Tag Archives: Halloween costumes

Don’t be scared…

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I’m sitting in a house that’s only lit by candlelight, with a scary sound effect track playing. There’s a red lightbulb lit over our door, pumpkin and ghost lights in the windows, and a big scary streamer thing covering our front door. There are two big jack-o-lanterns, four headstones, and skull-bedecked cemetery fencing in our front garden. I’m wearing a wizard hat, and iDJ has on a creepy-as-hell clown mask.

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We are ready for trick or treaters!

We’ve had one uncostumed, dare-you, ToT attempt that we rejected, and three real ones so far. Two of the first three were in traditional Samhain masks, really good to see that.

The cats are unimpressed, one has left the downstairs entirely, and one is more interested in the fact we cracked the window a little bit to run the speaker wire outside. Dog is fine until the doorbell rings. In Ireland, they shoot off (illegal) fireworks for Halloween. So far, the dog hasn’t even twitched an ear at the booms, a good thing. Unless that first little barstid comes back and tries to put one in our letterbox…

A friend on FB just pointed out that this is the only time we encourage kids to visit. Damn right, and it is only okay now because we are doing our best to make them scream, cry, or wet their pants.

Oh, here’s how we tortured the dog this week:

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She only had to be Spiderman for a few minutes. It didn’t fit right.

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Ooo, aren’t we tough in our spikes? As long as Mr Carrot is around to protect us, we are…

We had a good time on Saturday night. The plan was a house party, then to hit as many of the three pubs in town that we could. Of course, we only ever landed in one pub, as you do.

Here’s me and the KIBIS-ers at the house party:

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Don’t we look great? I’m the tall one, obviously. I tried to squish my boobage flat (ha) and wear gender-neutral or even masculine clothes. The idea being that as long as I kept my mouth shut, no one would know if I was a girl or boy. It’s nice being tall 🙂 And it worked! In the pub, I scared a good few folks just by walking up and staring at them with my arms crossed. I found it really messed with their heads if I opened my eyes really wide to make crazy-person whites glow out of the mask. Yay!

My Harley jacket gave me away, though, to people who know me – I do wear it quite often, and as I’m the only biker chick in the town, well, they aren’t eejits here. Best response to me trying to fool someone came from the publican himself – “How’s the weather in America this week?”

Now for the piece de resistance! iDJ in his costume, assembled mostly by me and makeup by me.

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Any guesses who he is? How about a close up, then?

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Yes, he is Dee Snyder from the 80’s metal band, Twisted Sister! I really wanted to utilise his long blonde hair, and came up with Dee. I think he looks great! Even though he’s in my leggings, shirt, jacket, handcuffs, scarf, bandannas… hell, the only clothes that aren’t mine are socks, jocks and boots. Nice when a couple can share their clothing…

Gearing up for Halloween!

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I’m sitting here with a smile on my face. It’s such a nice feeling. This is why I love Halloween!

iDJ and I spent about an hour this eve when he got home from work sorting through clothes for his costume. It got a little stressful, as nothing was working right. His stonewash jeans were too tight, and he needed something 80’s on his legs. What to do? Ah, trust in the resources of the SpiderQueen.

I found a pair of leggings in fabulous colors, and made him try them on. Oh, perfect! His legs look fantastic. He put on the boots he wanted to wear, and I quickly sorted out a shirt and the accessories to make a perfect 80’s costume. It says a lot about me that I actually still own clothes from 1985. Says even more that I can recreate the ‘look’ we wanted so easily. So he’s sorted, except for his hair and makeup tomorrow.

Except… for his junk.

He’s wearing tight leggings. Men are not meant to wear leggings. Especially not with just a t-shirt to cover their ‘bits.’ I told him that he was in charge of figuring out what undies to wear – he’s a boxers man – how? I don’t know. Nor do I want to see the experiments.

But! He posts this on FB:

Note: he always carries a man bag for his gear – another gender stereotype shattering difference I forgot yesterday! He has a ‘murse’; I hate handbags and refuse to carry one.

iDJ: My good lady had me play dress up earlier so my costume is sorted. Now if only I can figure out where to stash my junk…
Me: Oh my god. I can not believe you said that! Right, I’m going to have to buy you something that doesn’t show off your junk so well!
iDJ: Camera, phone, wallet with no money, hip flask, bible – that junk!
Me: Oh. Right.

Of course the facebook feed has gotten worse from there. We all knew he wasn’t talking about his iPhone! Braggart. I have no idea how to keep my pictures of tomorrow from being nearly pornographic.

To get our collective brains back into happy-land, here’s Dogzilla dressed as Spider-Man:

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I spent nearly two hours working with my mask today. It doesn’t fit well, and I have to wear a wig, too. The mask has to be glued into place, and I’ll need to blend makeup to cover the bare skin. I’m not a fan of masks, but this one is in two parts with the chin separate so my mouth will work as loudly as normal. The functional mouth was very important because I refuse to drink Guinness out of a straw. So, there was trimming, and fitting, and more trimming… and I found out that my liquid latex has gone hard and mostly unusable, so the edges of the mask will be really obvious, dammit. Also, I have clown white but no black, and I need to blend in grey makeup to match the mask. Bummer. A shopping trip that includes me is scheduled for tomorrow, but I can’t get proper professional quality makeup locally.

I’ve not even sorted my clothing yet. Uuuurgh. But really, I love Halloween!

A final note, if you’ll permit. I’m a terrible self-promoter, I couldn’t sell heaters to Eskimos. However, in keeping with the Halloween theme, I’d like to give you directions to the MP3 podcast of iDJ’s Halloween radio show. It is 2 hours, recorded live last night, and really, really, good. You’ll get my references to Glen Campbell yesterday better, too. Go here: http://bit.ly/vJS8fD and, if you want the playlist first or after listening, go here: http://bit.ly/ts8gXY

You’ll hear himself talking every half hour or so, getting progressively drunker and happier as he goes. That’s normal for his show 🙂

Halloween costumes and gender stereotypes, with random BS

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Hi, and welcome back to another instalment of the continuing saga, “….

Nope, I got nothing. My blogging friend Michael could come up with something, I’m sure.

I’m a bit at loose ends tonight, as my BFF Socks has family over and isn’t available for our usual phone call. I know she’s having a great time, though, and not even I can begrudge her that. We’ve planned a conversation tomorrow, but it must needs be cut short due to my needing to assemble Halloween costumes.

My costume is mostly make up – well, actually, glue-on, good quality prostheses I bought in the US last year- and those terrifying New Rock boots I mention in my ‘about’ page. But iDJ – well. I am gonna have soooo much fun with him. I refuse to give it away, but we came up with a costume that utilises his beautiful, arse-length blonde hair. It also involves make up, but more like lipstick and eyeshadow rather than greys and blacks.

Despite us being married for over 6 years, he still gets called gay because of the hair. The hair I love. The hair that suits him. When they see him in costume (called ‘fancy dress’ here) on Saturday, they will say it even more. The thing is: only a man secure in his gender preference is comfortable enough to dress so oddly (and no, he’s not going to be in drag). So, you small town, insecure, gender-preference-repressed name callers – eat it and weep. He’ll be awesome, and he gets to come home with me.

I will post pictures. I know I’ll be unrecognisable, and he will likely be, too. I say that, because I’m still debating on keeping the blog anonymous. I think I have four out of 11 followers who don’t know me in ‘real life.’ However, I’ve not said the horrible things I thought I might say when I first started the blog. I was in such a dark place, I figured it would be non-stop bitching about everything. Instead, it turns out this thing helps me see the humor in my life, and makes me appreciate the little things more.

I also think I appreciate the bigger small things more, like my KIBIS nights. We did have one this week, not at my house but at MrsMMC’s apartment. We voted to include another member, but we didn’t say who was going to invite her… oops. Is that my job? I’m not going to detail the evening, but some things we talked about are things I want to ramble on about here, and I’ll give a KIBIS-mention when I get a round tuit.

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Yes, I know that is an old, bad joke. It makes me think of my dad, though. He had one of these, and he loves an old, bad joke as much as I do. Hell, my whole family loves stupid jokes. Would you like two that came from my great-grandmother, on my mother’s side? No? Tough. Please note, these jokes have to be over 150 years old, passed down over the generations.

What are the three dirty parts of the stove? Lifter leg and poker.

What are the three naughty vegetables in the garden? Lettuce turnip and pea.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Right, what next? If I hadn’t segued into bad jokes and KIBIS, I might have said some things about the seeming gender confusion in my household. That is completely the wrong term, of course. Stereotype shattering is a better term.

An example from right now! He is live on the air, playing his Internet radio show. Tonight is Halloween themed. He was playing a song that is new to me, and I like it a lot (a rarity, I’m picky). Afterward, he (was) is playing Glen Campbell, Ghost on a Canvas. He told me that he’s snuffling back tears because Glen has Alzheimer’s, and his memory only comes back for his songs, not his family or friends. So, Glen is now a ghost himself. Aw. (iDJ also said the two songs before the one I like made him weepy.)

Me? I’m considering deleting the part of my post yesterday where I admitted to feeling anything.

Okay, back to fun examples of why we are so good, and so odd, together.

He loves to shop for clothes. He knows labels, what is hot, what is classic, what isn’t worth the trouble and why. He always has, and spent hundreds on a single jacket or pair of jeans back in the day of the Irish Punt.

I don’t know, nor do I care, about labels or what is in fashion or cool, except to avoid what is trendy. I buy based on three things:
Is it an acceptable price for what it is?
Is it ‘classic’? Meaning, it better not be a trend and I’ll look like a twat next year because I’m not doing this shopping shit again any time soon if I can help it.
Does it look good on me?
Sometimes there is a no. four: is it so totally awesomely tacky that I cannot live without it?

iDJ is a shoe freak. Sneakers, trainers, whatever you want to call them. His passion is to re-buy all the trainers he had as a kid; sadly thwarted due to me not having any income. The good part about this is that he shops well. TK Maxx, aka TJ Maxx, is the best for inexpensive cool shoes. Even better is that after he checks the selection in his size he looks at my size, and has gotten me some really cool rare kicks. Oh lordy, he’s rubbing off on me.

Enough about clothing, it’s boring.

Next is, of course, that his hair is loooooooong. He’s not a metalhead, and doesn’t want to be taken for one. Hipster is more his style. Yes, he even wears cardigans. But, he has no piercings or tattoos and doesn’t want any. I have 3 tats, want another, and my ears are punctured 4 times left, once right. All my tats are on my left, too, it’s a thing with me. No, I don’t know why.

Last one, then I’m done, honey, I promise.

He drives a MINI Cooper. I drive a Harley-Davidson Sportster.

Because this has gone on long enough and I have to end on a high note, don’t I? A thing i am very happy indeed about: He isn’t threatened, is indeed relieved, to let me do most of the mechanical repairs and assembly around the house. I love putting together flat-pack!