best of the cell phone pictures, part 2: playing dress-up

hmm, i started this “best of” series in july intending to do frequent installments. i so rarely upload my cell phone pictures, but tonight i uploaded over 600 new ones and it inspired me! here are some fun costume-y photos, just in time for a holiday that is not halloween.

it was pirate day at work, and i tried to dress up as a pirate, with johnny depp’s jack sparrow as inspiration…

but really i ended up looking more like yitzhak from hedwig and the angry inch.

here i am trying to look like brody dalle.

could not get the “fuck off” expression quite right.

liby as jareth the goblin king (david bowie in labyrinth). her costume was amazing. all of her costumes are amazing.

this is liby’s cat pancake. he actually likes being dressed up, especially in drag.

andy is not as pleased as pancake. he won’t physically protest being dressed up, but he will emote with despondent resignation the damage i am doing to his soul.

the night before tour de fat i practiced my mascara beard. i couldn’t believe how real it looked.

sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band! i bought this fantastic jacket at a youth ranch for $1. i just recently passed it along to katherine, who vowed to wear it at the writing center.

this is nikki’s favorite form of dress-up. obamonkey is not a hat…

WHITE DIAMONDS! i don’t know who this person is. his elizabeth taylor impression is pretty spot-on, though perhaps not quite as good as robert smith’s.

my slam hero

reed is the most amazing slam poet i have ever seen. he, katherine and i went to a poetry slam at pengilly’s last night. he wasn’t even planning on this, we just found out about the slam a couple days ago, then katherine and i both goaded him relentlessly until he finally agreed.

i’d never seen him slam before. i knew he was good because his poems are fabulous and he keeps winning slams, but i had no idea what an astounding performance he gives. when he got up on stage the first time and did “shit talkin’ for spare change,” my jaw was on the fucking floor. so was katherine’s. his facial expressions, gestures, intonation, articulation…it was all just so perfect. i swear no one else got the kind of crowd response he did, except the visiting poet sonja renee, who was also totally incredible.

he didn’t win, but only because the judges didn’t know what the hell they were doing. reed is much more understanding about this than i am, assuring me that they were just scoring according to their opinions and that it’s fair, but i’m pissed off because it’s my feeling that his performance was objectively spectacular and transcended the petty opinions of three drunken fools assigning arbitrary point values. he won that goddamn slam. of course winning isn’t everything, but he really deserved the $100 prize. he was absolutely the crowd favorite after the first round, and the verbose, quentin tarantino-esque emcee was practically speechless. afterwards a few people even came up and begged him to come back again—i thought they were going to start asking for his autograph.

i’m still a little bit in shock. i felt like one of those girls in old footage from the 60s going bat shit insane over the beatles. it’s hard to express how enthralled i was, but this might give some idea: i brought my camera to the event thinking i’d get some good pictures of him performing. normally when something interests me i automatically go for my camera. i’ve never been so completely wrapped up in something that i forgot all about taking pictures, until now.

the altered toy project

the bra project

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etmfa (elect the motherfucker already)

in less than 24 hours, if all goes smoothly, we’ll all know who the next president is. and unlike the eve of the election in 2004 or 2000, i feel calm. i feel like tomorrow will be a brighter day; like a giant fuckup that has lasted more than a third of my life will suddenly be corrected; like pretty soon i won’t have to be afraid or pissed off at the news anymore, and the rest of the world will stop hating us, and all my favorite comedians are going to run out of good material, and it’s going to be okay. maybe all that is too much to ask, but i’m not really asking for it. the weight is just lifting off.

i hope it rains in boise tomorrow. i want to stand in line at the elementary school in the rain, waiting with everyone else, knowing that most of the people around me are probably about to make a different choice, but we’re all out there together, waiting, getting wet. maybe there will be lightning and thunder. is it better to just drift through a mild, cloudy, neutral day…a placid transition, like waking up weary after a light sleep? or is the auditory drama of thunder and the sting of driving rain required to roust us from an unshakable night terror?

“don’t pray in my school and i won’t think in your church.” “i never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. i meant to say that stupid people are generally conservative.” my friend laura has been texting me random liberal quotes for the last month. she hates republicans—doesn’t even try to hide her contempt, or veil it in false tolerance. it’s funny and refreshing and scary all at once.

and yes, fuck mccain. fuck him and his developmentally-challenged annie oakley and his straight talk bullshit. but he is better than bush. no matter who wins tomorrow, it will be an improvement.

i’m not worried. not overwhelmingly worried, anyway. i truly think obama has it. on campus there are some chalkings on a few of the buildings—deep white markings on rough, scratchy brick that holds chalk extremely well—that simply say “VOTE.” they’ve been there since 2004. when i see them i think of the anxious hope i had four years ago, eager to swallow the bitter pill that is the lesser of two evils. how amazing to have a viable candidate i don’t have to settle for.

76 days, 21 hours, 21 minutes. etmfa.

autumn in high contrast