Friday, June 12th started the way most of my con Fridays do; I got up, I went to the beauty parlor and got my hair straightened, I got into costume, and I drove to the con. I was about an hour out on the road, keeping up with traffic in the left lane of the highway, when all of a sudden, it seemed like all the light and color in the world started to...dim, for lack of a better word. I didn't feel vertigo, exactly, I just felt...funny. There's no other word for it. But I definitely didn't feel like I was in control, and I switched to the right lane as quickly as I could, so I could pull over. And as I did, the feeling lifted. I started driving again, and as soon as I'd get to my top speed in the left lane, it would return. It was the oddest thing. So I didn't make as good time down to the con as I would have liked, because I had to do about ten miles per hour below the speed limit for the rest of the drive.

As we made our way around the con I was on the lookout for cosplayers to photograph--there were so many Sailor Moon cosplayers I ran out of cards before the end of the day! Lesson learned: bring ALL your cards to the con, and portion them out per day, don't just grab a handful for the entire weekend. We also took a turn through the Dealer's Room, where I broke my own rule and bought something the very first day: the rest of the Absolute Boyfriend manga, which I had been looking for at AnimeNEXT the year before. We also grabbed a quick bite to eat in the food court, although there were no tables left so we ended up having an impromptu picnic on the floor. On our way out, we ran into Ranma, who was also looking for cosplayers to photograph, as part of his coverage for Anime Jam Session.

As afternoon turned towards evening, I got a text from Doc, saying that he had decided to share a ride with our friend (and his coworker) Tony home, who lives about five minutes away, so he could pop over to the convention and check it out for a few hours, since this was going to be the last time AnimeNEXT was going to be held in Somerset. My stomach was informing me that it was dinner time, and rather than trek to any of the neighboring restaurants, which were sure to be full of cosplayers, we made up our minds to eat in the surprisingly empty hotel restaurant located in the DoubleTree. The food wasn't bad! I have no idea why it was empty. The service wasn't the greatest, but honestly by this point I was so happy to sit down (even with gel insoles in my shoes my feet were *still* killing me!) I didn't care--and anyway, Doc's and my conversations always end up taking several hours anyway.