So I have renewed faith in humankind since this weekend at Dragon Con. I know I am usually cynical about people and tend to talk down about those people I don't understand, don't care to understand, and/or think it's tons better just to just make fun of them anyway (goes along with my "you make your own fun" theory - laughing at other people's expense is a fun clause under that theory). I also have found that the genres of the people I make fun of aren't really around me all that much - so I have no personal experience with any of these people - except in public situations - where they truly are just like their stereotype.

This past weekend, I was forced to share a booth with an ECW girl wrestler (Deanna Caine), and a B-Movie Queen (Jenny {not sure if she reveals her last name to people so I am leaving that part blank]). Both girls have traits that I don't possess (naked pics to sell to the masses and big boobs - complete with the attitude to pull it off) and am not sure if I could have those traits even if I wanted them.

We'll start with Jenny. When I got to the booth on Friday - she was already set up and ready to get moving with her day . I introduce myself, but I am really not sure what to say to her - I don't know if it was because I trained my inner bully to do nothing but cut her to the quick and I wanted to be polite and followed the age old rule of "if you can't say anything nice - shut up" (that and I thought it would be bad for our business to be reduced to hair pulling) or maybe I was in awe of her because she was obviously happy with what she was doing and was doing something that I am still striving for - becoming an actress for inane silly films because it seems like it would be fun and would fit my personality - and here she has already accomplished it - and I am still floundering.

So I smile nervously at her and put my stuff out on the table. It's a small amount of merchandise compared to what she has (equivalent to my gas station store assortment to her Wal-Mart selection)- but I make myself feel better by having my laptop take up a bunch of space and it gives me something to do when no one is at my table (i.e. I can become the Solitaire queen). We get busy with people after a while and so I forget that I am next to her.

That night, at the VIP lounge, I run into her and a few of her pals (one of them a gorgeous gay cross dresser - damn.. why are all of them gay?) and I got to talking with them. I was really interested in what Jenny had done movie-wise and tried to link up the common people we both knew. It turns out that we both know John Saenz (he was in HELL NIGHT with me and he had acted in a movie with her - Terror at Tate Mannor) and after that - the conversation flowed pretty easily. She actually thought my cam was pretty cool - so I kinda felt accepted - like I had info that she was interested in just like I was in her stuff - and not like she was making small talk while she looked past me to see if there was anyone more important in the room (which would have been very easy to find - i am on the low end of the important people spectrum) and I was actually not trying to find oddities about her to laugh about when recapping with my pals. They even wanted to know if there were any cool parties around (they picked up on the fact that I am in the know on the various evening activities and am proficient in acquiring passes to them). I beamed and told them of the ones I knew (and that they needed to say that they knew me to get in). We hung out at one of the parties for a bit before my attention span threw me somewhere else.

The next day I gave her a pass to the "Catholic School Girls in Trouble" party thrown by Fantasm (also explaining that she needed to have a costume for it). We exchanged cards and she told me that she knew of a few people doing casting calls and that I would be perfect for one of the movies she was trying out for this week.

Anyway, the point to this moment was that this girl was actually a real person and kinda cool when you get to know her. Maybe if I hadn't been thrown into a situation where I had to deal with people like her (playboy playmates and B Movie Queens) I wouldn't have sought out her company - but I was and I'm sorta glad it turned out like this - rather than a knock down drag-out mud wrestling fight over whose boobs were real :)

I'll tell you about Deanna next time...