Esco Faire

So, I had a good time this past weekend. I went to the small Ren Faire in Escondido. I met up with some people I haven't seen in a long time and others that I hadn't previously ever seen in person. I even met up with an old high school friend from PA, whom I haven't seen since mid-college (about 4-5 years ago). Strange to see where people end up in the world.

The faire runs for 2 weekends only, which is actually really shitty. I didn't make it the 1st day last weekend, but I made it the other 3 days. Apparently I change my costume too much, lol. Every day I dressed differently and did something different; this is a big change from being on cast at GLMF where I had to wear the exact same thing for 6 weekends straight - I think I got a bit carried away with this freedom, lol. The only problem is that I have a hard time talking to people b/c they don't realize I'm the same person once I'm dressed differently. This happens at faire a lot - you remember someone by their costume or a bit they were doing and it's hard to recognize them without it. I can't blame anyone, I never pay attention to faces.... I notice details that stand out and once faire is done those are usually gone.

The first day I went was Halloween, which I already talked about - I went as a zombie. This Saturday I brought Dahlia - my Tegu. I wanted to let him get some time out of the house, as we can't take him for walks or anything because our apartment's management doesn't know we have him. I figured he be a bit of an attraction, but I'm used to that when I take him out. OH MY GOD. I seriously under-estimated the amount of attention that he drew. I could barely walk 5 feet without getting stopped by at least 1 person. While I was stopped for 1 person a whole crowd would form. I should have charged for pictures.... I would have made a killing. Luckily Dahlia was a sweetie and was really well behaved. He walked around on his leash or I held him and only got 1 or 2 scratches. I felt bad for the people I was hanging out with though. Every time we tried to walk somewhere it took forever, because of how much we were getting stopped. I answered the same questions about Dahlia so many times that my friends started to rattle off the answers for me, so I could take a break, lol. By the end of the day Dahlia was so tired. And my arms were tired just from holding him all day.

The final day of faire I brought my cup. Yeah, this doesn't sound very impressive, but apparently it is. At GLMF it was common for a lot of the cast to walk around with our mugs on our heads. It was a nice passive-lotsy sort of bit that entertained patrons when we were too tired or had to walk across the faire grounds to get somewhere. It was common, a few people got a kick out of it, but it wasn't very impressive. We also never did it with anything made of glass; the cast typically steered away from glass drinking vessels as the faire grounds most mostly gravel. I have this really fancy looking, blue glass chalice that I now do it with. It's more difficult than a mug because the top is bigger and heavier than the base, but it sits perfectly on my head. I guess this just looks more impressive..... I don't have to worry about dropping it since 90% of the faire grounds are soft grass. I did this when I went to faire in the spring as well, so this has become how people recognize me. I love doing something relatively simple that others seem to think is difficult and are easily impressed by! I got my picture taken almost as much as the day before. I had a good time; and that's what counts.

In past I had begun learning to belly dance with the cup on my head. I couldn't do it this weekend because of the corset I had on, but I'm going to learn a little more for a belly dancer character/costume I may do in the future. The future where I'm comfortable showing off my stomach.... not sure when that will be, lol.

Unfortunately, the only bad thing about this weekend was what a poor excuse for a faire Esco really is. It was good to be able to get a faire fix relatively close to home, but it's not the real deal. The faire is tiny. There is ZERO street cast. They have a Queen that does walk around with her procession, but.... that's it. The guilds camp out in there encampments most of the time and go out to do a few interesting things. The guild I was hanging out with staged some bar fights and such, which is really interesting, but they don't really draw much of a crowd b/c they're not planning out well. They don't announce what's going on or anything. They have a "Battle Pageant" every day... it's..... different. It could be good.... I mean, it has potential. Unfortunately, it's more for the benefit of the guilds than the crowd. They announce things to the crowd, but you can never hear any of what they're saying. They make an attempt at dialogue to explain why they're fighting but you can never hear that either. I've attended on multiple occasions and it hasn't ever been better. All this faire seems to do is whet my appetite for real faire with atmosphere and presence. It doesn't help that they only do 2 weekends at a time.... it leaves no room for development and growth for those that participate. I know that for many I have met here this is their home faire: I'm sorry. I'm not trying to lessen the experiences many have had at this faire, but it's really just not enough for me.

P.S. I'm eagerly awaiting pictures from this weekend. I'll link or post some once I get ahold of them from others.

Halloween - cont'd (original costume pics)

Halloween '10 - Zombie Pirate / Beaten [Pirate-] Housewife....

This is my Halloween makeup without the rest of my costume. Essentially the makeup was the costume so it doesn't matter what I was wearing. In this outfit I look like a beaten housewife.

The rest of the day I was at the Ren Faire in Escondido, so I was dressed up as a pirate - I was supposed to be a zombie pirate, but the bottom layer of makeup I did, which included slightly greenish skin and a ton of discolored bruises, didn't really show up anymore after I put the blood over it. Initially the costume included an eye-patch as well - the idea being that my eye had been ripped out - but..... I quickly discovered that you have extremely poor depth perception with only one eye. :( If I would have been at GLMF it probably wouldn't have been a problem, since I know the faire grounds like the back of my hand, but at this faire it just didn't work. So I quickly ditched the idea patch.

I also got many random comments.... some complimenting my makeup, but many more joking around about woman beating; people telling me to leave that man and what not. I think the creepiest part about this was that I got hit on - A LOT. Apparently guys find women that have been beaten incredibly sexy..... that just disturbs me.