hellziggy

What can I say? I've been busy. I got about 100 (ok, maybe 10 or so) new LJ friends after the convention, I was a week behind on my classes, and I'm STILL working on trying to get all the pictures ready!

Friday: We took off from

scubagrrl's house in the early afternoon to head to Long Beach. At the Queen Mary I got my registration packet from the lovely JMLive women.

At this point there was about 2 hours before the reception was due to start.

hellbob,

scubagrrl & I ran to the CVS in Long Beach so that I could get the pictures I was having signed printed out. I wasn't overly thrilled with CVS. There is some slight paper fog on the edges of the paper. Not enough to ruin the pictures, but obvious enough that the guy working there should have noticed! Also, the pictures have a copyright on them and they printed them without blinking and without asking for id.

Anyhow, once I had the pictures we headed on back over to the Queen Mary and I separated from hellbob & scubagrrl. They toured the Russian sub and the Queen Mary and managed to occupy themselves until my evening was done.

While they were on the sub, I was busy changing into my fancy "grown-up" clothes and putting on my makeup. I felt absolutely gorgeous! Met back up with hellbob & scubagrrl briefly to give them the car keys and to show off how hot I looked! We took some pics of me and then I headed on up to the reception.

At this point I was on my own. I'd been on some of the James Marsters forums online, but hadn't arranged to meet anyone. I stood in line for a drink and talked to a few people but didn't retain any names. I had decided before going that since I didn't know anyone there I was going to just talk to people and find some new friends.

Right behind me in line was a lovely woman in a green dress. She introduced herself as Jenifer. This was how I ended up hanging with the Marsters Santuary women all weekend. My exact words to her after we got our drinks were something like, "I don't know anybody here so I'm going to hang out with you now." We headed back near the entrance to where I met the lovely Echo, Squirly, and Gail. Damn good choice! We were right near the door when we saw there man we were there to see standing in the entrance.

Just before he stepped through the door he looked pretty darn terrified! Who can blame him? He was about to walk into a room full of 100 women who all wanted him. Who wouldn't be nervous? When he walked in and encountered our group and we didn't attack him you could almost visibly see him relax. He reached Jen first and when he took her hand she let her instincts lead her and she just leaned in for a hug. Then she also asked if she would get her picture with him. I had Moose with me so I said something about how I didn't know if he remembered but in Toronto I'd had him hold Moose for the picture, and could I take a picture of him with the moose again. He said he remembered and I don't know if he really did or not, but hey, he sounded convincing.

Steve was also there, of course, and he was NOT happy. We were in a relatively small room, and the air conditioning wasn't working. So he had us move on in to the room for dinner early, and James went around and spent some time at each of the tables there. At the table I met a few more people: Jess & Mac. Also Ro, Nancy, and Amy (I think. names are hard.) When James came to our table he sat right between me & Mac. Gods, he just looked so good! He was very relaxed and was laughing a lot. We were mainly talking about ghosts and how the boat was haunted. Echo told us a story about her brother-in-law (I think...) coming to visit her after he died. James was just totally fascinated by it. The time at our table just flew by too fast.

After that we had much mutual squeeing about how wonderful the man is. Then was dinner. It was a buffet style dinner. OMG! The food was all soooo good! And there was a ton of variety. While going through the buffet line (which was back in the small room the reception had originally been in) James was sitting off to the side eating his dinner. Good planning on Steve's part! Man's gotta keep his energy up to talk to all of us and for the concert later!

After dinner we were hanging out and chatting and just waiting for James to make his rounds around the room again. When he was at the table before ours and the JMLive women put a chair for him at our table, it was going to be right between Mac & I again, so we each traded places with one of the other women. We didn't want to *sigh* but it wouldn't have been fair for us to get all the James hotness to ourselves. I let Jen take my chair since this event was her first time meeting James. Plus that left me in her spot directly across from him. This time the conversations were about his hair (he hates his natural curls and he says that once you hit a certain age it just doesn't work to have curls) We all thought it looked damn good. It was dark and straight. A little too slicked back, but hey, he was trying to control that curl! Also, I'm not sure what the remark was that started the thread of conversation, but he said something about how it's tough in a relationship when you only see her for a couple days every few months. Again, the time flew too fast. Although the JMLive women did have to tap him a couple times to get him to leave!

This whole time so far James was wearing a tux. Also, the man wasn't wearing any jewelry all weekend! Yeah, that's right. No bling! After he'd made all the rounds again Steve got up to make some announcements about what all would be going on the next day. The he said we could all move our chairs on up closer to the stage for the concert. We were sooooooo nice and close! There were only 100 of us, so even the furthest away people were still darn close. I managed to get really close to the middle, and I was right next to Kimber. A familiar face! We'd only briefly met in Toronto, but she was the woman who had been leading talks in the front of the room when we were waiting for James' concert there. She vaguely remembered me when I mentioned that

lucky13charm and I were the two women who had driven there from Minnesota.

James didn't change for the concert, but he did take off his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. Mmmmm. Disheveled tux is a good look for him! I took a couple pictures...

*This is the spot where the set list will go when I find someone who's got it because I suck at remembering such things!*

One thing I did notice is that James didn't sing Patricia, or Finer Than Gold which I've heard that he wrote about her. Trouble in paradise?

And then it was all over too soon. :( James headed off to get his beauty sleep and I called

hellbob to tell him I was done for the night. We piled back into our car and drove the hour and some back to

scubagrrl's house in Camarillo. One funny thing on the drive. We saw a car who's personalized plate said "USE SOAP" We thought it was kind of weird until we got closer and saw that the frame around the plate said "Tyler Durdin says" on top and "Fight Club" on the bottom.

and if you are looking for a few hundred pictures of the handsome Mr. Marsters, they can be found HERE