Oh my goodness, do I love cosplaying Sailor Mars. And do I *love* the resurgence of the Sailor Moon fandom. I'm not going to recount every time it happened, but there were quite a few times that I ran into other Sailor Moon cosplayers, and more than once we were the cause of major traffic delays as people stopped to snap our pictures. I've said it in almost every con report I wrote in 2014; I LOVE the resurgence of the Sailor Moon fandom.

The first person I ran into was my friend Doc the Stampede. Doc's one of the few friends I see more or less regularly (but still far too infrequently) outside of the con scene, and in fact he had been over my house not too long before for a s'mores cookout I had thrown, but I'll take almost any opportunity to hang out with him. We decided to roam the convention center together for a little bit, and poor Doc got to play "con boyfriend" and held my bags and pointed my camera far more often than I should have asked, but he was a wonderful sport about it.

Not long after that, my friend Aaron stopped me in the aisles to say hi. I never did make it over to his booth--Aaron doesn't just attend these shows these days, but works them as well--but I was so glad I got to run into him, as I hadn't seen him since 2007, I believe, despite repeated attempts to get together for a drink after work--my goodness, where does the time go? We couldn't really spend a lot of time together at the con, either, because as I said he's got his business to run, but it was so nice to speak and catch up, even briefly!

Doc and I continued on our way, and very soon ran into Penny--and just in the nick of time, too, as *both* snaps of my back bow decided to give up the ghost at approximately the same time, and I, ever the world's worst cosplayer, was stupid enough not to be traveling with at least a safety pin or two in reserve. All I was able to do was stare at my bow and curse--it was still so early in the day!--but lucky for me Penny is way better at keeping her wits about her than I am. She scrounged around the booths for the free swag the companies are always giving away, and managed to procure two pins to secure my bow to my back. Squirrel Girl to the rescue! Okay, maybe it's not as impressive as the time she defeated Doctor Doom, but I was still impressed. We decided to all walk on together.

Next on Crissy's Hit Parade was Lawrence Brenner, who I had originally met at Japan Day in 2007. I had actually run into him not too long ago; he had had a booth at Special Edition: NYC, and we had taken a few photos together there. We didn't really chat long here either, as Lawrence always has something important he has to do or someone important he's promised to meet. I had a few friends I was hoping to catch, myself, so we said goodbye and moved along.

Doc wanted to take some shots of Penny and I for his Instatwitter, or whatever it is the cool kids are using these days, so we tried to think of a place we could take some pictures without having ten thousand people in the background. Obviously, we weren't going to find anything like that in the Exhibition Hall, but then Penny remembered that there was a smoking area right off of the Artists' Alley, so we decided to head over that way. On our way out, I ran into my friend Greg. Greg's another (recent) local, so I had actually seen him not too long before at my Halloween Kickoff Party, but I had *never* seen him in his Ace Venture costume! I used to be a creepily obsessed Jim Carrey fangirl (seriously, when I was a teenager, it was The Crow and Jim Carrey all over my bedroom walls. And I wonder why people think I'm strange) so this was kind of a big deal for me.

As Penny had predicted, there weren't a lot of people in the smoking area just outside--probably because it was freezing! I've been to fall and even, sort of, winter conventions before, but they're rare: my main cons have always been in the summer, and, well, while the Sailor Senshi's fuku aren't all that skimpy, they're not exactly made for Antarctica, either. Penny did better than I did, possibly because she's not a giant wuss the way I am, but we got some pretty good pictures out of the deal. Nevertheless, we were grateful to go back inside.

Once inside we ran into Pete (not in costume today, the lazy bum) and Cheezeburger (who sort of was--he was wearing his kung fu outfit--have I mentioned he has a black belt in Wing Chun?). They were just on their way to interview D.M.C., from Run-D.M.C. Now, I'm about as knowledgeable about hip hop as I am particle physics (i.e., I'm aware they both exist), but I've actually heard of Run-D.M.C. because I've also been a pretty big Beavis and Butt-head fan at points in my life, and their Christmas special (yes, Beavis and Butt-head had a Christmas special, shut up, it's actually pretty awesome) featured "Christmas in Hollis", which if you haven't heard it is surprisingly charming. So I decided to tag along, so I could see someone in real life that I had heretofore only seen on a VHS tape. Why not, right?

D.M.C. was there to promote his new comic book, DMC, which is an oldschool superhero comic starring an alternate universe version of DMC fighting criminals, and let me just say, if you had asked me before that day, I never would have had D.M.C. pegged as a comic book fan before...but he is. He is a *real* fan, and I don't say that to get into any sort of "fake geek girl" debate. I'm saying it because if you watch his interview with Pete's Basement, you'll see how knowledgeable he really is, but much more than that is his enthusiasm. Hearing him talk, he almost sounded like he only became a world-famous hiphop artist as a "day job" so that he could, one day, follow his dream of creating a comic book! I tell you the absolute truth: I got goosebumps while listening to him. It was the most random, spur-of-the-moment thing I did that day, and I'm *so* glad I did.

I had arranged to do a photoshoot with David Ng at around 4 PM, and I still had some time to kill before then, so I figured I might as well return to the main Exhibition Hall to see what I could see. On the way through the corridor that links the wing that the Artist Alley is in to the main building, I ran into my friend Hal and his wife Babs, but the push of traffic was so strong (this was at the height of Saturday, so there were just thousands of people everywhere) that we only really had a chance to say a quick hi and for me to take a very blurry picture.

Roaming around the Exhibition Hall was actually a lot of fun. This entire weekend seemed to bring up a *lot* of the things I had been obsessed with in my early teens; when I got to the back left of the hall, there were a bunch of wrestlers doing signings, including Ted DiBiase. There was a pretty big line for autographs and pictures, and I had never been a huge fan of his (I've never been a fan of any "heel"--but had itbeen Shawn Michaels behind that booth I probably would have been camped out at 6 AM), his antics used to amuse the heck out of me (possibly because he reminded me of some of my father's Wall Street buddies from back in the day), but I figured, what the heck, as I passed by I called out, "Hey! Ted DiBiase! Can I shake your hand?", and he grinned and said "Sure!" and stuck out his hand, and I shook it. I then called my cousin Vanessa (who used to watch wrestling with me) and left her a "I just shook Ted DiBiase's hand!" voice message. I also passed Sgt. Slaughter, who was a little before my fandom time, but I've been trying to catch up on the 80s cartoons I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid, and I've enjoyed him in G.I. Joe, so I begged to shake his hand, too. What can I say, even I can be a little brazen from time to time.

In my wanderings I bumped into Pete, Cheezeburger, and Penny again, so I got to spend a little more time with them. It's been a long time since I've had a girl I could really attach myself to at a local con like this--I've got local girl friends who aren't geeks, and I have geek girl friends who aren't local, but rarely both, so it was just *really* awesome to have someone I could roll my eyes at whenever the boys had their tongues hanging out over something particularly asinine, but also someone to point with my eyebrows at something asinine *I* thought was worthy of dropping our own jaws. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it was nice to have, and be, a kind of wingman again. Penny's awesome.

It wasn't long before Dave texted he was ready for me, so I said goodbye to the Pete's Basement crew again and headed for the indoor Starbucks. I don't know how I managed to spot one face in the crowd of thousands that I mentioned earlier, but all of a sudden my head turned, and I said, "Chris??" Get this--Chris was the younger brother of my childhood friend Maria, who used to live (and whose parents still do) just down the block from me. He had also been part of the band another kid I knew from the block, who also went to my college, started while we were in our early twenties. People who have never been here, let me reiterate that New York City is huge , and New York Comic Con itself is larger than some colleges' student bodies. And yet sometimes, you run into people you know, just as if it were the lone grocery store in a town with a population of under a thousand. We really didn't get to talk at all because we were both on our way somewhere else, but I just thought that was SO cool.

Dave was waiting for me at the Starbucks. After we said hello, I decided to touch up my makeup (you run around a con all day, and some of it is going to wear off) before we started shooting. I knew how chilly it was outside, so I wanted to do it indoors, but there were no unoccupied chairs available. Well, I've never minded winging it, so I just sort of squatted down, and rummaged around in my bookbag so I could dig out my compact and lipstick. There really wasn't much I could do without a bathroom with a mirror and good lighting, so I shuffled all of my stuff back as best I could, and followed him outside to start the shoot.

Have I mentioned it was cold? I'm sorry; I know it seems like I'm harping, and it wasn't even really *that* bad--Dave's shot women in costumes outside in the snow . I'm not that brave. I don't know, I'm a naturally warm-blooded creature; anything under 80 degrees feels "less than hot" to me. And it was windy. But, Dave did the best he could with such a difficult subject; while we did get some "open air" shots (and I have to admit, the wind does make for dramatic hair and skirt effects), he was also kind enough to find at least partially sheltered areas outside for me to pose in.

We had kind of been sidling back towards the entrance with the intent of going back inside, but were still taking pictures as inspiration struck us, when I noticed a group of young teenagers (God, I feel old sometimes) kind of watching us. I waited until Dave had gotten his shot, and then I smiled at them--I wasn't sure if they wanted to take a picture, or what. The girl came forward and said, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't know you were out here! You--you dropped your wallet near Starbucks! I didn't know where you had gone, so I turned it over to the police. I'm so sorry!"

Sorry? What did she have to be sorry for? That was the most honest action I've heard of in years--and in New York, no less! I thanked her, then kind of turned back to Dave, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. He hugged me. "I think the shoot's over. Let's go get your wallet back." So we headed back inside, and asked the first staffer we encountered where con security was, and then headed up there (the collection of confiscated props was *enormous*, they were really taking security seriously this year), and explained who I was and what my wallet looked like, and they radioed the police to let them know I had come to claim it. Then they were kind enough to let me sit and wait. Dave waited with me, and kept my mind from worrying by talking about Lake George with me--we had just gone upstate together the month before--and showing me previews of the pictures we had just taken, and generally just keeping me from having to sit and fret alone. It really didn't take that long, but by the time I got my wallet back, I was mentally exhausted, so I bid Dave goodbye and decided to head home.

My adventures were not over yet! Who should I run into on the subway, but my friend Jesse, and two of his friends in full Lolita wear! Jesse hadn't been at the con (seriously, getting tickets was akin to winning the Publisher's Clearing House this year), but his two friends had come into town for it, so he decided to head into the city to hang out with them. And it's funny, too--the trains were running funny because they were doing construction on the Williamsburg Bridge, so it was a deviation from the norm for me to even be on that train at all! It was a neat little way to end my day.

Sailor Neptune, Sailor Mars, and Sailor Venus

The CUTEST Sailor Mars ever!

Sailor Mars and Super Sailor Moon

Me with Lawrence Brenner

Nuts? Squirrel Girl? Get it?

See what I mean about blurry?

This one's a little better, but the one I used above was the best of a bad lot.

OMG TERRY. (I wish I had put my heels back on for these shots!)

SO glamorous.