and for every king that died they would crown another

Yesterday some friends and I all felt well enough to actually carry through on a tentative plan we made! (All of us are some flavor of chronically ill and in pain, so this was kind of a big deal.) We went to a local pop-up "flea market". It was not a flea market in the traditional sense, it was a market full of vintage clothing etc. vendors. It was fun to wander through, but the only thing I bought was a back issue of Fangoria - a vampire special! At one stall I looked at a really pretty ceramic trinket box; I turned it over to look at the price ($20), and found the scraps of a Goodwill sticker still clinging to it. Yeah, no.

After we grabbed a snack, we hit two thrift stores and I Got Things! Two very pretty trinket boxes (a glass one with roses painted on the lid, the other is wood with mother of pearl inlay), three vintage gothic romances, a pajama set that is very Gothic Heroine in style, a candle snuffer, and a footed silver serving platter. We also found one of the most terrifying dolls I've ever seen, and no, none of us bought it.


Look, I'm a connoisseur of creepy dolls, and even I wouldn't want that thing in my house.

Because Leaving The House means proper clothes, I wore one of the Selkie-style blouses that the Madwoman in the Attic made for me. This style of blouse is possibly my new favorite wardrobe item, so it's a good thing I have ... um ... four of them already.



(Yep, I need to take the bust in a little bit. Simple enough.)

Of course, yesterday's outing has left me sore and headache-y today, so it's a good thing I hadn't made plans.

No matter what I do, my hair isn't returning to its previous thickness. I'm loathe to ask my GP for any of the prescriptions that are supposed to help with that because I'm already taking eight prescription meds daily, plus the "as needed" ones, plus around nine or ten OTC supplements, so I don't want to add to that list.

So! I've decided to return to wearing a hat any time I leave the house. I just refurbished my black straw top hat; it now has a large plume of black ostrich feathers, a large antique lace bow with an antique rhinestone buckle, and pink faux roses tucked around the bow. I'm still dithering about if I want to make it even MORE over-the-top by adding a bat chiffon veil that would trail down from the back of the hat. 

I'm also refurbishing all of my wide-brimmed hats, as carrying a parasol while using a cane probably requires more dexterity than I have. Everything is getting more veiling, and I'm dithering about if I need to order a few more crow skull replicas.

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Thanks to some things rolling across my IG feed, I've learned about the world of Kitchener Style Essences, which supposedly help you learn "where your style and personality blend!" So a more elaborate version of finding your color season. (Good lord, Color Me Beautiful is still going strong. What a flashback to my teens.) 

In October of last year, a "lost" essence was "found"/created: Oneiric. "A softer, more melancholic edge that merges mystery and muted darkness. Something that had never been fully acknowledged, at least not widely." Do you mean: Romantigoth? Doing more reading about it, why yes, they mean Romantigoth. But of course, the people who have latched onto it are quick to say it's not goth. Of course, what a surprise. But it's fun to read about, and is a source for more makeup inspirations.

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Speaking of makeup, let me direct you to this post on Tumblr, where an absolutely adorable young lady demonstrates how to do a ghostly and haunted makeup look for folks with darker skin. Perfection. 

(Thank you FOB/Pete Wentz for always providing entertaining song lyrics.)

Everything is ugh. My back is having one of its stretches of hurting and feeling fragile, so my life involves lidocaine patches and dipping into the stash of muscle relaxers and heavy-duty pain meds. I've been having an upswing in different types of migraines, and I suspect the main culprits are weather and stress. All I want to do is sleep, and my mood can generally be described by that Charles Darwin quote of "I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything". With a large side of "meh". I really want a doctor to prescribe the historical treatment of going to the seaside for a week (with the appropriate servants to take care of me and bring me dainty treats while I sit with my feet in the ocean).

Today is particularly ugh, as we lost three writers yesterday and I need to cover their work while we hire new writers for those positions. (Yeah, read between the lines there and you can probably guess what happened.) Thankfully, I talked to my boss and asked how this would work with my current projects, and she told me that my number one priority right now is to focus on the writing/being a writer, and once those positions are backfilled, I'll go back to my Program Manager work. So at least I don't have to worry that I'm being held to two sets of different standards. But still, stressful.

Meh. 

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One thing that's been entertaining me is going through my Tumblr archives - prompted by a post going around asking people how long they've been on Tumblr oh my god 2010 really?! - and finding a lot of fun content and a lot of pink & black eye candy. But I realized (a bit too late) that I shouldn't read my text posts from 2011, because that was the worst year of my life. Dear Powers That Be, that isn't an invitation to go "hold my beer!" and try to overshoot that. I don't need that.