misslynx, posts by tag: playing dress-up - LiveJournal

Despite the fact that I really prefer LJ to Facebook in almost all respects (all except that the fact that far more people I know are on Facebook, these days), I keep finding myself neglecting the former in favour of the latter. This must stop. In particular, awesome stories about the Lynxcub must be posted here, because they are much more findable that way. Everything you post on Facebook seems to sort of disappear into the ether - maybe less so now with Timeline, but it's still much harder to find old posts there than it is here.

So, catching up on Lynxcub stories. In reverse chronological order (note that these are from various points over the past couple of months):

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A good but tiring weekend:

• Had the Lynxcub here overnight on Friday night, the high point of which was carving a tiger jack-o'-lantern for him. Yes, this is the second year in a row than I have done that (I think this year's tiger-o'-lantern is better than last, particularly because of the ears), but hey, if the powers that be don't want jack-o'-lanterns to look like tigers, they should not have made pumpkins orange. Said tiger jack-o'-lantern ended up being instrumental in my finally getting him to go to bed, after I offered to light it in the bedroom as a nightlight for him - but then he wouldn't go to sleep because he wanted to stay up all night talking to it, having christened it his "newborn baby kitten". And also make hand-shadows on the ceiling in its light. And jump up and down on the bed making robot noises, though I suppose that may not have had much to do with the tigerkittenolantern...
  
  
• Last night: grown-up Halloween party, chez curgoth and neeuqdrazil. I started out intending to be Irene Adler, but somehow spiders kept finding their way into my costume (no, not real ones, just decorative ones) so I ended up deciding I was a Victorian arachnologist instead. With the way everything turns into a story in my head, I decided that my costume-persona was one of the world's foremost experts on poisonous spiders, with her research funded by the generous estates left to her by her five deceased husbands, all of whom had tragically perished in accidents related to her area of study. This is how one acquires a state-of-the-art spider laboratory when one lives in an era where higher education is not permitted to the more delicate gender.
  
  
• Samhain family circle at the WCC today, with the Lynxcub. Was momentarily alarmed upon arriving to discover that the other parents there had thought I was leading it and I had thought they were. Oops. But it went OK, with me improvising a little ritual, and them coordinating party games for the kids. The Cub swung back and forth, pendulum-like, between being adorable and a holy terror, as is his wont.
  
  I think my favourite bit was the beginning of the ritual when I said "... But first, let's talk about why we're here," and he piped up "I can tell you all about the Day of the Dead!" Since I figured that that and Samhain were at least pretty closely related, I invited him to do that, and he replied, very cheerfully, "That's when you can invite all your dead friends and relatives to come visit with you!" He seems to be really fascinated with that idea - he also tried, after the ritual to convince one of the other kids there to come to our next destination with us, again telling her that she could invite her dead friends to come.
  
  
• Afterwards, fittingly enough, we went to a community Dia de los Muertos celebration at Wychwood Barns. Having things like that happening right near home is one of the best things about the increasing Latin-Americanization of my neighbourhood. There was a mariachi band playing; a beautiful altar set up in the very centre of the Covered Street Barn with flower, fruit, candles, decorative skulls, a carved wooden jaguar, and all kinds of things; and a number of tables with vendors selling various sorts of Latin American foods and crafts.
  
  The Lynxcub, who had not wanted to eat anything at the family circle except for things he wasn't allowed to eat (sugary & artificially coloured junk food, which I tried my best to keep out of his reach) was finally hungry by this point, and ate a chicken tostada, which I was pleased that he liked - he's sometimes averse to trying new things these days, so I'm happy when I can find something he likes. But what he seemed most fascinated with was the altar. We spent a little while looking at it when we first came in, and then after eating he wanted to go back to it. He sat down in front of it and asked me to explain all the different things on it, so I sat with him and we talked about it, and about the symbolism of the skulls, and about the idea of spirits and death in general. It was in pretty simple terms, given that he's only four, but I think it was a good discussion, and he seemed really interested in the whole idea, and seemed to enjoy the whole event.
  
  
• Unfortunately, he ended up having a big meltdown when it was time to go home, because he was tired and wanted to go in the stroller, but it wasn't yet his bedtime, so kettunainen didn't want him to fall asleep yet (because if he falls asleep too early, he will either wake up in the middle of the night, or, at best, at oh-god-o-clock in the morning). So I had to carry him all the way home, with him thrashing, screaming, hitting me, and trying to dive out of my arms onto the pavement, the whole way. I kept thinking he'd eventually tire out and calm down, but he didn't, not until after I finally got him home and Kettu was able to talk to him and defuse him a bit.

By the time I got back home, I was tired enough that I feel asleep at a fairly early point in the evening while reading. I woke up again around 11:30pm, but am probably going back to bed after I post this and take the dog out. Not sure if I'm just exhausted, or maybe coming down with something... I was hoping to go to the Princess Warrior thing at City Hall tomorrow, but don't know if I'll have energy. We'll see... Anyway, time to put the computer to sleep, and myself shortly thereafter.

Being a parent always means having to answer a lot of questions. Being a parent with a complicated life and/or some unconventional interests sometimes means having to answer some less common sorts of questions. Here are a few the Cub has asked me of late, followed by my answers:

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Had a nice visit from g33kboi. Our 40s film noir costumes for the Halloween party we went to came together pretty well, though the concept we were going for didn't seem to be that apparent to most people - a lot of people thought she was supposed to be a gangster rather than a detective. I think the Bogart-ishness was more apparent when she had a beige trenchcoat on over the suit, on the way to the party, but you can't really keep something like that on indoors without overheating.

With my costume, I did learn a few things: ( Collapse )

However, a good time was had by all nonetheless. Also, we saw Cthulhu on the St. Clair streetcar.

Oh, also - mycrazyhair, I have your earrings in a safe place and will return them to next time I see you. Thanks so much for lending them to me!

In other Halloween-related news, the Lynxcub seems to like his tiger costume, but refuses to actually wear it. He'll play with it, cuddle it, carry it around like a security blanket or lay it on the floor like a tiger-skin rug and sit on it, but I could not get him to actually put it on when I took him to the Samhain Family Circle. However, tigers still seemed to be the theme of the day, as he insisted on me making him a tiger ghost and a tiger jack-o-lantern during the crafty parts of the event. I really should have gotten a photo of the tiger jack-o-lantern... It ended up at kettunainen and optimystik's place - I don't suppose you guys got a chance to take a picture?

Speaking of the Cub, it's been a while since I posted a Cuteness Report, not because he has in any way ceased to be cute, but because I've been freakishly busy for most of this fall. But yesterday's visit featured a couple of things that just have to be recorded for posterity: ( Collapse )

1. So, I voted, despite not really liking any of the candidates all that much. But sometimes the chance to vote against somebody outstandingly awful can be as strong a motivator and the chance to vote for someone you actually like. I suppose I should count myself lucky that at least my ward has a city councillor that I actually do like.
   
   25 minutes until the polls close and they start counting the votes. I am very apprehensive about this, and would prefer to get whatever news there may be in the company of friends so that we can either celebrate or console ourselves, whichever the case may be, with alcohol. There were rumours of some form of gathering growing out of the Cookies For Voting group on Facebook, but nothing seems to have materialized. Oh well.
   
   
2. Got a dress for my Halloween costume (thanks to 50_ft_queenie for accompanying me on the search). May I say, 40s dresses are feats of engineering, and seem to be designed to work well for my particular sort of body, but I would really like to find some control top seamed stockings. Do such things actually exist?
   
   
3. Still need to find or make some kind of hat/hair ornament thing. The guy in the store where I found the dress recommended some little hair-comb type thing with black feathers on it and maybe a little veil. I think I could probably manage that with some fabric scraps and what not, and a glue gun. But I need to find a comb base and some feathers. I tried a few beading stores, since they often have stuff like that, but the ones I checked didn't. Arton I think does, but they were just closing when I got there. :-(
   
   I may try and prepare myself tomorrow to go to the one bead store in my area. It requires advance preparation because the owner is allergic to everything, so you are not allowed in if you have used pretty much any sort of personal-care product any time in recent memory. So in order to go there, I will have to forgo not only BPAL, but hair conditioner and gel, hand cream, etc. and hope that my unscented deodorant doesn't set off any alarms (because there are some sacrifices I'm just not prepared to make).
   
   
4. Saw an absolute adorable kids' tiger costume that looked like it might fit the Lynxcub, but when last I saw him, he was very adamant that he didn't want to dress up as anything for Halloween, so I didn't know if I should risk buying it if he might not want to actually wear it. Also, not 100% sure it would have fit. Maybe I'll ask him again about the costume thing when I see him tomorrow, and if he does seem to be in favour of it now, we could always go down to Kensington and see if it's still there.
   
   
5. "Spare Change", my story for the first challenge of the LAS competition did not get any votes - not for best, not for worst. Will have to try and do better this time.
   
   There were a few really good ones in this round - notably Ophidia, which got my vote for best, and Diminuendo, which would have if that hadn't. If you didn't read any of the others, I recommend at least checking out those two stories.
   
   The second challenge comes with a really interesting prompt: "If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill. I can think of a lot of interesting directions to take that one in, though one is currently standing out more strongly in my mind than others. No hints, as if I do end up writing that one, I'm not allowed to give any indication which story is mine, so as not to bias the voting. But it will be interesting to see what all the various writers do with this one...

With all due apologies to those who hate the whole idea of Valentine's Day, I had a pretty good one. This was mostly due to the fact that g33kboi came up for the weekend, which is always a good thing. :-)

1. Saturday we were intending to go to a 40s-themed party, so we spent the afternoon acquiring appropriate clothing at Kensington Market vintage shops.
   
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   Sadly, we discovered - once we were all dressed up and ready to go - that the party had been cancelled due to illness, so, not wanting to waste our fabulousness, we went out to Volo to enjoy assorted really interesting beers. I think my favourites were one called Bogwater that was flavoured with some kind of bog myrtle, and Dieu du Ciel's Aphrodisiaque, which is a cocoa/vanilla stout with a name that seemed highly appropriate for V-day weekend.
   
   
2. V-day itself was partly taken up with collecting and putting up some nice shelves that kettunainen and optimystik were getting rid of. optimystik came along to help us put them up, since it's really a three-person job, and as we were working on it, it occurred to me that happily putting up shelves with one's current partner and ex-partner, and everyone getting along, was probably not exactly the most common way to spend Valentine's Day, but it was certainly a pretty good one.
   
   The hallway looks a million times better now, and people are no longer attacked by random kamikaze books every time they pass through it. Later in the evening we put most of my mass-market-size paperbacks up there, and later still, after g33kboi had gone home on Monday, I was inspired enough by all this to actually start sorting and organizing books. Paperback fiction is now handily separated from everything else, and alphabetized. Also, I unpacked two (2) more boxes. Miracles can happen.
   
   
3. Next up was visit time with the Lynxcub, which also enabled Kettu and Optimystik to have their own V-day outing. We took him to the sushi place around the corner from me, after some prolonged negotiation that went a bit like this:
   
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   Thankfully, we were able to keep the cookie component to a minimum, and he actually did eat a lot of sushi and edamame. But the most awesome thing was that he finally got the hang of using chopsticks! Granted, they were the kids' training-chopsticks that are hinged and have little finger-loops on them, but he's never managed to use them before as anything other than a projectile weapon, and this time he actually managed to successfully pick up bits of cookie food with them and transport them to his mouth with only a few accidents. Better than some adults I've seen try to use chopsticks, really. And pretty damn good for two and a half!
   
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4. After dropping the Lynxcub off, we went to see Sherlock Holmes, which was a lot of fun. Movie theatre popcorn is tastier than it has any right to be considering how horribly unhealthy it is. It's probably a good thing that I don't get out to movie theatres very often.
   
   
5. Sadly, LGBTech was only here for the weekend and had to leave yesterday. But we have resolved that there will be less time between this visit and the next than there was between this one and the last. But all in all it was an excellent visit, even if she did end up catching my cold (or "Moose flu", as her American co-workers dubbed it the last time she came back from Canada sick).
   
   
6. And what with all the shelf-putting-up and subsequent organizing, I am feeling highly productive. Enough that tonight I decided to finally try installing Ubuntu Linux on my little red netbook.
   
   The first half of the process was hell and the second half was pretty much bliss. Ironically, given their respective reputations for ease of use and the lack thereof, the homicidal-fury-inducing part was the part dealing with Windows (specifically, trying to make a bootable USB drive from an ISO file, and then induce the machine to actually boot from it), and the oh-hey-this-is-really-easy part was the Linux part. Yes, really. Installing Ubuntu - including partitioning the drive to make it dual-boot, and create an extra partition on which I'm going to attempt to install OS X - was on a par with most Mac software installations: pretty to look at it, and requiring virtually no conscious thought. I knew Ubuntu had a reputation for being a much more user-friendly Linux distribution than most, but wow! My grandmother could have done it.
   
   And the graphic interface of the "Netbook Remix" is really gorgeous. Colour me impressed. I'm not about to give up my iMac, but I'm pretty sure Ubuntu will be the primary OS for the netbook. It makes the Windows XP installation it came with look like something designed by the Spanish inquisition as a test of character by comparison.
   
   Most surreal moment: at one point during the installation, it briefly flashed the following message: "Preparing to completely remove ubiquity". I have no idea what that meant, but I can only assume that from now on, nothing will be ubiquitous.

I really, really want this T-shirt:

http://www.blackphoenixtradingpost…

(I also really wish people would stop using the absurd term "baby doll" for T-shirts that are cut to accommodate people who happen to have breasts. How about something like oh, I don't know, women's T-shirts? No, that would make too much sense.

I have a question for those of you who have more experience than I do in making interesting and possibly complicated costumes (which is to say, probably most of you):

Is there anything you can safely put all over you - i.e. on skin, hair and clothing - to make you look like a stone statue? But still be able to move easily?

In my ideal fantasy, there would be something like that marble-textured spray paint you sometimes see, but washable and non-toxic. However, I strongly suspect no such thing actually exists.

If there's something that could at least go on skin safely, but would permanently stain clothing and stick to hair, I could always get a cheap wig from a thrift shop and use clothing I didn't mind sacrificing... But whatever it is would have to look more or less convincingly stone-like on any of those surfaces.

Oh, and preferably also on feathers, though I suppose anything that could go on hair and cloth could probably go on feathers.

So... any ideas?

Now this looks like a hell of a lot of fun:

Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day

I don't know if I'd have the nerve to do it, but I really hope some people do. The dystopian future options looked particularly entertaining. Although the visitor from the past thing could be fun too, especially if you spun it into something like having been kidnapped by the fairies.

For the last couple of weeks I've been trying to decide whether to go to the 80s party or the Witches' Ball tonight, after my coven meeting. Now that the time is drawing nearer, I suspect I won't go to either. I haven't managed to put together any sort of a costume at all. Had an idea for a spider costume but it would have taken more time and money than I have. Maybe another time - hell, given the name of my business, I could wear it at trade shows! :-)

Someone told me at Sistrum last night "Just go through your closet, I'm sure you've got stuff in there that could make a costume of some kind, everyone does." Well, sort of. Maybe if I was going somewhere where no one knows me. This is the down side of being the "Halloween-is-every-day" sort of person - my wardrobe could produce witch/goth/vampire/dominatrix outfits for a whole room full of people, but none of it will look like a costume on ME!

But mainly, I'm just feeling tired. Between work and various forms of personal stress I just feel like I want to hibernate for a month. I'm not depressed as such but I do feel kind of exhausted and like I'm being pulled in many directions at once. I want the world to go away for a little while and just leave me to curl up with my cats and some ice cream and my beta copy of Geneforge.

Maybe I'll go to the All Hallows Kink party at the Reverb on Wednesday, or the Halloween party at Savage, or both. If I have some ideas by then, or the wherewithal to buy a couple of extra pairs of long satin gloves to make spider arms with.