Pennsic Pre-Planning, Phase I

Every year around this time I start serious Pennsic planning. I don't know why it hits so hard in January - whether because, in years past, Pennsic was such a highlight of the year I looked forward to it for so long, and January was really the first realistic time I could start planning; or whether it was just that there is always so much to do that I knew if I didn't start in January, I'd never get it all done; or if it's just that mid-winter blah settling in, when there's really nothing else much going on for the next couple months and a good time to plan and look forward to warm-weather activities.

Maybe a combination of all three, but for whatever reason, January's always been the first of the new year's Pennsic planning time.

This year is no exception, although it's not with great anticipation I approach it, but more with a bit of apprehension. Last Pennsic was the worst I ever had. So bad that up until just a few weeks ago I told everyone it might effect that I was still seriously considering not going this year. And I was, it was serious, not just being pissy. The reasons it was so awful are many and varied, and some are my own fault, but that doesn't change that it was Really. Bad.

But it gets in your blood somehow, and it's a hard habit to give up. It has so much potential to be really awesome, and all too often by January I've forgotten the bad and only look forward to the good - remembered previous good years and hopes for future good years.

At least I did learn one lesson this year - the definition of insanity: continuing to do the exact same thing, and expecting different results. I have finally gotten two important rules through my head:

• if I don't change something about the way I do Pennsic, it's going to continue to suck and leave me depressed and disappointed at the end of it every year
• I can only change the way I, myself, do things; I can't force anyone else to change the way they do Pennsic to make it better for me

This makes it tricky when part of my problem does, in fact, involve the way the people I camp with do things. But trying to change that isn't an option, so I have to look for new ways to make things bearable for me, without expecting them to change what is comfortable and works for them.

My worst complaint last year was it taking an entire day to tear down camp, and not getting to leave till late in the evening, and finally getting home long after dark, so exhausted that for the very first time in my life I was literally falling asleep behind the wheel on the way home. I have never, ever done that to myself before. And never will again, I don't care what the rest of my camp wants to do. So one new thing for this year is that I intend to leave site that last Saturday at 3:00 p.m. I will happily help my campmates tear down and pack up camp from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Saturday, I will even happily do my own personal packing before that (either in the morning or the night before) to ensure I can devote a full 6 hours to camp work.

But come 3:00 I'm outta there. This will solve the problem of coming home at night, exhausted and frustrated and completely worn out. Six hours ought to be more than enough to completely dismantle and pack our camp - it's not that large or complex - if we all work together on it. So I don't think this plan is out of line or too much to ask of my campmates. If they prefer not to do it, well, there's nothing I can do about that - but at 3:00 I'm gone, whether the camp's done or not. So hopefully, instead, we can all work together so that it's a win-win for everyone: they get my help tearing down and hauling stuff home, and I get to leave at a reasonable hour.

The other changes in plans I'm making are more personal. For one thing, I'm taking less stuff. My Pennsic stuff has grown through a slow arc over the years, initially taking way too much, then taking more for several years, then slowly paring it down. This year I'll be going extremely minimalist. I have learned over the 6 or so Pennsics I've been to that I don't use half of the stuff I take with me ... so there's no point in packing it, finding room for it in my crowded tent, and then hauling it all home. I don't need to take half my possessions: a book to read, a knitting project, an embroidery project. That's about all I'll actually do.

For a few years I was putting shelves in my tent - plastic, stacking shelves. It was rather convenient for storing stuff in my tent, except that my tent's always on a hill, so everything being at a steep angle made it a little tricky. I could have leveled up the shelves with some wood shims, but ... more stuff to take, so I never bothered. I'm doing away with the shelves this year - less stuff to pack, and I can just use the totes I haul stuff in to store it in my tent, with the bonus that if we have one of those Noah Pennsics where it rains and rains and rains, stuff will stay dry. That was another problem last year - it rained so much, everything in my tent got soaked. You never know when you're going to have one of those years, and it always rains at some point, so I may as well anticipate that.

There are a few other personal things I know I need to do as well, most of them attitudinal in nature ... like not turning Pennsic into a pilgrimage to Mecca and placing such high expectations on it that there's no way it or I can live up to them. But I won't bore you with the gory details of those.

Otherwise, I have a lot of fun stuff I want to do in the coming months as well. The never-ending garb-making, of course. Although there's never enough garb, I have an issue in that much of the garb I made and wore my first few years no longer fits (bad Rayne), and the new stuff I made last year that does fit isn't quite enough to cover a whole Pennsic without coming home to do landry. So a few new outfits are in order. I also want to start sprucing up what I do have - some embroidery or inkle trim on a few things. I'm going to make a haversack like the one the Dread Reverend bought last year ... a canvas sack with a strap long enough to wear over your shoulder, cross-wise across your body. Great for carrying things on outings, day or night. I've yet to find a belt pouch I like, and the few I've tried to make have never worked either. This is one thing that will really come in handy.

My big project this year is a pirate coat. I made the Dread Reverend one from a pattern that came out after 'Pirates of the Caribbean' - it is, of course, a coat similar to the one Johnny Depp wears. (I'd post a picture, but can't seem to find one of him wearing it ... I lost many of my pictures when my computer got stolen last August). I made his out of a purplish upholstery velvet, very cool. But knowing how the heat gets to me at Pennsic, I'm going to make mine out of a much thinner material - a cotton just heavy enough to hold its shape, or something along those lines - and black. Then I intend to embroider all over it, also in black, so it'll be very subtley fancy. I don't go in for much flash. I looked for some nice understated brocade material online, but couldn't really find anything appropriate (that wasn't hideously expensive), so ... I'll make my own, as it were.

That project alone could take from now till Pennsic, and I'm anxious to get to the fabric store and find the material. I would have gone this weekend, but we're in a deep freeze at the moment, with temperatures in the single digits and wind chills in the negatives, so I really didn't care to leave the house this weekend.

Anyway, that's how I've spent my morning ... Pennsic planning. But with a little forethought and much attitude adjustment, I think I can make this a fun and relaxing vacation again, instead of the sad downhill spiral it's been the last few years. There is so much potential in this event, and not just a lot of "go, go, go" and "do, do, do" ... my favorite memories of Pennsic are beautiful, relaxing things like sitting on a hillside in the shade of a tree half-reading a book, and half just watching people and admiring the ambience ... or strolling casually through the marketplace with no buying goal in mind, just seeing all the amazing things that are there like at a bazaar in a foreign country or something ... or sitting around a fire listening to good music (or even the not-so-good music ... it's all pretty fun there). There's lots of good, I just have to remember what works and what doesn't ... and quit being the living embodiment of the definition of insanity.