What to Wear

I feel like I just barely got home, and now I have to get ready to leave again. Packing for this convention is proving to be a challenge. It's on the beach with lots of free time, so that's a wardrobe of beach-appropriate clothing. But then there are luncheons and some workshops/networking events. That's another wardrobe. And then there are parties at night, some of them with costumes suggested. Yet another wardrobe.

I'd planned to embrace the beach and mostly wear sundresses, with cardigans indoors when it got chilly. But then I checked the forecast and it's cooler there than it is here, and I haven't even busted out the sundresses here. I also haven't put on a swimsuit or hit the pool yet. I don't think of the 80s as pool weather, so I may not be showing off the bikini this week, after all. Now I'm going to have to re-think all this.

As for the costume parties, the only one where I'm sure what I want to wear is the fairy ball. I'm planning to dress as the fairy on my book cover, with a little black dress and the red stilettos. I just have to come up with a pair of fairy wings sometime today. I found instructions for making them on the Internet, but now I need to get the supplies. The party hosted by Ellora's Cave, the big erotica/"romantica" publisher is supposed to have something to do with living your fantasy, but somehow I doubt that my fantasy is in line with theirs. If I were to live my current favorite fantasy, I'd show up in my pajamas with a pint of ice cream, a good book and a blank to-do list. I suspect I'll just pop in on that party as more or less a tourist to see what the fuss is about because that doesn't sound like my scene. I hear that a lot of people just wear formal wear to the "Vampire Pirates of the Caribbean" ball, so that's what I'll do rather than trying to scrape together a vampire pirate costume. That leaves the rock and roll party, but it's the night before I have to leave the hotel at 3 a.m. to catch the shuttle to the airport for an early-morning flight, so I may skip that one and nap (or I might just stay up all night -- it wouldn't be the first time I've done that kind of thing).

Now I need to go try on everything I'm planning to take so I can be sure it still fits (a hazard with formal dresses you wear only every couple of years). I also need to find a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes that seem to have gone missing somehow. Oh, and clean my house enough that it won't make me cringe when I come home. See, the to-do list is growing. That fantasy is sounding better and better.