White is not a color for dragon*con. Black is a far better choice. A black shirt soaked through with sweat doesn't turn transparent, and the dirt, grime, and grease of equipment never shows up against it. There's an art to staying clean, dry, and daisy-fresh at 'con when you're a tech staffer.

I haven't mastered it yet, but part of it appears to hinge on changing shirts a lot.

I tiptoed out early on a Saturday morning to buy ingredients for salsa, leaving my spouse, still sleeping, to be guarded by the house cats. I bought a shower gift and salsa ingredients, and was well on my way through processing the vegetables into finished salsa by the time Jeff woke up.

It had to get done, not because it was a chore but because I had promised, and it was my own fault that I'd stayed up late with friends the night before, talking and playing games instead of shouldering responsibility and purchasing habañeros and peppers for food-making.

It really wasn't planned. Honest. Except that I'd been dozing on the couch, and then I snapped awake with the horrid realization that I was planning on three weeks' worth of out-of-state trips in the not-too-distant future, and that one pair of sneakers, one pair of jeans, and two pair of shorts just weren't going to cut it.

Clothing. Needed. Now.

"Just a little nap in the sun," I said, sneaking off to the deck to crank up the sunshade and recline on a deck chair. No nap yet, but it's a few hours later, and I think the miles of this week are rolling off of me like beads of sweat.

Could be worse. At least it's not hot out here.

"Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball"
- Damien Rice, "cannonball"

I'd love to tell you where it began, but the truth is that I don't remember. Instead, I have to choose a beginning point, arbitrary though it is, and begin from there.

The speed limit on the Cutoff was 40, but anyone with half a brain knew that the cops never policed that section of road, because there was no place for them to park, and even if there was, Bauxite didn't have cops anyway. The descent to the paved-over area where the railroad track used to be was one such that if you hit it at just the right speed, your car wouldn't go airborne, but you would.