Thursday, I saw GV8. Sex, dinner, sex. He always starts dominant then moves to sensual. He took us to the Cat & Fiddle on Sunset. I'd never been. The food was... decent. Nothing really to remark on.

Friday afternoon I went to get my arms waxed and took my mother to lunch.

We talked, mostly about my sister and her boyfriend. Near the end of lunch, she says to me, "I was talking to Aunt Val on the phone earlier this week. I was telling her that I miss you, even though you're living with us again I never see you. I told her that you're my rock. She asked if I had told you that and I didn't think I had. But you are my rock. You're the person I call when I need to talk, the person I want to see when I'm upset, the person I can tell anything to."

She is mine.

I don't think I've ever told her that.

She's the thing that holds me to earth. She's one of my closest friends, even though I can't tell her too much about my life, as it would hurt her. I love spending time with her, calling her when I'm able, just to chat, coming home and doing housework for her while she's gone to help her free up some time to, at the very least, get other things done, if not relax. I take her to meet my friends, invite her when we go out, let her know if she ever wants to go clubbing with me, she's more than welcome, though I doubt she ever will be.

She's 54.

I think I will lose it entirely when she dies.

... ... ...

Friday afternoon, after lunch, I drove over to the Anaheim Convention Center.

BlizzCon.

That's right: World of Warcraft. Diablo. Starcraft. Nerd central and I love it.

Entry, for me, is free. $120 is waived, and I park in a lot that I use each time something happens at the convention center, so I can avoid the park fiasco that occurs way too often.

I hunt my friends down, different groups of people. They all play WoW. I haven't touched it in at least a year. No time.

I watch the males parade around their girlfriends, the select few of them, all tarted up for the convention, looking young and unsure of themselves, but their boyfriends are so proud to have them on their arm.

I slide through crowds. Strangers occasionally come up to talk to me, to tell me how pretty or striking I am, one telling me, "I did not know Baroness had a hot sister!" and taking a photo with me to prove to his friends that he actually had the balls to come up and talk to me. I love nerds. I love how friendly they are, how outrageous they can be, how passionate and angry they are about their games, the awkward shyness around women, and how they each deal with their discomfort.

I'm no better, really. My mood varies from confident and social to quiet and anxious, depending on the setting and how tired I am.

It's hard at bars. Hanging at the bar in the Hilton lobby, packed to the gills, mostly with industry people. I don't drink. Drinking is a social activity, and to be there with a glass of water or soda in hand is declaring seperation. It makes me uncomfortable, a feeling of distance. Men stop and talk to me, touch my hand or shoulder so I say hello, and I am polite to each. As the night wears on, I draw more and more into myself.

One of my friends walked me into the demo area for WoW: Catacylsm. I tried out the Worgen race, werewolves in a -very- slightly steampunk environment. The time, normally 15 to 20 minutes, was extended for us, playing until we were done.

Fox introduced me to his friends, guildmates and others he'd known for some time that I had yet to meet. A particularly beta male latched onto me, flirting desperately, even though I flat out rejected his advances each time, finally stopping him and saying, "I'm not interested. I have a specific type and an odd outlook and if you don't start treating me like one of the boys like everyone else, I'm going to get uncomfortable or annoyed and send you away, so please stop."

And he did.

Friday night I found another friend talking to the man with the sad eyes, which is how I met him. Attractive, more than most, but it was the edge of desolation that colored his vision that made me want to know him.

Saturday night was a different social circle where I met Sleeve. Web developer, content manager, COO for a gaming news site. I'm feeling better about that. I spoke with another friend afterwards, and he pointed out that if Sleeve was going to cheat on his girlfriend, it would have been with anyone (though, honestly, I knew and read the signs and could have stopped it) and it was lucky to have been with me, because I would not have taken it past kissing and light groping. And maybe this incident, if discussed, will allow him to either fix or end his relationship.

Maybe not. But I'm not going to feel guilty about this anymore. I'm not going to do that again, I am going to learn from this.

Saturday night was also the Ozzy concert, one I hadn't been planning on attending until I walked into the Exhibition Hall and saw that it was going on. One of the mini-barricades was open for a short period of time, letting people out, so I slid in and threaded through the crowds, finally wandering into the press section unmolested. Fifth row at an Ozzy concert, pit in front and to the left, singing along with Crazy Train as Ozzy blasted the pit with a fire extinguisher hose.

Sunday, I woke up at noon. Having gone to bed after 4AM, plus wandering around all Friday and Saturday, I was fairly displeased.

I went to Fox's barbeque, bacon-themed. Bacon burgers, bacon cookies (I have pictures of this in the album at the bottom of this post), bacon-wrapped jalepenos, bacon-wrapped bacon... I don't even want to know what else they did with it.

Stopped and talked with one of my friends, a man I had been particularly close to a few years ago, consider him close to a brother with how comfortable we are together. Talked about the incident with Sleeve, about my "street cred" with the girlfriends in the group, and how we should not bring up the incident around them because it would probably make them nervous. I've never slipped before, but it's enough.

It was funny. I was harassing him for not inviting me to Fox's wedding last year, and he told me he wasn't incharge of wedding invites, only the bachelor party. And then he looked at me and said, "Goddamn, I should have invited you."

"Well, yeah."

"I mean, you have tits and all..."

"But it's only a technicality."

I am one of the boys. Masculine dandy to an extreme. I am one of the only girls in the group that does not have a nickname, because most of the girls come in and start sleeping with one of the guys and no one expects them to stick around, so they're given nicknames in order to identify them. Sexual or physical in nature, usually. I had "IDSN" for about a month (a nerdy joke, owing to the fact that my lower lip is rather full, but my upper lip is normal, so I only have half-DSL), but that faded quickly.

We talked about that for a little, and then we talked about his impending proposal to his girlfriend of six years, a cute little redheaded engineer, and how I will be invited to his bachelor party, assuming the two of them work out their issues regarding how he wants kids and she really, really doesn't.

It was an interesting weekend. I'm probably forgetting so many things, odd conversations, interesting men, bizarre incidents and side comments.

But I had fun.

They're trying to get me to start playing Warcraft with them, harassing me to reactivate my account and join their guild, but I just don't have the time. I do miss them, and I did enjoy the game, and I do know that if I started playing with them I would be more aware of all the parties and barbeques... but right now, sacrificing the time... I don't think I can.

Maybe one day.

This week, in pictures:

Bacon cookies, Ozzie concert, BlizzCon photos, Beware of Safety concert, and a dog in socks!

August 22nd, 2009