I splurged on a cab into the city Saturday morning because it had been absolutely pouring at 5:30 AM and still looked threatening by the time I wanted to leave at 9. The cab dropped me off at Pier 94 on 54 th Street and 12 th Avenue at 10 AM, and I expected to waltz into the front door as I had last year--I hadn't even brought flat shoes to change into, because I didn't expect to do much walking aside from the con floor. Oh ho. No. There was a line--a long line. They had just opened the door, so the line was actually moving as I started walking in the opposite direction to find the end...and I still ended up on 60 th Street and 11 th Avenue, fifteen minutes later. That's seven friggen blocks! While it was moving! Where must the end of the line have been at 9:45 AM? This was insane. Nevertheless, as I said, the line was moving at a brisk walking pace, so I actually made it *back* to the front entrance and inside the building at a little after 10:30 AM.

I asked the first staff member I saw where the line was for NYCC tickets, and he told me...but he also told me that the line was closed because of overcrowding, and that it wouldn't open again until 11 AM. Uh, all right. Well, I walked over there anyway, because I wanted to make sure I knew where it was, and also so that I could get on line at 11 AM--only to be told by another staffer that we weren't allowed to wait near the line. That's fine--there are plenty of people in beautiful costumes for me to photograph while I wait, there was plenty to keep me entertained in the meantime. However, I'm sure you can guess what happened next...

Meanwhile, while all of this was going on, the con staffers and the Pier's security were desperately trying to direct us--only they didn't have a megaphone (there had been one earlier, when they had been telling people to come back at 11, but it never reappeared--God knows what else was going at the con that took precedence), so no one could hear them, and they didn't have a ladder, so anyone shorter than 6 feet couldn't see them. The one thing I *did* hear was that if we didn't step back, they were going to close the line again--the trouble is, again, no one in the *back* could hear them, so when the people in the *front* tried to step back, the people behind them almost got crushed. And I can tell you this--if they had announced that the line was closed, there would have been chaos. As a *best* case scenario, no one would have moved. Worst case? I don't really want to conjecture.

A little after 11:30, I was finally in front of a "hands-up" barricade. The security worker signaled me and the teenager next to me to go through; I tried to tell him that the teenager's dad should go with him instead of me (what the heck, I'd waited this long, I could wait a little longer) but security was so sick and tired of hearing from people that they just nudged me forward. I had been talking to the dad a bit while we had been in the crush, so I yelled over my shoulder that I'd keep his son company until he was allowed to catch up to us. He joined us about five minutes or so later, and he turned out to be really nice, so we chatted for a bit. He and his son were on line for *Saturday only* tickets. I cannot imagine waiting on a line that long and that crazy for *single day* tickets. What is happening to New York Comic Con?? (But of course, I myself am part of the problem. Though at the very least, I will never, ever, buy tickets second-hand.)

Ha. We shuffled along in that line forever . We weren't even halfway through that second part, before a staffer came along (we just happened to be at one of the "ends" of that particular lane, or else we never would have heard her) and told us that 3 day passes were sold out. The third guy on our little quartet (they made us stand in pairs) and I looked at each other--he had also been looking to buy a 3 day pass. What would we do now? A 4 day pass...wasn't what I was looking for, but what else was there? As it was, we only discovered once we were online that passes bought at Special Edition were $5 and $10 more expensive than they had been online. If I had wanted to go for only two days, it would cost me $110...which is $25 more than a 3 day pass, and only $5 less than a 4 day. Reed Pop is virtually printing money at these rates. I guess I could only go one day...maybe Saturday, when most of my friends will be there, but also, when everybody else and their mother would be as well. Or, worst case scenario, not go at all--and have waited on this godforsaken line for hours for no reason.

We inched forward. It was closing in on 2:30 PM when our little band got to the front of the line. I told the father and son to go ahead of me--after all, they only wanted single day tickets. After they had left, I turned to the staffer who was standing at the end with a clipboard, and, wanting to get the worst over with, I asked, "So, can I ask...what's left?" "Oh," she said, "everything except 3 day. That's the only thing that sold out." The guy behind me and I broke out into nervous, hysterical laughter, and fell into each other's arms. I don't think I realized how badly I wanted to go until that moment--although, really, at least part of it was not wanting my efforts to be in vain. The lady tapped me to go ahead. I turned to the guys behind me, bowed, and said, "Gentlemen, it has been an honor and a privilege." I stepped up to the table, told the cashier I wanted a 4 day ticket, handed her my credit card...and the computer systems went wonky. I may have blacked out for a second, but fortunately it was just a minor hiccup that resolved itself almost immediately. I got two confirmation e-mails from Reed Pop later that day, and I should probably check and make sure they didn't charge my credit card twice, but at that point, I didn't even care. I had won. I had been in that line for three and a half hours; I had done little else besides wait on lines for four. It was finally time to enjoy the con.

I texted my friend Penny as soon as I was free of that hellacious line and told her I was on my way to the food court to meet up with the DC cosplayers. She texted me back that they photoshoot had moved outside to a grassy area near the docks, and had already started. By this time I had been on my feet for so long I was actually limping, so once I got to the lawn I took off my heels and ran through the grass barefoot, bird poop be damned! It was easy to spot Penny; she was the Zatanna hooping in the middle of the park! I hugged her, dropped my bag, stepped back into my shoes, and jumped into the photoshoot. There were so many people! The photoshoot was run by a cosplay group called DC Cosplayers East, and I have to say they were *the* most organized I've ever seen. The photoshoot actually had a "director" of sorts that would give us directions via a microphone, everything from telling us what pose the photographers wanted, to breaking us up into subgroups, to telling the taller cosplayers to move behind the shorter ones. It was SO well run!

Before I could get inside, however, I ran into Brian Ngai! I had met him at AnimeNEXT the year before, albeit briefly, and said hi to him at New York Comic Book Marketplace in February even more briefly, but this time we had a little more free time at our disposal, and he asked me if I'd like to do a shoot with him. Would I? The "hall pics" he took of me at AnimeNEXT came out so beautifully, I was dying to work with him! Penny had some stuff she really wanted to check out so she headed inside, but I pleaded I'd text her just as soon as I was done. The red garage doors that lined the entrance made for a surprisingly good neutral background, and Brian was full of pose ideas, which is perfect for cons where you're tired and you can't think of a single thing to do besides stand there. And just as I was finishing up with Brian, I spotted Mike Fischman walking by! After I was done, and ran over to hug him and Julia, his girlfriend who I hadn't met yet, but had heard many lovely things about. We spent a little time catching up, but they were on their way out and I still wanted to catch up with Penny, so we promised to look for each other the next day and said goodbye.

Which was *super* good for me, because there was one artist I wanted to see more than anybody else--my friend Vinnie Tartamella! He was sharing his booth with yet another beautiful woman, Solo Darling. Boys, let me tell you: it used to be in the old days that if you wanted to "get chicks", you learned a musical instrument, preferably the guitar. These days, get into comics, and unless you ruin it for yourself by having absolutely no sense of personal hygiene, or the words "fake geek girl" ever come out of your mouth, you will be *surrounded* in one form or another by beautiful women. I'd be tempted to mind (I am SO outclassed it's not even funny) but the ratio of nice, funny, and kind women I've met to mean and catty ones has to be like 7 to 1. There were worse odds in high school. Solo Darling was one of the nice ones, and didn't seem to mind that I blurted out, "You are SO beautiful" before Vinnie even had a chance to introduce us. I'M SO AWKWARD!

Penny was starting to get a little hungry--it was around 5 PM at this point, and we had all skipped lunch--so we decided to leave the con and see if we could find some reasonably priced food nearby. We met up with Nick again before we left, and invited him to come with us. He had some time before he was supposed to join the rest of his group at Applebee's, so he agreed to come along. Of course, there's nothing except car dealerships and residential areas in the immediate vicinity of the Pier, so we ended up walking to 9th Avenue and wandering around. Penny got pizza and then smuggled it into McDonald's where Nick and I got burgers and we could all sit in peace. You know, my feet had been hurting all day, but I don't think I realized just how much until I surreptitiously removed my shoes under the table. Big mistake--I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get them back on! The entire day was a lesson to me: NEVER travel without a pair of flats in your bag, no matter HOW comfortable your heels seem before you leave the house, or how little you *think* you're going to be wearing them.

That bar ended up being Gossip Bar and Restaurant, right next door. The front was almost completely open, and a man (who I believe was actually the owner, or at least manager, though I thought he was just a patron at the time) saw me craning my neck to see if the race was on--it was, but only on one screen. He asked us what we were dressed up for (as we were still wandering around as Robin and Zatannas) and we told him, and then I said I was looking for a place to watch the race, and he motioned me inside. The staff was really nice--they saw that we wanted to sit together, so they sat us in a booth even though we weren't ordering any food, and I told Nick and Penny that anything they wanted was on me, in order to thank them for keeping me company. The jockeys mounted their horses at 6:30, the bar tenders turned all the TVs over to NBC, and what followed...I can't possibly describe. If you're into horses, you watched it; if you're not, it would take more words than I have space for to explain. But American Pharoah ran a gate-to-wire finish that had the entire bar cheering, and me collapsing in happy tears on Penny's neck. I called my mom and she was crying as well. I called my dad and he might actually beat me if I said that he was as well, so I won't. Even without having been there, it was an incredible, incredible moment, one I'd been waiting for all my life.