Current mood:	tired
Current music:	Matsui Keiko -- "Light Above the Trees"

I can make a longer tournament post than Lara.
Like Lara, I will also LJ-cut this for length. Short version: I had a great time being with everyone, although a lot of things surrounding the trip weren't that great. I'll have a separate pic post later, although I didn't take that many photos because I was too shy and my camera was too old and too slow to be really spontaneous about the photos like everyone else was.</p>

I woke up Thursday morning having actually gotten a good night's sleep, which surprised me given how big of an event this trip was to me. I hadn't done any actual packing yet, but I was leaving in the afternoon, and I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to bring anyway. I wound up skipping my afternoon class just to make sure I'd have enough time to leave Toledo by early evening, to help me stick to my initial timetable.

Of course, there were other things to do before packing, and I'm going to make like Keith Olbermann here and present my list of nominees of This Trip's Worst Persons in the World. The bronze goes to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, who I really shouldn't heap much crap on them considering they lent me a car with unlimited mileage for just $25 a day. That being said, for one thing, you'd think it would be common sense for them to make sure that customers travelling as long a distance as I was get cars with cruise control. Seriously, you don't want to know how bad my leg hurts even twenty-four hours after getting home. Secondly, the car they rented me, an otherwise fine-looking Kia Rio, had a problem with the driver's side door closing firmly, meaning that for a long time there I had to deal with the car beeping at me nonstop. Finally I just got out some Handyman's Secret Weapon (duct tape for those of you lacking culture) and taped the sensor shut, solving that problem. (Though causing a problem later on when I removed the tape and found it left gunk on the door frame I had to scrape off with my fingernail.)

Anyway, the trip down itself was kind of okay. I'd cut CDs of all the ITG1 and ITG2 music (as well as a couple of discs of my DDR favourites) to listen to on the trip, and I have to say that a lot of ITG music is perfect to listen to while driving down the highway at night. (However, one seriously has to resist the temptation to floor the gas in that one section of the original VerTex. Yeah.) The big problem, though, was that Yahoo! Maps told me the trip would take ten and a half hours, but the trip actually took close to fourteen. I'm pretty sure why this is; while the speed limit on I-77 going through West Virginia is 70, nearly every mile you have to slow down to 55 because the highway just keeps weaving all over the place. Don't even ask me how many times my ears popped from all the altitude changes there; I lost count somewhere in the double digits.

Originally I thought I would catch a hotel room on the way there, but I had so much adrenaline that I wound up going straight through to Raleigh. I should mention here that the further south I got, the more beautiful the highways were; up here in Northwest Ohio (and even the parts of Michigan I travel going to Ann Arbor and Westland) it's mostly farm country around the highways, whereas it's mostly forests and mountains surrounding the highways once you cross the Ohio River. However, the drivers also get dumber and dumber; I swear that no one in North Carolina knows how to read a speed limit sign, because nearly the whole time I was there everyone around me was going at least fifteen miles over the posted limit. Seriously, what the heck is up with that?

I finally got to my hotel, which brings me to the Silver award for This Trip's Worst Persons in the World: Motel 6. Thirty-two bucks a night for two full beds isn't that bad, granted, but when I got to my hotel room half of the light fixtures didn't even have bulbs in them, of the ones that had bulbs half of those wouldn't work, and the remote control for the TV was busted. I also never got any shampoo, and I hadn't brought any shampoo with me expecting the hotel would furnish it. (All the hotels I've stayed at before have done so.) The worst part, though, was that the place was just scuzzy. Seriously, half the time I drove into there, there were multiple police cars lined up there for something, and multiple times my sleep was interrupted either by people screaming or threatening to call security on other people.

(If I'd only thought to ask local people there about hotels, I would have known that there was a Super 8 literally across the street from the arcade where the tournament was being held, in a much nicer part of town, whereas the Motel 6 was a twenty-minute drive away.)

(Oh, and there was a Bible in my hotel room, so even if Sterling wasn't there in person, he was there in spirit.)

I tried to crash once I got into my hotel room, but it was early morning at this point and the one item I'd forgotten to bring with me was my sleep mask. I did get some sleep eventually, and woke up near sunset. At this point I got around and called Lara, who said that she and her friends were at another arcade at the moment, and of course I'd only thought to print out directions to Ro's since that was where the tournament was being held. She said that everyone would go to Ro's eventually, though, so I should just go there.

When I hit Ro's there were a couple of younger kids on the ITG2 machine, both of whom were certainly doing a lot better in terms of scores than I could ever do. A woman was there was well, who introduced herself to me as Katya. She and I talked a bit, and she talked me into playing a set on the machine, and of course she kicked my butt good. (For those of you not in the know, Katya is 40. Maybe there's hope for me yet if I just stick at this stuff.) A few minutes later Brady showed up, although at first I mistook him for Kyle. (Probably because Brady still has awesome hair, unlike Kyle. >;E)

Eventually a whole group of people showed up, though, including Lara and Peter. I ran to Lara and hugged her right away, and I think I might have missed Peter as he came in because as soon as I got done hugging Lara, Peter was right there next to me. I guess there was a bit of a disconnect there, because Peter's most recent avatar of himself doesn't look much like him. Anyway, we chatted for a bit, but eventually people said they wanted to head to a nearby restaurant.

Now, I had been subsisting on vending machine food since I left Toledo, which probably wasn't a good idea to start with, but now I could look forward to a decent meal, right? Wrong. The place we went to, the Andy's of Jboy's Reactor Expert Double video fame, was a cheesesteak place that looked like the few possibly vegetarian items there (french fries, grilled cheese sandwich) were probably cooked in the same fat as non-vegetarian items, so I just wound up having a strawberry shake and more Dr. Pepper than I'd had in probably the last six months.

I shared a table with Peter and his boyfriend Eric, although eventually Irish came and sat in on our conversation for a bit. We did talk a lot about recent Internet drama, with me having to coach Peter on argument structure after he got caught making a pretty vague claim about big companies being inherently evil on DDR Freak. Of course, it was only after the conversation was over that I thought of how he could tilt the argument back in his favour by pointing out that a hyper-capitalist society such as ours has destroyed the idea of big companies being able to pass values onto customers by desensitizing people to the point where you can charge them whatever price you want for a product (and pocket all the profits for yourself) as long as you market to them that they're getting a good deal, thus cutting out all incentive for big business to pass on bulk savings to consumers (with Wal-Mart being a good example of that principle in action), but I never thought to bring it back up to Peter when I saw him later on.

Along those same lines, talk did eventually turn to the recent LJ-drama between Josh and I that started on Jboy's LJ, and it was a bit uncomfortable to be discussing these things with Josh in the same room. (Although I have to say that Josh doesn't look anywhere near as scary in person as he does in photos.) The day before I left for the tournament, in one of my classes we'd actually been discussing the roots of modern humour in medieval carnival celebrations, but after some of the comments I received to my more politically-minded musings in Jboy's LJ, I thought it best not to try taking my points to that level, and instead tried explaining some of the points using Ruzy's sense of humour as an example. I hope it worked.

Anyway, we all went back to the arcade, and after leaving Andy's I had fifteen bucks in cash left, or literally enough to enter the Hard division and freestyle. However, I'd only transfered the edit for my freestyle to my flashdrive literally minutes before I left the house, and I wanted to test the edit out on the machine to at least see if the edit transfered properly. That forced me to buy more tokens, though, although I was certain that not entering Hard was in my best interests at that point since I knew I couldn't compete with anyone there. That being said, Ro's closed before I could test the edit, making my token purchase unnecessary. Sigh.

Before Ro's closed, though, more people showed up. Peter said that Laura and Dave wouldn't be showing up until the day of the tournament, which was kind of a bummer. However, Kitty did show up, and I seriously have to wonder if she brushes her teeth with cocaine or something because her smile is freaking addicting. We only chatted long enough to exchange names, and to be honest I felt sheepish around her because when she smiled I couldn't help but stare at her.

The big story, though, was Jboy showing up late that night. We hugged and I tried to engage him in conversation, but it was clear he wasn't feeling comfortable that night, which was a shame because I was really hoping to hang out with him that evening. A lot of people went to Lara's after Ro's closed, but I went back to my hotel room, tuckered out from the lack of sleep.

(I also gave Lara and Peter a sneak preview of my brownies that evening, and after the first bite Peter declared me the "winner" of the bake-off.)

Now to Saturday/tournament day. Hard division was first, and thankfully there was a lot of socializing going on as the matches were proceeding. I got to hug Laura and shake Dave's hand, but I didn't get to talk to them much, which was kind of a shame since they seemed like two people I'd have an easy time talking to. (Although to be honest I was worried Dave might bring up a lot of philosophers I'm not well-read on.) I recognized a lot of people from pictures in Lara's LJ, but I was still kind of shy and didn't talk to people as much as I should have. Eventually Peter's cookies and my brownies came in, and compliments abounded for both of us. (I think the newness of my brownies at the tournament has overshadowed Peter's cookies, which is a shame because his cookies are the proverbial sex.)

I suppose the big thing, though, was that when I went out to my car to get my camera, I remembered that I'd brought the Hawaiian shirt I'd bought for Jboy as a prize for a contest I ran on my Website last summer, so I brought that in to Jboy. I gave the shirt to him, and that seemed to break the ice and open the lines of communication between us. I have a lot more to say about that, but this post is already ridiculously long and I've still got a ways to go here.

Once the Hard division wrapped up it was time for freestyle. A while back I'd gotten the idea to lift an old routine Phrekwenci did for Era, and apply the same moves to Hand of Time, since the songs are kind of similar and they both lend themselves to the same kinds of moves. I'd worked out the beginning and the ending of the routine before I left, but I still had a huge chunk of time there where I had no steps ready. Even though there wasn't a minimum step count for edits, I still wanted to have at least a 100-step edit in place (I figured it would be good preparation for more serious freestyle competitions later on), so I filled the empty space with a bunch of hits on the same arrow, and I figured I could improv something there, knowing what kinds of moves I wanted to do.

That was the idea. The reality was that as soon as the music hit, I just completely tensed up. The moves I'd planned out ahead of time just didn't work because I couldn't get my body to make the big moves I needed, and when it came to the improv section I couldn't think of anything to do other than spin around. Not only did this make me dizzy (remember, I hadn't had an actual meal for close to forty-eight hours at this point, so I had that against me as well), but I lost my place on the pad and wound up failing the song, which is pretty unacceptable when you're doing an edit. Even if I'd pulled the moves off I probably wouldn't have won anyway, since I was trying to do a New York freestyle in the Southeast. I didn't "get" the winning freestyle at all, although I have to say Jboy's freestyle was my personal favourite of all.

Then came the Expert division, which just totally blew me away. I'm not sure if it's that Northwest Ohio sucks or Carolina/Pennsylvania is just that damn good, but I hadn't even personally witnessed anyone pass a 12, much less a 13, before. (To top it all off, the first 13 I saw anyone pass was the Annoying Rocky Mount Kid passing Summer on Stream, of all things.) I was sad that nobody I knew wound up placing in the money, but watching the level of talent on display at the tournament was truly breathtaking. BBQ is just too darn good at dance games for a 13-year-old, I swear.

I think the highlight of the tournament for me -- or at least the one I feel comfortable mentioning in public like this -- came late in the Expert division, when Lara and I were sitting at the main table and Josh came by and inquired about the brownies. Lara told him that I made him, and Josh and I locked eyes as he reached down, got a brownie and put it in his mouth. I swear he chewed on that thing for close to a minute and I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but eventually he just took his hat off, bowed, and smiled. After all the drama of the previous week, and the tension I felt when he was nearby, that was the one moment where things finally got to a level where everything was cool. We shook hands as he left, and I kind of wished we'd talked there. (Not about the recent drama but other stuff.)

The tournament finally wound up at one in the morning, twelve hours after starting, at which point the people who were still there said they were going to Lara's. I'd wanted to head there myself, but I had a huge day of driving ahead of me, and to top it all off I had a presentation for a class on Monday night I needed to work on once I got back here. I said my goodbyes to everyone there (with assurances from Jboy and Lara that they would come visit me here soon), went back to my hotel room, got in one last night of fitful sleep, and took off.

I'd filled my tank all the way up when I first hit Raleigh, so I didn't have to make a gas stop until I was in Virginia near the West Virginia border. I topped my tank there, but since I was so low on cash I went to the ATM inside the station to pull twenty bucks so I could finally have some kind of meal on the way home. However, the ATM said I was out of funds, which I found surprising given that I'd just put nearly twenty bucks of gas in the car. I asked the machine for my current balance, and it said my account was overdrawn by over five hundred and fifty dollars.

This (finally) brings me to the winner of This Trip's Worst Persons in the World: Cobalt Flux. After all the nonsense invovled with getting my doubles set ordered, it turned out (as I hypothesized during the trip and confirmed once I got back) that they'd double-billed me for the doubles set. At this point I had just enough cash to cover the toll booths I was about to reach in West Virginia, and while I hadn't had a problem at gas pumps earlier, I knew I couldn't count on that continuing.

I called the house, and we agreed that I'd have them wire me some money to cover gas and food for the rest of the trip. I tried to find a Western Union outlet at a gas station, but I had no luck there, and eventually I pulled into a Wal-Mart in West Virginia and used their MoneyGram service, which meant giving money to Wal-Mart, something I hate to do, but under the circumstances I didn't see that I had much choice. (By the way, traveling in the South really opens your eyes as to how dominant Wal-Mart is.) Still, waiting for the money to come was the worst, as it's hard enough being a transsexual in Toledo, but sitting there playing Su Doku on my cell phone in a West Virginia Wal-Mart while waiting for my money to come in was scary.

Finally, though, the money came in and I was on my merry way home, stopping at this huge travel plaza in West Virginia for my first actual meal in three days. You know you haven't been eating well when Sbarro pizza actually tastes good. From there it was pretty much straight home to Toledo, with stops to pee and get gas and stuff like that. I reached home around one-thirty Monday morning and tried to go right to bed after the requisite unpacking, brief discussions with the folks, and sending updates out to the Carolina crew to let them know I was home safe.

I had hoped that Monday I'd be able to work on my presentation before my evening class, but first of all I had to help my father return the rental car, and then I had to call my bank to try to get my debit card situation settled, which in turn led to me contacting Cobalt Flux (which listed my pads as being "shipped" nearly two weeks ago although FedEx says they still haven't picked them up), which in turn led to me wanting to pull my hair out. I probably would have pulled my hair out, but after the driving and the bad eating and all of that I was just zonked and couldn't trust myself to drive, let alone do an intelligible class presentation, so I e-mailed my professor to let her know I wouldn't be in class that evening and tried to fall asleep again. The problem with that is that even though I'm tired and my body craves sleep, it's not letting me fall asleep. I'm guessing this is probably an aftereffect of the "new experience" adrenaline wearing off and my bad eating over the weekend coming back to haunt me, and hopefully now that I've gotten a lot of this stuff written up and posted here, I can try getting some shut-eye again.

All of this, and the picture post is yet to come. Good grief.

One last thought before I go, though. Why is it that none of the players at the tournament had any kind of noticeable accent, but everyone I ran into in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina had clear regional accents? (I could even distinguish between the Virginia accent and the North Carolina accent, although having studied linguistics at the graduate level and having an aunt who lives in Charlotte probably helps me out a lot in that regard.)