Archon Recap; Thursday and Friday

YAY ARCHON!
I had someone say unto me, "Happy Archon Weekend!"

We agreed mutually that it is, in fact, a holiday. It is a holiday I observe as fervently as I do Halloween and Christmas. And Easter. And my birthday.

It's a special holiday and I rearrange my life around it. I always warn employers. I *am* going to Archon. I'd prefer to have my job to return to afterward, but if not, Oh Well.

There were even rumors of maybe getting a THIRD WEEKEND of hanging with a favorite partner-in-crime. Bonus!
I had new finery to wear!
Awesome!
I had a PLAN!
Beauty!


And overall, it lived up to my expectations!

So here's the low down:

Thursday I got a later start than I intended, but still arrived earlier than I have for the past two years, so that worked out well.
I arrived, but the room wasn't checked into yet, so I hunted down AlienZen to make a plan. As it was around 7pm, I asked if he'd had dinner yet. He had not.
I asked if he wanted some Culver's. He did. I asked his Shiny New Assistant if he wanted some Culver's, too. He did.
So I made a food run, came back to the set-up area, and hung out while the guys finished up their chores. Fed them.
Picked up my badge and my mother's badge. Went back to the hotel and started unloading my stuff, with some wonderful assistance.
Got everything situated, talked to mom's roommate a bit, reorganized everything for ease of use, and settled in for the night.
Hung out with friends on another floor, drank boozes and snacked a bit, then went to bed.

Mmm. Sleeping. The beds at the Fairfield were pretty swanky. I really do think I'm willing to pay the difference to have that hotel next year, but only if I share it. The nice thing about the Extended Stay Hole was that it was cheap enough to manage on my own. Hell, one year I provided crash space for people who wouldn't have been able to come otherwise.

I don't know why I "plan" to do anything on Friday other than the tea and whatever comes after it. Even when I stay on site, I can't seem to get to the Convention Center before noon, and by 1:30pm, I have to get back to the room to change and load up. Grr.
And that's exactly how it actually went. I headed over to the convention center, swanned around a bit, said "hi" to some people, then went back to my room to get into make up and costume.
Heh.
WHAT A COSTUME. I was SO freaking proud of that ensemble. It is comfortable and gorgeous and flattering. It's all my favorite things, and it makes me look elegant and lovely. I have some minor finishing to do on it, but I plan to do so fairly quickly. I think I might even wear it for caroling, if we do that this year.
I was also insanely proud of my hair and make-up. My hair cooperated beautifully and provided me with a stunning pile of well-managed curls. I coaxed and pinned them artfully, then added fun bits to the coif, including two matching feathers.

Then I packed up the truck, headed down to the Doubletree, and got unloaded with some fantastic help. I wheeled everything down to the tea room, and we got everything decorated, got the food out, got the tea ready, and even though we weren't done on time, I think we did a fantastic job, particularly since we were short a few helpers this year.

The theme was 20000 Leagues Under The Sea, and our portholes were amazing, our decor was basic but entertaining, and the food was lovely. The tea was pretty darned tasty, too. (As was our Mistress of Tea, in her Mermaid ensemble.) My gallant and gorgeous Grande Dame of Gatronomalies was dressed very sharply in her pseudo-militaristic steampunk glory! Our Last Minute Helper Of Amazing Fabulousness was a godsend and did a wonderful job, too. We even had some additional helpers to carry things and guard the door.

After the tea, we packed it up quickly, and were down to packing up the food when the next group came in. Well, I say "Group"... it was actually one poor frazzled woman who had been promised a staff but didn't get one. We tidied up and asked her to eat some of our food so we wouldn't have to pack it up.
She went all silly and begged to take my leftovers.
OMG SERIOUSLY THAT IS SO HELPFUL OMG TAKE THIS CRAP OFF MY HANDS!!!!

So we gave her all the things that would be difficult to deal with, and some incredibly valuable paper plates. She donated $10 to my coffers which pleased me mightily.

I should also do my shout-out to the Staff of the Doubletree which, for some reason, this year was completely Johnny-On-The-Spot and amazing and FRIENDLY as HELL. (True over at the Fairfield, too.)

I stashed my foodstuffs with friends at the Doubletree (OMG YOU GUYS THANK YOU SO MUCH) and took the rest back to my hotel. That's right about the time that I connected with The Girl. Her mom opted to drop her off, because navigating Downtown St. Louis and the PSB is a little much to expect of a new driver; the Girl got her license at the beginning of September.

So the Girl and I went to the BJD Fashion Show and she helped me set up and break down, and generally just hung around while I did my thing.

Dolls. Mmmm. Dolls. Not hugely attended, but the quality of the audience more than made up for the lack of attendance. Also? Got to see a favorite sculpt in person which I hadn't had a chance to do before. Loved it so much (and the Brand New Doll Mommy) that I gave her one of my outfits (a hand-made wizard robe/gown with crystals on it) and invited her to come play with us at the con and with the Dolly Playmates.
So YAY, NEW FRIENDS!! NEW DOLL FRIENDS!!!

After that I was free... to do what I want... any old tiiiiiiime!!

Cruised down to the Artists' Reception, poked my Mermaid Friend, connected with my Valkyrie Friend and worked out connecting to do Make Up Artistry. The Girl and I cruised over to DQ for late night burgers and Orange Julius (drooooool). The Girl opted to stay in the room (and passed right out) while I put my make-up whammy on my friend, my Valkyrie, and myself.

Dragon Make-up. Fantasy, shiny, and a collaborative, original design. GOD was that fun. I have missed face painting, apparently. I missed the make-up appointments from all those years at Halloween Express. I missed having someone "in my chair" having me create something unique and special and extraordinary, just for them, just for that moment in time. I have a burning love for impermanent art, you see. I love that "blink and you miss it" moment.

However, it did take a while, and I still had my own art to figure out.
See, we were planning to do Fauns. There's a Thing out there right now, where all these lovely young costumer grrls are making themselves up as fantasy faun things. The cutest part is white dappling on their faces and shoulders, and I saw several variations, some of which were really amazing and some of which were very... hmm. Halloween-costume? Like when I used to do the cat makeup all the time, some people would create amazing unique masterpieces of artistry, and some would blacken their nose and draw lines on their face for whiskers and call it good.

My thought was that my artist friend and I could TAKE THOSE B*TCHES TO SCHOOL. We're good. We're better than good. We're freaking brilliant, is what we are. And we haven't done anything that pushed or challenged us in the department of make-up in a while. So we went to town.

We also changed our minds several times, reworked the eye make up a couple of times, dug around on the internet for images, and had some product failure from our paints and unguents. Finally, we had these metallic/pearlized/iridescent softly shaded faces (and arms), dappled dots, and sprayed the whole thing down with about six quarts of CUTENESS.

Guys.

GUYS.

WE WERE SO FREAKING CUTE.

Yes, we took forever to get that shit on. I regret nothing. Yes, we didn't hit the party until 1am. I do wish we'd had more party time, but it's possible that we actually hit the party at the perfect moment.

I love being a satyr grrl.

Of course, my Cougar powers had to come into play at one point, and while the young man in question was very attractive and adorable and wanted to take up residence in my lap, I had to peel him off and move along.

The good news is that my ability to carefully *sip* the boozes offered was working very well. I was stone sober by the time we went back to the hotel, and I was able to drive us.

I went to the room and started using the (HOTEL PROVIDED OMG) moist towelettes to remove the make-up.

Um.

No.

FCC it, I'm taking a shower.

SO I did, then snuggled into bed and slept, for about 4 hours or so.

Archon Recap; Saturday

So there I was.

Not NEARLY enough sleep, but the alarm goes off at 9am anyway.
I had promised to go to breakfast with friends, so I bundled the Girl and I into presentable clothes and went down to the breakfast area.

The Fairfield provides a breakfast that's actually a meal. Really. OMG.

Eggs! Waffles! Carb-feasting! Juices! Fruits! Crunchies and Munchies!

Back up to the room to get dressed for the day, and I am not sure what I want to wear. I brought the green fairy costume, so I figured I'll wear that. I also connected with another friend who needed to have her make-up finished, so I picked it up where the original artist left off and worked on her face, had the Girl take the Munchkin over to the convention center to buy badges, and finally managed to get the make-up to do something right, got myself into costume, proved that I am the ultimate master of the 5 minute face (for Fairy Costuming) and leaped into the con.

Now, I had planned to enter the Masquerade. I had planned to do an exhibition exhibition. That fell apart.

And this enormous feeling of FREEDOM settled upon me. Oh, good! I can get my Saturday back. With a song in my heart I trotted out to the convention to do... whatever I want, any old time.

Dealer's room. Oh, yeah. I spent a LOT of time in the Dealer's room. I didn't have any money, but I wanted in on that action. So many cool people to talk to, so many pretty things to admire. Talked to a doll person who hadn't gotten into the BJDs, but was a darling lady and once the floodgates opened, she really loved talking about her dolls. (YAY!)
Connected with Curious Cat and left her some embroidered patches to try to sell for me. Asked if she wanted to put up the wings and she declined.
Sold the wings off my back (literally) to another dealer's helper, which gave me $20 to spend in the dealer's room! Whoo!

We went to get some late-lunch around 2:30 or so. There's a Gorge-N-Go (Golden Corral) around the way, so we had a hearty lunch (there were vegetables and everything) before heading back to the con to do all the things.

I went back to the room to change. I had a weird idea.

I wanted to do The Lady Dwarf, but I hadn't decided on a specific outfit. I did have the Ultimate Prop finished, so I dug through the costumes for Warrior Lady Dwarf stuff. I put the girl in her corset, and put myself in my new purple dress/top/thingie, my leather waist-cincher, some belly-dance pants, and boots. I added this weird new hat I found, which is a black stocking cap with devil horns attached.
However, with this outfit and the right headband, it magically became a horned helm.
I struggled with my Lady Beard, though. I couldn't get the weft to stick to my face. Finally, I went with a very "Kukla" solution: Rig it with a hook on each side and slip the hook behind each ear. I used a weft (like for wigs) and curled the soft human hair carefully to be very soft and feminine, and hopefully to match my actual hair (which was still cooperating, to my vast astonishment.)

I then swung the Ultimate Prop onto my shoulder, and headed down to bother people with the Girl in tow.

The ultimate prop is a lovely battle-axe from Spirit Halloween Superstores. I wrapped the handle with a scrap of suede and some leftover fabric from my goat-leggins. (I also burned myself with the hot glue gun, so I can legitimately say that I "burned my hand whilst forging the weapon.")

I then came up with some ridiculous patter about my "Feminine Beard." See a later post for it. It was fun and funny.

We snuck into the masquerade by exploiting My Superpower. "That's Just Tricia" works so very well. IF stopped, I simply said, "[my mom] is already inside, and this is her granddaughter who wants to sit with her." Turns out that if my stepfather had remembered to submit for reserved seating, we wouldn't have needed any subterfuge. I even managed to get four seats (barely) for some friends, mainly because one of my friends was married to one of the Masquerade Staff members, and he had not known how to get reserved seating for them.
As a result, the Munchkin got to see the Masquerade (for the first time) from a reasonably close seat.

And yes, you read that right. I *watched* the Masquerade. From the AUDIENCE. I do that, sometimes. It's good to get perspective from time to time, and I have some great ideas for things to do in the future.

As it is, we watched the performances, enjoyed them all, stuck around talking for a bit, then I went back to the room to peel off the beard and put on the evening's outfit.

This went less smoothly, as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but managed to come up with something nifty, with more glamorous make-up artistry. The Girl and I got in the truck and headed over to the Doubletree for the party.

(groan)

Already I could tell that the vibe was off. The timbre of the crowd was... much changed from Friday. I'm used to a large percentage of Yahoos showing up on Saturday for the party who have little common interest with the rest of us, but somehow the Frat House Vibe was in strong, full effect. I flitted from group to group, Fan to Fan, Friend to Friend, but couldn't stay still long. I was restless. Unlike the Fauns who were simply avatars of ADHD, this was a restlessness that was born of unease. This was my playground, but the players were different and I was seeing WAY too many "Too Drunk" people for that early in the evening. When you come around the corner and run into a couple of people sitting on the floor because they can't stand anymore, it's time to go. When drunk girls fall over onto you or other random people, spilling their drinks on you and mumbling unintelligeably it's time to go. When Stepmom Sense is tingling, and I feel uncomfortable having my 16 year old Girl in this building, regardless of the sheer number of actual friends, allies, and positive acquaintances present, it's time to go.

The Girl had had enough. She asked if she could go back to the hotel and go to bed. I agreed with her and took her straight back to the Hotel.

I then pondered this truth: My 16 year old didn't like that party, and didn't want to stay. She knew we were getting up early the next day, she knew that those people were drinking HARDCORE and that's not her scene. She knew that this was not the sacred party space that I adore.

My 16 year old made a serious, mature, and responsible decision to *go the FCC to sleep*.

It's time to be as mature and responsible as my 16 year old.

So, despite the fact that I had told everyone I was coming back, I chose instead to go up to the room and go to bed.
I first bothered my friend to show her my make-up. Awkward; she was already in bed.
(Look at that! Mature and responsible. Damn.)

I ran into a different friend out front and she agreed that she was going to bed, too.

So I bailed on the party. I bailed on drinking with unknown quantities and strangers less weird than I am. I bailed on people that I admittedly wanted to see, but that I wouldn't be able to enjoy much under the circumstances.

I *would* say that I regret nothing, but I do. I regret. I regret one thing.

I was not there when I should have been. Something happened that I *specifically* assigned myself to help prevent, and I wasn't there. Oh, don't worry. I am not talking about preventing an assault or anything. I just promised someone I'd be in their corner if certain drama presented itself. I had a whole plan of what to do under those circumstances; and I could have assassinated that drama early and permanently. I have this power. I had planned to hold it in reserve but use it instantly should the situation arise.

It arose while I was in bed.

DAMN.

DAMN DAMN DAMN.

*sigh* I also didn't know about it until it was too late to do anything about it; even after the fact.

I WISH I HAD TEXTING ON MY PHONE; I BET THIS COULD HAVE BEEN HANDLED BY TXT MSG!!

But otherwise, I did need the sleep. My body WAS tired. My feet WERE terribly sore. I had work to do on Sunday, too.

But just before going to bed, I found out that my mother hadn't secured a late check-out.

Yeah. I secured that swiftly and effectively. Check out was 1:30 for us. THIS HELPED IMMENSELY with my timeline for Sunday.

Archon Recap; Sunday

Sunday is always the Dead Dog Day.

Typically, my Sunday works like this:
Crawl out of bed.
Stagger to the shower.
Swear mightily while packing up and loading out.
Go to the con, pre-register for the following year. (Do this, folks. It saves you a LOT of money.)
Lurk around, pick up deals in the dealer's room.
Stagger home.
Unload.
Pass out.


And this year wasn't much different.
I was able to sneak down to the dealer's room, I picked up the few (cheap) things I'd decided I could afford, mostly to support some talented artists and take advantage of the Sunday Deal. After all, I got my most prized piece of jewelry for a ridiculously cheap price because of the Sunday Deal once.

I got my Mom to pick up my dolls from the Art Show.

I said goodbye to people, hugged lots of people, walked around with The Girl until she had to leave.

Then I ran the Dead Dog Party. It was cool! I called it the Dead Taurg Party and wore my Klingon Gear.
It's new. It worked! I liked it!
I bought almost exactly the right amount of Gatorade. (boo-yah!)
I made some punch with fruit juice and energy drinks.
I put out a spread of leftovers.
I got the Toastmistress and the GOH to come and chat with me for a long time. (how'd I do THAT?!)
The Toastmistress let me know what her secret was to maintaining her voice all weekend: American Honey. She gave me her leftovers. (!!!)
David Weber hung out and entertained us for at least an hour. He's hilarious! I was ticked to death since I hadn't made it to any of his panels.

Finally, we broke everything down, got out of there, got home and unloaded, then a group of us went to Denny's for late dinner.

Yep. I'm done.

I do have to work tomorrow, but not until 5pm. I think I'll sleep in...

YOU HAVE A WOMAN'S BEARD...

So... Lady Dwarf.

I was accused of being a Viking several times.
"Nay, I'm a DWARF, lad."
"Who is this Wagner you speak of?"
"Ah, no. I'm a DWARF. Underground. Mistrustful of ships."

And the hilarious thing was seeing people admire the costume, talk to me, then suddenly realize that I HAD A BEARD and struggle to recover. It read as "part of my hair" and I was wearing the full face of make-up, plus an outfit that was showing of my... er... feminine assets.

So yeah, I'm sporting an obvious secondary sexual characteristic of a male, with the rest of my secondary sexual characteristics presenting as female.

MWA HA HA HA

And I started doing this patter about the Feminine Beard:

"Well, a Lady must carefully groom her beard before she appears in public, or it is unseemly."
"No, no, it is our menfolk who grow hair from their faces, the ladies only grow hair on their heads and their necks."
"Of course my beard is short. Our menfolk wear a long beard as a sign of their virility. For a lady to have a beard long enough to cover her breasts; that is unfeminine."
"It is unattractive and impractical to have to ask for a comb each time one wishes to feed her baby."

Now, I could do this schtick at any bar in town during Halloween season and people would think it was funny, and maybe even a little gross but amusing.

At a con, people play to it. I watched the faces of my admirers shift from amusement to thoughtful contemplation. Women thinking about what it would be like to have a beard. Men thinking about what it would be like if human women actually grew beards. I even had one lady discuss beards with me extensively, including her dwarven characters who were not just neck-bearded but truly bearded with whiskers on their upper lip and everything.
We're a wonderful bunch of people, and we love to think outside of the box.

And I do love to challenge people's assumptions about gender. I love doing it in the mundane world because people need to be awakened to more than their boring lives. I love doing it in fandom because Fans are really enthusiastic about having their ideas challenged.

And then I saw two guys doing "Obnoxious guy drag" in the hallway; one was dressed as Alice in Wonderland, with a bushy full nearly red beard. I told him what a feminine beard he had.
He fluttered his lashes, curtseyed and thanked me in a soft voice.
Nicely done, Alice. Nicely done.

Halloween! Halloween!

Halloween is around the corner and I need to get my decorations up.

I'm torn between two themes for this year. Speak up and help me decide!

Theme One:
The year the SPIDERS TAKE OVER!
Wrap the house and trees with spiderwebbing, hang up the big ol' spiders, wear my Web Witch costume and give out plastic spiders along with the candy. Kids who show up without costumes get hosed down with silly string from the Web Witch. (LOL.)
Movies on the screen: LOTR, Harry Potter, Arachnophobia, the Dr. Who episode with the EightLegs, etc.
Food includes plenty of anise-flavored items.

Theme Two:
Weird Science!
Bring back The Lab from the Monster High party, put bras on everyone's heads, include some Science Bros fun, and give out safety glasses to the kids who don't have costumes. Minions Assemble!
Movies on the screen: Weird Science, Young Frankenstein, Clips of Morgan Freeman as the Mad Doctor from the Electric Company, Despicable Me, etc.
Food includes the fabulous jell-o molds.

Other thoughts I've had:
Superheroes- Exploit the "trashed" appearance of the porch and make it a rubble-strewn battleground! Add symbols from my favorite super heroes and villains! Make the house Arkham Asylum, or the Avengers Tower, or the BatCave!

The Graveyard/The Morgue:
The porch is the Morgue, with bodies on slabs. The yard is a graveyard. Go sinister goth and creepy.

Join in on the theme building! Join in on the decorating! Come and play!

Failed the test

My weight has increased steadily since the car accident.
This is because I'm less active, due to healing from the damage. I'm finally in a place where I feel like I can move more, and I'm trying to do so.

But that doesn't change the fact that I'm the largest I've ever been.

Here's the thing, though; I don't have a complex about it. My sense of self-worth is not tied to a scale. I have costumes that I can wear regardless of my size. I find women my size to often be vivacious and lovely, and have some awesome role models to look up to. I have characters I can portray like this, and I'm going to get off my butt and finally do that Ursula costume I've been threatening to do for years.

I also don't equate my own "hotness" to my dress size. Any of you who know me in real life know that I know about costuming to body type. You know that I can dress myself flatteringly regardless of my overall size. You know that my weight is a fluctuating thing that rarely holds steady at any size, but my personality and my energy are the things that draw people near me.

And I'm all about silver linings. Really! I work hard to squeeze the last drop of "lesson learned" and "Unexpected bonus" out of things that are overall perceived as negative experiences.

So I realized many years ago that when I'm carrying a bit of extra weight, I get to be a walking talking personality test. I get to find out if you're shallow or superficial just by interacting with you. I get to find out whether you consider me to be fabulous or whether I get dumped into the "ugly girl" bucket due to my weight. I also get to be a ninja. As a zaftig "mom type" I can blend in with my surroundings at work. I can be an "everywoman" which helps immensely in my ability to sell to women. I'm non-threatening, and approachable.

The Test was in full effect this weekend. I had one example of a win, and one of a fail. The win I've already alluded to, and won't be blogging about further. (Be happy to tell the story in person, though.)

The Fail... goes like this.

Artists' Alley is fun. I like to have enough time to stop and talk to the artists. I like to look at the things they're selling, network with other art folks, recruit for my various projects. In fact, I have an ongoing project that requires a constant influx of artists and their work in order to sustain it, and once I get the kinks worked out will be a lucrative venture for many artists (and myself, of course.)

So networking down the alley is a fun thing to do.

A gentleman had some hand-crafted cameos. Some were resin cast and some were hand-done with polymer clay. He was also selling sketches and trying to get people to commission him to draw them.
And he had excellent patter.
I loves me some excellent patter. A good friend nudged me and said, "BUY HIS STUFF HE'S AWESOME OMG." Now he has my undivided attention.
He's selling, to me. He's doing the routine, and I'm taking the appropriate moments to interject compliments or questions or my own wit. He's trying to get me to do a commission.

Right about then, my (much hotter) roommate rolls up with her (professional artist) boyfriend. They greet me, greet him (apparently they had partied with him a bit earlier in the weekend) and generally make a splash.

The artist I was talking to immediately DROPPED me like a hot rock. Interrupted himself mid sentence to reach past me to grab her hand and passionately begged her to let him draw her. "I can render your beautiful form wearing nothing but... orange oil."

I have a mannerism that I picked up from Allura. I stared into space, just past his shoulder. When she does this, I always imagine her looking through the fourth wall, making eye contact with the camera of her personal movie, as if to say, "Really? Did that REALLY just happen? *grunt*"

I licked my lips, while a screen of responses scrolled past my eyes, a la Iron Man's HUD in the helmet. The first several hundred were either rude or condescending.

She mistook my lip-lick for arousal. Um. Seriously not. So I piped up with an artistic critique. "ORANGE oil? Nope. GOLD, maybe."
He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, that would work, too."
"Trust me on this one, fella," I continued. "She parades around the house without clothes all the time. I *know* what I'm talking about." (See that dash of "I get to see it and you don't"? See that deliberate poke? Mwa ha ha.)
She giggled, "Yeah, this is my roommate."
And they flitted away. I wanted to finish my transaction of purchasing the cameo and be on my way. He decided to go back into the patter for commissioning a portrait. Of me.

Sigh. Dude, you just spectacularly failed the Fat Girl Test. You just dropped me like a hot rock to talk to my much hotter roommate who was standing next to her S.O. the pro artist, and I found out later that this artist ALREADY KNEW THIS.
While it is possible at this stage to recover gracefully, it's unlikely. In fact, a perfect graceful recovery would be to say something like, "Sorry about that. I was drinking with those two last night, and I still haven't gotten her to pose for me."

See, interrupting your sales pitch to continue an ongoing conversation? I don't mind that. Apologizing because this is a friend of his and he needed to say hi? Not a problem. Hell, that would have provided him a human credential; a friend of a friend is a friend of mine. I wouldn't have been so put out, frankly. I never take offense when someone cuts me off to greet a different friend of theirs.

But he also failed to acknowledge that his action was rude. He then tried to continue his sales pitch with me, but with the practiced cadence of his patter, not the shakespearian drama of the pitch he just threw over my shoulder to my roommate. He did not offer to draw me covered in orange oil (which, actually, eww) but he did offer to draw me wearing nothing but my headpiece.

(Exasperated sigh.)

Sir, you don't know me. You don't know that I have had my portrait drawn, painted, photographed, and represented in art, wearing or not wearing a wide assortment of things. I've done figure modeling. And I myself *am an artist*. It's possible that he saw some of my artistry over the weekend but didn't associate it with me.

At any rate, no, I don't have the budget to pay you to draw me. I want to buy this trinket from you and leave. I would have been interested in a piece as a gift for a friend, because in his book I saw a line art print of a character not unlike a Certain Doom Prince that is a favorite of a friend of mine. I would have been interested in discussing utilizing his art to fuel my digitizing projects. I would have been really interested in having him illustrate my fan fiction for me. All of these would have earned him some money.

Instead, he failed the Fat Girl Test. I have other artists to talk to.