Nancy walked in to Stitch'n'Bitch and said "Do you want to be a body in a masquerade entry at Minicon? I want to do the gumby-suits from Priscilla, only as Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon-6 from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

Now this wasn't the first time Nancy had asked me, or Henry for that matter, to dress up in drag. I'd said no in the past. Partially because I didn't want to shave off my goatee. However, this was the first Minicon in years that I wasn't scheduled to work for Felix in the Dealers' room during the weekend (which meant I would have the time), and the idea sounded amusing.

"Sure, why the hell not? But we need a third." Thus the phone call. "Hi Marcus, are you going to Minicon?"

"I don't know if I can afford it this year," he said.

"We need a third body to do triple-breasted alien drag queens in the Masquerade."

He found a way to afford it.

The Sunday before the convention, Marcus, Henry, and I got together and started building the headdresses for the girls.

It looked like the muppets exploded on our dining-room table.

We spent our time decapitating fake flowers, gluing feathers and sequins and stitching strings of beads. The instructions on the 3M Super77 Spray Adhesive said "Use while agressively tacky." We had absolutely no problems there.

I went for an easy recreation of Mitzi's flowered headdress in warm colors ("You look like a giant mum" was what Lee--my friend and landlord--said). Henry decided to go for a blue showgirl-esque feathered look, with tall plumes in back. Marcus chose to retain the scullcap shape, covering it with leaves from the beheaded daffodils, making something that wouldn't look entirely out of place on a 1920's flapper.

About this time, Nancy started working madly on the outfits. Long pants with great half-circle feet (we finally figured out they weren't gumby-suits, but the stalks of flowers, with a wide round base when the feet were together) and backless halter-tops with three straps instead of two.

Monday evening, I made tapes of our narrative and music, and several safety copies (in case any got lost). Tuesday evening, Henry and I worked to transcribe the coreography from the original routine. I think I've heard "I Will Survive" about 250 times.

We were all leaving for the convention either Wednesday or Thursday.

At the convention (Friday), we found time for rehersals and to finish the costumes. The pants needed both reinforcing plastic to be inserted in the soles of the feet, and socks to be stitched down to the inside of the feet. And the tops needed to be fitted.

I'd be lying if I said rehersals went without a hitch.

All in all, we were still having fun (if I had any doubts, they could be dismissed by the simple fact that, even though I'd heard "I Will Survive" about 50 more times, I still wasn't sick of it).

Saturday came... We were still rehearsing. Oh, by the way, we were rehearsing on the balcony of Glen and Nancy's cabana. Only a few feet from the upper ConSuite. A few people looked quite confused about this. However, we weren't rehearsing with an inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex, like the people across the garden court.

Mid-afternoon we all shaved. Marcus and I shaved from the waist up. Goodbye beard. I had started growing mine 4 years ago at my first Minicon. C'est la vie. Henry only shaved his face... said he was the East-German entry. We did a few rehearsals in the pants (the semi-circle feet made things interesting).

Finally, it was makeup time. We started about 2 hours before we had to be at the greenroom. Nails (our color was Cutex "Simply Cerise."). Base (Max Factor is great... they started as a stage & screen makeup company). Blush (I still haven't got the hang of blush). Lip pencil and lipstick (Nancy gave Henry really "pouty" lips). And of course, eye-shadow. Lots of eye-shadow. Glittery eye-shadow. Eye-shadow in colors never seen in nature. Reds, blues, greens, yellows, silvers, you name it...

But that all was nothing without the final crowning touch. False eyelashes. Huge false eyelashes. Marcus and Henry had black. Mine were red with rhinestones (tacky, tacky, tacky).

All that was left was to put in the tits, put on the headdresses, and make our way to masquerade check-in.