Sun, Sun, Go Away: I Wish For Rain In Which to Play
It looks fun, these slow and lazy, dog days of sand and surf. Mid-April, I couldn't wait to toss off the Hugh Hefneresque smoking jacket and fur-lined, ghettofab, Lil' Kim boots. Now, late-August, I haven't worn real shoes in who knows how long and, like a second grader at Grandma's for the summer, I've taken to sleeping in my bathing suit and consuming nothing but Red Vines, San Pellegrino and tortilla chips. It's just too dangnabbit hot to eat anything, really. My hair is rebelling and totally fiigmo in this heavy and heinous August humidity and I've given up trying to style it on any level; it's up in a twist or a ballerina bun from the moment I wake or tucked in a side-chignon under a wide-brimmed hat until nighttime. I will concede that nighttime around here is at its summer peak and the evening air is simply glorious, busting with the aroma of bonfires and barbeques. It smells like somebody spilled a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic SPF2 all over a Yosemite campground.
Nevertheless, I am so done with summer. If you've been reading my blogs, books and bewildering Tweets for a while, you know well of my linen-thin tolerance for picture-perfect, postcard weather. To be sure, I can be bikini & martini girl when the situation calls for it; but it's just not my altogether gig. Weirdly, I dig the love-hate dichotomy of it all. Heck, my alter ego blogger is Miss Hannah Hart, 1930s ghost chick of the Hotel del Coronado whom finds tans vile, but oddly, loves lounging poolside. (By the by, note that Miss Hannah is now a Staff Writer at GoodToBeAGeek.com, upgraded from Contributing Writer. Thx, Jessa!) Oh sure, my SoCal life is, to quote Alec Baldwin on Jerry Seinfeld's seemingly charmed life, "One unbroken boulevard of green lights." 'Tis all lovely, but I need some rain once in a while, dangnabbit! I need it now. Pronto. Good old-fashioned, Seattle-style, day-after-day, don't-want-anything-except-soup-and-Guinness-and-espresso kind of rain. Besides, sunscreen is bonkers expensive. (Apropos, I am bringing back Dangnabbit! and Horsefeathers! as remarks of strong exclamation.)
'Tis even too warm for my beloved reds. The juxtaposition is just wrong. Photo: JSDevore
Horsefeathers!, you say. I know. Don't hate, I'm just Moi. Whiny or not, this is my traditional, late-summer ennui. Fellow Spooky Girl, Kat Kinsman, a.k.a. @kittenwithawhip, devotee of The Smiths and Managing Editor for CNN's food blog Eatocracy, understands fully. I bet right now, in her Brooklyn-based, raven-maned noggin, she's scheming her Hallowe'en party pâtisserie and a kickass Bellatrix Lestrange or Lady Ligeia costume. Thankfully for us Spooky Girls, September is nigh, which means October is only a tad further nigh. To boot, mein Mann und mich even have the good fortune of a totally righteous Hallowe'en this year: Salem, Massachusetts! Look for a Hannah Hart ghost-post, to be sure!
When I can, I dash to the Haunted Mansion up the road at Disneyland, to assuage my gothic and autumnal needs. During the August-October interim, film and TV like Sleepy Hollow, Midnight in Paris, Ed Wood, Hocus Pocus, Northern Exposure, The X-Files, Black Adder, Charmed and the Edward Gorey-opening titles to PBS Mystery! keep my psyche in Burberry trenchcoats, ruffled blouses, patent leather boots and vintage bowlers. There's also a score of literature and art to keep Moi excited about an East Coast autumn: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Phaedra Weldon, Anne Rice, Edgar Allen Poe and, of course, old Charles Addams comics.
In case you're feeling a tad sunstroked, please enjoy a smattering of delightfully gloomy imagery. Snaps of rain, d ark skies, puppies in sweaters and Vikings in scarves. These things are divine. In case yours is also strangely sunny/gothic soul, I highly recommen d the literary oeuvres of one of my fave authors Tonya Hurley. She's kind and unassuming, I assume, replies to Tweets and digs things like crows, Poe, Haribo gummi baren, Jack-o-lanterns, silver spider cuffs, drippy candles, black fortune cookies, Johnny Depp (I suppo se. Spooky Girls always like Johnny.) and black parasols, too.
Photo: Nico Genin
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I should die before I awake,
I pray the popular attend my wake.
-Tonya Hurley
Old goths don't die. We just dress that way.
-Kat Kinsman
Some girls are bigger than others. Send me the pillow, the one that you dream on, and I'll send you mine.
-The Smiths
Wheeeee!!!!! Stripey socks season ... away!!! Cheers, all :)
