The Gathering of Friends (aka The 2007 Official Xena
Convention)
by KT
fsktl@uaf.edu
Once again, for the eleventh time as
the advertising reminds us, we are gathering to celebrate
the Xena: Warrior Princess show.
It’s amazing to realize that these
things have been going for eleven years. Except that many of
us old-timers indeed show the passing of time and have
become more old-timer than ever. Julie was watching the
crowd line slowly shuffling into the hall to get their
week-end bracelets and noticed that there are more of us now
that are moving a bit slow, perhaps limping some and even
using canes to get around. Not to worry though—we old-timers
are being supplemented every year by fresh young things who
are rip-roaring with excitement over their first ever con.
The fresh young things who were con virgins last year are
more blasé now—they know people here, they know the drill,
they sit on the couches and sip their morning soda (pop)
with us as we sip our morning coffee.
Yesterday afternoon was a melee of
incoming fans. Screaming with delight at the first sight of
each other again. One group I happened to be with who were
exchanging pleasantries, we’re just enjoying being together
and the conference door opens up and a lady comes out
scowling, sweeping her hands up and down in a “lower the
noise” gesture and hisses to us, “There’s a meeting going on
in here.” She gives another scowl and closes the door and I
say with a laugh, “This is a Xena con honey—we just don’t do
quiet.”
Later the doors of the BIG conference
room on the other side of the hall open and a whole bevy of
Catholic priests and their female attendants, (you know,
those women who look like Donna Reed looked in “It’s A
Wonderful Life” when she never got it on with Jimmy
Stewart), came mincing out. I got this huge grin on my face
and thought, “Oh, this is probably the best sharing of con
venue we’ve had since the year we had the Teenage Ballet
Convention.”
At that convention, a doctor friend of
mine was along. She had a huge head cold, was working on a
migraine and had self-medicated herself into a loud, just
about hallucinatory high. She cackled in great delight at
seeing all these twirling teenagers in tutus prancing in the
lobby as the Xena fans went to and fro to the convention. In
her drugged state she just found that mix of ballerinas with
their frou-frou stage mommies and we tough Xena fans wildly
risible. I thought we might have to do CPR on her to help
her get her breath back, she was gasping and howling with
laughter so much.
Lots of old faces, lots of new. Brand
new mother/daughter combinations where the young kid is a
major Xena fan and the mom is along as driver and source of
money for Xena stuff. I love those combinations. Last year
we had two three generation groupings, Grandma, Mom and kid.
In at least one of them, the grandmother and grandkid were
the fans—the mom again was just the enabler.
So the line went well, as always, my
tickets are in Alaska and I am here. As always, it’s never a
problem and I got my wrist bracelet and con pass necklace
with no problem. I said as we walked back to the hotel that
night, “We’re all tarted up now—and don’t we look good.”
There’s some very nice new pictures and posters—one fabulous
one of Lucy from Battlestar, from the last scene of
Downloaded. Rather than “Girl with a smoking gun, it’s “Girl
with a smirk and gun.” MARVELOUS look on her face.
(click on the thumbnail for the larger
scan)
When we went into the bar that night, it was the usual BLAST
of sound as old friends found each other and new friends
were high on their first con. And it suddenly struck me—you
know how the song goes, “You wanna go where everybody knows
your name”? Well, this is the place.
My favorite quote from today was
overheard when two fans who had never met in person were
talking and one said to the other, “What’s that accent you
have?” And the other person answered, “I don’t have an
accent. It just sounds like I do.”
Gods bless us everyone.
KT
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