The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ahh...the smell of latex and facepaint in the air.  Trying not to get too close to others so you don't get fake blood all over you.  Working with your body to get your walk just right.  Wigs and petticoats and props, oh my!

Oh yeah, it's my favorite time of year.  October is upon us, which means (ba-ba-ba-boom) Halloween is coming!!!  This is the best time to experiment with new makeup techniques--people don't seem as shocked to see a zombie coming towards them at this point.  Whereas if you do that in April...well, folks tend to be more puzzled than gleeful and curious.

Speaking of zombies, the 2nd Annual Zombie Walk will be held in downtown Columbus on October 20.  We participated last year and had a blast.  Really, what's more awesome than seeing around a hundred zombies shuffling towards you on a Saturday afternoon?  Kelly started this last year, and most of us found out about it through Facebook.  The fact that we had so many people show up makes me think that this year will be even bigger.  If you don't want to walk with us, just come hang out on Broadway that evening, and you'll get plenty of photo ops with the zombies!  Just so you know, mine will be legen...wait for it...dary!

The Spooktacular will be held downtown on Saturday, October 27.  The League of Columbus will be in attendance, and there will be plenty of fun scares and candy to go around!  I've said every year that I wanted to go to this, but have yet to make it.  This will be the year I finally go!  I'm not sure what costume I'll do, seeing as how we'll probably stick around the downtown area afterwards.  I love dressing as Black Canary, but I know what will happen with inebriated folks at the bars. 

 It's difficult to keep a wig on when people pull on it, and everyone likes to give their own opinion on whether you should be wearing that.

I've grown accustomed to the sideways, unbelieving looks that the Muggles love to give me.  Yes, I'm a plus-sized girl.  Yes, I'm wearing nothing but a leotard and fishnets. The looks hurt, but the snarky comments and behind-the-hand stage whispers are worse.  I am lucky enough that I work with a really great group of folks who back me in all my costuming decisions, regardless of going against body type. And yeah, we've totally got each others' backs (and fronts, and horns, and arrows, and scythes...I could keep going all day with that :-)) Fun fact: I've lost a few pounds, and I'm doing it the healthy way!  My Black Widow looks fabulous now, but I'm afraid pieces will fall off.

I may make some adjustments and wear it anyway, even though no one realizes who I am (they think I'm Catwoman.  Really?  I mean, totally different belt.  Not to mention no cat ears...).

(Catwoman photo courtesy of DeOndre of Atlas Photography.  He's awesome!)

Wearing a costume in public doesn't only mean rude comments.  It also means fracking douchebag assholes who don't understand boundaries.  For instance: last year (at Dragon Con, so I can't believe this happened) I had a Google Android costume.

That helmet is glued to a ball cap with elastic under the chin.  Late in the evening, drunk guys would come by and just whack me on the top of the head.  Not only was it annoying, but it hurt.  Yeah, I got pissed, especially when someone would try to take it off my head.  YOU DON'T TOUCH A PERSON'S BODY OR THEIR COSTUME WITHOUT ASKING. Last Halloween, Jon and I went as Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer, complete with "Occupy" signs.  Mine said "Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool", and his said "Occupy America, Because the Status is Not Quo".  It made perfect sense to anyone who had seen the movie.  However, some random asshole decided he was going to rip the sign out of my hands and dance around with it.  I grabbed him and roughly took it back while yelling at him NOT to touch my stuff.  So yeah, supposedly I was too rude with him and should have been nicer because he was just drunk...nah.  Sue me, I was drinking whiskey.

Now where the hell was I going with this?  Cause I'll be damned if I remember...

Happy fall, y'all!

Summer Lovin'

"Just live in my memory, you'll always be there..." --Heart 

At least once in their lives, every woman has the "vacation fling".  You know, the one that you dated for about a week while you were out of town.  This is an old story, yet always one of my favorites.

I was 19, and went to Boston for a week before I started college.  My cousin (who I was staying with) convinced me to head out on my own during the day while she was at work and see some of the city.  She lived near the Faneuil Hall area, where there were  a ton of small businesses for me to do some serious shopping.  After walking for a while, I happened across a magic store.  It was packed with families, and seemed to be popular not only with tourists but also with the locals.  It was getting near lunchtime, so after perusing the merchandise, I asked a salesperson where I could find a McDonald's nearby.

Before he could answer, a voice behind me said, "There isn't one nearby.  But if you wait around for about 10 minutes, I can show you someplace better."  His name was Tom, and he had a scruffy beard and ponytail.  I took a chance and waited for this complete stranger to walk around a strange city with me.

Tom took me to a little pizza joint about five minutes away, and it was totally worth it.  The food was awesome, and the conversation never hit that dull patch.  Turned out we had tons in common, even down to smoking the same cigarettes.  He made fun of me mercilessly for staying bundled up the whole time (hey, Boston in October is cold to a Southern girl).  I made fun of his Yankee accent.  We wound up kissing just outside the restaurant.

The next few days went by in a blur.  We spent his lunch break together every day, and he spoke of taking me to meet his parents.  However, a smart girl doesn't go out of town with a guy she barely knows...even if he is cute and she is an impetuous nineteen year old.  The make out sessions got longer and longer, as they always do.

My last day there, I went to see him on last time.  He was off that day, but met up with me outside the magic shop anyway.  I knew it would be the last time I would see him, but some part of me still held hope that a long distance thing would work.  It was an emotional good bye, and I headed back to my cousin's to leave for the airport.

I had only gotten a few blocks away and was waiting to cross the street when I heard someone calling my name.  I turned around and Tom was running after me.  "I couldn't let you get away without one last kiss," he said, planting one on me right then and there.  The people nearby started cheering.  It felt like I was in the rom-com of my dreams...and then I had to leave.  Planes wait for no love-struck teenager.

I wrote him a couple of letters when I got home, but never got a reply.  I wasn't surprised--after all, he had known I was only there for a week so there could never really be anything between us.  I still have a pic of him that I took that week, and I can't help but smile every time I come across it.  I sometimes wonder what became of him, and if he would still be there if I walked in, ready to help some lost tourist.

The Other Love of My Life (or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Joss Whedon)

As a child, I had an obsession that I never quite grew out of.  I read books about it.  I watched movies about it.  I wrote stories about it.  I dreamed about it.

The "it" being the vampire.

Horror movies would give me horrendous nightmares...unless they were about vampires.  I may have watched the old Universal horror films with my great-grandfather, but it was Joel Schumacher's classic The Lost Boys that made me fall in love with bloodsuckers.  I would rent every video I could find, even the really bad ones...and believe me, there were more bad than good in those days.

Until the early 90's.  Then I happened across a video of a movie about a blond cheerleader who was the one sent to destroy vampirekind.  You guessed it--that movie was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, written by a then-little-known man named Joss Whedon.  I fell in love with the plotline, vapid as it was.  I found the novelization and read it again and again until it fell apart.

In 1996, when I was a sophomore in high school, Fox aired a commercial for a new show called (wait for it)...Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I squeed with delight; I would get to see those characters again!  And they were the same age as me!  When the show started, I immediately fell in love with the darker tone (and the brooding Angel, natch).  Since I spent quite a bit of high school grounded, I only got to catch an episode here and there.  Same with college, although I was simply too busy with work and school to be grounded.  When Angel premiered, I had a hard time getting into it.  It just wasn't Buffy.

Then Firefly came along.  Wait a minute--this is created by the same guy?  And it's not about vampires?  I watched the first aired episode, which was "The Train Job".  Before the show was over, I had come to the realization that this guy got it.  His characters were so real that you simply felt like you knew them.  You cared about the people, wanted to jump into their stories and  make them your own.  Of course, we all know what happened to Firefly (and if you don't, then why are you still here?  Go educate yourself).  Firefly led to the movie Serenity.  And really, how many TV shows were ever made into successful, well-written movies (with the same cast)?  Yeah, I can count them on one finger.

In the summer of 2009, I was doing a play with a local theatre group and made some new friends.  The general consensus was, "How can you call yourself a fan if you've never seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?!?!"  After hearing this for a few weeks, I finally found a copy of the DVD at Hot Topic.  I already knew Whedon could write a musical (see BTVS s06 e07), so I knew it would be good.  Hell, it was great!  It made me realize that musicals didn't have to be stuffy over-produced spectacles.  It made musicals accessible, something that Hollywood has forgotten.  That was the start of many Dr. Horrible sing-along nights at my house.

I admit it, I missed Dollhouse when it originally aired.  I didn't have cable and didn't know how to find videos online yet.  So, bad Geek!  I did finally see the series last year when a friend loaned it to me.  Brilliant!  Not to mention that Eliza Dushku impressed the hell out of me by being able to play so many different characters in such a short time span.  Once again, one of the best-written shows on television ever.

While he has been a staple in geek culture for over a decade, Whedon has finally gone a bit mainstream this year with several movies.  First there was Cabin in the Woods, a not-so-typical horror movie that blended genres so seamlessly that the audience never realized they were in for a sci-fi treat until it was too late.  Then came (drumroll, please!) The Avengers.  More than just summer popcorn fare, Whedon did the impossible.  He managed to make a comic book movie that geeks didn't hate.  In fact, most fans I know have already seen it more than once.  Given today's ticket prices, that's an incredible feat.  When I talk to other friends about the movie, they were always surprised when I mentioned that the director had created Buffy, since this movie was so cool.  They didn't realize that a lot of us were already ahead of the curve on this brand of coolness.

We know from watching his shows over and over that Whedon has his own writing style.  There was even a term coined to describe it--"Whedonesque".  Watch today's television, and you can see the impact he has had on today's writers.  Some of the most popular shows are written/produced/created by folks who worked with him back in the day, and it shows.  Warehouse 13 and Dexter are both produced by Drew Z. Greenberg (writer for Buffy and Firefly).  Glee, Mad Men, and Grey's Anatomy have all been written and produced by Marti Noxon (writer/producer/director for Buffy and Angel).  Once Upon a Time, Torchwood: Miracle Day, and Game of Thrones have all been written for by Jane Espenson (writer for all 3 of Whedon's series.  Plus will be at Dragon Con this year, where I plan to meet her!).  If you watch these shows, you can tell a similarity in the writing styles.  After a single episode of Warehouse 13, for instance, I already knew that it had been created by someone who had worked with Whedon on a previous show.  There is an underlying humor in the writing that comes through and once again, makes these characters people you want to meet.  With the exception of Joffrey Baratheon.  Cause let's face it, he's just a little prick.

Whedon has yet another movie coming out this October...a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.  Will I be lined up on opening night to see my favorite writer take on the Bard?  Oh yeah.

To BFF or not to BFF

It's amazing how our friendships change as we get older.  As kids, all you had to do was ask, "Hey, you wanna be my friend?"  I kind of miss those days.

At the start of my teenage years, my dad moved me around a lot.  I learned how to make friends quickly, but not really anything lasting.  Basically I stuck with whoever wasn't in the popular crowd.

By the time high school rolled around, I had begun to perfect the art of being a social butterfly.  Get to know everyone, but have a tight circle that you could always count on.  Many of those in my "inner circle" are still in touch, and even if we don't see each other that often, we know we can always count on one another.  There are several folks that I can go for months without speaking to, but once we pick up the phone, it's like a conversation that we never left.  Those folks have a special place in my heart that will never go away.

Once we're out in the workplace, we forge new friendships, ones with people of all ages, races and beliefs.  Primarily we tend to make our friends at work, but when we leave that job, we don't always take our friends with us.  I have learned that, as adults, friendships tend to run their course.  Our interests change as we grow and learn more about ourselves.  One day you realize, I haven't talked to her in a while.  You pick up the phone, and during the course of the conversation, you suddenly realize, I have nothing in common with this person anymore.  Perhaps one of you got married and/or had a child.  Maybe you do nothing but work overtime while they are still hard-partying.  That doesn't mean you should completely cut them out of your lives--by no means am I saying that.  You can still be friends with someone you no longer share many interests with, you just won't seem as close as before.

As a very social butterfly, I have made a lot of friends and acquaintances over the years (funny enough, everyone was a friend when I was younger.  Now I have some friends but more acquaintances).  Many have been in my life for quite some time, but others have come and gone.  I have gone from making friends in a bar to meeting people through shared interests (if you live in the Columbus, GA area I recommend Columbus Freethinkers for stimulating intellectual conversation, or The League of Columbus for all things comic-related).

Diet Coke commissioned research on the new rules of female friendship and communication.  If you get a chance, check out their findings.  As a woman, most of it was not surprising at all to me, like that fact that women have more close friends than men (well duh).  They mention how most women in my age range (25-35) try to have it all.  Well yes, we want it all...some of us are just better at succeeding than others.

Per usual, I have no idea how to conclude my rambling thoughts.  So I'll just leave you with this cliched yet undeniable truth: "Some people come into our lives and quickly go.  Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts.  And we are never, ever the same."

Cosplay Addict

So here we go.  Dragon Con is a scant 158 days away, and my body is nowhere near where I wanted it to be. Of course, I haven't really been trying either, so that's totally my own fault.  A weakness for beer and pasta jumped me up into plus sizes rather quickly a few years ago.  With that in mind, let's take a look at some of my cosplay ideas for this year's Con.

1.) Jayne Cobb (Firefly/Serenity)

Let's face it, Jayne's a badass.  I want to take all that badassery and translate it into a female version.  I saw one last year, but I think I can do it better.  I'm thinking of taking the iconic Blue Sun shirt and cutting it up into a halter.  Originally I wanted to use a bikini top and screen the Blue Sun logo onto it, but I don't see myself getting that thin (hey I'm being realistic).  Pair it up with some short khaki shorts and black combat boots.  And let's not forget THE HAT...gotta find one of those.  Jon is already working on putting pieces together to create Vera and the grenades (sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?).

2.) Claudia Donovan (Warehouse 13)

I rocked Claudia last year and got to meet Eddie McClintock, who plays Pete on the show.  This year he will be back along with Saul Rubinek (Artie) so I'll probably reprise this costume.  It was spot on, even if no one really caught it.  Jon made a Tesla gun for me last year which needs some minor repairs (I also used this costume for a local sci-fi con).  He's got some pieces to create a Farnsworth, which rocks my stripy socks.  My hair will be a little long to be correct, but I wound up keeping the pink streak so that at least will be right.

3.) Black Canary (DC Comics)

Jon plans on dressing as Green Arrow, so we though I might go as his wife.  The same leather jacket that I use as Claudia could work and I already have black boots.  The problem I'm running into is the leotard...I haven't found anyone locally who sells adult dance supplies, especially for plus size girls.  Hell no I am NOT planning on bleaching my hair...unless my stylist is willing to take that on for a reasonable price.  It would mean a wig for Claudia however, so one way or another I'll be visiting Sister Wig downtown (I absolutely love them.  I would buy out the store if I could).

4.) Lady Blackhawk (DC Comics)

I have found a pattern that will work for the coat, and a cheerleader skirt pattern for the skirt (thanks to  Glitter Pill for the idea and pattern!).  The black boots would do double duty, and I can find the gloves online or at Party City.  I'm figuring on trying to find the hat at a military surplus store (an advantage to living near an army base), and make the patches using felt or card stock.  As I mentioned, the blond hair would either be a good dye job or a wig, whichever I decide closer to time.

I tend to pick characters who are strong-willed and independent.  If I get to carry a toy gun, well....shiny!  I've got to get on the ball for losing weight and finding pieces. I have no willpower when it comes to sweets, and Chill has some non-dairy flavors that I just love.  I'm trying to be realistic with these costumes on what will work with my body shape and what I'm comfortable wearing.  Here starts the search...wish me luck!

In the Beginning...

            I hear all the time that you can’t be a geek if you’re not into computers.  Let me put this into two simple ideas for those people:

1.      I am a geek.

2.      I am a technophobe.  Well, I wouldn’t say exactly technophobe, since I am sitting here at a computer tying this…but I do have a tendency to destroy any computer in a ten yard radius.  Just call me Harry Dresden. 

I am the most eclectic person you will ever meet.  I have a tendency to write

whatever I’m trying to figure out at the time, whether it’s the plot to a stupid movie, a song in my head, a new chapter for one of the many stories I’m always  writing in my head or, god forbid, stream of consciousness.  Always a scary proposition, that…you don’t want to know what’s really going on in there.

            So what kind of geek am I?  The kind that loves comics and anything to do with them.  My favorite ones are those that have primarily strong-willed female characters (such as Birds of Prey) although I will always love what brought me to the genre in the beginning—Batman and X-Men.

            I’m also a bookwyrm.  Right now I’m reading A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin, the third in the Song of Ice and Fire series (or the Game of Thrones books, thanks to HBO’s brilliant show based on them).  I love the character of Arya, though Tyrion is growing on me quite rapidly.  Read them, you’ll understand why.

            So.  Just a beginning into the wonders of me.  Stay tuned…you never know what lies ahead…