Friday, August 27, 2010

Stupidily Easy Halloween Costumes

Business Person:
Wear some kind of suit or slacks, dress shoes, button-up shirt & tie.
Cons of this costume are that it will invariably cause people to assume you are not wearing a costume.
Pros include people assuming that you are an actual business-person and the costume pieces are easy to find and purchase.

Roman:
White (or at least plain solid-colored) sheet twisted about person in some manner, usually tied or pinned over one shoulder and at the opposite hip. Not wearing other contemporary clothing underneath is optional.
Cons of this costume are that it is very lame and no doubt inauthentic on every level.
Pros include the ability to go party at a near-by college fraternity if your original costume-party plans do not work out. Another pro is that this costume only requires one thing which you should already own.

Fairy:
One pair of cheap, sparkly fairy wings.
Cons: This costume is very easy to ruin or have stolen from you.
Pros: This costume is inexpensive and always obvious that you did make some effort, however small, to get into the costume spirit.

Shadow:
Dress all in black from head to toe. Black face-paint or mask is optional but a hat of some kind is required to cover light-colored hair. In character action such as creeping behind people and mimicking their mannerisms is a must.
Cons are that not only will most people assume you are not wearing a costume but also if you are walking around at night you have a very low visibility and people driving cars may run into you.
Pros are that this is an easy last-minute option requiring no purchases and the outfit doubles as something to wear when engaging in criminal activity such as cat burglary and convenience store hold-ups (but only if your costume includes a mask).

The Crow:
A simple Crow costume requires no more than dressing all in black and using white face paint on your whole face and black on the lips and eyes. Changes can be made to make the costume more badass and authentic. Silver duct tape can be wrapped around the torso, leather pants worn, lace-up boots used, a long black leather coat worn and a electric guitar or sword carried around as a prop. Extra points for being attractive and tragic and/or using fake blood and faking bullet-holes in clothing.
Cons are that people under the age of twenty-five will probably not remember this movie and there is a high likelihood that more than one person will mistake you for a bad Kiss impersonator.
Pros are that people who do recognize you will applaud you for your sweet costume and it isn't a complex look to pull off.

School Girl:
White blouse, plaid skirt, white stocking and patent-leather shoes are all the necessary pices for this costume. Wearing your hair in pig-tails, cropping your shirt or skirt and lewdly feigning ignorance about sex while in character are optional.
Cons are that this is a very chilly costume for those living in higher latitudes and people will try to look up your skirt.
Pros include the easy ability to get free drinks and/or get laid.

Angel:
Dress all in white/light blue and add a halo and/or small white wings. An alternative to the wings/halo is a low-cut shirt and/or tight pants or short skirt.
Cons include offending various people's religious ideology and getting into arguments about religion.
Pros are that it's really easy, cheap, and slightly less lame than being a Shadow.

Devil/Demon:
Dress in red and black and add horns and/or small bat wings and/or a pointed tail. An alternative to the horns, wings, tail is a low-cut shirt and/or tight pants or short skirt. This is also an ideal outfit for those men who believe that sporting a goatee is the height of facial fashion.
Cons include being mistaken for people who aren't you who were planning on dressing up similarly.
Pros include offending various people's religious ideology and getting into religious arguments.

King/Queen/Prince/Princess:
This costume requires only a cheap plastic or cardboard crown and a snotty attitude. You can be more authentic about the outfit with velvet and metal accessories, fake jewels and replacing snotty with regal.
Cons are that dressing up as royalty does not entitle you to anything.
Pros are that you can order your friends to entertain you or perform mock duels of honor.

Empathy for Automatic Doors

            I remember this one xkcd comic about automatic doors and feeling like the comic really resonated with me because I had always felt this way. Like I was inconveniencing the door by making it open when I didn't even actually want to come in and visit.
            I now find myself in a job where I walk by a Staples almost every time I work. After walking by on several occasions and feeling pretty bad because I kept making the door open when I didn't actually want to go inside I started trying to see how far away from the door I had to get before I was out of range. Before the door would know that I wasn't coming by for a visit and wouldn't whisk open hopefully. It turned out that if I walked just to the outer side of the inner segment of the sidewalk and I didn't have anything in the hand on the inside I could easily walk past without making the door open.
            I was pretty satisfied with walking by far enough away that I didn't make the door open. Until I saw that many times people ahead of me would needlessly cause the sliding door to whistfully trundle open, inviting them in, only to reluctantly close when the person had passed. And I still felt bad for the automatic door because even though I didn't taunt it and make it open when I wasn't going in I never actually went in. So when I started selling things online and I need bubble envelopes and packing tape I had a good excuse to go into Staples and make the automatic door feel like it had fulfilled its purpose.
            Alright automatic door-makers, I'm on to you. You made me feel sympathetic toward the door so much that I actually spent money at Staples instead of buying online. I promise I'll stop and shop when I walk by an automatic door if you make them stop sounding so sad when they operate.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Writing

Somewhat stream-of-conscious response to someone asking me about writing and creativity a month or so back.


I wouldn't have the audacity to say seriously that I write for myself. That would be strangely egotistical of me like I was saying that other people weren't good enough for my writing. It's true, of course, that I write for myself. I like writing, it's a beautiful escape into a land that can be anything I like. I like that I can write something I would like to read. But I don't just write for myself. If I were to write only for myself my thoughts might never be recorded in any way. I spend my whole day narrating my real (and imagined) life to myself. You never get to read that stuff. Not how it is initially anyway. But some of the ideas and concepts and lines and thoughts that I have do eventually make it into some kind of record. I'll write it into a story or a poem or a rant or a post somewhere or even a roleplay. I obviously write these things down because I want them to be read. If I were the only one to appreciate them they'd be gone when I died. I write for an audience. I imagine this audience is a bit like myself in some discernible ways but that at the same time the members of the audience can also be markedly different from myself. I want them to appreciate the writing the way it is to- not want to change the format that I chose or correct my supposed grammatical errors because they know that that's part of the writing. I don't want to write for any audience though. I feel confidence I could write for the audience, the mass market. I could write an awful Vampire romance and dress it up in SAT words and fill it full of clichés and become a best seller for a few minutes. I just want to write for an audience, whoever they are.
My writing starts with a thought. Sometimes it can come on demand but at other times I could not come up with a single thought worth committing to paper. I think about things. I never stop thinking. I read and I think and I walk and I think and I write and I think and I talk to people and I think. I have some of the same thoughts that chase through my head in a logical progression again and again. I have a lot of thoughts I prefer not to think. These are my denials. It's easier not to think about things I don't want to think about if I think about other things. Unfortunately I usually run out of good things to think about so I start to make things up. I look around me and try to see things other people miss or things I'd missed before. I could sit in the same room day after day and see something new to inspire me.
Sometimes the thought is about what I'm looking at. I'll look outside and I'll see the trees and I'll see growth and life and beautiful natural things. Sometimes the thought can be much more abstract. I can be looking out into the lobby where I work and see how the different corridors come together and think of the heart of a city, physical and then metaphorical. Sometimes the thoughts in my head will run together, the lyrics of a song will get tangled up with the thread of a thought involving a new scientific theory and something entirely new will emerge.

Selling Things Online Means...

Dealing with angry stupid people.
Example: "The controller you sent me was not in the original packaging."
"I know. That's why it said "repackaged for shipping" in the condition description."

That it's okay to check your e-mail obsessively because you really could have gotten an important e-mail in the last minute informing you that someone bought something from you.

Trying not to blow a gasket when someone undercuts you by five cents or even a penny.

Having to explain to your boss at your "real" job why you go to the Post Office so often.

Being terrified about committing tax fraud if you don't report your earnings at the end of the year.

Trying to achieve a fine balance between pleasing the customer and strict return policies to keep from being ripped off by the customer.

Occasionally spending several minutes knocking my head against a wall.

Constantly looking around you for more opportunities to exploit.