I tiptoed out early on a Saturday morning to buy ingredients for salsa, leaving my spouse, still sleeping, to be guarded by the house cats. I bought a shower gift and salsa ingredients, and was well on my way through processing the vegetables into finished salsa by the time Jeff woke up.

It had to get done, not because it was a chore but because I had promised, and it was my own fault that I'd stayed up late with friends the night before, talking and playing games instead of shouldering responsibility and purchasing habañeros and peppers for food-making.

It took me three days to paint the master bedroom, three days of Jeff-awayness that meant I spent most of my painting time trying very very hard to coax sprightly conversation out of my painting utensils (and failing, I might add). The first two days were spent painting and doing chores at a rather leisurely pace, since I believed I had until Thursday night to complete the painting of the room.

Last night's phone call changed that. "I'm coming home a day earlier than planned."

White is not a color for dragon*con. Black is a far better choice. A black shirt soaked through with sweat doesn't turn transparent, and the dirt, grime, and grease of equipment never shows up against it. There's an art to staying clean, dry, and daisy-fresh at 'con when you're a tech staffer.

I haven't mastered it yet, but part of it appears to hinge on changing shirts a lot.

My name is Amy, and I am a tech staffer at dragon*con.

You don't know me, and you don't see me at dragon*con room parties. The only time you might see me at dragon*con is while I'm running equipment from room to room, or while I'm standing backstage to help load out a band's equipment. Even then, I am faceless; a woman in a plain shirt and jeans, with a radio clamped to my head and equipment in my hand.

I can finally give you the answer to the question which I'm sure was bothering none of you: "What was Amy's super-secret dragon*con graphic design project that she worked on for all of August?" I held off making these photos available until after dragon*con was in full swing, hoping that no one who was meant to be surprised would be unduly surprised by visiting cat.net.

On the Saturday before dragon*con, I was sitting in the computer room, tending to minor items from my dragon*con checklist. Halfway down the list was the note "clean off camera." My camera's memory card had been slowly collecting photos from various places, none of which were ever quite enough to post at any one time.

I flicked through the photos and realized that, when added to the photos I'd been socking away on my desktop "for eventual use," that I had enough for a post. Therefore, I present for you a mishmash collection: The Shameless Feline.