Period is as period does...

Well, technically, I was awake this morning at 8:30 am, after sleeping for a good 12 hours. I only woke up a few times in the night to head to the bathroom (podling was dancing on my bladder something fierce).

Checked the bank balance, and found that, after this weekend and my student loans, I will have exactly NO money left in the bank - not even enough for food for the house. *sigh* Thankfully, Fred gets paid Thursday, so some of it will go for food for the house. It's a good thing I like peanut butter and jam sandwiches. And we like chicken and beans.

The event was... well... Over-rated, from my point of view. It's all fine and good that the group up in WA found an SCA-friendly land-owner willing to do renovations and upkeep on a spot that was (relatively) camping-friendly. HOWEVER, I will not go there again. First of all, the gate fee was $23 per person! Yikes! And that's only for 3 days! Apparently, they were there last weekend, too, and it was the same price, and they said if you still had your site token from last weekend, it was good for this weekend, too. And that's fine - but even PENNSIC has a lowered rate as the days go by! Yee gads! And the majority of it was paid to the land-owner. The actual SCA fee was only $9, including the non-member sur-charge. The other $14 went to the land-owner. We're not sure what for (which bugs me), and much of what we saw already there had been paid for from funds received from 40 Year, held there last year.

Secondly, there was the absolutely NO SHADE issue. I can only HOPE that some of the money taken by the land-owner is going to be put toward planting trees throughout the area, so as to make for nicer camping in the future. Trees would have helped immensely, both during the day and at night. We were in a valley, and with no clouds in the sky, it got very cold, VERY quickly. Trees could have helped keep the warmer air down toward us for a while longer, and helped kick some of the fog out from there, too.

Third, it's a LONG way from anything, and wasn't marked very well. It's 133 miles from my house to the nearest town, Randle, WA, which doesn't actually have even a small grocery - and then another 4-5 miles from there to the campsite. Directions should have included "turn off the paved road", then "turn off the county-upkept gravel road", and then "follow the dust and gravel road past the clear-cut areas". The first sign wasn't even found until after you got off the paved road... Apparently last year at 40 Year, ALL the stores were completely sold out of all alcoholic beverages within 50 miles of the campsite - which is saying something, since the exit from I-5 to Randle is 48 miles from the town!

In any case, it was hot, it was sticky, it was sweaty and dirty, and I forgot how cliquish the Washington SCA group is. They are simply NOT friendly in any way, shape or form to those outside of their little group. That and, for some reason, they've forgotten that the SCA is one big game of "Let's Pretend". Granted, it's a bigger game of "Let's Pretend" than what we used to play when we were 4 and 5 years old, but it's still a game. When we were 4 and 5, it was ok to use a bed-sheet and pretend it was anything from a cape to a tent to a kite to... well, whatever we wanted it to be. In their version, it's not ok to use a bed-sheet as anything other than a bed-sheet - you'd better have purchased or created all your fabric, and made your garb as authentic as possible or they will look down their noses at your attempt and not talk to you. Why? Because you don't look "period" enough to be bothered with.

I am *not* going to be lectured about what is and is not period in the SCA. When I joined, 14 years ago, it was about being as accurate as possible without killing your budget. If that meant that you got a lot of plain sheets from Goodwill and created T-tunics and skirts out of them, then that was a decent attempt, and no one killed you over it. No one even said anything about it. You were attempting, and were willing to learn, and that's what counted. Apparently NOW, it's only good enough if you end up looking like a million bucks - which is extremely hard to do in plain sheets, lemme tell ya.

They don't want to deal with belly dancers, unless they aren't covered in gold mylar, they certainly don't want to deal with piratical personas, and those who are within their first year of events don't get talked to by anyone unless it's a merchant trying to sell something - they, according to most of these would-be SCA perfectionists, aren't trying hard enough yet.

It's interesting... I started as a history buff, in my first year of college. Two or three of the "old-school" people in my area... Duke Sir James Greyhelm and Sir Paul of Somerton, and Vicountess Kareinia Tytar Talvi (well, she wasn't a Vicountess, then, but was very well known). They all were famous in their own right within the SCA. I had no idea - I just knew they looked nifty, loved history, and were delightfully friendly and outgoing. They suggested how I could go forth and, for very little expense, put together some pretty decent garb, and get involved with things that I might like.

I started with doing some dancing, some voice heralding, and just generally sitting next to anyone I could to learn from them. No one minded, no one looked down their noses at me, and no one told me that I didn't look "period" because I wore tennis shoes (I couldn't afford custom-fitted footgear, and tennies were comfy).

When I moved to Portland, I got into painting and illumination, as well as a little more heraldry - the paper and book kind, as well as studying different portions of history that were more favorites of mine than others. I improved my garb, using my sewing talents I'd gained from when I was a seamstress in the theatre department at college. I also created simple, good-looking, inexpensive garb to add to the gold key box for the area I was in. Why? Because I felt it was important to give back what I'd learned to those who came in, interested in what we did.

Yes, I had a few items that weren't exactly period. No, I didn't hand-sew my garb together. No, I didn't shear my own sheep, beat my own flax, weave the fabric together, etc... and my shoes were made on a right and left last (that's a shoe shaper, for those interested), though they were better than they could have been - birks or fisherman shoes, instead of tennis shoes. They looked good with the garb, and were still comfy.

So... With all that said, I think I will avoid most events on the north side of the Oregon border. I just can't get behind people who could care less about those who would continue on with the SCA in the future, once the "old-timers" are gone. Instead of giving information, advice and recommendations like a positive mentor, they give the impression that no one new is welcome unless they have both money and resources to already know everything there is to know about the SCA. And that's just not how I operate.

~M