Wardrobe and other malfunctions

It is probably going to rain some more today. It looks like it will be nice and sunny next week, but I'm not sure how long it will take for everything to dry out so that I can get back to the gardening.

Later today and tomorrow and Sunday, my friends will be going to a convention. Right now I am not planning to go, even though with the weather I have no plans for anything else. The convention is run by a group that I found to be a lot of fun the one other time I went, but there's no one in the guest list that I'm just dying to see, though Aaron Douglas will be there, and I'm sure that a lot of my friends are looking forward to seeing him. I hear that he's a nice guy.

The convention itself reminds me of bad things that started that same week three years ago. That really shouldn't be held against anyone at the convention, but as it turns out I haven't been back since then. Also, they moved to a different hotel, since the roof leaked at the one I went to. The new hotel is nowhere near the other one, and I would either have to drive on the freeway going through Dallas, or I would have a very long drive on surface roads. I don't care to make such a long drive there and back, especially since it is likely to be in the rain and it would end up with me being in an unfamiliar area.

But the real deciding factor is that I have no money.

Of course I have no money for tickets to the thing or buying autographs or cool sci-fi stuff from the dealer's room. That's just a given that I don't have money for that. And I really don't have money to eat out, so I would have to take peanut butter sandwiches, and if anyone asked me to go out anyplace afterward I would have to say no. And I have nothing cool to wear, so it would be just me in maybe a club t-shirt and jeans, and even the jeans are against me at the moment, and I have no money to go out and buy new ones.

But the really sad thing about the lack of money situation is that I don't even feel like I have enough money to volunteer to work at the thing. I have the day off and nothing planned. In fact, I have the whole weekend off and nothing planned. But last month someone made a point of saying that they still needed volunteers, and that if I worked enough hours it would get me a free ticket for next year. That's a good offer, one that I don't remember getting before.

But I don't think that I should spend the money even for just gas and a couple of sodas.

So that's a bit sad. I've just been reminded that a friend of mine has a serious entry in the costume competition, and I won't be there to cheer him on.

Speaking of costumes, it has recently occurred to me that I have nothing to wear on May 8th. Staying home on May 8th is not an option. My friends will be out in force (and of course, in uniform) to promote the club and the new movie.

Right now, I don't really have a uniform. The old ones either just don't look good or don't fit me at the moment. I'm not even sure that I have any decent black pants should someone offer to loan me a shirt.

The borg costume would not really be good for this occasion, though if I looked better I would probably wear it anyway. I probably still have a Centauri dress or two around, but no bald caps or head wear to go with them, and that stuff is Babylon 5 anyway. I have tons of costume stuff, but most of the stuff that still fits is either Harry Potter or an old Halloween costume. I just don't have anything Star Trek related that I can wear two months from now.

So I'm surfing the web, looking for pictures. With the economy and my current personal lack of funds, my other personal problems, and having less than two months to come up with something, making a new costume should be the last thing on my mind. Still, I'm looking. If I found the right picture, I might try it anyway.

I've decided that trying to get something that looks like the new uniform is out. One of the designs is simple enough, but the fabric is some odd polka dot thing that I probably won't be able to match. Plus that dress would require me to go out and buy new boots.

I'm thinking that the best thing as far as a new costume would be some Vulcan robes. But that would also require wearing Vulcan ears and probably plucking my eyebrows. And then there's the glasses. I am blind without them, and they tend to look out of place on an alien face, so I spend a lot of time getting the glasses on and off to pose for pictures and hoping that I don't actually lose the glasses at some point when they are off.

But there are some costume designs that aren't too bad, if I could just find a decent picture of what I want. The glasses would still be a problem, so I would have to add a pocket somewhere just for them. And depending on the color I could use some things that I already have around.

Still, it seems a totally silly thing to be worrying about right now, and I have zero funds to spend on such a thing. But somehow that doesn't stop me from looking at the pictures.