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Okay kids, I'm back from the best two weeks of my life. Well, not totally back...the big ice storm in the Midwest has me stranded at a hotel in downtown Chicago, but hey, I'm in America again so that's back enough. One of the big parts of said vacation was the L3 convention, and while I'll go into more detail on the rest of it later, I think I should use this entry for the convention and what happened there in relation to the show and the cast.
Quite frankly the weekend was full of a lot of socializing that had nothing at all to do with the convention, but as I said, I'll deal with all that stuff later. Right now I want to focus on the convention itself.
My friend Becky and I got there a day early so we could get acclimated...didn't happen. We went to a great little fish and chip shop and had an awesome meal, then walked back in the insane wind coming off the sea. Becky went to meet up with friends from the board, but I was way too tired to attempt it so I just chilled out and watched BBC in the room. Becky wound up not coming back, and I got woken up by the phone at 2am to hear Obsy asking me if she was back. I proceeded to freak out when I didn't hear anything, but she was fine.
Friday was a little strange; I woke up late from being up worried about Becky most of the night, and went to the train station to meet JazzyS before the opening stuff started that night. I didn't sign up for photos, but from what I heard there was a huge line at 3 in the afternoon for them, but that ended up being rescheduled for the morning since the actresses weren't in Blackpool and couldn't get there until later. The opening ceremony got canceled because of this too.
Before things kicked off I went to meet up wit Obsy, Kirsty, and HenryandMax from Mediablvd, and Becky's friend Nicola that she'd met the night before, and it was great.
There was a stewarding meeting before things started, and I learned that I'd be working the main hall for the Saturday night party. Right after the meeting I got the opportunity to meet De_leish_ous from the fanfic site, and she's as totally awesome in real life as she is online.
Friday night was spent watching Uh Huh Her play...my friends and I were in line for that for what seemed like forever, and that turned out to be the rule for the weekend. The show was good, but I heard later that when people rushed the stage, the disabled attendees got stampeded. Honestly, that many people packed together in one place was just way too many for something like that.
During the show, they asked for an air drummer. Some chick got on stage and promptly started stripping, which led to Cam asking if air drums are the same in the UK as they are in the US. You could tell they were both amused, though.
Afterward, there was a "disco" party, which I didn't really stick around for. I went to my room and tried to take a nap, but it didn't work. Then I got an invitation from a friend from Scotland to go meet her and the girl she'd driven down with, and we sat around talking in their room until well past midnight about the show.
The next morning, my group met up for breakfast, and I messed it up by putting fruit on the same plate with my other stuff, haha. While in line for food, I met a lady from St. Louis, and we bonded a little over our mutual Americanism. After that it was off to the photos. I hadn't signed up for them but my friends had, so I hung out in line with them until my friend from Russia convinced me to be in a picture with her and Erin Daniels, since she'd bought a photo with her and a friend. I was nervous as hell, but she was even more star struck and I thought she'd fall over once we got in the room, haha. I didn't even recognize Erin at first, since she'd dyed her hair blond (not the best look on her, but she's still amazing looking).
She was so genuinely sweet and down to earth that I was just floored. People were so nervous to get pictures with her, and she just naturally put everyone at ease, including my poor friend. I wound up looking like a deformed midget in the picture, but that's just me and my non-photogenicness.
After we were done with that, we went to find the rest of our group, and eventually wound up sitting right outside the rooms where the photographs were taking place. We weren't supposed to be there, technically, but one of my friends has a disability so we hung out with her. Not half an hour after were standing there, who should walk in the side door but Laurel Holloman and Kate Moennig. Fucking hot, both of them. Kate waved and said hi to us as she passed, but Laurel looked really tired and didn't acknowledge us. It was fine with me though, I was just happy they were both in a 3-foot radius.
After a quick sandwich from the snack bar, the talks began at 11:30 with Adrienne Wilkinson, who was the MC for the event. She was on Xena I guess, didn't much care. I'm so messed up on the order of the talks due to being utterly exhausted that day, but I think Laurel and Eric came next. Laurel was really sweet on stage, and Eric was looking hot. He talked about how great it was to have worked on the show, and got a lot of compliments for Ugly Betty. Laurel talked about her daughter quite a bit, which was really sweet. Then (it might have been before, I'm not sure) Leisha and Cam came out and talked for quite a bit. Leisha looked awesome as always, but I felt bad for Cam since she really has nothing to do with the show. I mean it's great she was there, but why the fuck was she at a guest talk for an L Word convention? That confused me, but it didn't matter much. The talk was good, Leisha said Season 5 will be like "season 1 on crack." Both Leisha and Cam had trouble understanding people, so a lot of us were calling out what they'd said. They even had translators from the audience, who couldn't hear either, haha.
Last up were Kate and Erin, and they were just totally awesome. Kate couldn't understand a word anyone said to her in their accents, but Erin was just spot on with everyone. The few times she didn't understand, she'd have the person come up to the stage and get down really close to them to listen until she understood. It was so incredibly, genuinely sweet. I'm the biggest Leisha Hailey fan ever, but I left the convention just totally smitten with Erin. Some douchebag asked Kate when she was coming out, and Erin saved her by saying something close to "She was just out! She was outside having a smoke a little bit ago!" It was awesome and diffused a really uncomfortable situation. I can't believe the lack of respect some people have.
I think the most emotional part of the whole convention, at least for me, was during Erin and Kate's talk when a girl got up and said, "I am from Kenya, and to be gay is illegal in my country...the L Word brings us together." There was complete and utter silence while everybody took this in, and the place just erupted in cheers and applause. Erin was tearing up, and when I looked to my right at Becky, she looked a little teary-eyed too. I can't really explain it, but when that girl said what she did there was this swelling feeling in my chest, it was almost overwhelming. Before that everyone had been joking around, but that really brought home the seriousness of what the show can do. As much as it sucks sometimes, it does have power and I think it was good for all of us to be reminded of that.
Saturday night I went to a pub for dinner with Becky, Lube (the friend from Russia), and Jazzy, and we got Q&A'd by some old English dude, who thought it was fascinating that we were there for a lesbian convention. He was really annoying, but it was still funny. Dinner was tough since we were all stewards working at different times, but we fit it all in. We went to meet up with Obsy, Kirsty and Nic and they headed out to a club, but since I had to steward from 9-11 I said I'd meet them there.
I wasn't expecting stewarding to be as much fun as it was. I had a great time.Everyone was so friendly and happy to be there, and though a lot of them were drunk there were no problems. I got hit on by a ton of drunk older ladies, saw a cross-dressing male in a hot dress with a beard and unshaven legs, and got a mini-performance by the Blackpool version of the Village People in full costume. The girl I worked the door with was pretty cool too.
After that, I took a cab into town to try and find a damn ATM that would accept my Visa debit card. The first five didn't, but my cabbie was awesome and drove me around until I found one that did, and only charged me 12 pounds to go all over the fucking city and then to the nightclub. It was my first time in a big dance club like that and I had no idea what to do. Luckily I walked in the right direction when I went in, and ended up bumping into Kirsty. Then I found Obsy and we went upstairs to the table where everyone else was. Later on the majority of us went down to the dance floor. I'm still shocked at how social I was that weekend...but it was nice to know that I CAN be that way.
We stayed at the club for awhile, then got a cab back to the hotel. While the others went out for a smoke I volunteered to watch the bags, and not two minutes after everyone had left, a large group of elderly folks descended upon me. I guess there was some kind of old-folks thing happening at the hotel that weekend. These oldies were all drunk and seemed to want to sing Christmas carols quite loudly. I grabbed the bags and moved away from them as quickly as I could. When the others came back, we had a great conversation about random things including London, rivalry between the different parts of the UK, fanfic, and other stuff. By the time everyone left for where they needed to be, it was well after 4am. I had the room to myself that night and managed to sleep for about four hours.
I got up and showered for breakfast on Sunday, but everybody was way too tired to bother. I wound up meeting Jazzy for lunch from the snack bar before the guest talks. Neither of us really gave a damn about Adrienne, but she blahed for a bit. Then Laurel and Eric came back out and Laurel had to answer Bette and Tina questions...I zoned out since I don't like Tibette.
The highlight of the weekend for me was the talk with Leisha, Kate and Erin that afternoon. It was incredibly awesome; I was about four rows from the stage, and you can just see how genuine and close their friendship is. I was really happy to hear both Leisha and Erin confirm that they didn't like the Danish breakup. Erin was asked who Dana would have ended up with had she lived, and the woman stole my heart when she scoffed like it was the dumbest question ever and said, "Who do you think?" After a few seconds of silence she grinned and said "Jenny!"
Leisha and Kate talked about buying scooters, complete with mocking each other's voices. It was pretty hilarious, and even better when Erin just sorta looked at them like they were nuts and said, "Guess I have to buy a scooter now," or something like that. They all affirmed that they still hang out all the time, so that was great to hear. Erin did say that she had to move on emotionally from the show, and that she wasn't going to be in Season 5. She said it was really hard, but she had to move on for her own sanity, which is totally understandable. I'm glad she still hangs out with her friends, though.
After that I really don't remember what I did for the next few hours. The closing ceremony started at 7-ish, and I have no recollection of what I did for dinner, although I'm sure I grabbed something. As we went to be seated for the ceremony, Obsy told us we were getting Chinese afterward. The closing ceremony was really cute; the event organizer was announcing the guests and said, "She's been the most requested guest..."
Leisha, Kate and Erin thought he was talking about Kate, so Leisha and Erin were laughing at her. Then Sean said "She's never attended before," and Erin got this surprised look and pointed to herself, going "It's me!" You couldn't hear it but she mouthed it pretty clearly, lol. It was completely adorable.
As each of them were announced, they got up and said really nice things about the fans, and that was pretty much it. I didn't sign up for autographs due to being so damn shy, but it didn't matter because as a reward for stewarding I got a sheet signed by everyone who'd attended. The actual autographs weren't personalized anyway, so same difference, haha. And aside from the disco later that night, that was the end of the weekend.
Quite frankly the weekend was full of a lot of socializing that had nothing at all to do with the convention, but as I said, I'll deal with all that stuff later. Right now I want to focus on the convention itself.
My friend Becky and I got there a day early so we could get acclimated...didn't happen. We went to a great little fish and chip shop and had an awesome meal, then walked back in the insane wind coming off the sea. Becky went to meet up with friends from the board, but I was way too tired to attempt it so I just chilled out and watched BBC in the room. Becky wound up not coming back, and I got woken up by the phone at 2am to hear Obsy asking me if she was back. I proceeded to freak out when I didn't hear anything, but she was fine.
Friday was a little strange; I woke up late from being up worried about Becky most of the night, and went to the train station to meet JazzyS before the opening stuff started that night. I didn't sign up for photos, but from what I heard there was a huge line at 3 in the afternoon for them, but that ended up being rescheduled for the morning since the actresses weren't in Blackpool and couldn't get there until later. The opening ceremony got canceled because of this too.
Before things kicked off I went to meet up wit Obsy, Kirsty, and HenryandMax from Mediablvd, and Becky's friend Nicola that she'd met the night before, and it was great.
There was a stewarding meeting before things started, and I learned that I'd be working the main hall for the Saturday night party. Right after the meeting I got the opportunity to meet De_leish_ous from the fanfic site, and she's as totally awesome in real life as she is online.
Friday night was spent watching Uh Huh Her play...my friends and I were in line for that for what seemed like forever, and that turned out to be the rule for the weekend. The show was good, but I heard later that when people rushed the stage, the disabled attendees got stampeded. Honestly, that many people packed together in one place was just way too many for something like that.
During the show, they asked for an air drummer. Some chick got on stage and promptly started stripping, which led to Cam asking if air drums are the same in the UK as they are in the US. You could tell they were both amused, though.
Afterward, there was a "disco" party, which I didn't really stick around for. I went to my room and tried to take a nap, but it didn't work. Then I got an invitation from a friend from Scotland to go meet her and the girl she'd driven down with, and we sat around talking in their room until well past midnight about the show.
The next morning, my group met up for breakfast, and I messed it up by putting fruit on the same plate with my other stuff, haha. While in line for food, I met a lady from St. Louis, and we bonded a little over our mutual Americanism. After that it was off to the photos. I hadn't signed up for them but my friends had, so I hung out in line with them until my friend from Russia convinced me to be in a picture with her and Erin Daniels, since she'd bought a photo with her and a friend. I was nervous as hell, but she was even more star struck and I thought she'd fall over once we got in the room, haha. I didn't even recognize Erin at first, since she'd dyed her hair blond (not the best look on her, but she's still amazing looking).
She was so genuinely sweet and down to earth that I was just floored. People were so nervous to get pictures with her, and she just naturally put everyone at ease, including my poor friend. I wound up looking like a deformed midget in the picture, but that's just me and my non-photogenicness.
After we were done with that, we went to find the rest of our group, and eventually wound up sitting right outside the rooms where the photographs were taking place. We weren't supposed to be there, technically, but one of my friends has a disability so we hung out with her. Not half an hour after were standing there, who should walk in the side door but Laurel Holloman and Kate Moennig. Fucking hot, both of them. Kate waved and said hi to us as she passed, but Laurel looked really tired and didn't acknowledge us. It was fine with me though, I was just happy they were both in a 3-foot radius.
After a quick sandwich from the snack bar, the talks began at 11:30 with Adrienne Wilkinson, who was the MC for the event. She was on Xena I guess, didn't much care. I'm so messed up on the order of the talks due to being utterly exhausted that day, but I think Laurel and Eric came next. Laurel was really sweet on stage, and Eric was looking hot. He talked about how great it was to have worked on the show, and got a lot of compliments for Ugly Betty. Laurel talked about her daughter quite a bit, which was really sweet. Then (it might have been before, I'm not sure) Leisha and Cam came out and talked for quite a bit. Leisha looked awesome as always, but I felt bad for Cam since she really has nothing to do with the show. I mean it's great she was there, but why the fuck was she at a guest talk for an L Word convention? That confused me, but it didn't matter much. The talk was good, Leisha said Season 5 will be like "season 1 on crack." Both Leisha and Cam had trouble understanding people, so a lot of us were calling out what they'd said. They even had translators from the audience, who couldn't hear either, haha.
Last up were Kate and Erin, and they were just totally awesome. Kate couldn't understand a word anyone said to her in their accents, but Erin was just spot on with everyone. The few times she didn't understand, she'd have the person come up to the stage and get down really close to them to listen until she understood. It was so incredibly, genuinely sweet. I'm the biggest Leisha Hailey fan ever, but I left the convention just totally smitten with Erin. Some douchebag asked Kate when she was coming out, and Erin saved her by saying something close to "She was just out! She was outside having a smoke a little bit ago!" It was awesome and diffused a really uncomfortable situation. I can't believe the lack of respect some people have.
I think the most emotional part of the whole convention, at least for me, was during Erin and Kate's talk when a girl got up and said, "I am from Kenya, and to be gay is illegal in my country...the L Word brings us together." There was complete and utter silence while everybody took this in, and the place just erupted in cheers and applause. Erin was tearing up, and when I looked to my right at Becky, she looked a little teary-eyed too. I can't really explain it, but when that girl said what she did there was this swelling feeling in my chest, it was almost overwhelming. Before that everyone had been joking around, but that really brought home the seriousness of what the show can do. As much as it sucks sometimes, it does have power and I think it was good for all of us to be reminded of that.
Saturday night I went to a pub for dinner with Becky, Lube (the friend from Russia), and Jazzy, and we got Q&A'd by some old English dude, who thought it was fascinating that we were there for a lesbian convention. He was really annoying, but it was still funny. Dinner was tough since we were all stewards working at different times, but we fit it all in. We went to meet up with Obsy, Kirsty and Nic and they headed out to a club, but since I had to steward from 9-11 I said I'd meet them there.
I wasn't expecting stewarding to be as much fun as it was. I had a great time.Everyone was so friendly and happy to be there, and though a lot of them were drunk there were no problems. I got hit on by a ton of drunk older ladies, saw a cross-dressing male in a hot dress with a beard and unshaven legs, and got a mini-performance by the Blackpool version of the Village People in full costume. The girl I worked the door with was pretty cool too.
After that, I took a cab into town to try and find a damn ATM that would accept my Visa debit card. The first five didn't, but my cabbie was awesome and drove me around until I found one that did, and only charged me 12 pounds to go all over the fucking city and then to the nightclub. It was my first time in a big dance club like that and I had no idea what to do. Luckily I walked in the right direction when I went in, and ended up bumping into Kirsty. Then I found Obsy and we went upstairs to the table where everyone else was. Later on the majority of us went down to the dance floor. I'm still shocked at how social I was that weekend...but it was nice to know that I CAN be that way.
We stayed at the club for awhile, then got a cab back to the hotel. While the others went out for a smoke I volunteered to watch the bags, and not two minutes after everyone had left, a large group of elderly folks descended upon me. I guess there was some kind of old-folks thing happening at the hotel that weekend. These oldies were all drunk and seemed to want to sing Christmas carols quite loudly. I grabbed the bags and moved away from them as quickly as I could. When the others came back, we had a great conversation about random things including London, rivalry between the different parts of the UK, fanfic, and other stuff. By the time everyone left for where they needed to be, it was well after 4am. I had the room to myself that night and managed to sleep for about four hours.
I got up and showered for breakfast on Sunday, but everybody was way too tired to bother. I wound up meeting Jazzy for lunch from the snack bar before the guest talks. Neither of us really gave a damn about Adrienne, but she blahed for a bit. Then Laurel and Eric came back out and Laurel had to answer Bette and Tina questions...I zoned out since I don't like Tibette.
The highlight of the weekend for me was the talk with Leisha, Kate and Erin that afternoon. It was incredibly awesome; I was about four rows from the stage, and you can just see how genuine and close their friendship is. I was really happy to hear both Leisha and Erin confirm that they didn't like the Danish breakup. Erin was asked who Dana would have ended up with had she lived, and the woman stole my heart when she scoffed like it was the dumbest question ever and said, "Who do you think?" After a few seconds of silence she grinned and said "Jenny!"
Leisha and Kate talked about buying scooters, complete with mocking each other's voices. It was pretty hilarious, and even better when Erin just sorta looked at them like they were nuts and said, "Guess I have to buy a scooter now," or something like that. They all affirmed that they still hang out all the time, so that was great to hear. Erin did say that she had to move on emotionally from the show, and that she wasn't going to be in Season 5. She said it was really hard, but she had to move on for her own sanity, which is totally understandable. I'm glad she still hangs out with her friends, though.
After that I really don't remember what I did for the next few hours. The closing ceremony started at 7-ish, and I have no recollection of what I did for dinner, although I'm sure I grabbed something. As we went to be seated for the ceremony, Obsy told us we were getting Chinese afterward. The closing ceremony was really cute; the event organizer was announcing the guests and said, "She's been the most requested guest..."
Leisha, Kate and Erin thought he was talking about Kate, so Leisha and Erin were laughing at her. Then Sean said "She's never attended before," and Erin got this surprised look and pointed to herself, going "It's me!" You couldn't hear it but she mouthed it pretty clearly, lol. It was completely adorable.
As each of them were announced, they got up and said really nice things about the fans, and that was pretty much it. I didn't sign up for autographs due to being so damn shy, but it didn't matter because as a reward for stewarding I got a sheet signed by everyone who'd attended. The actual autographs weren't personalized anyway, so same difference, haha. And aside from the disco later that night, that was the end of the weekend.