the october update: second edition, part II

Part II

(Part I here)

So.  So, so, so.  If it's October, it's Halloween month.  Not the month with Halloween at the end... it's just Halloween month.  At least it is for this guy.  You've read about my costumes (here) so you know I never tread lightly when it comes time to get serious about this shit.  At all.

Now this post is going to be a smidgen out of order because I am going to lump everything together when it comes to the costume, and that means four separate nights of dressing up that were divided by actual Halloween.  So let's start with that.  Get ready for a lot of pictures.

I invited mom over for Halloween day, seeing as she lives out in the boonies now and doesn't get Trick or Treaters and no one can appreciate her pumpkins.  I had taken four days off from work to celebrate accordingly and planned a little afternoon of it.

First let me start off by saying I was dumb and waited until the last minute to buy pumpkins this year.  Not the EXACT last minute, because it was the day before, but the fact remains.  Three grocery stores and two plant nurseries had literally nothing left when it came to pumpkins or gourds.  Nada.  And I know they weren't all sold, they were probably donated, but how annoying!  I had to resort to Wal-Mart, barf, and even then I only got the three midgets you see below in the center.

But I digress.

We carved pumpkins, I made a big crockpot of chili (Parker tradition, everyone), and then we sat down and watched "Fright Night."  The remake, not the older version.  And I'd just like to say I have no qualms with the remake as so many people do, because I only saw the original once and thought it was so-so.  It was a fun afternoon with mom, spent talking about Halloween's past and all that.  Couple scares, lots of laughs, and what more could you ask for?  When she left, I dawdled a bit before getting ready for the evening.

The third "event" of October commenced.

I've never taken progress pictures of my makeup before and thought that this year would be the perfect time to do so.  So we'll move left to right, top to bottom, start to finish.  Enjoy!  Feel free to click the picture to make it bigger, if you want to see the nitty-gritty.

1.) Manly with a beard, no prep work done.
2.) Half-tie the hair back and slather on that shaving cream.  Get it, get it!
3.) What a baby face; this is why I don't shave with a razor.  Ever.
4.) All showered and lotioned up!
5.) Applied foundation to the forehead and frame of my face, which I then removed from the frame of my face because I wound up screwing it up.  This is a process, people.  Set the foundation with powder.
6.) Draw the brows on with liquid liner.  That little arch gives a whole lot of expression when I move my forehead.
7.) The prettiest face you'll ever see.  I smudged out all of the eyeshadow (there are four colors there: black, gun metal, silver, and sparkly onyx) to be able to have a much finer line when it was done but mostly so that I wasn't coming up short when I did clean it up.
8.) After taking a makeup remover wipe I had a perfect line coming off each eye.
9.) Eyes done, foundation totally applied.
10.) Lips done!  First outlined with black liquid liner, then lipstick applied, then the liner is gone over again and smudged down to make a better shading effect.  I had to blow out my top lip because if I didn't, it would look like there was hardly a lip there.
11.) Hey, the night is wrapped.  After a makeup remover wipe had attacked my mouth and eye, I look like leatherface.  I get a good chuckle at the difference in skin color.  Fun fact: the last night of doing makeup, I kept messing it up and had to essentially "spackle" my face with foundation.  I looked like Goldie Hawn in "Death Becomes Her."
12.) All cleaned off and ready for a shower.  Looking like I got rode hard and put away wet.

The finished product?  Well look below!  More time and effort was spent on the jacket than anything else.  I bought it for $14, and added about $80 worth of patches, chains and buttons.  But it upped the ante of the costume and I couldn't be happier.  The corset was not really a corset, but an old vest I had from Express.  I cut it up to get the right shapes and then mom attached a new fabric to the whole thing.  I then pounded grommets in to lace it up, and the real Dr. Frank'n'furter looks mighty pissed at my success.

The first night of going out was with Miss T (dressed as Marie Antoinette) and we went to "Wicked Fun" at the Grand Meridian in Appleton.  We'd gone to this event the year before and hadn't had much success in enjoying ourselves or winning the costume contest (that was a mess, don't even get me started).  So we just threw caution to the wind and went as big and bold as we could.  And y'know what?  We had a blast that night.  And on top of it all, we won.  Miss T secured third place and I brought it in at 2nd, which was fine by me.  The prize (below) was valued at $850 and came full of gift cards for random establishments/things as well as tickets to the Weidner Center for a magic show at the end of November.

I'd rather take 2nd place than nothing at all, and beggars can't be choosers so I took the tin and ran.

I didn't really run.

I don't know if you noticed those heels or not, but the platform was an inch and a half tall.  And the heel five inches.  Do the math ::cough cough six foot nine inches cough cough::

Then we had the second event, the next night, at a bar called Sluggers on the north side of town.  Our friend Joni's boyfriend's band was playing and the costume contest was that night, so we put it all on again and turned it out as well as we could.  By this point we were realizing how much attention our outfits were getting.  The first night alone we posed in more pictures than we had through three events combined the year before.

Unfortunately this night Miss T did not place in the contest.  16 people entered it and everyone got to march around in front of the crowd, and then based on their screams the list was narrowed to 8 people.  She did not make it into the 8, and without being biased AT ALL, I have to say it was bullshit.  One of the costumes was a girl in a red hoodie as Elliot, carrying a basket with an E.T. doll in it.  And don't get me wrong, that's a great costume (and one I provided to Jillybean for a party I threw back in 2009) but it is not one full of effort.  And Miss T's was full of effort.

So I made it into the top 8, and then I made it into the top 3.  And then I strutted my stuff one final time and secured 2nd place for a 2nd night in a row, drawing in $100 cash for myself.  Miss T was a great sport because in the end, we are cheerleaders for each other.  And the exact same thing happened last year, at the same bar.  She placed and I didn't.

Then we move on to the main event.

@markstyleme and Mr. K finally joined the festivities as Magenta and Riff Raff, completing the trio from Rocky Horror.  All we needed was a Columbia!  I think my favorite part of this costume was how many people reared their heads around when they saw it.  I'm a big guy on any given day, at 6'4" with wide shoulders and just a broad frame in general.  So when you put me in heels, a garter belt and a corset, it turns heads.

Men congratulated me on being "fuckin' awesome!"  Women screamed about how great my calves looked.  And the pictures.  Pictures, pictures, pictures.  They didn't stop!  I'm sure it was intimidating enough to walk up to a complete stranger to ask for a picture (let alone one that looked as I did), but to do it when I was in a group of friends was commendable.  I did everything I could to be gracious and willing, because there is nothing worse than a sour puss in costume.

And really, I did this for the attention.  No one would dress up the way we did and be thinking "Gosh, I hope no one looks at me tonight."  I WANTED people to look!  I even called them out when they were looking!  "Hey, take a picture!  Don't be shy honey, come-and-gimme-a-hug."  Wearing that much makeup and a costume like that made me transform into the character and that is such a great feeling.  No one would recognize me from my day job, no one would be able to pick me out of a crowd, and that is incredibly freeing.  So I got to ham it up for a few nights and just be ridiculous.

Then you've got 'ol nipple biter @caitcd, with Riff Raff creeping in the background.  Of the 60+ pictures I posed in for complete strangers, I didn't find out until later that he photobombed nearly every single one, standing in the crook of my arm with his face leering through it.  And that is fucking awesome.  I have to give MAJOR props to Mr. K for never dropping character.

A photographer from the Post Crescent was also there and our picture made it onto the website for the newspaper.  Which is pretty grand as well.  

This was the "official" picture we had taken of us by the people at the event.  This was at Waverly Beach in support of the Children's Hospital, and I later found out the event (which typically pulls in about $60,000 a year) beat their record and pulled in over $100,000 which is pretty fantastic.  There was a costume contest that Miss T entered as a solo and the three boys entered as a group, and unfortunately we did not even place.  BUT it was an honor just to be nominated, because you couldn't walk up to a booth and say "Hey, I want to be in the contest."  There were judges walking around that had to personally give you a necklace to nominate you.

After the contest was over, we parted ways.  The boys went home and Miss T and I went to a bar called Images where @kconn works.  We got there around 11:20 and didn't realize there was a contest at that bar as well.  So at midnight, when the winners were announced, imagine our immense surprise when Miss T took 2nd place and I took 1st place.

I screamed very loudly.

We come to the final night of festivities.  @markstyleme and Mr. K threw a shindig at their new house and I was more than willing to play with them.  Miss T unfortunately did not join me as she was feeling under the weather, but I was comfortable enough on my own at that point that I knew I wouldn't have a problem strutting around without her to protect me from bullies.

Of which there had been none, but you know what I'm saying.  Easy target.

We had to sign balloons at the house, either as our character or as ourselves, so I chose my character and got artsy with the underline.  If you see a big dick, that's your own fault.  I claim no responsibility.

Scout showed up as Derek Zoolander and was my arm candy for the evening.  We went downtown for karaoke (no one else was ready to leave the party when we left, aaaaaand then no one else ever came) just the two of us and had a blast.  There's something to be said about a person that makes it easy for you to be so silly and dumb around them, whether you want to or not, and for me that's Scout.

There was supposed to be a costume contest at the bar I frequent for karaoke, but sadly they had done it the night before.  Mother fuck.  That was okay though because there were still a bunch of people dressed up and we had fun talking with them and taking pictures throughout the evening.  I must say, I made a whole gaggle of new friends in this outfit.  Even if I didn't get their names.  Or the names of the straight men, who were very hunky, that couldn't stop touching me.

What an effect I have on people!

Around 12:30, the time came for me to perform.  It was the whole reason I chose this costume, after all.  A year ago on Halloween I sang karaoke in public for the first time, and the song I was comfortable singing was "Sweet Transvestite" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  It was like a drug to me, and I sang it throughout the entire year.  I knew it was all building to this point, and though the very beginning was cut off, that's ok.  I keep watching it and laughing.  I didn't realize I looked so good in that corset!

When the song was over it was time to head back to @markstyleme's and call it quits for the Halloween season of 2014.  When we walked out of the bar (of which I had parked directly in front of by sheer luck) it was to find four or five squad cars, a fire truck, and crime scene tape.  Because there had been multiple stabbings at the Mexican club right next door.  Suddenly my parking spot wasn't so great.

So with my chin held high, this 6'9" tranny walked into the damn street infront of cops, onlookers, media and club go-ers, got into the damn car, and managed to wiggle out of the parking spot in platforms and a wig.

Watch out, world, I'm coming for ya!

Back at the house, the corset came off.  The wig, the heels, the nylons, all packed away to be kept in a safe place for an undetermined amount of time.  There's always a sense of finality to whatever character I'm playing when I take the costume off for the last time, and then I know it's done.  @markstyleme was lying on the floor, so I lay down with him and we were chuckling and taking pictures.  And then Scout and Mr. K lay down as well and we were all laughing and taking pictures non-stop.

Looking at the photo above I can't help but get a certain twinge of nostalgia for how things were at one point in time.  How things could have been... in my mind how they should have been.  Not everything works out the way we want and that's alright.  It can suck, but it's alright.

So what else happened in October?  I only listened to Christmas music twice.  Okay, three times.  Went through enough makeup to fancy-up a small army, visited my first cheese store, and endulged in a few Dark 'n Stormy's.  I finished the hard copy edit of Episode II, made a few decisions about the end of the Onyxus Chronicles series, bought my first iPhone, and started my holiday shopping.  If that's not ahead of the game then I just don't know what is.

I think when all is said and done, it's like the quote at the beginning of this set of blogs said: "Sometimes the healing is in the aching."  We need to feel things, things like these three events, to remind us that we're alive.  Whether it's a sentimental wedding, the loss that comes from a best friend moving away, or the overwhelming joy of bringing a character to life so well... we need it.

I need it.

And if the healing is truly in the aching, I'm healing up quite nicely.  Maybe the silver lining of that is that I'll be able to stand even more sturdy on my own two feet, heels or not, and greet the future without needing to lean on so many people.  It's a good thing to look forward to.

Ciao gang (c:

Like what you saw?  Follow me on Facebook!  I can always use another fan (c:

Purchase "The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode I" HERE!

Like the book?  Follow The Onyxus Chronicles on Facebook!

the october update: second edition, part I

Part I

(Part II here)

What a busy, crazy, fast, slow, sad, happy, terrifying, emotional month October was.  I've never spent so many consecutive days spontaneously bursting into tears, nor have I ever kept myself so mentally occupied so as to try avoiding a situation until it was too close to ignore.  I've known for a while it was going to be a ridiculous month so it didn't come as too awful much of a surprise, and in the end, I'm happy to have things be too busy than not be busy at all.  There was a lot of dread coming into it but when it wrapped... just a steady determination that I continue to find as comforting as hugging an old friend.  How did October start though?

By watching Scream.

I like to break up this month (and the following couple) with movies that get me in the mood for the resulting event.  With this being the time of year to start watching horror movies with such reckless abandon, why not that one?  It was after all the first horror movie I ever saw in the theater (more on that in the next Random Things blog), and is just as good as any to kick off the festivities.

But the first big event of the month (of which there were three big "events") was the wedding of a certain miss @caitcd.  I was honored to be asked to be an attendant to her on the big day and accepted the position enthusiastically.  Even more so because she asked if I would give a speech.  WOULD I?  Of course I would.  Any chance I get to stand in front of a crowd with a microphone and this guy is in!

Now as had been custom to all of the festivities involving the wedding (bachelorette party, bridal shower, etc.), the weather on the day was absolutely perfect.  I drove out to a gal's house that lived maybe 15 minutes away with @joleneelizabeth and picked up all of the botanicals involved in the day.  We went to Riverview Gardens to then set up and had a pretty good time doing it.  Lot's of burlap, dried wheat, sliced tree stumps and several dozen green and brown glass bottles later, the stage was set for what would become one of the best weddings I've ever been to.

Weddings of best friends are difficult for me.  They always have been.  It's not a question of whether or not I am happy for them because I always am.  Astoundingly happy, actually.  The difficult thing for me is accepting that things are going to change between us a smidgen.  Sometimes a lot, sometimes hardly at all.  But there have been friends in the past that completely vanished in their marital bliss and never ended up returning to a good friendship in any way shape or form.  And that hurts.

It could also be because I'm single and rolling my eyes a lot, Janeane Garofolo style in "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" (spilling beer down my chin and all).  Of course I'm not bitter.

But really it was a beautiful evening and my ONLY regret is that I did not remember to ask someone to record the speech.  Hindsight is such a bitch sometimes!  So I'd like to take the opportunity to write it out here, and you can of course skip it if you'd like but that's your choice.  And it's my blog.  Boom.

~ * ~

I like to go last at these things... then nobody can one up me.  That being said, hello!  My name is Sean Parker and I am a very close friend to our bride Caitlin, and I suppose through osmosis our groom Joe as well.

Caitlin and I did not actually used to be friends, believe it or not.  And though at one point in time a couple years ago the waiter at a Mexican restaurant thought we were twins DESPITE just checking out I.D.'s, it is a true statement.  We always knew each other, and maybe we chatted casually every now and then, but there is a subtle difference between the two.  We shared a fair amount of time together in our senior year of high school in a ceramics class and I suppose you could say we... tolerated each other.  It was time spent mostly insulting each other.  And no, not in a truly mean way, it was solely to award ourselves points based on how harsh the criticism was.  We even signed one another's yearbooks that way.

Caitlin probably never thought I'd bring that up on her wedding day, but... here we are.  10 years later and 10 points to me!  All that being said, five years went by after graduation before Caitlin and I actually spoke again (thanks Facebook!) and we hit it off remarkably.  And over the next couple years we became best friends.  Comrades in arms because we were both unlucky in love and came to bond over it.

And I have a point to all of this... stick with me.

We spent all kinds of time together, hanging out and watching Harry Potter, going for drinks and bike rides, having cooking parties, you name it.  One day Caitlin's mom Phil told her that if she was ever going to find a man, she had to stop going out on the town with me because no guy was going to approach her while I was around.  And we chuckled and "ha-ha'd" about it and went about our lives.  Now, almost two years ago I went on this awesome cruise of the Caribbean and Caitlin was gracious enough to come and pick me up in the middle of the night from the Milwaukee airport.  We chatted through the drive home, me telling her about the trip and her filling me in on life in Appleton, and admittedly I was delirious from exhaustion and a little land sickness.  Then Caitlin broke down and told me something.

"I met someone," she said.
"You did?" I asked, half surprised and half complacent as she nodded.
"Yeah, you know him.  We met up at a bar and hung out a few times and he came over and played guitar..." and she keeps talking and all I'm thinking in my head is "who do I know that plays guitar?  Not the fact that she's dating someone, no, just "well who plays guitar?"
So I said "Well who is it?"  And she chuckled in the way that she does and then spills.
"Joey Kiley."  And she says it in this 'tone' as if I'm going to have some sort of dramatic reaction.  As if to say I'm a dramatic person.
So I said "WHAT!?"  And I remember laughing with her and then proclaiming "So it wasn't enough to just skip hanging out for a week like your mom said, I had to leave the country for you to meet someone?"

Right away I was skeptical.  I went in to brother mode, because she is like a sister to me.  He's not good enough for you, and I don't know who is but it's not him!  But after a few weeks went by, that eroded away.  The smiles that were so slight began to grow bigger, the stories about him were filled with sweet things he did or said.  Like grew to love and then her eyes would sparkle whenever she talked about him.  It got me to thinking about how random it really is to meet up with someone you knew in what was essentially another life.  If a relationship didn't work 10 years ago, why would it now?

But then I realized that's what happened with Caitlin and I.  Maybe at one point in time, you're just not ready to be close to a person.  Maybe when they come around the second time, and you've both experienced some more happiness and maybe some more pain, everything's perfect.  It's chemical.  Some people are meant to be together in one regard or another and I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that you two came around after so long to make it work.  Things like this, like love, have a way of coming full circle.  Whether it's karma, fate, divine intervention, a combination of one or a couple or maybe just a little luck and better timing... whatever it is, it's magical.  It's contagious.  And it's inspirational to those of us still waiting to feel it.

So let us raise our glasses for one final toast.  To the people who made it out today, to those that are no longer with us, and most importantly to Caitlin and Joe.  May the spark of your love endure to become the brightest of our guiding stars.  Cheers.

~ * ~

After the wedding was wrapped I had a week or so to let life continue in however normal of a way as I could muster.  I worked on my costume, continued the hard copy edit of my second book (pictured below, yikes), and of course kept the fact that another best was getting ready to move across the country firmly out of my mind.  Like I said I was a busy boy in October and Halloween prep was the least of my concerns.

Some big news was dropped on me at work and it was something that caused me to start thinking about the possibility of changing my plans in the future.  I kept telling myself I would move to Austin before I was 30 (which seems a hell of a lot closer when I say it now compared to saying it at 27 last summer) to work for West Elm.  For those not in the know, West Elm is the more "urban" side of Pottery Barn (we are both owned by Williams Sonoma, Inc.) and is primarily located in larger cities.

The company is expanding at a super fast rate though and the big news that fell on my shoulders is that they're opening a West Elm in Milwaukee.  This spring.  And suddenly I had a big fat wrench thrown into my plans.  It was never in my life goal to move to Milwaukee (no offense to anyone that lives there), but if I interview for the store and get the job?  I don't know.  Big choices ahead I suppose.  

I did get the pleasure of joining Miss T and Mr J for her first haunted house experience.  And I must say it was quite the experience for a multitude of reasons.  Chief among them being that since the owner of the haunted house we chose out in Manitowoc personally knew members of our group, that gave the people INSIDE said haunted house the go-ahead to touch us.  And if you've never been to a haunted house where they actually touch you, it's a whole new level of fuckin' creepy, lemme tell ya.

Other highlights included: me screaming at the tops of my lungs at leatherface, Miss T falling up the stairs and then hitting her head on some wall thing, Amy saying she wanted to pull down the underwear and spank the ass of the guy at the end of the human centipede, and of course hanging out behind the scenes when all was said and done.

Oh, and on the drive home Mr J requested we stop at a Kwik Trip so he could use the restroom, whenever we saw one.  A good five minutes later I randomly said "I really like Kwik Trip, now that I'm thinking about it."  You may have had to have been there, but apparently it was hysterical and those two couldn't stop laughing at me.

As the end of October drew closer, so did the second big "event" of the month, that being @klreynol moving to Arizona.  I won't rehash all of that right now but if you are so inclined, you can read about it here.  It was difficult to face the final week of the month with that hanging over me, but I did.  And as any good Doctor should, Dr. Frank'n'furter made me feel much better.

And that's what you really want to hear about, isn't it?  I won't delay you any longer.  Enjoy (c:

Onward to Part II!