I never write, I never call. Soon, though. Almost finished being busy here. Literally, I don’t know how I get everything done.

dream

Last night I dreamed Matt Damon and I ran into each other and got to talking and catching up on what was happening with our mutual friends. In the course of our conversation, we admitted to each other that we’d always had crushes on each other. No, not crushes… we were in love.

I made out with Matt Damon. We told each other in great detail how and when and why we each knew we’d fallen in love with the other. Then we realized that each of us was currently unmarried.

“Note to self,” I thought, “Break up with my fiance next time I see him.” Because, as much as I loved my fiance, I knew that I had to take the once-in-a-lifetime chance to find the ultimate romantic happiness with Matt Damon, who was so obviously, probably my soulmate.

Matt Damon and I made out. I decided I’d tell my fiance we should take a break from our relationship for a month, to make sure we wanted to get married for absolute certain. During that month, I told myself, I would date Matt Damon. I decided not to divulge that part of the plan to my fiance, as it would only hurt him. Also, that way, if it turned out that Matt Damon and I were not really soulmates, I could just get back with my fiance and move forward.

I thought my plan over and could see no problems with it. Matt Damon stepped away to speak to a mutual friend. I rode a very long swing that was hanging from the sky. I swung in great circles and picked a giant almond from a tree in an orchard full of giant-almond trees being tended by Miss Carmen Abrego.

I swung back to the park and Matt Damon was waiting for me. We kissed. Then, my fiance appeared at my side. “Oops,” I thought.

The End.

When I Woke Up

I realized how silly the whole thing was. Because, in reality, my fiance loves me very much, and I love him. So I know that, if Matt Damon were to come to me and tell me he’d always loved me, I could totally go to my fiance and say, “Baby, Matt Damon says he loves me. Can you and I break up for a month so I can see what’s up with that?”

And I know he’d say, “Sure, baby. I know you really like Matt Damon, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on that chance.”

Also, Matt Damon is married to someone who seems really nice. So, the whole point is moot.

I’m getting older.

And I’m not sad about it. It’s not a bad thing, to lose patience for immature people. The best thing is that you can walk away from them without worrying that they’ll stop liking you, or that they’ll call you old or stuck-up or boring. You won’t care about petty shit like that anymore. It’s really kind of awesome, the not caring and the walking away.

Jesus

This blog entry’s gonna kind of suck because I have no time to write it. No time to craft. But y’all know why and y’all know that it doesn’t diminish the undying distant affection that I feel for each of you. Y’all feel that great impersonal artist-to-viewer love and want to reciprocate it in terms of book sales. Don’t you? Don’t you? Doncha just wanna, and make it all real to me? Give me the excuse to have been doing this for so long? Create my pay-off? Give me the royal nod? Vote with your dollars? Pay my commission?

Sure. Love y’all for doing so. Y’all are the bestest.

Halloween is over for us

because we had our party last night. Next is Thanksgiving, which I’m hosting this year, so I’ll have to get pretty obsessive and then OCD about every aspect of that. Then comes Christmas, which we aren’t really celebrating since it’s the year for the kids to spend it at their dad’s. And, weirdly, although you’d think I’d mind and I would’ve agreed with you a year ago, I now kind of look forward to the non-Christmas years just like sophisticated people always do in short-story collections.

You know — in award-winning short stories, people are always travelling in other countries on Christmas day and feeling only slightly melancholy, but still experiencing meaningful things that have some parallel or counterpoint to some aspect of the narrator’s previous Christmas experience. And the story ends on something poignantly tragic or quirkily literarily beautiful.

So it’ll be like that for me this year, except that instead of a non-American country, I’ll be in a dim sum restaurant. And, in addition to all the drama and angst and metamorphosis that always takes place in my head (and is painstakingly detailed there, and then recreated later on the phone with someone, late at night), I’ll have a culinary adventure, as well. Doubtless. Probably in the form of a dessert — a new-to-me formation of red beans and dough.

And it will be magical. The stuff Nobel Prizes are made of.

P.S.: If there were any particular excuse for me to leave my fiance for Matt Damon, it would be because my fiance keeps trying to pretend that he doesn’t know what American Thanksgiving food is. He keeps talking about brocolli rice casserole, and I keep getting mad to the point of tears while describing acorn squash and sweet potatoes. “Orange not green!” I cry. “THE COLORS OF FALL!”

I say we “keep” doing this and by that I mean once per year. We already had that talk this year, so it’s out of the way and we can move forward. He promised to try. I promised to try to show him. (I show him the recipes, and he cooks them.) That’s what being engaged means. It means a compromise. Before the compromise comes, it means making a concerted effort to figure out each other’s personal traumas and mental scars. His is autumn foods for Thanksgiving, which he knows all about and only pretends not to know about even though he’s been in this country since he was two. Mine is autumn foods for Thanksgiving, which I know all about because I obsess about it every year that my family cooks beans and rice instead.

Being engaged also means

calling each other fiance and fiancee instead of boyfriend and girlfriend. I know that now, because everyone keeps telling me. “Did you just say ‘my boyfriend’? I thought you guys were engaged. Are you engaged or not? Isn’t that an engagement ring you’re wearing? Do you wish you weren’t engaged? Have you called off the engagement?”

No, Mr. Damon, we haven’t. The engagement is still on. But, like I told y’all, it’s a long engagement. And the problem is, I can’t say the word fiance without feeling like Sigourney Weaver in that episode of Seinfeld where she keeps saying fiance and Elaine says, “Maybe the dingo ate your baby.”

I know what people are worried about. They’re worried they’re going to get cheated out of a wedding. Particularly a wedding that Tad and I have slaved and OCD’ed over, which means that it’ll be the best wedding anyone’s likely to see in their lifetimes in this town.

Don’t worry, people. We’re still engaged, and we’re already obsessing over the wedding in our spare time.

Okay, that’s all.

I was looking for a clip of the dingo quote for y’all, but couldn’t find it. Sorry.

I’m thinking about getting a new car, by the way. Maybe two weekends from now. Send me New Car Financing vibes if you want. Or, better yet, just preorder my book.

Love,
(Impersonal, Distant, Nonetheless Heartfelt Love,)
Gwen

My company is going to be sold, no one knows to whom or when, and we already know what our severence packages will be, if applicable, but I have no idea whether it’ll be applicable to me.

I wish that, if I were meant to get laid off, they’d do it RIGHT NOW. But they won’t, of course. They’ll wait until some date in the murky future. Something I can’t control. I’m trying not to want to control it, then.

Last week I wanted to tell you guys a bunch of stuff about my work and all the extreme, literal-national-news-type drama that’s going on, and all the misconceptions and the un-fair-ities, and my giant mission to make people understand what’s really going on, and the media distortions, and how much it hurts to have one’s hard work disregarded and one’s company’s reputation completely trashed without warrant by all that stuff,

but this week I’m just over it. Which is probably for the best, because I don’t need to get in trouble for blogging about my job.

Toby is going to the vet tomorrow.

He has a jacked-up claw on his right hind leg. The jacked-upped-ness of it has a scientific name that I can’t remember how to spell, but you’ve seen it on humans — especially on their pinky toes. It’s when the nail gets all hard and crusty like a rhinocerous horn, and you can’t even cut it with the clippers anymore.

Poor Toby — he’s had it for a long time, it looks like. I only just realized a couple of nights ago. Now I know why he’s been more and more lethargic. His toenail is sticking out way too far, and it probably bugs him to walk. I don’t think it hurts him, but it most definitely probably bugs him.

I trimmed as much of it as I could with the biggest toenail clippers in the house, and that seemed to help a little. Already, he’s been more mobile and lively. (And evil, but that’s probably just because of the full moon. Starbuck’s more evil, too, and her claws are fine.)

So I’m taking him to the vet tomorrow so they can mess with it. I don’t know if he’s going to need surgery or medicine or just regular professional single-claw trimmings or what. Something in the future that I can’t control. We’ll see.

Things in the future that I should be able to control but am finding it hard to because I have, like, zero personal time lately.

Namely: my writing.

Also: I need to redo this Web site.

That’s all I can say without having stress-related stomach stress.

misanthropy

Today I went to a shopping center in my neighborhood and felt like hitting everyone in it with a two-by-four containing a single rusty nail. From the incompetent punk kids who work at every single retail establishment in this zip code, to the punk kids who perambulate in every shopping center because they have nothing better to do, to the shitty, shitty drivers, to the trollish old women who exist only to give strangers unsolicited ugly looks.

I was cranky. I was bothered. Then I realized, I always get this cranky right before Halloween. And I always get a little fatter, too. And stressed about looking fat in my costume. And preemptively background-stressed about eating or not eating on Thanksgivng and Christmas.

I don’t think it’s all about my weight and eating, mind you…. No, that’s only one part of the annual holiday emotional ferris wheel. (Didn’t want to say “roller coaster,” but you know that’s what I actually meant.)

And… yeah. Here it goes again. Whatever. I’m tired of it. Purposefully refrained from tailgaiting the asshole who’d been tailgating me. Tried really, really hard not to hate every single person. Succeeded in only hating half.

Tomorrow is another day. Another phase, another degree in the sun rays’ refraction. Anohter chance to be a better person. Wish me luck.

Rest

I think I should go to sleep now. First I’ll do a few Variety Puzzles from my Dell Variety Puzzle book, and then I’ll go to sleep.

Halloween

I’m going to be a “pirate vixen.” Josh is going to be a pirate. Rory’s going to be the guy from V for Vendetta. The Guy Fawkes guy, I mean. Tad’s going to be Jesus. Toby’s going to be a cat with a refurbished claw. Starbuck’s going to be a little bitch.

It’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna have fun.

Leave a comment telling me what you’re going to be for Halloween, if you want. Put a link to your Flickr when you get back your pix.

1. I am tired because tonight we did CathE’s workout instead of Gilad’s, and CathE is driven by demons. My triceps tremble and burn.

2. I am sad, tired, annoyed, resigned because my children’s dad is trying, aGAIN, to sue me for custody of them. This time he claims that I neglect them — that their physical and scholastic health is endangered every day that they spend with me. I strongly suspect that he’s pulling this last ditch effort in the vain hopes that he’ll get custody right before he has to show the court his latest 1040. (The one that shows that he just had a new house built, and that he still owns a big chunk of property that he’s renting out to commercial tenants, and that he therefore cannot possibly make as little money as he’s been claiming he does.) His most damning evidence against me: One of our children has plantar warts. ONE OF OUR CHILDREN HAS PLANTAR WARTS! I pray that the judge makes the right decision…

3. I am happy because I got my auto loan refinanced and will henceforth save 3% interest and $75 per month. Saving money! Yay! My Excel budget spreadsheet is happy. I fed it this arithmatic and it liked it.

4. I am (not as) stressed (as I should be) because I haven’t yet begun to make my costume for Saturday night’s costume party. I have all my materials, and I dyed the top half of my outfit. But I still need to make a skirt and wings. I need to take my sewing machine out of the closet. That’s the hardest part, probably — taking the sewing machine out and threading it. After that, it should roll like duck back water.

5. I am about to read Harry Potter to my kids. Remember the NYTimes book critic who said the last HP book sucked, and that his daughter was relieved when he gave up reading it to her half way through? I feel sorry for that guy and for his kid. Maybe he should take some lessons in how to read aloud. I get a lot of practice reading aloud, since I’m an author and I occasionally read to college kids and whatnot. College kids are a difficult audience — especially the ones who are only listening to you for course credit. Anyway, maybe the NYT critic should read to college kids for a while, then go home and read to his daughter. Because I’m reading Harry Potter to my kids, and we’re all into it. My kids are like, “OMG! Ron is annoying! Hermione is annoying! Harry is annoying! What’s gonna happen next? Please read one more chapter, Mom!”

6. I am going to bed early, in the hopes that a little extra sleep will help me out. Lately I’m having lots of crazy REM time, and lots of dreams in which I eat sugary foods by the pound. Maybe because my body’s pissed at me for working out now?

7. I am planning to wear something boring tomorrow. I’ve lost 31 pounds since May. Today I wore something a little bit less than boring, and I got a lot of comments. (I wore a skirt that fit instead of a skirt that’s one size too big.) I don’t really like it when people comment on the way I look. I mean, if you want to compliment my clothing choices, or my fitness progress, then that’s fine and I will thank you. But it isn’t necessary to compliment or backhandedly compliment my body or any of its parts.

8. I am looking forward to the year 2008. I have a feeling that’s going to be a good year for me, and that 2007 was just prep time. So I’m still prepping. But I’ll be glad when this year’s tucked away and I can move on to new things. You know?

1. To fit into better clothing.

2. To wear a certain Halloween costume that you didn’t feel comfortable wearing before.

3. To participate in activities you were physically unable to do before.

4. To improve your health.
I know we’re not supposed to say that fat people are less healthy, but I have to tell y’all that my hypoglycemia has improved dramatically since I’ve lost a little weight.

5. To look sexier.
Cheekbones, high waist-to-hip ratio. Human biology says these are sexy.

6. To be able to try new… um… yoga positions.

7. To get more clothing on sale.
Smaller clothes always seem to go on sale more often. To be able to find better stuff at thrift stores.

8. To go up the parking garage stairs without breathing all hard and making your lunch dates worry that you’re going to have a heart attack.

Reasons to Lose Weight that May End in Heartbreak

1. So that people will love you.

2. So that people will treat you better.

3. For revenge.

4. So that your life will go from miserable to awesome.

Thrift Store Shopping

I don’t mind telling y’all that I’m kind of broke right now. This mortgage and all the expenses that houses incur are kind of killing me. But it’s all right — I have a house. I have equity.

So, in the meantime, I’ve been losing some weight, right? Remember I told y’all that? And, I’m glad to be losing it, but at the same time, I can’t afford to buy new pants as fast as I’ve been needing them.

Enter: Thrift store shopping.

I have tons of fluctuating issues with thrift store shopping. Sometimes I think it’s cool, and fun, and good for the environment. I know lots of people who shop exclusively at thrift stores, and they find really awesome clothes to wear, and I admire them for it. I like vintage clothing, in general. I like the idea of wearing something creative, and something you won’t find at every single mall on earth.

But then, sometimes, it gives me PTSD over growing up poor. The smell of the Goodwill will depress me, I mean, and I’ll have to turn around and leave.

Other times — times when I’m fatter — I hate thrift store shopping because, apparently, fat people never give good clothes away. I don’t blame them. When you’re fat, it’s hard enough to find good-looking clothes. Why would you give your good stuff away without knowing if you’d be able to replace it? No, fat people have to hold on to their good stuff. I know, because I’ve been fat. More than once.

I’m still pretty fat, but less fat than I was before. Less fat than the pants in my closet, in fact. So, over the weekend, my boyfriend and my youngest son and I went thrift-store shopping. And, oh my god, I am going to shop at thrift stores for the rest of my life, y’all. I mean, at least for as long as I’m less-fat and I have a mortgage I can barely afford.

We went to this one by my house — one of those gigantic ones with a name like Value Village or Thrift Town or Used Universe or whatever. One of those ones where all the aisles are organized by color, and all the signs are in Spanish, then English, and the staff who sets the prices has NO IDEA what’s valuable and what’s not.

I mean, granted, what’s valuable to me doesn’t have to be what’s valuable to them. It’s good when everyone likes different stuff, right? But still — it doesn’t cease to amaze me how you can go into a thrift store and buy either a polyester jewel-toned skirt suit with big gold buttons for $11.97, or else a wool sweater for $1.93.

Luckily, this thrift store didn’t have Depressing Smell. It just had the normal, slightly musty thrift-store smell that fades from your nostrils within a few moments.

I found two sweaters, one top, one skirt, a pair of work pants, and two pairs of jeans, for $30! Dude! And they were nice, too. Some of the stuff even seemed new. I’ve noticed, lately, that the Goodwill carries new clearance merchandise from Target, Mervyn’s, and Wal-Mart. So maybe this Value Thrift World store does, too.

One of the pairs of jeans was from the Gap, and it was good to know that I can wear pants from the Gap now, because I haven’t had the guts to try on Gap pants in an actual Gap store yet.

I probably would’ve bought more stuff, but I was tired of looking through the racks. You have to be in the mood for it, and we were pressed for time. My boyfriend didn’t find anything because he wasn’t in the mood. My son, however, found a $6 men’s blazer that he simply needed to own. He needed it, y’all. For formal wear. For cool weather. For the simple fact that it was six dollars and it looked good on him. Never mind that he’s only 10 years old. He needed it, so I bought it. I can’t deny him. I know how it feels, to need cool clothes like that.

So we raked it in, and I was glad we went. Just like, for the second year in a row, I was glad we went thrifting for our Halloween costumes, too. A while back, we went to a smaller local thrift store — our costume-luckiest, and my boyfriend bought a suit and a shirt to use in his costume, totalling about $9. I bought a bee-oo-tiful ladies’ full slip (the kind of thing you’d only find in the lingerie section of the thrift store, these days) for $2.32, that will, with a few yards of tulle, become my fairy costume.

I know a photographer who uses thrift store lingerie for photoshoots. I know several bloggers — including some of y’all reading this, maybe — who regular post their thrifting finds on their Flickrs. I know artists who scout thrift stores for art supplies. During the summer, I bought a bunch of Barbies from the thrift store to use in my own project. It was, like, twelve barbies for six dollars. Something ridiculous like that. Beautiful Barbies in all colors and vintages. And then a big-headed Filipino Bratz boy, for good measure, for 75 cents.

Anyway. I’m happy. I’m broke but I’m happy. You know? I’m realizing lately that it’s totally possible to be both, as long as you have people to love and a little bit of creativity.

Tell me about your thrift store finds, your reasons to get into shape or not, or whatever you want to tell me.

But I know other people like it because of TV. New shows! New seasons! A couple of my coworkers have been very happy in the past few weeks, plotting out schedules of what they’ll watch.

I caught the fever. I found a few shows. I set my DVR to record Bionic Woman and that show about the Geico cavemen.

The pilot for Bionic Woman sucked. But I set my TV to record the second episode, because sometimes the pilot isn’t representative of the show as a whole.

The second episode sucked. Predictable plot, hackneyed cliches, unrealistic story arc timing, lame dialogue. It was like the producers said, “You know, we’ve already spent money on hot actresses and special effects. That should be enough. Go with the budget writers.”

“Let’s never watch this again,” I told my boyfriend. But, actually, we’ll probably watch it again. Why? Because one of the actresses is Katee “Starbuck” Sackhoff, who we like. And, guess what? Starbuck is sleeping with an Asian man in this one. “It’s about time I get to see an Asian brother get laid on TV,” said my boyfriend, who happens to be Asian. I was like, meh. I can get that at home. But, okay, we’ll watch one more episode.

Meanwhile… I’d been hoping that Cavemen would be good. But how could it, right? We’re talking about TV here, where bad writing and hackneyed cliches abound. So, no matter how funny the commercials were, there was no way the show could be good. The producers would be certain to ruin it, just like they ruin everything else.

And then, we watched it, and it was so, so funny. We were cracking the hell up. Not only was it funny, but it addressed some interesting culture issues, such as interracial dating and sexual stereotypes. But in a funny way. Oh, and bonus: One of the guest stars is Super Terry, from Reno 911.

So, yeah. We loved it. Therefore, I predict that it’ll be cancelled before the end of the season. You know how good shows always get canceled.

Guess what, I just discovered a musician who everyone else on Earth is already listening to!

I just got the MIA album called Kala. MIA is fronted by a Sri Lankan woman named Maya. I thought I was discovering something completely underground, because I heard her on KPFT‘s Thursday morning World Beats program. (I listen to that every week on the way to work. Then, on the way home every Thursday, I turn KPFT back on and listen to GenerAsian. Those are my two fave radio programs.)

So, I turned on the radio halfway through this song, a song so exciting that I knew, instantly, that buying the album for it would change my life. So I called the DJ (and won Greek Festival tickets — yay!) and he told me, “That’s MIA, and the song is ‘Boyz.'”

And then I told all my friends, and they were like, “Oh, yeah, MIA. That’s good stuff. You know she’s from Sri Lanka, right?”

So I got the album, and I love it. And I looked at the reviews on Amazon, and they’re full of people saying, “I’m too old to like this, but…” And then, of course, there are all the reviews complaining that MIA was good when it was underground, but now it sucks. Then, there are those by male reviewers who want to give poor little Maya their advice on how to be a better musician. Hilarious. But seriously, go buy the album.

Children can be like animals.

Y’all know that, because you’ve read Lord of the Flies.

Children like to conform with the pack, and when they sense difference in one of their own — especially difference coupled with weakness — some children are prone to attack. Especially, I’m imagining, children of animal-like parents who value conformity.

I already knew this, not just from reading Lord of the Flies, but also from personal experience. Not just mine, but that of my son. His Asperger’s seems to be an asshole magnet. Once certain kids realize he’s different, that he doesn’t have the same instinctively ingrained compulsion to conform as the rest of them, they start the bullying.

Usually, when my son comes home and tells me about it, all he can do is report the facts of what happened, without understanding why. (“They called me a faggot, but I’m not gay. I told them I’m not gay, but I guess they couldn’t hear me or they didn’t believe me. They kept calling me faggot, and then I guess I made them mad, because then they started hitting me.”)

I understand why. Children are animals. Some more than others. Especially the ones who were bred from animals. Animal children grow up and mate and breed new animals. New assholes, new bullies. It’s a cycle as old as evolution, way older than your middle school or mine. What can you do about it? I don’t know. Don’t breed with animals. Don’t raise animals. Is that enough? No. They don’t need you. They’ll keep breeding on their own, spawning and eating and rolling in mass-produced pap, hitting their kids when they don’t conform. It doesn’t matter what you do, I don’t think. It’s simply the way of our world. “Can’t we just kill them?” you say. I don’t think so. There’s not enough time, energy, legal precedent. Plus, I don’t want to kill anyone. I’m not enough of an animal.

My boyfriend always says it’s lucky that my son is big for his age, because that probably keeps him from being physically attacked as much he might be, otherwise.
This kid wasn’t so lucky: Attack On Autistic Boy, 11, Videotaped.

Sorry for the downer.

But it had to be said, I felt. Let’s try to end on a good note now.

It’s almost Halloween. I’m going to be a fairy. We went to the costume shop to consider the alternatives, but all it did was inspire me to move forward with my fairy-being plans. We went to the local big-box store, then, and got materials to put on the $2.32 thrift store full slip that will form the base of my costume.

What are you going to be for Halloween? What are you going to do? Did you see Martha Stewarts’ double-sided “Good Things/Bad Things” October magazine issue? Normally I’m not into her too much, but this Halloween issue is beautiful. Go see it.

Did you go to the Greek festival, here in Houston? Did you see me there? Did you eat baklava and drink lots of wine? I did.

Are you ready for fall? Are you ready for Christmas? We’ll talk more about that later. Until then…

I used to never drink red wine but now I only drink red wine. I’ve gone from merlot to cabernet and chianti, and next must be shiraz.

We bought our cat a water fountain. She likes to drink the water right from its trickle source. Some people would say it’s a waste of energy, to keep it running, but I think it’s such a small thing to make a small creature happy, and therefore worth doing. You know?

I think I’m gonna be a fairy for Halloween. Maybe. I’ll have to make the costume myself, though, because I don’t want to be a slut fairy, and therefore there’s no suitable costume in the stores. (All the women’s costumes for sale are slut costumes. Remind me to complain about that later.)

This is what I have time to do, between my long commute home and bed time:
1. monitor homework
2. monitor everyone getting fed, one way or another
3. nag about the chores that should’ve been done before I got home
4. clean up only the very messiest messes, concurrently with one of the tasks above
5. exercise with Gilad
6. nagging the kids to brush their teeth and wash their faces
7. the reading of the bedtime story
and that’s about it.

Every single other thing — dentist bank groceries bills boyfriend oil change tires laundry — I have to do over the weekend. Or during my lunch hours. Or in my dreams.

I’m glad we got a cat. This one doesn’t tear up the furniture or make a big mess, and I feel fleeting joy whenever I see her little cat face. She always has a funny or cute expression. She walks around in a constant state of “Hey guys,” or “Am I interrupting?” or “JESUS, A SQUIRREL!!” or “In my fantasies, everyone is chasing me. Look how clever I am, running away from them. Oops, sorry.. smashed into the plant again…”

Back to the Halloween thing.

Not a slutty fairy, and not a pink or purple fairy, and not a gothic fairy, and not an overtly glittery fairy. I want to be a nature-based fairy, in shades of green or aqua with brown, and only a little bit of magic in evidence. In my mind, as I design it, I think the words “pond fairy.” I’m a pond fairy, dammit. We’re going to a party where I always feel a little insecure. No, strike that — I always feel insecure at any Halloween party we go to, because I feel like there’s this giant expectation that all the women must be dressed promiscuously, and they all must be thin, and the whole purpose of the holiday is to put them on display to the men serving them liquor.

And that’s fine — I’m grown-up enough to ignore any bullshit that I don’t want to take part in. But at the same time, I want to get all into it and make a nice costume. Yet I feel there’s no use in wasting my creativity on such an event. You know?

I guess I could go to the Ren Fair, because the people who go there are more appreciative of creativity. But we’re bored of going there and seeing the same exact stuff year after year. So I tell myself to make whatever costume I want, and then to photograph it and put it on my Flickr, and that’ll make it worth the effort. But then I feel silly about that. How vain, to spend money and effort on photos meant to show off, right? (Same way I feel, now, about doing any creative thing for which I don’t already have a fee negotiated. )

Worst part: I get envious of my boyfriend. He loves to work hard on his costumes and come up with something awesome every single year. And people appreciate it, and they compliment him. Then, they look at me and think, “Not sexy enough,” and move on. And I feel… whiny because I haven’t received enough attention, I guess. Hate to admit such a weakness, but that’s how I feel. Creativity should trump plain nudity, in my mind, but it never will. Will it?

I was looking for inspiration online. (Fairy costumes, I mean.) I found this Flickr set called Convention Costumes Pool. Look at it. What do you think? How many of the women pictured here enjoyed making their costumes? And how many enjoy displaying their bodies to a bunch of convention guys? And how many women here enjoyed making their costumes, but got completely ignored in favor of the convention guys and the women displaying their bodies?

There were some bad-ass costumes among the social experiment, though. Check it:
1. Final Fantasy = awesome piping
2. meshy mer-person
3. Final Fantasy hangover?
4. Awesome Color Scheme Woman
5. I need this woman’s wig.

And you know what?

Screw it, while I’m there, I’ll just link y’all to some of my favest Flickr faves:
1. shoe fetish
2. If I had to date a non-human, it would be Relax Bear.
3. I want to eat this (then follow Jackie around and eat everything else she eats, too.)
4. Stained glass is always good.
5. So is just about anything that Jagosaurus photographs.

That’s all.