I didn't even know about this second Freakout of the summer until a couple of weeks before I embarked upon it. Apparently it wasn't common knowledge, as it wasn't supposed to compete with Vegas or some such reason like that. How I got included in the trip is rather a silly little story. In chat one evening DK was going on about fake cherries, and I seem to be the only person who agrees with her on the matter (if you don't know what fake cherries are, it's described in some Vegas post or other). Caly said something about how it "must be a California thing," as DK and I both hail from California (which apparently isn't common knowledge regarding me, as I go to school in Oregon and most people seem to think that's where I知 from). DK's response to this comment was "but Caly, Jana doesn't LIVE in California!!" this statement was immediately followed by no less than 4 people in a row informing her that yes, Jana indeed DOES live in California. *l* being the wonderful sweetheart that she is, once she realized I reside a mere 4 or so hours from the bay area, where the meet was to take place, DK proceeded to invite me along, an invitation which I accepted with much excitement, enthusiasm and quivering trepidation/downright fear. *l* you see, although I had already met Jarihn in real life once previously, out of the other participants I had talked with DK only on a couple occasions before, and not at all to just about any of the others. Two of them, Mori and Tannen, I had never even heard of. I tend towards shyness and am usually Very Very Bad at talking to people I don't know, so I would have been nervous enough meeting with even a group of people I had talked to online a great deal. This was people I had never or barely talked to online who all knew each other fairly well. But I swallowed my fear and boarded a greyhound bus at 8:10 AM of august 4th in Sacramento, CA.
Jumping ahead a bit, I just have to say that my fears were absolutely unfounded. I have always thought that I am bad at talking/interacting with people, but after this trip I知 beginning to suspect it was simply a lack of sufficiently freaky people to interact with that was causing this problem. I first began to realize this sometime the evening of the first day when DK was driving jar Mori and me back to her house after Great America. I was sitting in the back with Mori and rambling on about some nonsense or other when at a stoplight DK turned to me and said "Jana, breathe! I thought you said you never talked!" *g* (and yes, she did actually call me Jana. for about the first half of the trip she called me Jana or, more often, Janavoo, and the last half it was usually Les or Lizardly *l*). So anyhow, the trip was full of wonderful, amazing, awesome people, and even though I might have been a little quiet at first (as in maybe the first couple of hours or so *g*), I never really felt awkward or uncomfortable.
I was picked up at the bus station by DK and Cindra. I can't remember how much of this has been explained already, but this meet consisted of a few different "types" of people. There were the out-of-town internet people: jar Mori Tannen and me. There were the local (bay area-ish) internet people: DK, noire and Vel. possible Mikel should be included in this category, but I知 not quite sure. There were the local semi-internetish people, who may have come into chat at one time or another but are rarely seen (although I suppose many of the previously mentioned people are rarely seen, as well). Cindra I believe is in this category. Prolly a few others, too. Then there are the local people who have never really been online. This category includes I think Guerin, Brian, Anna Marie, and possibly others. It痴 all very confusing. All the local people, internet or otherwise, went to high school together. But I digress. As I was saying, DK and Cindra picked me up at the bus station. After talking to the two of them for a bit, I noticed something a bit...odd...about Cindra. For a local San Jose girl, she sure seemed to have a strange accent. I couldn't quite place it, but it seemed vaguely Shakespearean. This did not seem right. But as I knew nothing at all about Cindra or who she was, I elected not to say anything, and managed to ignore it except for occasional moments of confusion. About 4 hours later, with Mori unable to keep a straight face any time she opened her mouth, she finally gave up and reverted to her normal voice. By this time I had pretty much gathered that she was messing with my head, especially after joining the girls in a little game played with poor confused Mori. *l* it went like this: every time one of us girls said something, if one of the others touched her nose, the speaker would have to repeat what she just said. I was a bum and didn't always play along, as I had just met Mori and felt a little strange playing mind games with him so quickly. I think he was plenty confused anyways, what with the other girls playing properly and me repeating myself half the time and the other half randomly exclaiming "no, I don't want to!" *lol* poor Mori.
I think most of the other noteworthy events of that day have already been covered by noire and jar, my illustrious colleagues. There was Great America and the viewing of Ever After. Oh yes, we also stopped into chat for a bit. Everyone chatted using my handle, and the people there had no clue who was talking at any given moment. *l* it was fun.
Next day was Chuck E. Cheese, rush hour 2 and pictionary at Shellie痴 San Jose house. Also already been covered. Although I have to say that it was so much fun playing in the big jungle gym type play structure at chuck e cheese! Jennie and I went in first with a couple of her little cousins, at least I think that's who those kids were. *l* DK is 5 feet tall and I知 5'1, so even though we were a bit over the size the thing was intended for, we still managed to fit rather well. When we got the boys in, though, it was hilarious. *g* I believe they're both over 6 feet (hmm, could be wrong, I知 not sure), and watching them crawl around in this thing when they're about three times the size of the little kids we encountered was quite amusing.
Before I go on, I have to say some stuff about Mori. Mori is at least a foot taller than me. Mori weighs less than I do. He is the skinniest person I know. The boniest, too. Mori is very ticklish. As far as I was concerned, Mori was a human target. *bg* the first day or two he was relatively safe from me, as I didn't know him well enough to torment him terribly yet. However on a trip like this, you get to know people fairly well fairly quickly, so it wasn't long before I was tickling him mercilessly. Over time tickling joined with more violent pursuits and it wasn't long before we were both beating each other up royally. *g* as one freak put it, there was always a steady steam of "ows" coming from wherever the two of us were. *l* I miss my human target. *sniffle* don't feel too sorry for the boy, though, he gave as good as he got. He can be quite a dangerous target, actually. To himself and others. Having so many sharp edges is rather a liability. Whenever I caught him by surprise and tickled him, he would twitch, flailing his elbows (and whatever other limbs happened to be available). His elbows are deadly weapons, let me tell you. I still have at least one bruise from them that I can see. Also, even though I outweigh him, my sheer wimpiness caused me to be on the receiving end of most injuries distributed between the two of us. Which was fine with me, because the pain was only temporary, while the guilt I could then make him feel was more long-lasting. *weg* the first of these occurred at the campsite, where he shoved me over and made me fall down in the dirt, scraping up one hand and ankle, and getting quite dirty. To be fair, he wasn't _trying_ to get me to the ground. Not this time at least. It was simply momentum that carried me over. Get him on a sandy surface, though, and it's another story. On such innocent places as beaches (the real sandy kind, not the rocky kind that we found while camping. although he did knock me over in a tackle on one of the rocky beaches, too, but that was semi-unintentional) he has no qualms about knocking poor small female type people over. Many times. Over the course of the trip he also managed to hit me in the face, poke me in the eye and elbow me in the gut, as well as several previously mentioned random elbow attacks. Admittedly, most of this was probably deserved. Well, not the eye poking. I was innocently standing inside a very dark redwood at the time. Or the gut elbowing, as that was the direct result of his knocking me over on the beach. Besides that all the minor injuries occurred when I provoked him. *g* hmm, I can't think whether I知 leaving anything out about Mori. Other than the fact that he's collapsible. *l* seriously, he can fold himself up until he occupies almost no space at all. I think I got some pictures of that, so if you haven't met him you can see what I mean. Once I get my pics developed and online, that is.
On a side note, Jarihn is also quite ticklish. noire exploited that much more than I did, but I did have some occasional fun. *chuckle* he doesn't react nearly as noisily or explosively as Mori, but it is quite amusing to tickle him and watch his face as he tries desperately to hold in his laughter.
Hmm, ok, I致e gone way off track on some weird tangents, so where was I? I think I was on day 3. I don't think I really have anything to add to day 3. That day involved picking up Tannen at the airport and taking him to the outback steakhouse. Oh yes, that night I went with noire and Mikel to noire's house to pick up some stuff for camping. There I met Rhodric. Rhodric the cat, that is. I must say, it is quite funny to hear noire talking to her cat. "Rhoddy!" she'll say, in a sweet, crooning kind of voice. "Come here sweetie!" or when he misbehaves she'll say in a short, sharp tone "bad Rhodric! What are you doing!" every time I heard it, I blinked in bemusement, until I remembered she was talking to her cat. *lol*
Hmmm, day 4, camping. On the drive up I wore jar's infamous sandals, the first of his communal property to be "borrowed", into McDonald痴. The reason this is funny is that his shoes are about twice as big as my feet. But I had taken off my hiking boots because my feet were hot, and my own lovely little sandals were packed away. As I was too lazy to put my boots back on, I just wore his sandals into the place. Funny thing was, nobody in the other car even noticed. *l* until we got to the campsite and I was still wearing them, that is. Then I had to put up with being photographed.
Speaking of photographs, I got my pictures today!!! *big happy grin* I知 not sure when they'll be available for viewing on the web, but hopefully sometime soon. I知 so excited, I already have the first roll organized chronologically into a photo album. *g* I知 considering just staying up all night and doing the rest, but I think I should get some sleep.
I値l be writing more later, at least so I hope and intend, but for now I値l just post what I have.