How to Be a Professional Costume Designer

Ever wanted to make your very own Bollywood dance costume in the comfort of your own bed? OF COURSE YOU DID. That is the average North American's number one career goal. Here's how you do it. You're welcome.

Step 1: Far exceed your budget by getting a custom, tailor-made blouse that fulfills your visionary idea of what a TRUE Bollywood costume should look like.

Step 2: Realize that the expensive lace you had stitched on now restricts the elasticity of the fabric and therefore, does not allow the top to slip past your broad, manly shoulders. A.K.A. You dun messed up and now can't get the top on past your elbows.

Step 3: Eat fried chicken as a stress response and then forget to wash your hands like the unsanitary mofo that you are. This ensures you will get oil stains on absolutely everything you touch hereafter.

Step 4: Cut the professionally-applied lace border into way more pieces than necessary to free up movement of the fabric. The excessive destruction is because you did not bother to plan ahead or apply any proper reasoning. YOU ARE AN ARTIST, AFTER ALL. Common sense would curtail your creative freedom.

Step 5: Realize that cutting lace means that you now have enough frayed ends and embellishments falling off to start your own craft store.

Step 6: Try to stitch up the frayed ends with the wrong-coloured thread and realize it looks hella ugly.

Step 7: Revert to burning ("cauterizing") the frayed ends with a matchstick, but doing it carelessly enough that your costume catches on fire and you now have a burn mark on one side.

Step 8: Use gift-wrapping tape and slap it on that fabric like it is a Grade Two arts project to hold everything together.

And voila! You now have a professional dance top that you cannot wash, otherwise everything will fall apart. Also, to add extra flair as a finishing touch, make sure your cats are gnawing on the lace while you work so that there are bite marks and cat hair on everything that matters.

Fini.

(Okay, sarcasm over, as much as all of the above really did happen, the end product actually looks really good and I'm proud of my ghetto problem-solving abilities. Anyone who's an artist will know, things never work out as initially imagined, but that same imagination is what will get you through.

Fini for real.)

Three Years Later

Hello,

I have slunk out from under my moss-covered cave once more to write. I don't think anyone actually reads this blog, but this is mostly just my online diary, in any case.

(If you are reading this blog, welcome [back]. Yes, I'm still alive.)

I now live in Edmonton, where it is cold and dark 75% of the year. Hence, I am grumpy 75% of the year. But spring has sprung, so here I am to stretch these writing muscles after so much hibernation.

Speaking of hibernation, bears. Speaking of bears, they are furry. As am I. Segue into another story about waxing. *applause*

I am still as hairy as ever, so one would imagine that I am fertile, hormone-abundant, full of health and vitality, all other virtues of perfection, etc., etc..

Yet, when I went into my local salon to wax my winter layers away, please explain why I apologized thrice to my aesthetician for being so unkempt. So shaggy.

To be fair to myself, by societal standards, I was the embodiment of Planet of the Apes. I am gifted with thick, coarse, black hair that likes to stand strong and proud instead of lie flat (those non-submissive little bastards! - how dare they reflect my own personality?).

As much as I like to think I don't care how I look as a woman, I clearly still carry this subconscious shame that I grow hair. Which is ridiculous. It's like saying:
"Sorry I have eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair on my head," or,
"Sorry I have nails, they just won't stop growing!" or,
"Sorry my skin is tan in colour."

I have body hair because I am a female who has passed puberty (physically - mentally is another thing). It grows and I cannot help it. Neither should I have to stop this growth (laser treatments, anyone?), nor should I have to remove it (yet I do), nor should I feel bloody embarrassed about it (yet I do). Dafuq?

Pretty sure I've already discussed this on my blog, but this is my 2017 take on it. So suck it.

K bye.