The Accidental Tourist Ex Patriate

 What a mouthful of a title! You'll just have to follow along to see how it applies.

This is a "Gods Are Bored" entry on how I am keeping myself sane in these troubled times. And right now, more than sea glass, and Mummers, and especially the Baltimore Orioles, this is the anesthesia of absolute preference.

Nerds, rejoice! My anesthesia of choice is LARP.

So, for those of you with the wits in your head not to do LARP, the acronym stands for Live Action Role Play. It is an immersive game that you play in the woods or on a campground with other humans. In my case I play two different LARPs on a private property near the Pine Barrens. Although the setting is the same and many of the people overlap, my two LARPs are very different. I'll get into that, probably, in a later installment.

"Anne," you're asking. "How did you ever get involved in LARP? You don't mention a word about it in the entire Gods Are Bored archives until about 2024."

It's a funny story, actually.

Well, if you're an old-timer in this silly space, you know that I have gorged on fairy festivals since the turn of the century. It was through a fairy festival that I met Otter, and he was my catalyst to get into LARP. (Catalysts are a big deal in LARP.)

EXHIBIT A: ANNE AND OTTER, 2011

Just before the pandemic, say 2019, Otter started posting photos of himself and his buddies at some event that required fairy festival clothing. When I asked him where he was, and he named a municipality not far from my own, I decided to look into joining him in whatever he was doing down there. He told me the name of the game and the address, and that was all. He didn't encourage me to come, and that should have been a red flag, because we are pretty tight.

So I dressed in my fairy clothes and found the place, and the gate personnel eyeballed me up and down and said I looked the part, what did I know about the game?

Answer: nothing.

What did I know about LARP?

Answer: again, nothing.

It was game day, so no one had time to sit down and teach me. They just kind of shrugged, took my entrance fee, had me sign a waiver, and pointed me in the direction of "town."

"Town" turned out to be about two dozen makeshift buildings with tarp roofs. In and around these buildings were people dressed in armor, with horns and face paint and various other costuming, all very busy preparing for the next incursion of monsters and the next plot-driven quest.

I saw someone I knew from Otter's inner circle, and he greeted me warmly. I just couldn't understand why he couldn't sit down and have a nice long chat with me. Nor could anyone. They were busy speaking another language (rules jargon, plot twists) and going about their role play. I did not understand this at all. I tried pulling people off task to chat about anything but what was going on. And if you do LARP, you will know that this is the ABSOLUTE NO of the game.

Eventually I found someone who was pulled off task long enough for a talk, and she was very nice. Otherwise I was completely adrift, and Otter wasn't there to explain things to me. So I just kind of stood around in the way, and when the battle started, my first thought was, "Oh this ain't for me."

To this day I don't know why I went back a second time. But I did, and it was absolutely the same as the first time. People were nice, but distant. It was clear I had no idea what was going on, and the game was so doggone complicated that no one had time to take in a newbie, especially one who didn't even know what an NPC is.

On this second occasion, however, Otter was there, and when he wasn't swashbuckling, he was perfectly content to sit and gab "out of game." So I had a better time, and some of the players even began prompting me to take baby steps and learn how to do this thing. Still, I felt like I was an American tourist in a foreign country. Nothing made sense, and the monster attacks were seriously scary.

One winter morning in early 2020, just before the pandemic began, I found myself once again driving to the LARP, wondering what the fuck I was even doing it for. I still didn't understand the first thing about it, except that I couldn't just sit and gab. I felt like the people were barely tolerating me. It literally felt like I was about to enter that foreign country again, and the natives don't like tourists.

Then I passed a road sign that said ATLANTIC CITY  36.

Thirty-six miles from the hobby that I excelled at -- sea glassing! And it was a bright sunny day! Never mind that it was winter. I'm an idiot. I wade in the briny Atlantic in every season, if there's a shard of sea glass burbling in the surf. Ah, sea glassing. That was it. I should just breeze right by the turnoff for the LARP and make my way to AC.

That was actually a turning point in my life, right there. If I had gone on to Atlantic City, instead of taking the turnoff and braving the challenges of LARP, I would have sealed my fate as an old white lady content to lumber up and down a beach. But I made the turn. You see, LARP is populated by people young enough to be my children. There are a few others my age, but there are way more who are teen, twenty-somethings, and up from there. I just wasn't ready to walk away from the chance to be around younger people for a solitary and, frankly, monotonous hobby.

I stretched. I learned. They patiently corrected me when I said or did something the wrong way. I created a character and inhabited that character and forged friendships with other characters. And when I felt overwhelmed, I strolled off into the pines. (It's a 14 acre property, with a small Christmas tree farm and lots of woods.)

We just finished a campaign called "Caravan," in which I played a character named Feather. I thought it was an appropriate name for a LARP lightweight.

Our next campaign begins (for me) in June. It's called "Outpost" and is set at a new research facility in the fantasy world we inhabit. So this time, in a bold stroke of hubris, I created a character who is a serious scientist, a savant. Now is the time for me to understand this foreign country called LARP. My character is intensely interested in everything, including all the minute rules and regs.

The girl who runs this thing tells me that everyone loves me. They think I'm cute, and they appreciate how I keep trying even when I'm hopelessly flailing. And like a good expatriate American, I'm starting to fit into the culture and the language and the lore. I'm a regular LARP Emma Goldman.

EXHIBIT B: HAS ANNE FOUND HER PEOPLE?

This is a happy little photo from about a year ago. There I am, a slightly-past-prime monster, on the far right in the rear.

LARP aggressively removes itself from the here-and-now. I think all these people need a break from politics, and bills, and tough jobs, and emotional ups and downs. It sure helps me to disentangle myself from the CHAOS. And for that I am eternally grateful.