I’m writing this time from the hotel coffee shop.  This morning, I needed my phone alarm (although I woke without it yesterday), and I was a bit disoriented at first.  I really didn’t want to get out of bed to go to church, but it was easier after breakfast.  A taxi showed up right on time to take me to St. Francis Xavier church here.  It’s a lot smaller than St. Tim’s, but similar in most other aspects.  They were playing one of my all-time top favorite worship songs when I walked in, “Here I Am, Lord,” and I felt at home.  I’m not as hard on myself for not paying attention in church while I’m in other places.  Here, predictably, my thoughts kept drifting to Xena, but it wasn’t in a distraction sense.  I could compare the things I learned in church to the show and vice versa.  It did strike me during the consecration that here I am, spending all this money on convention tickets (which are well worth it), but I have the most precious gift of all waiting for me for free on the altar.

 

I hung out for a bit after the service and ate coffee cake, and then a parishioner offered me a ride back to the hotel so I didn’t need a cab back.

 

And, I’ve been here updating my journal ever since.  You know, when I first came to the convention, I was thinking that I’d experience everything in the moment and then write later.  Like Gabrielle said in Athens City: Academy of the Performing Bards: there’s a time to live things instead of writing about other people living them.  However, I’ve needed these intervals I’ve taken to write.  Writing after the fact is more of a chore; writing in the moment is a pleasure, and it helps me remember and understand all that’s gone before.

As I was finishing that last sentence, my new friend from the airport/Flagstaff came over and sat with me.  We had a delightful conversation that lasted over an hour.  I think I’ve made a friend, and I hope she comes to join the XOC.  We did swap email addresses.

 

When I got to the convention center, they were playing a trailer for a Xena movie entitled “Resurrection,” by XOC’s Shenanigan.  I’ve seen it once, but I was impressed all over again.  (They aren’t really making a Xena movie any time soon…so we fans imagine what it might be like.)  I had forgotten just how intense some of Xena’s battle scenes can be.  The power of the trailer just blew me away.

 

Daniel Sing, Ming Tien on Xena, got up to speak.  Today, everyone’s been asking almost exclusively Xena-related questions, and I’m absorbing every word.

 

Daniel Sing (in Ming Tien’s harsh, evil voice): You made me, Xena.  You taught me to be the man I am!

 

Ming Tien is an evil Chinese dictator who blamed Xena for making him who he was.  It’s another of the fascinating questions from the series—who gets which responsibility?  If you teach someone, how much responsibility do you have, and how much responsibility still belongs to the person you taught?  Daniel Sing said that Evil Xena was Ming Tien’s mentor, and so he was like the ghost from her past who haunted her once she had changed.

 

Should Xena have killed Ming Tien?  Lao Ma, Ming Tien’s mother, wouldn’t have wanted her to, and neither would Gabrielle, who had forged a kind of bond with Ming Tien, and who Xena didn’t tell she’d killed him.  However, Daniel Sing said that for Xena, killing Ming Tien was like squashing a ghost from her past.  (I thought Ming Tien needed to be killed for some of the things he said he’d done to his mother…we are not talking about a nice character.)  Once we thought Daniel had moved on to other questions, someone said, “Lucy’s on the phone!” and so we got to see him walk back and forth holding the phone to his ear.  Should Xena have killed Ming Tien?  Lucy: “She had enough time to think about it, it was a well thought-out plan, and she wanted to do the dirty deed.”

 

I got both David Taylor (Solan) and Daniel Sing (Ming Tien) to sign Mysanal’s poster.  Mysa, you were missed!  I met a couple of other Gabrielle/Joxer shippers during the weekend, and there were some Joxer videos.

 

We had a fanfiction tribute video, and then Steve Sears came out again.  Regarding fanfiction, he said, “It’s amazing how our little show that we were having fun with has inspired so many people to write.”  One of the age-old dilemmas regarding the arts has been how there are more people who have the flame that makes them want to write than there are jobs where they will be paid to write.  Fanfiction gives them a forum and an audience, and Steve said he was just awed by the way that they’d take the Xenaverse and run with it and develop it.

 

Fan: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Steve Sears: Simple answer: I wanted to be happy.  [My parents] didn’t want me to be them.  They wanted me to be myself, because that was the only way I could be happy.

 

We had a presentation by Zoe Bell, Xena’s stunt double.  I’d no idea what went into the fight scenes on Xena!  As a fan, I just got used to the way that Xena defies physics on a regular basis.  (Mysanal: “Science has no place in comics, except to make people radioactive!”)   But someone had to jump off all those things and get thrown into all those things, and Zoe showed us how it’s done.

 

Zoe Bell: I’m nineteen.  I just got paid to jump off a two story building.  This is fun!

 

Brittany Powell, Brunhilda on Xena, did the last presentation of the weekend.  She brought her son onstage.  He was adorable.  She talked about Xenites and charity, and about her own experience receiving charity.  She said that being on the giving end so much helped her when it was time for her to receive, because she knew how much it affects the giver as well.

 

We saw the phenomenon in full swing when Brittany Powell proceeded to auction off her bra to raise money for charity.  It went for more than four thousand dollars, easily the most expensive thing at the convention.  There was a woman with no inhibitions!  She was hysterical.

 

I slipped off without getting those last two autographs because the line was really long and I was hungry.  Then, came probably the best part of the convention.  I met up with fourteen other XOC-ers for dinner.  (“Party of fourteen?”)  (“Ah, so y’all are the horsetext board!”)

 

We were all on Xena highs, and we all knew each other.  It’s neat how you can share the kinds of things you can do through letters on a keyboard, and then suddenly have a face to match up, and how well you end up getting along with those people.  Or, at least I did.  I can’t remember when I’ve ever been so completely silly.  Early on, Twinkletoes made this joke that if we were getting to an uncomfortable subject (because we did…with fourteen people with such diverse opinions on life and religion, it was inevitable), she’d say, “How about the broccoli?”  She had this huge piece of raw broccoli she didn’t want to eat.  So it became all about the broccoli!  We’d pass it around and take pictures of ourselves pointing at it.  We all got camera-happy.

 

Oh, wow, how do I describe that evening?  We went around and said where we were from, and told a bit about our lives, although I think I got more of an impression of what people’s lives were like from the other sorts of things they said and the stories they told.  I’d be having a semi-serious conversation with the person on one side, and then someone would say or do something outrageous on the other side (Meg was great at that) and the whole table would burst out laughing.  Brittany Powell came through a couple of times, and we whistled and cheered for her.  We were so loud.  We made videos for a few of the XOC-ers who weren’t there while we were waiting for our food, and I wish we could’ve made videos for everyone.  I had so much fun.

 

Once we’d finally finished eating, telling jokes, talking, telling some more jokes, photographing ourselves with the broccoli, dancing, passing the broccoli around some more… (we were there for hours), we took group pictures, and said goodbye to those who had to leave and get to bed.  I didn’t want to stop hugging people.  Now all of your online posts are going to have more depth, but I don’t get to hug you.

 

Those of us who were left there, still wired on way too much Xena and caffeine to sleep (would that ever include yours truly) went over to another table and ordered drinks and talked some more.  You all have some great stories about nursing jobs!

 

Our slogan: What happens at the convention stays at the convention…unless there are photos and videos involved, in which case they go on the Internet.

 

Or maybe it’s “What about the broccoli?”  You tell me.

 

Once again, I did not want to leave, but Twinkletoes had to get to bed because she had an international flight in a few hours.  Twinkletoes, you’re amazing—you brought so much to the group.  Everyone broke up after that, and once again, I just did not want to quit hugging people.

 

On my way back, I ran into LadyKate waiting for a cab to take her back to her hotel.  So I sat down and talked.  We were discussing writing and agendas (Golden Compass, etc) and what it means to be a writer (since she’s a very talented fanfiction author), and a bunch more subjects.  Around one, another guest took her over (since the taxi company still hadn’t come), and I reluctantly said goodbye.  I wasn’t in the least tired, so I wrote letters and wrote on my computer for awhile longer.  I got more sleep than Lavender Jane, though!

 

This has been an amazing, incredible weekend.  It was worth every convention expense and every inconvenience along the way.  I’d say “I’ll do it again,” but I think every experience is going to be different.  This was special.