Sunday morning saw me waking up bright and early, as I wanted to have breakfast, pack up the room, get dressed, and stow my bags in the trunk of my car, all before meeting Dave and Avi for our photoshoot at 10 AM! God, we're masochists. Breakfast was fine, and packing went well even though I was trying to move as quietly as possible so as not to wake my roommates, but getting dressed was an exercise in logistics, as the giant pink cupcake that is Utena's Rosebride dress was NOT made for the narrow spaces I was trying to navigate! I did manage to get myself into costume more or less correctly, and then faced my next hurdle: hauling my bags to the parking lot while in what amounted to a formal ballgown and heels. Thankfully the hotel staff is used to such bizarre sights by now, and I was able to get everything stowed away without too much trouble. As a side note, I was pleased to see that when I went to put my contacts, my eyes looked clear and felt relatively pain free, so the damage I had done to them the day before wasn't lasting. Feel free to abuse your bodies, kids! (Caveat: Never listen to anything I say.)

We met up at the bottom of the escalators in the fountain room, and made our way to the third floor terrace. As we were passing by Otakon's photosuite room, the woman working the door shouted "UTENA! PLEEEASE come get your photos done in the Photosuite! I love old school shoujo!" Avi and I couldn't help grinning; it's nice when someone recognizes characters that are now 18 years old (holy carp, Utena's legal!) We told her we were on our way to one shoot, but promised to stop by later if we had time. Once we got to the terrace, Avi helped me adjust my costume (I had a heck of a time getting those little triangles pinned to my collar properly!), and we were ready to go.

I talk more about this on the Revolutionary Girl Utena: Dance Off photoshoot page, but this shoot ended up being one of the highlights of the weekend for me. At first, none of us *really* knew what to do--Dave has never seen Utena, and while Avi and I are pretty big fans, our characters barely interact enough to have any sort of chemistry, whether positive or negative, and they're never in these outfits at the same time. The most important thing that ever happened between Utena and Kozue was their duel, but we had no swords and weren't dressed for fighting anyway. I don't know how that clash ended up translating into "dance off!" in our heads (other than we're all children of the 80s) but it just sort of ended up unfolding completely naturally, and having that sort of back and forth collaboration totally on the fly...felt like a million bucks. I don't know how to describe it, the energy you get from creating with other people. It's not the same high I used to get from performing on stage, but it's very close.

Once we were finished with Dave, Avi and I headed back to the Photosuite to fulfill our promise to the volunteer who had called out to us. I had stepped inside of the Photosuite once or twice before with Louis, but they had always seemed super busy and there had never been anyone available to answer our questions, so we had never wanted to interrupt them and always decided to leave. This time, however, we decided to stick it out. It's actually really easy--you give them your name and they give you a number, and you sit on the sidelines in thoughtfully provided chairs and wait your turn. Once they call you up, they take a few pictures of you--or, in our case, about a *hundred* photos of you. The photographer who shot us ended up being incredibly nice, and took some photos of us together, then some pictures of Avi solo, then some pictures of me by myself. After a few shots of me, all of a sudden, every strobe light in the room started going off! I broke the cameras! All of them! At the same time! I don't actually know how I did that. I get that it was probably *some* sort of electrical problem, but really, that timing? What are the odds? It sorted itself out after a few minutes, and we were able to finish our shoot--but then our photographer called over ANOTHER photographer who he said would want to see us, and then SHE ended up taking a bunch of photos! Avi and I were really, really touched that everyone was being so nice to us--I guess giant walking cupcake dresses do attract attention.

After we were done in the Photosuite, we decided it was high time we took a *real* walk through the Dealer's Room, as we hadn't done any shopping at all during our mad dash for the stamp rally. On our way down, we ran into Serge, who I hadn't seen in a dog's age, and tasked him with carrying our love back to Cristi (who would have been EPIC in Shiori's Rosebride dress with us, now that I think about it.) Once we made it down to the Dealer's Room, Avi texted the other girls to meet up with us, and I texted Terry to see if he was free, too, and then we started our walk. But even in the Dealer's Room, people kept stopping us for pictures! I kind of love doing "big" costumes on Sunday, as so many people don't, so we're kind of a treat rather than lost in the crowd. Honestly I don't even know if people recognized our characters; I think they just liked our cupcake dresses. Anyway, we also dropped by Viz's booth again to say hi and bye to Tristen Citrine, since she had been incredibly busy the day before with all of the events surrounding "Sailor Moon Day", and Terry introduced me to the two sumo wrestlers who were guests of the convention. I'm pretty tiny in general; I felt absolutely miniscule next to the largest Japanese man to have ever lived!

Even with the resurgence of Sailor Moon, there actually wasn't a lot in the Dealer's Room that caught my eye, and sooner than I was ready for, it was 1 PM and it was time for me to head back to the hotel, gather up my guests, and get ready to go. In a way I was sorry that I wouldn't be able to see the girls off the way I had in previous years, but on the other hand, I was glad that I was leaving them while they were doing something happy and engrossing, so that none of us would have to sit around dwelling on how much we were (are) going to miss each other until next time. I hugged and kissed the girls, and made my way back to the Marriott.

Usa and Diego had a few things of their own to finish up before we could go, so I got a much-needed chance to rest my feet (and really, my whole body, the whole weekend had been nothing but "Go! Go! Go!" virtually non-stop) in the lobby. While I was waiting, I ended up texting with Chris, and he decided to swing by to keep me company while I waited. Since I wasn't sure when I'd have a chance to eat again, we took the chance to grab some lunch in the same hotel restaurant that I had been visiting for breakfast. It was really nice to just sit with Chris and catch up, and wonderful to be in a place where we could actually see and hear each other! We do keep in touch during the year (although I'm *such* a bad correspondent) but it was wonderful to be able to talk face to face. I was grateful that he kept me company, too. :)

Usa and Diego showed up before too long, and surprised me by saying that we were already completely checked out of the hotel, and ready to go! So we said our goodbyes to Chris, and headed out to the parking lot. Due to the payment system that was in place, we only had 15 minutes from when we entered and paid for the car to leave, so what followed was THE quickest clothing change while trying to maintain modesty in public EVER. Thankfully Usa was on hand to help me out of my royal cupcakeness, and I've certainly driven with wigs on before, so I just tossed my crown in the back of the car (...there's a sentence you don't get to type often), and we were on our way!

The trip back was just as pleasant as our trip down. Diego played us some wonderful music by Flight Facilities, who have made four mixes of four decades of music in the order that they came out, with quotes from the major events of that decade dubbed in. Each mix is like an hour long, and...maybe I'm a bit of a nostalgia buff, or maybe Diego just picked decades that I've always been interested in (how YOU doin', 1972 - 1982?), but honestly it was some of the best, most interesting music I've listened to in a LONG time. Between the music, the scenery--including the "super moon" that, no joke, rose on our way back, and the company, the drive itself was the perfect bookend to our vacation. We got back to Middle Village a little before 10 o'clock.

I was glad I had one more night with my Princess, seeing as how I ended up being so busy the entire weekend that we barely got to do any con stuff together. I couldn't stay up and play with them long, however, as I'm one of those idiots who thinks it's a good idea to go back to work the next day. I'm thinking I need to amend my policy in the future. If nothing else, I could use the rest. But luckily she was going to be in town for most of the following week, so we actually got to hang out together a lot, and reconnect--just like the old days.

Final thoughts: I'm glad I went back to Otakon again, it really is *the* big event of my year, and I've always been sorry to miss it (especially so last year, which wasn't for a fun reason.) I do, however, need to learn to take it easy; I felt like I barely had a single second that wasn't budgeted for SOMETHING. They were all FUN somethings, again, don't get me wrong, but it was a LOT of time and energy and I was almost dead on my feet by Saturday night. And while I know why I did three costumes on Saturday and if I had to do it over again I still would, I'm going to try harder in the future to make sure I keep to my 1-2-1 costume schedule, since it's apparently murder on my eyes. (I guess costumes where I don't have to change contacts and makeup wouldn't be so bad.) Next year is going to be our last year in Baltimore: let's make sure we do something for the ages.

A further shot of the Baltimore Convention Center

Me with the sumo wrestlers!

Avi takes a selfie with Tristen and me

Classic shoujo fans for life!

Teren poses with the Ouran Host Club

Avi and I showing off our ribbons

Usa's purty legs

Watching the moon rise

Serge is quite the charmer

O-P-I-B

Avi hits her seriousness limit

"Hail Hydra"

The background totally makes this!

The very picture of "too happy"

Utena endorses Diet Coke!

Diego, Usa, and I with the awesome Sailor Moon group we met in the lobby.

What a great group to meet before leaving Baltimore.