Date Archives September 2009

I’m Idaho!

Lack of forethought can give people trouble in a number of ways–it can result in bad marriages, giving birth to Satan’s child, car accidents–any number of untold troubles. In my case, lack of forethought resulted in me desperately scrubbing my face until my skin ached bemoaning that I would NEVER get rid of ALL of this glitter before my next engagement.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

On Saturday, a group of becostumed folk met at Gasworks Park to have a picnic in honor of daemonwolf‘s birthday and also because we won’t be seeing her for a couple of months as she’s following her dreams, taking a work sabbatical and journeying south to take an intensive class in a subject she’s interested in. In other words, she is brave and awesome and we’ll miss her.

I had fully intended to put together some manner of costume for this get together. You know what they say about intentions and laziness or intentions and four Stoli Around-The-Worlds the night before? What, they don’t have a saying about that? Plans go awry. MY plans went awry. I overslept by hours. HOURS. And then in desperation grabbed at makeup and furiously went to town while still half-asleep.

This is how I ended up with a makeup mask that looked like Cher, The Crow, and Gene Simmons had a glitterbaby.

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When I left the apartment, I made sure to bring some bottled water, a washcloth, and some baby shampoo as I knew I would need to wash everything off before I left daemonwolf‘s party to attend mxpwr‘s birthday or face merciless mockery. I tried to plan. I did!

 

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At one point, someone suggested a round of Ninja vs Luchador Twister, which was ultimately refused, and I may never get over my disappointment.

 

 

 

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ravenmimura found a broken wolf sculpture in a thrift store and using his amazing art powers, transformed it into a zombie wolf sculpture with glowing eyes and exposed ribs and entrails. I’m sad I didn’t get a closer photograph of it–it was really impressive!

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Latex is the devil.

 

At some point, adding to the whole surreal feel of the day, the group attracted people dressed in fursuits.

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Sometime around five, I needed to leave to head to the Elephant & Castle for Chad’s birthday party. I pulled out my face-cleansing supplies and had more than a moment of horror when I realized that the base I used to stick the glitter to my face wasn’t washing off, it was just smearing around. Anyone walking or driving by my parked car at the moment would have witnessed a freakout session of nuclear proportions. As luck would have it, not one, but three ducks drove by so entire boatloads of quacking tourists saw me flailing and clawing at my face. Because the soap & water didn’t want to cut through the base, I ended up using the washcloth dry and scrubbing the makeup off that way, but every time I thought I’d gotten it all, I’d look in the light and realize I was still coated in glitter. My washcloth was so filthy by this point that it would have only served to deposit MORE glitter on my face. In desperation, I ended up popping my trunk and using shit I should’ve moved into my apartment months ago to scrape at my face some more. Finally ALMOST presentable, I then spilled water all over myself and my front seat and my steering wheel, because I can’t go anywhere without looking like perhaps I might have wet my pants.

I FINALLY made it to the Elephant & Castle, had a drink, and eventually stopped feeling self-conscious about my bright pink face. After dinner, we were all split into six teams for trivia: Team Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, Team Awesome, Team Ramrod, Team Ultimate Badasses, Team Sweet Fuckin’ Zona, and Team Six on the Beach. Clearly, the team I was on and named were the Ultimate Badasses.

Trivia was divided into a few different categories–Wild Card, Music, TV & Movies, Travel, The Simpsons, and Sports. After the first three rounds, Team Ultimate Badasses were in dead last. I don’t think I knew ONE correct answer. It was around this time that a few people needed to leave, and Team Ultimate Badasses ended up being retired with the remaining members split among the other groups to handicap them. Little did they know when I was placed on team Winner Winner Chicken Dinner that Simpsons trivia is where I’m a viking, and I redeemed myself by knowing every answer in that category. With that and the rest of the team’s combined sports knowledge, we swept the final two rounds and took first place! Team Ultimate Badasses may have bitten the dust, but the important thing is that I went home with prizes because I am the sorest loser ever.

Ever.

And I STILL have glitter on my face.

Well, goodbye virgin alarm.

On Friday night, a group of girls met up for Antoinette’s bachelorette party; she is getting married to Scott today and I couldn’t be happier for both of them. Scott is a wonderful, good man, and when I met him, his ex was making him so miserable–to see him happy now is like night and day. If you require proof of his goodness, consider that he replaced the alternator on my car in my apartment complex’s parking lot on a crappy winter day when I was working for minimum wage and couldn’t afford to take it to a shop. If you require proof of his awesomeosity, he changed the lyrics of “I’m too sexy” to be pirate-themed for my birthday.

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It isn’t a party without a penis hat cocked (see what I did there?) at a jaunty angle!

See?

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SEE?

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SEE?!?!

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Cone bras are also acceptable.

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Here is Antoinette with her ‘Learner’s Permit’ which is supposedly an Irish tradition. I don’t question these sorts of things when they’re told to me, especially when I’ve been drinking and it’s coming from someone with an Irish accent. I accept them as fact and then repeat them on the internet with maybe 30 seconds of half-assed googling in an attempt to prove veracity. I’m not a journalist, people. It’s not what I do. I wear a variety of unusual hats and mock people.

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I am theoretically invited to the wedding this evening; theoretically because I don’t know the location exactly and also because attending would involve taking a few hours off of work and I’m not sure that will be possible today. I was invited because I actually showed up to the bachelorette party whereas some of the wedding party didn’t even bother to come and THEY have been uninvited. I WOULD like to attend; Antoinette said they’re having a 50s theme and that Scotty will be serenading her at the altar and I’d love to see it.

So maybe I will be getting dressed up all fancy-schmancy today. Maybe.

Spooky Scary Skeletons In The Closet

On Thursday, mrsamedi and I attended an advance screening of ‘Paranormal Activity’, the movie being hyped as the new Blair Witch. FearNet, the hype machine, was giving away tickets in scads for the showing of this film; the problems inherent in this type of system are thus–when you give away a supposedly infinite amount of tickets for a small, finite amount of seats, people are going to inevitably be angry when they are turned away at the door after hours of waiting, and when they don’t pay for something, they tend to be less respectful patrons–either they’ll sign up for the showing and not attend because it didn’t cost them anything (which is the reasoning behind the overbooking in the first place) or they’ll run their goddamned mouths the whole movie (Bonus point: Guess what I complain about later!). Were I in charge, I would solve these problems in three ways. First, I’d implement a color-coded wristband system, so that people know they’re getting into the film and don’t have to stand around for hours, and the color coding would get them into the theater at their approximate place in line. Second, I would charge a nominal fee for the tickets and then give people their money back in concession snacks. It would still be a free movie, but people would be less likely to show up for a movie they’re not interested in. Thirdly, I would reserve the right to taser anyone I wanted right in the junk. Right in the motherfucking junk.

So when FearNet had someone post to the Seattle livejournal group a second time about the free tickets, I inquired as to what time one ought to consider getting in line to guarantee admission since with the RSVP system and infinite tickets, there was no way to gauge interest, and I didn’t want to drive up to the University District only to turn around and go home because the line had swelled beyond capacity already OR wait around for hours for no reason. Of course, no one answered my question, and I determined that the longest I’d be willing to stand in front of the theater for was four hours, which put me there at 7:30.

I vastly overestimated the draw, as I was first in line. I sent Brendan and a girl from the Seattle LJ community text messages and told them not to bother coming out for a while, and settled in for the long haul. Shortly after I arrived, another couple showed up, and they were thrilled to be as far up in line as they were–they told me horror stories about other free screenings they’d attended; mainly, there is a group of peoplefreakshows who attend every free screening, regardless of what it’s for, and a couple of them will camp out in line early, and have an entourage of fifty of their closest friends roll up bare minutes before the theater opens. The wristband/taser system would eliminate this sort of thing as well, people!

About an hour passed, and two more people arrived–these girls shared a story about a screening they attended where they were near the front of the line and witnessed a van roll up just before the theater opened and pregnant woman after pregnant woman popped out like it was a Dodge Clown Car Caravan and they ALL got to skip the line by virtue of being knocked up. They were also familiar with the Free Screening Freakshows.

Well, speak of the devil, next in line were the Free Screening Freakshows. One of them, a Tibetan monk lookalike except ensconced in a giant REI coat kept licking his lips as he shuffled his weight from foot to foot. Shortly thereafter, he was joined by Burnout Bleached Hair Dude and Captain OneEye. Captain OneEye lived up to his reputation by immediately pointing at the other Freakshows and screaming “YOU HAVE MAD COW! MAD COW! MAD COW! SWINE FLU! SWINE FLU!” and threatening that he would be watching which cars they got into, so they’d better run as soon as the movie was over, because he would be right behind them. These sentiments were repeated no less than fifty times. I would imagine that he would have to emphasize his threat as I personally had never before considered the idea that someone in a pair of battered Crocs could run me down.

I decided that since they represented LineJumping For Evil, I could counter that with LineJumping for Good, and sent another text to the girl from the Seattle Livejournal community to join us at the front of the line whenever she arrived. When she showed up, she called her boyfriend and told him to join us at the front of the line when he got off of work, and shortly thereafter Brendan arrived. This expansion of the line in front of them was perplexing to the Free Screening Freakshows; they kept shuffling out of the line to the front and shuffled back when someone called them on their shit. A midget-sized member of their posse started digging through the garbage at the theater, looking for a discarded pass, all to the chorus of ‘MAD COW! SWINE FLU! I WILL BE WATCHING WHICH CAR YOU GET INTO!’

Shortly before the movie was supposed to start, the Hype Machine people started allowing a bunch of special douchebags into the theater before the people who had been legitimately waiting in line for hours. It killed me to see girls with purses so large it appeared that they were attempting to run away from home cutting in front of me in line, because you know they’ve each got, like, five or six of their skeletal girlfriends in there along with the inevitable teacup sized dog.

When they finally allowed us inside, I must say that the Hype Machine tried to do right by everyone, by providing each of us with a bag of popcorn large enough to swim inside and a bladder-buster. The group I waited in line with all sat together, and it seemed like we got fantastic seats, which is important in the Neptune as the seats as not really graded and one basketball player can block a full third of the screen. The seats in front of me were actually empty!

…enter the 7 foot tall Neanderthal and his purse-size girlfriend. Of course, Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel made his way down the aisle and parked his fashion-disaster, braces-bedecked, cap-tilted-up-at-an-angle-that-screamed-hi-I’m-mentally-challenged, douchebag-moustache-having ass right in front of me, while his mail order bride sat to his right.

Don’t believe me? Have a picture.

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Here he is, Mr. Plaid himself, slouching in front of me, so you can’t even see how much screen he legitimately blocks when he’s sitting upright. Yes, that is a bamboo design embroidered on his plaid shirt. Poorly captured in photograph form is the vibrant purple cap, under which a nest of pube-y hair poked out, along with one ear; the other was tucked up under the cap. Not pictured is the ‘tight as shit’ wannabe pornstar moustache and the birdlike girl who was far too attractive and well-dressed to be with him. That’s right. I can loathe someone for something they can’t help, like being colorblind and tall and sitting in front of me.

Two rows up, a girl dressed in an unflattering outfit that looked like she’d originally intended to attend a cocktail party but got sidetracked by a movie started furiously making out with the guy sitting next to her, blowing raspberry farts into his mouth. I’m not making this up, people.

When the movie finally started playing, I would have appreciated much less talking at the screen and guys trying to be funny by emitting womanish screams at sort-of tense moments. A LOT of the cocksuckers in the theater seemed to know one another, and the one guy who had the balls to tell them to shut up was mocked by a slew of them. When did this become acceptable? Tasers. Tasers straight to the junk.

For all the distractions and irritations (I considered walking pretty early on in the film out of fury), I really, really, really, really liked the movie. I got sucked into it. Because it didn’t fall into a lot of the horror movie stereotypes, because it didn’t have ‘tension’ music, because they showed much less and forced your imagination to work harder, because the setting is the home and the bedroom where generally people feel MOST safe and turned out to be least safe, because the problem resided with the characters and not the home so they couldn’t just leave, it was incredibly effective as a horror film. I didn’t scream (I’m not a screamer) but there were moments when I was genuinely terrified, when I froze in my seat while adrenaline surged through my body, when my eyes went wide as dinner plates.

I felt unsettled on my walk back to the car, and only someone shouting ‘EVERYONE SUCKS’ out their car window snapped me out of my thoughts–when I looked over, the girl shouted at me ‘EXCEPT FOR YOU, GIRLFRIEND, YOU SHAKE THAT THING!’ which keeps up the tradition of a stranger shouting something (usually something flattering, which is extra perplexing) at me every single time I’ve gone to the U-District.

On the drive up, I’d listened to Art Bell’s Ghost to Ghost AM programs, but I had no taste for it on the drive home. The movie had gotten to me; it didn’t help that when I got home, my upstairs neighbor started stomping around–that plus normal settling noises had me quaking in fear. I didn’t end up falling asleep until around six am, and that was on the couch, with the TV on, the dog sleeping on my chest, and all the lights blazing. Honestly, the next few nights were uneasy for me as well. A few images have stuck with me and I have a feeling noises around my home will make me jump for a while to come.

It was SUCH a good movie. Worth every shiver of adrenaline for the three days afterward.