Steamy Rose Picnic

[talon]

Monday, May 31st, from 11:00 am - 3:00 pm at Will Rogers Park (NW 36th and Portland) in Oklahoma City. It's potluck, so bring a dish to join in!

This is the time and place for the Oklahoma Steampunk picnic, our inaugural event.

We've been discussing this over at the Steampunk Empire in the Oklahoma Steampunk group. There are 5 people who will be there, 2 more who might be there, and there's always room for more!

Now, steampunk is an odd creature, very free-form and creative. Almost anything goes as long as it has goggles, gears, and can be tied back to something in the Gilded Age (between the Regency Era and WWI). If it has steam power, so much the better. It can be historically accurate or it can be wildly fantasy - there are steampunk fairies and bellydancers as well as pirates, airship captains, and people just dressing with bits of steamy accessories and such.

I fall somewhere between dressing the part without any persona change and having a backstory and name for when I'm in steampunk clothes. Truth is, take away the clothes and I'd still be interested in and doing the same things.

I like costuming, and have bits and pieces of clothing I've constructed from many eras and cultures. I wear them to work and most people just think I'm just a little eccentric (OK, OK, they think I'm a lot eccentric, but I bring baked goods, so they tolerate it). I tend to be "me" no matter what era I'm playing in or how I'm dressed. Even in the SCA, back when I played with them, I was still me, in period clothing and doing period activities.

As wide-ranging as my clothing choices are, so are my interests. And I've had the advantage of living long enough to have built up a number of skills and gained certification and accreditation in a number of areas. Odd ones that aren't terribly employable in this day and age but would have been highly sought after in previous eras. Or maybe future ones.

I am trained in spagyrics - a form of alchemy related to herbs and potions. I am also a German-trained herbal apothecary. I am a licensed paranormal investigator and a licensed cryptozoologist. I am certified in etiquette, both antiquated and modern. I have a PhD in fairytales. I costume. I cook. I craft (in sculpey, mostly). I embroider and embellish. I train little dogs. I organize events (and if people want an event done and they dilly-dally around organizing it, I'm likely to take over and do it - and I'm not in the least repentant about it). I can work with beads, porcupine quills, cowrie shells, dyed barks, and metals to embellish clothes and accessories and household items. I can tan hides and work leather. I can build working (but not real) rayguns. I teach classes on urban and suburban survival (mostly for free). I can spin, dye, and weave fabric. I can weave baskets. I can do light taxidermy and craft with animal bones. And other stuff I can't remember right off hand.

It makes for fun and fulfilling hobbies and having so many trivial skills makes it harder to develop a "persona" because my interests don't shut off based on my clothing and companions.

So, while I have a name and a back story for different eras, I don't stick tightly to them.

Steampunk is probably the closest fit I'll ever have because thanks to the Time Machine, I can always claim time travel as the reason for my oddities and discrepancies.

So, I'll be at the picnic as Cordelia Moontea, and as me.