...big plants...

It would be too cliché to post a quote from Little Shop of Horrors. 

 Instead, I’ll just note that on our way to buy groceries today, my fella decided to take a picture of our elephant ears to show their height. You can actually see an even larger ear poking over the fence since we have them in our backyard too. It’s been raining a great deal so the backyard is a mess (since I don’t let the community landscapers cut the grass… as they tend to cut everything including the siding on my house) or I would show more pictures. We do have a new owl statue that needs to go in the back but again, it’s soggy so it will have to wait.  

...October (gwee!) afternoons...

“But I remember more dearly

autumn afternoons in bottoms

that lay intensely silent

under old great trees”
~ C. S. Lewis

Happy first day of October Y’all!  

This morning I woke to my fella bringing me coffee in my Nosferatu mug, which he bought for me years ago, in bed. I immediately kicked up my feet knowing that today it would feel like Halloween. I love this time of year when Halloween is all around us. My fella had a few errands to run and said he would take me to find Halloween if I accompanied him as his buddy. “I want a pumpkin muffin and a Slurpee!” thanks to all the wonderful Instagram posts with the new Slurpee Jack-o-lantern cups.

 

I pulled out a favorite handbag (glow in the dark thread was used for the web!) and off we went to run errands. We spotted ridiculous things that I do not need but oh-don’t-they-look-amazing in Home Goods; we ate bat cookies (we always pick the wonky ones because who is going to love them more than us!) and pumpkin brownies; we found the Slurpee cups (which I plan to use as a small vase because Slurpees are kind of like drinking sugar and if I’m going to get a ton of calories from a liquid, I would prefer it have a little kick if ya know what I mean but I did drink the sour apple today); and, soon we’re off to a birthday party for one of my spooky friends (hence the cute wrapping paper).

October 2016 is going to be amazing! We’ve been super busy and I haven’t posted this week (I also am taking those graduate courses and reading tons!) Life is hectic and amazing!

...a vampire dress, Halloween totes, and the past...

“Think only of the past

as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

 ~Jane Austen

I have much to do this morning so I’m taking a moment to write a blog post, not to avoid but to do a bit of processing.

Initially, this post was going to be about my new awesome Hell Bunny Kiss Me Deadly dress from Cats Like Us. It arrived yesterday so as soon as I arrived home I decided to try it on. I was having a really great afternoon. First, a woman on the shuttle told me that I was “beautiful and completely stunning” which is always a happy compliment especially since I basically threw my outfit together at the last minute wearing jeans and pigtails. The classes that I taught went well and I even felt as though I made good progress in reading for my classes.

I also thought about doing a quick post about these Halloween shopping totes from Target that I picked up this weekend. I have the versions from last year so this year’s three adds to last year’s three. I love how they fold into themselves making it super convenient to carry.

As I was thinking through the post, I realized, “here we go again”… vampires and bags, or rather, baggage. Sigh.

I would love to write that I once moved with an unpacked box for ten years. The truth is that that box still lives upstairs in my bedroom closet. It includes old letters and paraphernalia from my early undergraduate days, and some left-overs from my high school years. I don’t recall exactly what is inside the box and I never intended for it to remain unpacked but at some point it became a symbol of carrying baggage. I wanted to keep the tangible acknowledgement of the intangible.

It’s the first day of autumn. This always makes me a bit melancholy. It’s the season of Death. Okay, that reads a bit dramatic but in high school my friends started dying in the fall, Halloween to be exact, and the deaths continued to spring. Thanks for the seasonal symbolism, universe.

A few days ago I also received an email from a long-since-passed’s mother, an email I have been avoiding. She sent me an email while I was on vacation in Eureka Springs and I was supposed to drive across the state to visit her… which really means to see him, my memory of a memory.  I don’t want to talk to his mother; I want to talk to him. I want to be alone with his grave. I want to take pictures of it since I might never get to see it again.

When I write that I want to see where he is buried, it reads a bit like I wasn’t at the funeral. I was. I remember exactly where I was standing. Then the family moved his body across the state to be buried on their land, private property. For twenty-six years, I have visited cemeteries and graveyards to visit loved ones and strangers and I have never been able to visit the one who disrupted everything. Disinterment was common in the Victorian era, move grandma if the family moves, but in 1990, it seemed so startling. I lost my friend and I lost his grave. I wasn’t even 16 years old.

I receive an email with hints of (what’s a nicer word for manipulation?) and I become tiny again. I play Depeche Mode’s Blasphemous Rumours and feel the hole in my heart and cry. But I am 42 and my fella tells me that I am big and powerful but I feel handled and powerless. I want to see the grave so very badly but I don’t want the baggage that comes with it. I don’t want to sit in an awkward room talking about her memories of a memory. I remember that she wore a pink silk shirt to his funeral. I hated that shirt; I hate the feeling of silk.

Sometimes I blame him. He was almost 18 and at 18 one gets out… even though I know that isn’t true; even though I understand that mental health doesn’t work that way. But I resort to my inner child, the 15 year old goth girl who frightened her teachers and parents because she just didn’t know how to process death.

How does this connect with a vampire dress and little tote bags? Well, vampires are forever. They’re a constant friend; they’re the “monster” in the Boris Karloff “The monster was the best friend I ever had” quote.  And the little Halloween tote bags, well, they’re neat and tidy, how I like to keep my baggage: pleasantly in-check and slightly hidden. 

All these memories swirling led me to go in search of an old picture (I was horrible about developing film back in the day; I still have disc film from middle school that I keep as a joke. I'm sure it will never be developed) and ended up finding an assortment of random shots. Most of these are circa 1989-1990. The last show with the polka-dot socks, the Shawn socks, is at least 1993.

...a Dracula performance & enjoying one's region...

You know honestly

I think there's a Dracula,

a Wolf Man, and

a Frankenstein's Monster

in all of us.

~ Richard Roxburgh

Last night my fella and I went to see the Quill Theatre’s Dracula, an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel written by Stephen Dietz and directed by Daniel Moore. For months I have been thrilled about not one but TWO vampire performances coming to the Richmond, VA area, including Quill’s and Firehouse Theatre's The Vampire: A Grotesque Melodrama by J.R. Planché, which I can no longer find information about anywhere.

My schedule has been exhausting and I’m fearful of all the “fun things to do” in October. Who writes “fearful” when it comes to fun activities? I could just not do it all but I really, really want to. So many of the fun gothy events are shoved into one month: one exhausting month. We can sleep in November when there are turkeys and the color palette focuses on all that is brown.

The truth is I am very tired. Yesterday, our day began at 4:30am as usual and then ended a little after midnight. Fridays have been terrible commute days with delayed trains so when I dressed yesterday morning, I wore what I planned to wear for the performance thinking that I might not have much time to dress. It turns out that I would have had time but still.

At 4:30am, I was already too tired to take a picture so I didn’t take a picture of my outfit. I wore my MiXT by Heidi Weisel Grid Burnout Dress. I like the belt that came with the dress but still switched it out for a belt with my Nosferatu's Hand Alchemy Gothic Belt Buckle. I wore a Kay Adams necklace which you can see in the photograph; W Hamond Silver And Whitby Jet Dracula Crest Signet Ring, and little bat earrings. 

Of all my Dracula book clutches, I opted for the P.S. Besitos Dracula book clutch, which is still one of my favorites (and I can carry the most stuff…but still that’s not much). I was happy how my lipstick turned out although it’s hard to see in the picture. I used Urban Decay lip liner in Pandemonium with Rimmel London Stay Glossy in Black Diva, which is basically a translucent black lip gloss.

We enjoyed a night out. We parked near the theater, walked around the Capitol looking at the statues and relishing in Richmond’s beauties. Then we headed back toward the theater, had some drinks, and enjoyed the performance. As for the performance, I especially enjoyed that Van Helsing was played by female actress, Melissa Johnston Price. She was amazing and completely believable. The set was gorgeous; the costumes were lovely. I'm not sure how they afforded the rights to Philip Glass music (just saying because I believe you have to pay for these kinds of things). Afterwards, we went and had dinner in The Fan District. In total with tickets ($74.50), drinks ($20), and dinner ($40), we contributed to our local economy.

I love living in a world with vampire advertisements!

I mention the economics of last night because this morning I have been emailing with a friend about local theater and he who pointed to a website where Quill’s Dracula received an unfavorable review. I’m not linking to that site because I don’t want to link to meanies and basically that’s what I think this review is.

I used the word criticism, removed it, and then decided that I needed to unpack that a bit. There are two definitions of criticism. The first focuses on the faults and mistakes of something which leads to an expression of disapproval; the second focuses on both the merits and the faults of artistic work. Often, I believe that theater reviews fall into the first definition and somehow we have all forgotten that there is a difference between quality and taste. I do not love all Faulkner (the English Professors of the world gasp!) but I can respect the quality of the work.

I also have a hard time with these reviews because they frequently do not differentiate between the work (the choices the actor makes and/or what the director tells him to do) and the actor (the person). When my fella was in a play a few months ago, he was incredibly talented (and I’m not biased at all!) There were so many patrons who complimented his work and who (still) ask what show he’ll be in next; but, there was one bad review: a bad review of Community Theater. He wasn’t paid a dime to participate. It fact, it cost us money considering he purchased all of his props and his suit, shirts, and hats. Mind you, my fella is a pretty sensitive soul; I believe that all creatives are. Some build a thick skin but I’m not sure if that is what they should be doing. The criticism my fella received was that he was too old to play the part. Thank you Mr. Lack of Imagination Critic. And how is this a critique of his performance? It is not.

Another issue, because this has become somewhat of a rant in my head, is that when we knock down local actors and regional theater, we’re only hurting ourselves e.g. read that as MONEY and ECONOMY! (Oh, boy, I’m in an all-caps now). You write that a local play isn’t that great and some people decide not to go. Well, there goes that theatre company’s budget. This ain’t Broadway, kids!

There were many aspects of the performance that I loved; there were aspects that left both of us puzzled. Will we go to another performance? Hell yeah we will. If we don’t invest in the creepy, weird, counter-culture, macabre, left-of-center, little-bit-odd, artsy who the hell will???

Steps down off of soapbox.   

Oh, and the floating doors and the woman sitting in chairs that Mr. Critic found so puzzling… I completely loved that!