Love Where it's Least Exected

2003 rolled around and I was the Master of the List for ATACC at ARISIA. In addition, VTRF was taking a year off. This meant I *could* perform at MERF. I wanted to get involved with the joust show and had asked if I was better off simply doing that, or auditioning. Auditioning was the answer and for the second year in a row, I asked about being paid. This time, I was told, "yes." I was one of three paid cast members. I was cast as "The Duke of Parma". I was to be the muscle for the bad guy. This was the kind of role usually reserved for one of the top performers. A lot of the more experienced cast had departed and this was a chance to shine. And shine I did. My fight partners and I won a "Bodgie" for the best choreographed fight in a cast show. It was a proud moment for me.

There was an even better event that occurred at this faire. During dress rehearsal weekend I got to know one of the other performers better than I thought I would. We got to talking and we connected on some level. We've been together ever since. Meeting Michelle was the best event in my life. She was playing the part of "Anne Hardy - Scullery Wench". She was a newcomer (well, actually she had been there as a lady in waiting my first year and was going to be an assistant stage manager my second year but had not attended) among a cast of both newcomers and veterans, and she stood out among them all. She worked hard and had a natural ability in both performance and fighting. We were concerned about two things, age difference (11.5 years) and living distance (200 miles). But we've made it work.

This chance meeting you see was odd for me. I had never been good at meeting anyone. I had tried for all my previous years of faire to find someone I could connect with. I just couldn't. I'm not good at approaching anyone to begin with but there was never really any spark. I had been using online personals to try to meet people and failing. I went into the 2003 season of MERF with the idea that I would not meet anyone, I would not try to meet anyone, and I would just relax and enjoy myself. I guess this was what it took. An amazing beauty has tamed this savage beast.

"Gustav" and "Devon" were also prepping for CTRF at this time. "Devon" was jousting at MERF and "Gustav" had no involvement. "Devon" needed a fight captain and they asked me, although they couldn't pay me. I said it'd be a great learning experience and looked forward to doing it. It was a great experience. I was performing at part of GBU, I would be doing armored combat one of the four weekends, and I would be fight captain. Well, one of the armored fighters couldn't do the show so I wound up fighting every weekend. In addition, I took his fight in the Chess Match. I was a busy bee, but it was a great season. I also started horseback riding that year as I worked to become a jouster. Everything was going great.

A difficult year