Blue Wigs & Weasley Twins: Thoughts from the DCC

 

I spent Sunday at the Denver Comic Con (before my panel on writing stories with a message) and kept a notebook of thoughts throughout the day…

Initially:

I’m resisting my urge to hug everyone whose costume makes me break out in a big giddy grin.

So far I haven’t been impaled by a single wand, sword, horn, or light saber. Seems like an accomplishment.

12.5mg later:

Can I go home yet?

Why is my panel still so far away?

There’s a T Rex walking through the food court whose legs are too short to run.

A giant yellow exclamation point hovers over a girl’s head in the donut line.

A nerd couple starts making a board game at my lunch table. I get up and leave.

Sherlock Holmes asks to take a picture with me. I say, “Sure, Sherlock.” I’m not even dressed as a character, just all blue—hair, eyelashes, earrings, shirt, shoes—a depiction of my disposition.

My head feels about to explode from the pressure of this wig, which I redo in the ladies’ bathroom, no shame, I’m not the only one.

So many redheads in one place, and on a day when I don’t identify as a redhead. I am only playing an identity. This is a crowd I don’t stand out in, natural red or synthetic blue.

Who I think is the same girl for a while turns out is just a popular costume.

I ride the escalator in high heels; make eyes with the Queen of Hearts; do not slip and create a toppling human row of dominos.

God love these people who trek for miles in giant robot shoes.

There’s a kid actually dressed as a fidget spinner.

I pass Wesley the Dread Pirate Roberts in the crowd and I genuinely debate whether to follow him around (major Cary Elwes crush back in the day).

I still plan to find him.

Didn’t cross my mind that Harry Potter would be a part of the Con. I may not be into super heroes but I love me some Houses and Charms.

The line to see the Weasley twins stretches for blocks (if we were outdoors). Damn those identical redheads, I’d get in that line too if my panel weren’t in half an hour. That’s at least a thousand guaranteed people not coming to see me.

 

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What’s with House Parties?

I’d never seen my husband so close to punching another man until the night the Mexican version of Saturday Night Live’s Drunk Uncle asked if I wanted to bang. It was his house after all, he reminded us, each repetition louder and more slurred than the last.

Fireball tastes like Red Hots—the candy my grandma always kept stocked in her basement pantry. Fireball was Pink-Haired Girl’s favorite libation, and we talked Harry Potter on the front porch until M.D.U. stumbled out, so rudely interrupting us. In honor of H.P., Pink-Haired Girl had “DA” tattooed on her arm–the kind of tattoo done at home by a friend who does it because he likes it enough to not get paid.

Next to the bathroom a bedroom door opened on a lanky black boy attempting to feed sips of water to his passed-out girlfriend. She incoherently vocalized her misery from the twin bed, refusing to drink.

The kitchen seemed like the safest grounds.

Until the backyard became the best.

Then no place at all.

Time to go.