i'm hormonal, sorry

July 11, 2000

ShipperCon-Mission: Probable- Blow Up Iowa

I think my first official act of ShipperCon actually occurred in the Atlanta International

Airport on the tram to Concourse T. This guy got on and stood in front and just to the
right of me. He was about my age, sorta alterna-frat boy, tall, dark and slender. He had
clunky black shoes, celtic knot rings and a hoop earring. I was hooked. While trying to
keep the drool off myself I seriously considered going up to him and asking if I could
bare his children, and if not, could we just engage in some NC-17 activities in the mean
time.

Thus was unofficially born, The Über Hormone.

After my flight to Chicago, sitting behind the five year old Spanish speaking twin boys, I
debarked the plan and promptly saw half of Natalie's face. She must have seen me too
because at that second this piece of paper was shoved up into the air. I knew immediately
it was Larraq--that flesh coloured blob on the paper could've only been him. As I got
closer I saw that Nat had fashioned a "talk" bubble for him, with DECCA in it. Of course I
started laughing. Unfortunately Morgan Weisser wasn't on that flight for me to knock over
and then grope. *cough* Oh yes, where was I? Natalie's brother Nick found our way out of
O'Hare, after my commenting that it looked eerily like the Newark airport [I had to wonder
if Chicago and Newark were actually the same place] and then I got to meet Talyn. He
really is Talyn, no joke. At least Crais and his skanky pony tail weren't in the driver's
seat.

We drove to Natalie's house, with me spazzing at the sign for Aurora, IL and marveling at
all the buildings and general "urban-ness" of it all. Ok, so it was the suburbs. It's
still waaay more urban than lil ol' Tallahassee. We got to Nat's town, which reminded me
strangely of this one particular intersection in Valdosta, GA and in general of Shalimar,
FL. Natalie's mom is awesome, she's a great asset to Farscape. I immediately felt like
they were just an extension of my family, at least the side I like.

Natalie and I hit the road, me being Toll Queen for the entire trip. I cheated at one
point and ripped of Illinois with a Canadian dime. Suckers. The trip was pretty uneventful

until we hit Dixon, IL, the birthplace of Ronald Reagan. Natalie and I were both
*thrilled* with that, even more thrilled when the gas station we pulled up at was right across from the famous landmark. Whoo. We got back on the road, paying the toll again, and continued on what we thought was our merry way. WRONG. We hadn't taken into account Auctioneer Deputies of the Highway Patrol sitting on overpasses. Dang. So we got pulled over. I stood aghast at the system of tickets in Illinois...no point system, no going to traffic school,
none of it. Dammit, I'm moving to IL. Of course, being the somewhat dingbatty person I am,
I had to quiz Natalie about all this while Dept. I'm From Alabama, Illinois wrote our the
ticket in his car. This is where I introduced the Traveling Whores idea to the weekend.

See, I had this idea the day before to make a little sign to stick up in the back of
Talyn. Something like, "Iowa or Bust. We want to corrupt farm boys." or something like
that. Somehow "Traveling Whores" got thrown in the suggestion box as well.

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful, aside from me shouting "Hills" as soon as we
crossed the Iowa border. Natalie got a big kick out of that. I had to remind her that in
Florida, it's more like "hill"...we don't have these continuing things. The ones in
Tallahassee kinda resemble big dirt mounds. Early Native American engineering students no
doubt. And then I apparently channeled Jerry Seinfeld as we hit [damn, what city was that?

It smelled like McDonald's sausage biscuits on the way back] and saw this <does elaborate
hand movements> sculpture *thing* right by the overpass. "And just what in the hell is
that supposed to be?"

We approached Waterloo and then the real fun began. Negotiating three separate sets of
directions I managed to get us thoroughly lost. We stopped at a gas station to rest, I
used the men's room [yea! act of defiance!] and then we turned around and tried it again. And
again. Is it our fault that the exit that we were supposed to get on was over a freaking
river, and was one big "Get On, Get Off" turn? Apparently some evil little traffic planner
likes those darn things, we saw a couple more on the way back to Chicago. We were about to
turn around again when Natalie spots the exit that we were supposed to get off on, but on
a freaking different road from where it was supposed to be! For a good straight ten
minutes before hand there had been a steady stream of curses and expletives flowing from
Talyn...now there was complete silence as we stood aghast. We uttered a couple more to
make sure that wacky traffic planner could hear us in his cell in hell and then took the
exit. We ended up pretty much right in the Fairfield Inn parking lot. Talyn was happy.

The next few hours are a blur. Natalie started doing quotes, thank god she couldn't do
that on the drive up. I pulled out the *entire* Quote List that I printed out the day
before while my boss was on vacation. Gotta love the laser printer. Corde and Tinka showed

up and as I introduced myself Corde pointed at me and said to Tinka, "See, I told you!" I
shut up and tried to figure out what that was all about. Sarah got domestic on us and fed
us some yummy lasagna. We watched the Muppet Show to pacify Shaye. Too bad it was the
Liberace Dance Review, guaranteed to scare small children. But it was great snarking
material. We watched the Invisible Man...right? I do remember a comment that whathisface
had stolen Angel's hair and added waaay too much mousse to it. Then came the time we had
all been waiting for-FARSCAPE!!! I had the honor of kicking off the showing by yelling
"SEX!" and pointing at the teevee when the rating for the ep showed. It was all downhill
from there.

After that came the saga of trying to get the hotel teevee to mate with Corde's VCR. Then
Sarah and Natalie made the TV run, and after that things got really blurry. I think
everyone besides Shaye and I went on something called a Harry Potter Run. I have no idea
who this Harry Potter is...<snerk>

Cut to the next morning, post Shaye Heaving Saga. We trekked over to Sarah's house to
watch eps, where Hutch's Biscuit Versions arrived just in time. We ate Wheat Thins during
Crackers Don't Matter, watched Natalie, Sarah and myself thud repeatedly during A Bug's
Life, I got more obsessed with that thing John does with his thumb. More quotes were
taken, as were pictures. Apparently I could charge money or something for my facial
expressions. Who knew? We did a weird roundabout lunch thingy and ate lunch on the grassy
knoll exchanging stories of high school and whatnot. Back to Sarah's house, more eps.
During The Scene in AHR I had to lean foreword to see if there was any possible way I
could bend space-time to see under the sheet that was covering John. I made Sarah rewind
it so I could thud over his back too. <thud>

Oh frell, then we went to Pepper's for dinner. <shakes head> I don't know how much is
suitable to share...I made comments about condiments, flirted slightly with a waiter
[apparently name Mark, not Mike] and that resulted in someone going off and convincing
poor waiter dude to take a picture with me. I was too busy worrying about salamander
sandwiches or something at the time so I really had no idea what was going on until I see
Tinka across from me and waiter dude standing behind me and someone says to say "decca".
Instead of that nice smile I should have had, I now probably have this horrid gapping maw.

But later waiter dude dripped ice water on me. I think my look of ecstasy scared Rachel.
Sarah just laughed. Of course Shaye blames all of this on my one little margarita. Pfft.
I did get more mints than everyone else though =)

Back to Sarah's house, found out about the whore roundup in Chicago and Natalie was really
glad I hadn't made that sign, and found out from Sarah's mom that the waiter dude had been
a student teacher at Sarah's school Whoops. We watched a little bit more of the Biscuit
Versions I think before heading over to the Good Dairy Drag Queen. I didn't believe it was
a Dairy Queen, the ones I've seen all look like McDonald's or something. Corde and Tinka
freaked out the locals with their rendition of "Traveling Whore...No Gypsy" soon to be
appearing way way way Off Broadway.

Back at the hotel we finally got the teevee and VCR to like each other enough so Sarah
could show me a little bit of Prayer of the Rollerboys to further sink me into Morgan
Weisser Lust Land. [I *will* get that picture on Bullwinkle's before St. Louis, Sarah!].
Soon after I declared that I would not be quoted again for the rest of the night. Ha! Fat
chance. I showed my impression of all of us, in straight jackets, running around Bali
trying to catch our muses. I corrupted Dawson's Creek into Dawson's Crack and I think that
laid out everyone in the room. Whoops again.

Now to Crichton's Mom. We were talking about drama productions and such and I said that
the only role I think I could ever play was Mrs. Burnside from Auntie Mame [maybe Vera
too]. Since no one had really see the movie I launched into Mother Burnside's famous
speech from the movie, culminating in, "Mother of Jefferson Davis, she's passin' the fox!"

Somehow, somehow this all got twisted around to be Crichton's mother. She's just this old
cranky woman, wanting her feet rubbed, in the state mental hospital at Chatahoochee, blah
blah blah DixieCartercakes. Then while lying on the floor [the margarita having caught up
with me] I launched into Crichton's mom as Mrs. Robinson trying to seduce DK. Hell, I
*need* to get that on video.

We actually did get to Shippy topics, only for them to quickly degrade into me wishing for
Farscape Porn, or at least an TV-MA rating. Ok, it gets fuzzy again. Well, not really.
Just way to random and freaky to ever be brought up in polite company. We we finally spilt
off to our rooms the fun continued down at 320--a story that will just have to be posted
at the ShipperCon page.

Breakfast, for me at least, consisted of a tablespoon of Raisin Brain, a tablespoon of
Corn Flakes and ten drops of milk. Whee! See what waiting till the last minute does? At
least I had my apple while someone snagged the last croissant. <mock glare> We scared
more people at breakfast and generally hung out in the lobby until ShipperCon, for the
most part, broke apart. It was sad in two ways: We didn't want to leave each other. And we
didn't want to leave Iowa. See, told it was sad.

The Final Four invaded Pizza Hut and hatched plans to put the rest of the pizza under
Talyn's hood ala Rygel. Natalie didn't like that so much. Wonder why? We headed over to
gas station next to Taco John's where Talyn got his first bath from Auntie Sarah, we took
our V8 picture and the twins said goodbye.

Much babbling on the way home. Skanky girls at the McDonalds, where Käthe realizes that
Skanky-ness is a universal concept. Much hunting at the video store for Muppets from
Space. Natalie and I did the Big Sleep until noon, watched the Muppets and laughed ourselves
silly. I nearly had a coronary over Josh Jackson of course. We left for O'Hare, Nick found
us the Delta ticket counter and I bade them farewell. I knew I would be able to find my
flight, etc. with out any problem.

Only thing was that my flight was delayed. First an hour. Then more, and more and more.
The line at the counter looked like the ones you see on the news at Christmas time.
Really. I got on standby for another flight to Atlanta and they booked me on the last
flight to Tallahassee just in case I missed mine. That line was fun, I stood behind a Katie Holmes doppleganger the entire time and lived in fear of James Van Der Beek's giant forehead suddenly pulling a Godzilla and destroying O'Hare. Anyway, I luckily caught my flight to Tallahassee, only because it was pushed back an hour and a half. But that meant that I got to sit for that time in the airport and watch the Finlandia Frat Boy, hee.  I finally got to the Tallahassee Airport at 11:15 pm. I ignored the page from my mother, trekked out to my car and quickly took off my bra and drove home. I am Woman, Hear me Roar. We don't need no stinking underwire!

So that my friends, is a very schizo account of ShipperCon from Käthe. Hope you enjoyed!
Now please tip waiter dude. :)

Pictures, mine at least, can be found here. A ShipperCon page is being set up and will be linked when completed.

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