I was tired last night, and busy all day today, so that's why this came so late.

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Short version (which also serves as an outline for me): I ate FOOD, chilled out, went to an event organization panel, suited up, did some suiting off and on, ate pizza and talk, went to the fursuit photoshoot, played the fursuit games, unsuited, attended the closing ceremony, stopped on the way out for FOOD, and promptly passed out on the ride home.

Long version! GO!
I got up and went out for some breakfast, and was friggin' cold for pretty much the whole morning - fortunately some sugary, creamy coffee helped with that. Here's a personal tip about hotel breakfast: the waffles and other cooked items may not be that good, but the two things that generally turn out well are potatoes/hashbrowns (which you can always improve with ketchup) and yogurt - you can always rely on yogurt.

Not much to say about chilling out. I didn't bother to take a shower this day (I wish I had), because my long hair would take multiple hours to fully dry, and I didn't want to enter my suit with my head already wet. Regardless, after loading up the car (checkout was at noon), I went back to the hotel room and suited up.

I stayed in suit for the next few hours, all the way up to 7pm. I would often spend time in the headless lounge with my head and paws off, but I never fully took my suit off until the fursuit games had passed. I'm not sure I remember everything that went on in the fursuit lounge, but I do remember offering a spare belt to a suiter so that they could put their tail on... and I never saw that belt again... Eh, it was only about 3 bucks, and I was prepared to lose it anyways (good belt, though). Another time, some guy came over to sit down next to me, then proceeded to show me his fursona and tell me about his FA page. All his badges had characters that had been pantsed, and so did the picture of his sona that he showed me; it didn't help that his voice was higher-pitched than I'd expect it to be, so that was interesting. XD I suppose there could've been stranger people to run into.

I managed to get a few photos of myself while I was out suiting. There were these two octopus-like suits that looked really cute that I was able to get a picture with, and I also managed to get invited to a small group photo with three more professional looking suits/suiters. I also got a lot of boops; everytime somebody would ask for a boop, I'd reluctantly agree (in keeping with Voltaire's more mundane attitude), then waggle a finger in a sort of half-excitement. Hugs were given freely, however. I also went around giving little pokes to other suiters, seeing if we could get some sort of small interaction - this often led to fun little moments of goofing and gaffing.

I also had some pizza at some point. I saw a friend in the lobby, walked over to them, saw that they had pizza, and I was like, "Where'd you get pizza?" <...and why didn't you tell me?> Turns out there were a few slices left that were up for grabs, and I just ended up sitting there for the next half hour eating a slice of pizza and listening to two people talk. I'm more of a listener than a talker in crowd situations, but I eventually got in tune to what they were discussing and managed to make my own contribution to the conversation - funnily enough, the same discussion included a comment about how the con "was had so little going on that you were forced to socialize, whereas most cons have so much going on that there's not enough time to socialize."

By the time that conversation was done, the fursuit photoshoot was beginning to start. Not much to say about it - it was much the same as any other photoshoot would be (I assume). In between the photoshoot and the games, a lot of other fursuiters were dancing to the music, but... I just couldn't find it in me to join them. If I dance, I want there to be actual motions that are carefully planned and interesting - I don't like simply jumping to the beat. Not to diss on that kind of party dancing - it's great that people enjoy that - I personally don't. I did do some shoulder movements and toe-tapping while I sat in my chair, however.

Now, this isn't to say I didn't do any dancing. It was during Daft Punks' "Get Lucky," after I had been eliminated from a game of musical chairs (I'm not entirely sure, but I think there was a camera focused on me during that dance.) As for other games we played, there was "Pin the Tail on the Donkey/Llama" (I put my head on backwards for a blindfold), "Red Light, Green LIght" (I didn't win...), "Musical Chairs" (I got betrayed by my roommate), "Limbo" (almost completed the final round), aaaaand.... Oh, right; I don't know the name of it, but everyone (suiters and suitless alike) joined paws/hands into a big circle, and we had to get a hula-hoop all the way around the circle without breaking the chain. The hoop was in looped over our arms, so each person had to fit their whole body through it bit by bit... even that one suiter with thicc digi padding. XD Thankfully, we had a coordinator going around behind us to make sure that things went smoothly and that nobody fell over. It was a fun time. ^^

After the games, most people headed over to the headless lounge to unsuit. We were all joking about how bad we smelled and how great the fans felt. I ended up retiring the cotton shirt I always wore beneath my suit - just threw it away. I didn't want to bother storing away a sweaty, smelly shirt without getting a chance to hang it up to dry properly. Which reminds me that I need to get a new one.

Closing ceremony was nice. Right before it, "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on, and everybody joined in singing it. It was brilliant. As far as the ceremony itself, however, they covered statistics and future plans for Emerald's Fur Summit - the next con is planned for January of 2020, a nice winter con, which will hopefully mean good fursuiting weather (it's hard to tell with Southern weather). Everyone attending seemed really pleased, and some even went as far as to say it was the best con they've ever been to. For many, such as myself, it was also their first con. I'm not whether this weekend is something I'll remember strongly (more so than other memories), but I'm glad I've catalogued the events, so that I can still recall them if memory fails.

And yeah, as stated in the short version, we got food on the way out, and after filling up my belly, I passed out in the car. But that's too anticlimactic to end on, so go back and read that second-to-last paragraph again.

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I can't guarantee you've read all this, and I wouldn't blame you for not reading everything - this has to be one of my longest journals to date - but thanks for taking a look. Tl;dr: good first con experience, would con again, looking forwards to the second EFS.