Dear Pennsic, Fuck You!

Fuck you for being so beautiful that everyday life looks like the color has been washed out of it. The grass was actually greener. The sky bluer. The people more colorful and expressive in their choice of garb and experimental with their hair, jewelry, and makeup. The music was sweeter. The drums pulsed in time to my heartbeat. The fires were brighter. The jokes funnier. The drinks more intoxicating. 

Fuck you for being so exhausting that I have never come home from a vacation so relaxed before. Seriously though -  heat and I don't play well together. "This is not the weather of my people" was muttered multiple times and yet there I was: Sticky, sweaty, moderately 

My people hail from Siberia and carry portable sunshades.

dehydrated from the previous nights alcohol, and still totally blissed out to be there.

Fuck you for introducing me to so many awesome people that I will miss them for another whole year. No really. Like - every single person I met was great. Ok, except that one dude....at the virgin sacrifice.....who couldn't take a joke. He wasn't so much fun but the other 12,000 people were pretty fucking great.

Fuck you for your fine and free flowing inebriates. My usual 4 o'clock glass of wine, drunk quickly in solitude over the kitchen sink in a last ditch attempt to keep from murdering my children, is lonely and flavorless in comparison with your delicious and often homemade brews and no, I still don't want to know what's in it or how it was made, REFILL PLEASE!

 Pappy's famous Moonshine. Guaranteed to put hair on your chest, make you forget the names of your children, and buy an $800.00 pair of boots from Son of Sandlar and think it was a steal!

Fuck you for helping me discover the answer to that annoying party question "if you had to eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?" Because it is bacon. Cast iron cooked bacon. Crispy, crunchy, salty, fatty, bacon. Mmmmm....bacon.

I heart bacon

Fuck you for showing me so many things that I really really want to be and do because now I have more things I want to be and do and well...you didn't know me very well Pennsic. If you did you'd know that I was already trying to be and do a great many things which will now be shoved back a few places while I figure out how to construct a loom in my basement and shoot arrows in my yard without killing my neighbors.

Fuck you for ruining normal men for me forever. As if the bar wasn't high enough now all men must wear armor....all the time....because it is so damn sexy the thought of it does funny things to my lady parts. Seriously though, most of these guys would just be normal guys in normal clothes at their normal jobs in their normal lives but slap on some armor and let them wail on each other with some bamboo and I am reduced to incoherent babble. 

You can shazam me anytime sweetie.

Take a normal guy, add a little Pennsic, and shazamm! Jason Mamoa.











I think I'm going to need a moment after the Jason Mamoa google images page I just scrolled through.

ok,

<stay on target....STAY ON TARGET>

I"m good now. Where was I?

Oh, Fuck that fucking harpist. Nothing has ever awakened me at 7am with a fucking smile on my face. Ever. How dare you.

Bitch.

And while I'm on music Fuck the Drummers! The party drummers providing sensual beats for the belly dancers and fire dancers and shit faced partygoers. The war drummers making my heart race with their deep inexorable pounding. Those fucking whackos who chased us off the hill at 3am with their creepy drumming in the mists and fog. I can not stand still when there is drumming. My hips sway. My body moves. I'm not saying I'm any good at that part but damn! I want them to provide a soundtrack to my life. Washing dishes and navigating Long Island traffic would be way more exciting with drummers.

Fuck you Pennsic for being so full of activity that I kept forgetting my camera and have no documentation of anything outside the camp!

And finally Pennsic - Fuck you for allowing me the space to reinvent myself.....as me.  

Pennsic me is awesome! She does pretty much what she wants. She doesn't wait on people out of obligation. She doesn't have to pretend to be anything she isn't for the comfort of others. She eats what and when she wants. She doesn't swallow 2 dozen supplements a day in a vain effort to manage bodily dis-eases. She doesn't even seem to feel the effects of them. Hypothyroidism? Whats thats? She stays out late laughing and drinking, she walks miles with no pain and no complaining, she gets up early, with no hangover, and more surprisingly - stays up and doesn't nap! Her brain produces witty comebacks and dialogues which are actually available for use by her mouth DURING a conversation not hours later wondering why she couldn't think of that before. She doesn't really care what her hair looks like because it is matted to her head with sweat and there is nothing she can do about it. She doesn't care what her skin looks like because sweat and mascara are a recipe for disaster. She doesn't take offense. She seeks only fun. If fun isn't happening over here....she goes somewhere else and doesn't feel guilt about leaving. Actually she doesn't feel guilt at all.

That deserves its own paragraph.

Fuck you Pennsic for showing me that I can live without feeling guilty about my every move. That I can be decisive and not look back. That I can live in the moment and not wonder how it might be different had I made some other choice.

One night while stumbling happily home through the mud I realized that, miracle of miracles, - I was happy. This is no small thing. I was HAPPY! I wasn't even drunk! I felt free. I felt like the person I always want to be. The person life usually doesn't let me be. And I realized that that is probably the reason that all the people around me seemed so fucking awesome too. At Pennsic they weren't defined by their relationship to someone else - mother, father, husband, wife. They weren't defined by their occupation or their station. They weren't defined by how they look (sweaty and muddy) how old they are (young at heart) or where they are from (because its all made up). And yet we were never more honest. The SCA allows them to be who they really are. The mundane world is the play. The masque. The SCA is where they go to be themselves and be accepted for it. Freak flag flying proud. And it worked its magic on me too. I've often wondered who I would be without the "s" word hanging around my neck dragging me down to dark dismal depths. STRESS. Without it I'm pretty fucking great too.

Normal Me

Me at Pennsic. Yes I have wings... And Abs.

So the funny part is - I was only at Pennsic for 3 days. 3 FUCKING DAYS. All this awesome was compressed into 72 hours (minus the 10 or so combined hours I bothered to sleep). 

There was a great deal of lead in to this trip. Many years of many friends telling me how great it is and how much fun I was going to have. How many times in one's life can it be said that the real thing not only held up to peoples opinions but surpassed it? Not many.  So now I am faced with the sad truth. Pennsic was awesome. And now it is over for another 49 weeks. I have many new things I want to do and more SCA events I want to attend and new acquaintances who I want to turn into old friends and have to figure out how to make it happen without spending any money but I think it will work out somehow because miracles do happen - even to me. Oh - and I have to get my husband armor.

So FUCK YOU PENNSIC one last time. Because it was fantastic and I can't wait to fuck you again next year ;-)

and FYI It is a truth which should be universally acknowledged that pretty much anything is more fun if you do it in a tent.