Targets, Physical and Emotional

[jamesq]

Dragonslayer was this weekend. A very fine event indeed. I had a great time, even though I didn't get the archery championship I wanted (othelianna did instead. Congrats), but there's always next year.

Bouquets are also in order for Kirk, mommaquilter's husband, who is the Montengarde's new armoured champion. It came down to him and malcolm1066, which was a hell of an occurrence. No matter which one won, I'd have been both happy and sad.

I didn't see any obvious problems with the event. Activities happened on time (which is pretty rare for the SCA) everything was well-attended. There was a surprising (but happy) absence of politics.

So what did I do?

Got off work early Friday so that I could get all my ducks in a row. Part of this was to see if I could salvage the camp bed I mis-made on Thursday (mis-measured the wood and how everything would fit together by the width of two 2x3s). Tried to quickly just chop the difference off the head board and foot board only to find that - because I designed the thing like a Chinese Puzzle Box - it caused a cascade of problems that all needed to be fixed. Certainly nothing I was going to get done in the hour of time alloted.

Packed all my remaining gear and waited for devoidofthought to come home, we then rushed off to the event (I had the gate float so figured they'd be in dire straights as far as making change was concerned - turns out the situation was tight, but manageable).

Camp was set up, I bought a throwing axe and then competed in the thrown weapon's competition. I did... OK, which I'll take seeing as how I had no practice at throwing weapons in the last year. The axe I bought also decided to mark me, cutting my thumb up pretty bad. I guess I belong to it now.

Afterwards a lot of people hung out at the bardic fire and told stories, sang songs, danced and drank and basically had a grand old time.

I too did some drinking. Given my mood of last week, I wasn't too sure that was a good idea, but it didn't bite me in the ass. I was happy drunk. Went to bed around 3:30 in the morning and damn near froze to death. Note to self - bring extra bedding to Quad War.

Woke up far too early for the aforementioned Dragonblinder tournament.

Aside: Dragonblinder is the name given to Montengarde's archery champion. The Dragonslayer is the heavy champ and the Dragonblade is the rapier champ. For awhile there we were calling the A&S champ the "dragonknitter", but it's actually the Emerald Rose. Completing the "rose" theme the Wild Rose is the Bardic champion.

Anyway, the tournament was good. It had the potential for very high point totals (I scored 40). My mood fluctuated a lot during that shoot. Sometimes I didn't think I had a hope in hell of winning. Other times I felt it was in my grasp (As ToT editor, I'm privy to everyone's actual scores. I was literally two arrows away from winning the tournament on my last end).

The good news is this didn't actually affect my shooting much - I shot consistently well, just not good enough to beat othelianna. Oh well, there's always next year. Plus I plan on getting a lot of practice in at Quad War.

Because she couldn't attend the evening court, there Excellencies held a mini court to present her with her championship. When told of her win, the refined Lady othelianna was heard to say "You're shitting me".

Afterwards was lunch, then the Hidden Treasures tournament. This is a roving range (like golf, only you're shooting arrows instead of swatting golf balls) with 22 targets. The vast majority of the targets were drawings of assorted Avacal personalities. I got to shoot at the visages of numerous friends.

I was even a target, which led to a dark moment where I got to kill myself. Not to many people hit me though, due do a deceptive range and weird elevation of my target.

I only wish that I could take everything I hate about myself and infuse it into a target I could aim at and kill once and for all.

Coming back I watched the heavy tournament. It was very good, though the initial scenario (modified Valhalla battle for those of you who know/care) was not very well considered. Thankfully they changed it for later scenarios so that it wasn't just a bunch of people standing around waiting to see which of vikvikingsson or HH Einar killed each other first.

After that I was feeling wasted. I went back to my tent and crashed for about 90 minutes. I was depending on someone walking through camp to announce court so that I could attend. Instead, my first indication that court was on was hearing the assorted cheering. I missed Morrigan and garething getting their grandmaster bowman medallions dammit.

I did manage to catch the rest of court though.

Later there was more drinking. The bardic fire was fun, but not quite as well organized as it was the night before. Saturday's festivities were more chaotic, but still fun. Especially seeing what a happy and hyper drunk devoidofthought is.

Myself? I'm worried that I made an ass of myself, but can't actually put my finger on anything I had done. I hope this is just paranoia on my part except for one horrifying personal paradox: When I don't think it's paranoia, it's usually just paranoia. When I second-guess myself and say "just paranoia", it's usually a genuine problem and not just paranoia.

I suspect that the reason I'm worried this time is twofold, one is my mental issues from Thursday night. The other was WS, a visitor who managed to creep a lot of the women out. I look at his behavior and think "there but for the grace of god go I". While I wouldn't have done the exact same things he did, the sorts of things I'm capable of doing when drunk are in the same categories. I really need to watch that.

It's annoying. I like drinking on occasion because it's generally a happy feeling. My inhibitions are lowered considerably. I don't sit in a corner worrying about everything I say and do. I can actually enjoy myself for a change. But I hate the downsides: Alcohol is heavy calories, so I can't do it very often if I want to lose weight. The amount of alcohol it takes to relax me pretty much makes me useless for anything else. There's a very real possibility that too many of my filters will drop and I'll turn into a creepy bastard who gets all grabby (So far, this behavior has restricted itself to people who aren't likely to get offended). I have to make a very clear decision: Am I drinking to get drunk or am I not drinking at all.

Mostly I hate that I need this crutch to enjoy parties to their fullest.

After another late night I again passed out in my tent. All night I kept waking up thinking that there was a draft in the damn tent. Finally, in the morning after the morning sun had warmed everything up and light was in the tent, I noticed why: I had opened a vent right next to my tent when I took the previous day's nap and had forgotten to close it. Just one of many minor yogurt-headed moves on my part this weekend.

Sunday morning I introduced devoidofthought to the SCA-Infinite-Goodbye. Where you're trying to leave an event but can't because you keep saying goodbye to everyone. Jannah said it best - Camping events are the best because they're the ones where you can keep the mundane world the farthest away. I suspect this contributes greatly to the infinite goodbye - you don't really want to go and you're looking for an excuse to linger.

I just wish I could have gone to catalytic and madeileen's BBQ too. Hopefully the two events won't collide next year.

Comments

[devoidofthought.livejournal.com]

I still think I made a complete ass of myself. At Quad War, I shall have to prove I'd have been just as much of an ass without the alcohol. Methinks the only effect the alcohol had was my inability to walk straight. :P

At least I provided entertainment :)

[jamesq]

Ass? I think not. Everyone loved you.

[devoidofthought.livejournal.com]

Well, I felt kinda dumb with all the comments the next day. Oh well.
It still won't stop me from being my wonderful daft self though *grins*

And I'm totally printing off Northwest Passage. And any other songs that I fancy singing.

I'm too easily amused, aren't I?