Halloween
Tomorrow is Halloween and it has not snowed yet. Here in Saskatchewan, this is note worthy. Usually one expects snow before Halloween. Usually big white moist flakes that coat the ground and melt quickly. Yes, usually snow before Halloween but not snow on Halloween. But always cold for Halloween.
I don’t remember many of my childhood costumes. I do remember that they were either hidden by a coat or had to be big enough to wear over a coat. One year I was Disney’s Snow White; a costume that came with a plastic mask and plastic clothes. I wore it under my coat – nobody saw the clothes and the mask was quickly discarded. Too small eye holes and scratchy plastic. Yuck : (
Honestly, for me, the thrill of Halloween was the candy. I grew up in a small town it was (and still is) perfectly feasible to hit every house in town up for candy. Good stuff – stuff we never got at home. Tiny bags of chips, tiny chocolate bars, teeny tiny chicklets, a nickel here, a quarter there, licorice, tootsie rolls, and so many other wondrous delights. After school, we rushed home, grabbed a pillow case (no tiny bags for us) and started systematically working every block. Our first stop was always next door. Grandma F (not our grandma) always made coloured popcorn. Tiny lunch bags of colored popcorn; everyone in town went to her house. We were one of the few who also got this treat at Christmastime.
After that, it was house to house block after block. All these goodies available and all I had to do was dress up and occasionally sing a silly song and they were all mine.
Trick or Treat smell my feet
Give me something good to eat …
We barely stopped for supper and did go home at least once to empty our pillowcases and start again. Were pillowcases smaller then? I never sampled when trick or treating but my baby brother did. I waited to the end of the night to explore this marvelous bounty and occasionally trade some of it for my favorites. One of my older sisters would hide hers and eat it slowly piece by piece. If my baby brother and I didn’t find it she would still have Halloween candy to enjoy at Christmas.
It was a simpler time. I loved it. Halloween was a chance to load up on sugar and chocolate and enjoy a rambunctious time being out after dark with just my friends.
I only dressed up once as a teenager; I was a gypsy one year for school. It wasn’t as much fun. The costume wasn’t right; the company was more reserved. I missed the excitement of being out in the dark anticipating mischief. And I never was asked along to play tricks. No Halloween parties or Haunted Houses.
Now, as an adult, I don’t even get to hand out candy. No trick or treaters come to apartment buildings. I don’t do the bar scene, never have. I’m contemplating going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show but I won’t dress up. No one would notice, no one would care, and I want to once again feel the excitement of anticipating being out after dark. But I am afraid.
Not afraid of monsters and goblins and ghouls. Afraid of being invisible, unnoticed, alone. A ghost.
Don’t need a costume, a white sheet, when you’re already invisible.
gigi (not necessarily)
Not a girly-girl
I shaved my legs today. In the winter, for me, this is an uncommon activity. I’m not a girly-girl: I shave my legs, at the most, monthly, and once it is winter even less than that. I don’t wear dresses and nobody sees my legs in the winter but me. I shave my underarms more frequently, about every two weeks. I shave my underarms once they start bugging me, once they get itchy. It seems to me a bother to shave and primp.
I barely ever wear make-up. Mascara once in a blue moon but that’s about it. I would rather spend my money on other things than eye shadow or mascara or fancy shampoos. I sound like a slattern don’t I. But I’m not at all untidy. My appearance is neat and clean I just don’t see the need for all the embellishments. Never did.
I suppose in my youth I might have been considered a tomboy. I ran around with my brother and his friends. I hung out with other tomboys. When I wasn’t reading I was having adventures. We played in the lumber yard (until we were chased out), we built tree forts, we climbed unto the roof, and played in the junk yard next door.
I did on occasion have to wear dresses. Every Sunday and other special holidays. I can only remember one dress I was comfortable in. It was a simple white lace A-line dress and I wore it until it was a mini skirt. I got necklaces, from my father’s parents, every Christmas and broke them quickly. I was a fiddler (still am). My sisters always looked poised and pretty. I looked like someone playing at dress-up.
My best friend, in grade 8, would use me as a mannequin and dress up my hair and face. I had long hair to play with; She did not. It seemed to me a waste of time. I could have been reading. We could have been playing Monoply or some other board game. Nobody ever noticed the difference, me with or without make-up. And, truth be told, I preferred to not be noticed. Being noticed meant being criticized.
I don’t see the pleasure in fancy clothes and expensive creams. I just want to be me.
gigi (not necessarily)
Eating Worms
Nobody likes me, Everybody hates me,
google image search
Going to go sit in the woods
And eat worms…
I don’t like myself right now. I crapped out on a job. Just up and quit after five hours. This is not like me. Usually, once I have a job it’s do or die till the end. This time I knew quite quickly that I bit off more than I could chew. It was a second job. It was adding four hours every night to an already full weekday and I didn’t really want to do it. I took the job because the friend who helped me get it felt I should do it. I took the job because my big sister said it sounded interesting and insinuated that if she could work over sixty hours a week so could I. I can’t work that much. I court trouble when I over commit myself: I get stressed. This week, I got a cold sore and the beginnings of a migraine because I felt guilty about quitting a job I didn’t really want.
I took it because it was good money and only a fool turns down money. I took it because I need the money. I had a tooth cap dissolve and I need another cap besides that one. My heart wants to be able to support myself with one job. My heart wants extra money for something fun. My brain keeps saying that’s not how life works. You have no right to like your life. Expect to be punished!
And I do. I expect to be punished. I expect people to be disappointed in me and not like me because I crapped out on a job. A job I knew was too much out of my comfort zone. A job where the cons outweighed the pros. I expect other people to have more of a right to tell me how to live my life than I myself do. I was raised this way.
So my challenge right now is to have the confidence to show that I know what is right for my life and the courage to live as I want to.
Rain
It was raining this morning when I walked to work. A cold, late Fall, be thankful it’s not snow, type of rain. This is Pre-Winter rain. Cold, bleak… a rain that chills you to the bone. A foreboding rain just in time for election day! I voted anyway. 
google image search
I have lived in Saskatchewan, on and off, for many decades. I have made a study of the rains.
There are blustry spring rains. They are Winnie the Pooh rains; rains that tear the umbrella out of your hands and turn it inside out. These are the rains that drench you to the bone and are quickly gone but leave your socks soaked and your spirit damp. These are the rains that push Piglet and Eyore off the page.
There are calm summer storms; rains that last all day but fall gently on the earth nourishing it. Soft rains where you don’t need an umbrella because you don’t mind getting wet. This is usually a warm rain. This is the rain I enjoy walking through.
There are wild summer storms that race across the prairies drenching and raging at the soil. I use to stand on my balcony, at the edge of the city, and watch this type of storm slowly make its way into the city. This could last all day. I would see a rain cloud form miles away and hours later it still would not be here. It was a leisurely rain. It was enjoying taking its time. You had hours to prepare to go out into the rain. However, you did not want to go out for the wild storm would rage at you and leave you feeling destitute.
As a child, one of my favorite activities after the rain, was to follow the streams across town pretending that they were rivers and that I was smaller than I actually was. I wanted to be small and big at the same time. I wanted to tell the rain’s story by reading the streams.
Home for the Holiday
I went home for Thanksgiving. I did not want to go home for Thanksgiving. It seemed a lot of effort for just two days. Saturday morning on the bus. One supper Saturday evening. Church and dinner one town over Sunday. And back home today. After begging a ride and feeling guilty about it. I’m tired of someone else directing my life. I want my life back. I want to be selfish like she is.
Home in the first two mentions being my mother’s house and back home being my apartment. Which is quiet and well organised (I’ll admit I’m very particular about my space – I like it uncluttered). Mother is a pack rat. Mother thinks what she wants is paramount (which explains why I was home for the holiday). It was too much trouble to argue about two days. Easier to give in.
Yes, I understand that I am choosing to subvert my will to keep conflict out of my life. This relationship has been going on now for over forty-eight years and I have come to the realization that my mother will/can not change. So, I’ve decided to pick my battles.
Which means she gets the major holidays and I get to live the other 90% of my life the way I want to. It also means, however, that I will never have an authentic relationship with either of my parents. Go back to blog post one, I’m sure I mentioned that they are divorced. I choose not to argue with my parents. This is my choice.
And thus we have all this angst over one simple holiday! Well okay…I have all this angst.
gigi (not necessarily)
Anticipating LARPing
Can something be both too little and too much at the same time?
I went to a LARP last night. To those of you not in the know, that is, a Live Action Role Play event. According to Wikipedia a live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing where the participants physically act out their characters’ actions. It’s like being in a play or tv production where there is no audience and no script.
I’ve known about the event for a couple of months. It was a one shot production based on a canceled space cowboy series. I knew and liked the TV show and was intrigued by the idea of LARPing. Even though, I am in no way an actress and prefer to day dream in private. Plus, very quiet. Still, no matter what I do, so very, very quiet.
Had a friend talking me up but she’s not the reason I did this. I know that I need to be more social. I’m just not sure how to be more social and still feel like me.
I spent the last few days wondering and anticipating and trying not to be too nervous. And saving up money.
I spent Saturday afternoon imagining back story, based on the three sentence pre-summary I was given and buying props. I knew I was to be a Private Detective (would all those mysteries I read finally pay off in real life) and that there would be a mystery to solve.
I bought a magnifying glass and some colourful plastic fish – yellow, orange, green, blue, purple – they looked like this. 
They could be weapons or some other type of tool. They were initially, in my mind, Babelfish. This is a fictional species, created by Douglas Adams, and is a fish that translates speech from one language to another. But they could also be, I thought, genetically altered land Piranhas (Galps) that could strip a person of their flesh in thirty seconds. This, after all, was the future: anything was possible.
But that last thought came later after I was finished with shopping. The last item on my shopping list was some sort of weapon. Do you know how hard it is to find any sort of toy gun in this day and age. Ah, too have saved my toy guns from the Sixties. Life was less complicated then.
So, perusing the local toy store I happened upon these: 
. They made an interesting buzzing sound, look futuristic and I thought I could explain how this weapon might work. It has to do with force fields, and sound, and perhaps hypnotism. More information, on this product, can be found at http://www.zerotoys.com/newsite/products/MagnaBuzz.htm.
Next came a very simple costume: striped black pants, a blue silk shirt, an understated purse, and black chopsticks in my hair (which in a pinch could also double as weapons). Thus, I was ready.
Or so I Thought.
I knew the Universe. I was familiar with the venue. The LARP universe was well suited to the venue chosen. The LARP was scheduled to happen from 5:00 to 11:00 pm. I went. I walked down (it took me 45 minutes; I had planned for it to take over an hour). I was early but that was okay. I met a few of the other LARPers, paid my fee, got my character profile and waited for everything to start.
The LARP started downstairs on the street which gave me too much room to hide and after two hours, we moved upstairs into two rooms which made me feel crowded and out of place.
I tried. I interacted with one of the three other characters I was too have had a previous relationship with. But mostly I just watched and felt like I knew nothing of what was going on. The first space was too large for me and the second too small. I felt like Alice down the Rabbit Hole except Alice had a guide to show her what to do. And she was brave and I am not.
At 7:30 I politely stepped out, that is, I made up a polite excuse and went home. Still confused and not really sure how the game is to be played. It would likely had killed me to stay all six hours. It’s the not knowing what’s going on, it’s the feeling out of place, it’s me.
So, after $40.00 spent.
$12.00 admission
$10.00 taxi home
$18.00 on toys, props, & water
A pittance, that’s all it was, just a pittance.
After all that, what did I learn?
That I like to write plot. The time spent imagining and anticipating was something I enjoyed. Also, I learnt I do know myself. I’m not brave. I’m good at observing, not so much good at interacting. I can’t comfortably stay locked in an unfamiliar situation for more than a few hours.
But, I might try this again. I enjoy the idea of LARPing. Everyone was open and nice and engaged in the story. I was not. Next time, a shorter LARP with less people. Maybe then, I’ll have to play!
Seeing Myself; part 2
October 2, 2008 at 8:58 pm (Movie Commentary) (movies, single woman, Susan Sarandon)
The book, yes there is a book, is a much more realistic view of a young man’s obsessive nature. It also lets us into the mind of the older woman and how she feels about and copes with being poor & single. It annoys me that both movies, this one and Miss Pettigrew, assumes an older single woman will always be poor and lacking in healthy emotional resources, (and looking for a young person to show her the errors of her ways).
So why do I like this movie? This movie that is showing me (the single woman, the divorcee, the spinster) in such a poor light. I suppose partly because I read the book first and the book portrays the older single woman in a kinder, more realistic light. Also, I’ll watch anything Susan Sarandon is in. She’s defintely my favorite older woman role model.
As well, White Palace, in my opinion, has one of the hottest sex scenes ever. If you’re fast forwarding it’s about half an hour into the movie. Just mind numbing, toe tingling , close my eyes and just listen, sex. And, I must say, James Spader is the last man I would ever want to sleep with in real life.
For me, the pleasure in watching White Palace is in suspending my disbelief and just going along with it. Because, believe me, in real life this relationship was doomed from the beginning.
Permalink Leave a Comment