Weekend Wangst and Renfest Ranting

I am not a romantic person. I used to be, but I am not any longer. I do not believe in true love, painless relationships, or fairytale endings. I do my best not to get soppy about idle things like boyfriends.

I am in a long distance relationship with a guy I met in college. We first met when his roommate drunkenly cartwheeled through my locked and dead-bolted dormroom door. He assured me, looming and loud, that he was not drunk at all, that he was just keeping Roomie from killing himself. Yeah, okay large bearded man. You smell like a distillery. Get out of my doorway.

Our relationship in college was just about perfect. We had our own groups of friends, we could go hang out with others and return to one another in the evening. It's harder now that he's three hours away. He visits me on weekends, or I visit him, when I have weekends off. I work in a restaurant, I don't usually have weekends free. He works in publishing. He only has weekends free. Badass, huh?

"Oh to hell with you, Stark." some would say. "Three hours? Only on weekends? What about the folks with family in the military? What about the people whose loved ones are journalists halfway around the globe?" to these people I say "oh screw off. Just because other people have it worse doesn't mean it suddenly doesn't suck."

These issues now addressed I feel that I have kvetched sufficiently and shall immediately return to my topic.

The Maryland Renaissance Festival may be best treated like a giant outdoor theme pub with a heinous cover charge. That's how I like it, at least. One goes to drink the cheap beer (or hardcore cider in my case. I loves me the cider) and socialize. The Boyfriend always gets sulky at the renfest, because they have not had a new act there in decades and all my friends want to do is see Hack and Slash for the millionth time. I do not exaggerate. They see every show at every time slot every time they go. They recite the lines along with the actors. I know it's ritual and all, but god damn, Fight School is on at the same time, and they actually do good improv! And they have that one cute guy in a kilt!

So instead of sitting through the same four acts, BeerSnob, Boyfriend and I sat in the various pubs, singing along with the meandering minstrels (they don't really travel, the entire park is only a kilometer squared), and discussed with rising horror the travesties of cleavage that surrounded us. Boobs should not look like tiny, flabby shelves! Ladies, if you want to wear psuedo renaissance gear, you are probably already spending a couple hundred dollars! Do not spend those dollars on gear that makes you look thirty years older (boob-squeezer tops) or like a low class whore (horse tails or fox tails).

Also, if pregnant, please do not wear nothing but a bra and booty short leather armor set. While I understand that motherhood is beautiful and all that nonsense, when you're eight and a half months along... you make BeerSnob cry.

It is also a fact that any drink tastes better coming from a proper mug instead of a plastic cup. So I bought a proper, stoneware quaffing mug. Because if I don't spend money on something idiotic at the renfest I feel I have not had the true experience.

I also got a chance to do a quick wine tasting from a Maryland vineyard. Wow those were some sugary wines. The only one that did not taste like a cordial was the sangria. I have not had a whole lot of experience with my local wineries, there seems to be some kind of prejudice against them right now since they are all so new. It is something I'd like to get more into, there must be someone out there making less syrupy wines.