drag queen in a bar fight….ooops scratch that last one, I forgot Trannies can fight meaner than real girls so they might be useful. Anyway, you get the idea; more fabric was the last thing I needed. SO Millend was my waterloo. Far, far too many pretty options. I caved. I can at least console myself that I only bought two cuts of fabric, neither of which was larger than 2 ½ yds. And since they were both ends of bolts I got them at an uber discount…..so damnit I am going to stick by my purchases….rationalization is a wonderful hobby by the way!
Now once back on the road, Stephanie and I noticed something that Dre mentions in her Blog about this weekend…….Oregonians of the past were exceedingly unimaginative. Thy boosted names from towns in WA and CA and Nevada (I can’t remember Nevada’s abbreviation and am feeling lazy so I’m not going to bother looking it up). We drove through Portland, Vancouver, and several incomprehensible Native American named towns whose spellings I will not attempt/slaughter that all exist in WA as well as in OR. The other curious thing we noticed as we got further south was the great number of inexplicable accidents (single car) on the sides of the road. It was as if all of a sudden drivers just decided that it was “their time” to just up and drive off into a ditch on the side of the road with no provocation. I am beginning to think that maybe all those episodes of X-Files that were filmed in the OR, WA, Vancouver BC area might have left some sort of weird lasting imprint on the populace and the locals are just not real clear on the fact that the cameras have moved on and there’s no need to give the TV crews “set decoration” any longer.
So we arrive. The Motel 6 we are staying at is mercifully easy to locate, right off of I-5. We go into the office to register for our room and get the keycard(s). It is at this point that I discover that one of the Stygian Witches moonlights as the desk attendant at the southern Eugene OR Motel 6…….who knew?! She has badly dyed red hair….and by red I mean the shade of Wendy’s hair from the restaurant chain advertisements. She has about 10, possibly 15 teeth in her head, but most of them are NOT in the front. She has a disturbingly pleasant demeanor that is regrettably given to much open mouthed smiling while observing on the distance Stephanie and I have driven, and no doubt she is trying to make her mind jump through several hoops trying to figure out the odd couple Stephanie and I represent (an obvious “mom” and an even more obviously gay man) registering for a hotel room together. That’s when it hits me who she looks like…err, well whose image I have constructed in my head that she would be a good “reality stand in” for……..Batilda Bagshot. If you don’t catch that reference dear readers then clearly you are not a devoted Potter-ite and the explanation would take a bunch of pages of tangential material to clue you in……read the Harry potter books (Particularly Deathly Hallows….if you want the Batilda Reference) matching the description of Batilda’s wispy white coiffeur, she could be cast as Batilda in a heart beat!
SO we reach our room, make not of the eye wateringly busy bed spreads ( that we debated boosting to take home and make Tacky-tourney garb out of….but ruled it out as too easy…there’s be no challenge in it). That’s when I call to check in on Dre, because that’s the other great part about this weekend. Not only do I get to geek out and add to my storehouse of trivia about Elizabethan Clothing and it’s evolution…..I get to met face to face Dierdre and hang out with her while geeking out. I am in History Snob heaven!
Once Dierdre arrives and we are appropriately exuberant, despite all having just driven long distances, we ooooh and ahhhh over Dre’s Queen Elizabeth Dress and Bella Crown. I can honestly say they are as lovely in the “flesh” as the images in Dre’s profile imply. And its ever so much more fun getting to talk to Dre and not have to type, the wit flies fast and furious and I now have the timber of a voice to attach to her words when I read them on the screen! And one thing I took away from getting to spend some time with her, any of you out there who have the chance to meet her in person, see her perform at faire, or attend a class/symposium she is speaking at….DO SO! You will be heartily pleased!
Ok, so I need more coffee and to collect my thoughts about the talks themselves before I deconstruct, so I am going to stop here and carry on later once my thoughts are more in order.