New T-Shirts!

Halloween Day will be Sam and I's 2nd wedding anniversary! He bought me a couple of shirts from Walmart to tell me that he loves me:

On Halloween Rants, and a few personal woes...

Hello everyone, and welcome new followers! I'm still constantly surprised at the amount of people who are willing to listen to me blither on....

I know I haven't been blogging with much enthusiasm lately, and there are many reasons why, all of which have had me in a kind of crisis mode and few of which I'm willing to fully describe on the internet. Suffice it to say that some of it involves my husband's ex-wife and some family issues. I've been feeling very low the last few weeks, and it has culminated into feeling almost nothing at all the last couple of days. I've kind of shut down emotionally, and maybe that's what I need to reboot.

Anyway, this post has been vaguely writing itself in my head for some time, so I need to put it down.

There are a few things that irritate me around Halloween, as much as I love the holiday, and these aren't even so much of the comments that I know we all get (i.e. "Nice costume" or "Are you going to a party?" No, what irritates me first of all is some of the costumes.

Yep, Goth costumes.

I think this bothers me in much the same way as other costumes that seem to be making a weird persona out of a specific group of people. I ran up on someone the other day that planned on going as a lesbian with one of her friends. That's not a costume, that's a person. In the same way things like this bother me:

source

Described as a "Goth Bride of Darkness" costume

Ok, I understand, maybe I'm being too touchy. Halloween means ooky spooky and this would certainly do it for most people. However, the way that gets translated is that someone seeing me in my everyday clothes assumes that I am in costume, that I'm trying to achieve this look, and that it's not who I really am and I'm playing pretend. 

What these costumes do is take Gothic fashion and make fun of it. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but I can't be the only one who feels like they are begin ridiculed. 

On the other hand, I do love the holiday and I buy things that are cheesy and cliche, if only to gently poke fun at myself and make sure I'm not taking myself too seriously. I know that it's weird for me to complain about the above picture and then buy this:

It says "Gothtini." Had to get it. Had to

Maybe in the end it's how someone uses the imagery that effects the way I process it. If it's just a costume you're putting together to make yourself seem "scary" because you think Goths are scary, then I feel I'm being made fun of in the wrong way. If you genuinely think it's cute and intend to use it for more than shock value, I can get over it.

I'm curious to know if I'm the only one that feels this way. How do you guys feel about Goth costumes and such?

There is one more little thing that bothers me around Halloween. I am a Christian, and I know Halloween is sometimes a four letter word in the Church, but really, if you're going to claim that it's evil, don't turn around and have the exact same thing at a church and call it something different and say that's ok.

Maybe this is just a thing with churches around here, but every one of them have an "alternative" set up for Halloween night, where the kids dress up in costumes (although they ban "scary" costumes), they give out candy, they play games, and they call it a "Hallelujah Party" or something similar. It's ridiculous. If Halloween is that twisted and evil that you don't think I should celebrated it or let my kid go trick-or-treating, why are you having the same exact damn thing at the church? Do you really think calling it something different means you're not celebrating the (pagan) holiday just like everyone else???

Does anyone else see this happen where they live? What do you guys think about this?

Halloween-style Welcome Mat

My house is officially a home now! Check out what I picked up at Target:

I haven't been able to get much this year, but I'm happy with this.

Halloween Haul: New School Bag

This is a bag I found at Big Lots yesterday. Yes, yes, I know it is a treat bag, but one of the beautiful things about subcultures is finding ways to use things out of context, and this makes a great bag to carry books and notebooks in. I carried one around all this year that I bought last Halloween and it served me pretty well. They do get rips and things in them from use, but when you pay about $1 for them, you really can't complain. And it's so cute!


Do any of you guys do weird things like this?