The Big Three Oh

I’ll be doing a blog post all about the wedding (that happened) and the move (also happened) soon enough. 

I thought I’d start with this.

See, I turned thirty on November 17^th. 

My dad likes to say, “You can’t trust anyone over thirty, or people who work for the government.” 

I’m both.   

He’s kidding, but I started to think about how different thirty is now than it was in the 60s.  

Mostly, I just don’t feel like an adult yet.  I don’t think that has much to do with my age though.

I like that I can still enjoy what I’ve always enjoyed. 

Gaze upon my Bat-Belts!  This isn't even half of them.  

I wear these to work.  No one cares!  Or notices. 

I like that I can play.

I’m proud that I HAVE come as far as I have, regardless of trauma from all directions for so long.

That being said, I still have a long way to go.  I’m aware of that.  

I know there are things I still don’t like about myself, and those awful things are going to be the hardest to overcome. 

I’m happy with my body now, and my confidence is so much better than ever before.

I’ve learned to stand up for myself, though I still struggle with that from time to time…

I’m eating better and better every day, while still being careful about my allergies. 

I can BE careful without it ruling my life, even when I'm scared.  

…and that’s just really cool.

Still though, there are so many times where my imagination takes over and goes from “being creative” to a true sign of the mental illness I’ve faced for so many years.  

The dark, mirrors…  I’m actually terrified of a lot of things to an incredibly embarrassing degree.  

I’m thirty now, and I still take the whole Bloody Mary thing too seriously.  It’s another level of sad.

Now it’s a matter of not wanting to see the endless darkness that may or may not reflect something that I just can’t perceive when the lights are out…

I already told you about the time as a kid where I left a bathroom like the little chicken I am during the era of Spice Girls and pogs.  

(As a side note, we were doing a dance thing in a PE class once, and I was elected to be Scary Spice as I was the darkest one with curly hair.  That’s how bleached white our fucking middle school was.  Fuck.  Sure.  “Close enough.”  …  These days, I would take it all as a compliment, though I’m not sure how she would have felt being played by a Slavic Jew.  Really, I wanted to be Posh anyway.)

Seriously though.   

Under the bed was scary enough that I just put my bed straight onto the floor to avoid having an under-the-bed at all.   

The closet…  Ugh.  Especially when the door was just slightly open?  

All the way open or all the way closed.  That’s what it had to be.

My sister solved this problem for me by simply tearing the doors off of my closet in a fit of unbridled and seemingly entirely random rage.

Doors slightly open at all, ever…  For whatever reason, my brain immediately goes to, “Yeah, but what’s looking in?”  

Why is there ANYTHING looking in?  What??

Walking to the bathroom at night encompasses all of these things in some way or another, especially that first mirror-in-the-dark bit. 

This was all before the food thing became… a thing.

The worms and ants almost-phobia may have to do with the hidden nature of them, just as the dark poses for everything else.  

And yet again…

Ants though…  They’re like the Borg. 

And worms like maggots, eat the dead.

Realizing I’m very much alive, am I just afraid I’ll find out the hard way?  I’m more afraid of my own reflection in the dark than seeing someone other than myself…  Maybe it’s all existential.  

Fear and phobias are interesting things when they start to rule your life.

I was always super anxious about everything, but I very rarely expressed this openly.  I felt like a had to keep myself with a steely expression for my family, so that no one would know that I was scared or in any pain.  

That may have been a fear too.  I didn’t want to be a burden, and I didn’t want them to feel bad.  

So… I just pretended I was fine for as long as I could.

This led to weirdly humiliating moments, because it translated as being shy when I wouldn’t just speak up and say, “This is really shitty.”  

Good example? 

That time I had a mat in my hair. 

Why my parents didn’t just take a fucking scissors to my hair is beyond me.  It was in the back and under all my other hair.  No one would have noticed.

The whole thing was kind of my own fault anyway because I didn’t want anyone to touch my head.  

I was little then…  Elementary school I guess?   

And my head was an unruly mess of curls and tangles.   

Dad would (jokingly?) chant, “Rip tear!  Rip tear!” as he tried to brush my hair.   

I have since learned to either start from the bottom 

or just cut it all off.

So there we were at the hair stylist. 

The lady gathered everyone around to see. 

So, there I was, SURROUNDED by random people staring at my head.

“IT’S A PERFECT DRED!” she kept saying.  

I did not do this on purpose.  I mean, good to know, but having all those people stare and touch me, and have to sit there in silence pretending I wasn’t scared and embarrassed…  

Ugh. 

You know what?  I’m exhausted enough, let’s stick to the hair for a minute. 

Lemme tell you ‘bout my hair. 

I found my first single grey hair in middle school.   

Since this was the era of being called “Witch Girl” and being made fun of anyway, I decided to be how I wanted to be.  

Fuck ‘em.

I’d rather be poked at for things I choose than the things I have no control over.  

Cue my Rogue-style blonde chunk right in the front of my head.  

This was then blue for a while, various shades of “strawberry”, and green for a very short while.   

It’s hard to keep green without it becoming a variety of snots.

Eventually, I dyed the underside of my hair red, so when it was up in a half-ponytail you could see it… 

I very rarely did that though.

Finally, there was the black and red stripes. 

“Make it look like it’s bleeding.” 

When that proved too hard to maintain, straight red or maroon happened.

There were some mishaps, such as the orange frizz…  

  

And some disappointments.  

 “We have… semi demi purple?  It’ll wash out in a day or two.”  

I have since stopped dying my hair due to a combination of fear, lack of funds, lack of time, and straight up laziness. 

I have a few more grey hairs now though. 

You know.

Cause I’m thirty.

Dating the Marvel/DC Universe

My relationship with comic books has become a little like a weird dating scene. 

DC and I used to be incredibly close. 
Any new title, I was there, being supportive and loving. 
No matter what the villains did, I had faith that the heroes would be… Well… Heroes. 

But…

Then DC started getting weird on me. 

Darker.

Too dark.

I don't mean that I was ever that into DC's BIF! POW! phase, but at least it was charming. 
This was different.

Suddenly, everyone had to be alone. 

NO one was allowed to have friends. 
Not even Superman. 

Characters like Bruce Wayne suddenly had no cares about family or legacy, which were pretty much key points to said characters. 

Worst of all, I watched as DC started treating women very badly.

Women who had been there since the beginning were killed off.

Women who had been plot movers and game changers were erased entirely.

Women who were smart and caring and all manner of other things were reduced to objects for the men. 

I was hurt.

…DC had broken my heart and I felt embarrassed to say I had ever been a fan.

DC threw away YEARS of our time together like I had meant nothing. 

After all, I was just another woman. 

Disheartened, I went to the comic book store. 
It was time to move on and shop around for someone new, right?

…Was I ready to move on?

Dark Horse was there, of course. 
Dark Horse and I always had a good time when we were together, but we hardly got to see each other anymore.

I found myself not having much to talk about beyond old titles from our history together. 
It was difficult to find any new ground. 

Still, Dark Horse was comforting in my hour of graphic novel need.

Madman never let me down...

But…

I wanted something more steady.

I wanted something that could give me movies so I could talk about characters with other fans who hadn't read the comics. 
Or someone with cartoons-
…like DC. 

Oh. 

I missed DC.

Batman: The Animated Series…

You know, DC is still good for an animated movie once in a while, but no one else seems to pay any attention to it, so it feels like some kind of dirty secret.

I wind up saying, "NO!  You don't understand!  DC isn't like that!  You just don't know DC like I do!"  …And then I realize what that sounds like.

Then…

In the back of the room, looking all cool…

There was Marvel.

Now, I knew Marvel in passing. 
I mean, my father hung out with Marvel just as much as he had DC, so I thought I had a good idea of what Marvel was all about.

Back in the day, I had pushed Marvel away when I saw what the Fantastic Four were like to each other. 
They were mean in the comics, replacing key characters at the drop of a hat.
Plus, there was that time where EVERYONE was a mutant. 

Of course… 

There was Iron Man.

Iron Man had been good to me.
Even as a playboy, Tony wasn't outright cruel to anyone. 
Iron Man was allowed to have friends.
 
He had been with me even when I left for art school, and honestly, I realize that I just kind of… 

Well, I ignored him. 

I hadn't really given Iron Man a chance. 

You know…

I hadn't given a lot of Marvel a chance. 
I guess I judged all of the characters by their friends. 

Still, Marvel had never peaked my interest before. 

I mean, Marvel just wasn't DC.

…But maybe that was the whole point. 
Maybe I needed Marvel for that very reason.

What was Marvel going to do with someone like me though?

Marvel spotted me as I stood there among all the options.
Marvel said, "I know it's been a while, but I'm different now.  You've grown up, and I've grown up too."

That set up a red flag for me. 
After all, DC was "different" now. 
More "grown up" too.

DC had started wearing the name tag of "New 52" and started all that awful violence with no purpose, heroes with no friends… 
Sexist, racist, AND it carried right over into the movies! 
And I just-

"No, no" Marvel said, putting a cool hand up, "It isn't like that.  What I've done?  I call it Ultimate.  You'll see.  Just give me a chance.  There's women.  We even brought some back from the dead!  There's people of color in real hero roles.  No more sidelines bullshit.  Trust me.  Just give me one try." 
Marvel handed me something Hawkeye related.

Hawkeye…
Clint Barton and…  Kate Bishop? 

And the movies! 

MY GOD the movies.

Marvel put hands in coat pockets, shrugging while giving me a disclaimer, "Sure, people still get sexualized, but you never had a problem with that, right?"  Marvel blushed. 
We started laughing together. 
I guess Marvel was paying attention. 

After all, in Marvel films, it was an even playing field. 
Marvel added, "I mean, Black Widow's zipper may go down a little at one point, but the camera stays on Captain America's butt for like 80% of the film."


Now, I knew DC had been trying. 
Batwoman showed promise, some of the other female characters were being brought back in...
But I just didn't trust DC anymore. 

...I wanted to. 

I was still hurt.  I needed time.

DC needed time.

It was the recent films that really turned me off to DC, though I did find the action packed whatever-the-Hell-they-were entertaining. 

They were nice to look at, but the characters I knew and loved were nowhere to be found, replaced by soulless, angry, violent, frightening-

They weren't heroes anymore. 

And where the Hell was Wonder Woman???

Comics be damned, it is a new world and I just can't be satisfied anymore without good, live-action films. 
What about MY needs, DC?


So,
for now,
I have to move on.


Marvel stood, waiting patiently by the door with two tickets for yet another Marvel film. 

I looked longingly over at DC…
"Well," I said, taking the Marvel comic to the register, "We'll always have Batman: The Animated Series." 

Lost Like This

My sense of direction has never been fantastic. 

It is the real reason why a smaller campus is nice for me, though I'll admit that I've certainly gotten lost within small campus areas too. 

…Okay, within buildings.  I've gotten lost within a building or five.

Like, this one building on the smaller of my college campuses might as well be like that Escher painting. 
 



Once, as an undergrad, I got lost on the other side of campus because I had gone to the other dining hall. 

I had to call my friend from home, who had been there maybe once, to tell me how to get back to my dorm.
 

Of course, I had gotten stuck in my own dorm at one point before that… 
 

This one Summer, I was taking a class for college at my old high school.  

I figured, "Yeah, I remember this place.  It'll be a breeze getting around."

First of all, that saying, "You can't go home again" can mean a lot of things. 

In terms of my old high school, it means some major renovations were being made and the entire thing not only looked very different, but was actually being gutted at the time. 

So, after my class, I go to leave.  
I remember that the doors lead, you know... out. 

…And, technically speaking, they did. 

The problem was that "out" did not mean out to the parking lot. 

Out, in this case, meant out into a wasteland of mud and construction equipment. 

I like to think the equipment was just as confused as I was.
 

It was also raining, hence the dirt being mud. 

I turned to go back inside, but the door was locked. 

…

The door that I had just gone through was locked to the outside. 

I imagine I looked like this, trying to get back in:
 

With no other choice, I turned to see if I could some how climb may way out, back into society. 

I began to sink into the mud.

Not only was it really, super gross, but I also was working under the assumption that I was going to die there and be buried like some horrible time capsule. 

"This seems to be a college girl.  What was she doing back then in the 2000s wandering around a high school?  We may never know…" 

I actually don't remember how I got out, but I know that I was very distraught and disturbed when I went back to my parent's house. 

The sandals I had been wearing were given to the gods as sacrifice. 
 

I don't know why I thought that would be easy.  

I mean, even when I WAS in high school, I never knew where I was going.  

I'd carry around my schedule every day and ask my teacher EVERY DAY how to get to the next class.  

I was late most of the time, so I stopped going to my locker at all, except for before and after lunch.
 

I'd switch my school bag with my lunch box, then my lunch box with the other half of my school stuff for the rest of the day. 

Of course, this brilliant process is why I often did my homework, yet managed to not have it to hand in.

Middle school was even worse, because even if I had known where my locker was, (which I never did) I wouldn't have known the combination to my lock anyway.
 

I still have dreams where I'm lost and looking for my damn locker. 

I get lost in wide open spaces too.  I get lost in stores and panic the moment whoever I'm with is behind a display or something, thinking I'll be lost forever. 

Panic probably doesn't help the lost thing… 

I've learned to at least ask or pretend to know where I'm going until I figure it out, but I still feel like I'm always wrong about which direction I should go. 

…There's a metaphor in that, I'm sure.

Testing the Skinny on the Skin Test Conclusion

Before I begin this particular post, I'd like to state that I did this to myself.  I chose to put myself in a situation where I was facing my allergy phobia in order to hopefully start a treatment for lessening my allergy burden.  

This was not easy, and yes, it was uncomfortable. 

However, I fully support people getting a skin test in order to get allergy shots, or to go on the drops, which I'm already on for my bazillion food allergies.

Mind you, they don't work for everything.  I probably will always have a couple deadly food allergies, but the idea is to lessen the overall load.  Becoming more tolerant to some things allows the body to chill a little bit about the more dangerous ones.  

I even had my mom and my Knight in Pinstripes right there with me.  Rob drew things for me:

With all that said, yes, I was stuck with a thousand needles and it was terrifying.  

In fact, Rob drew that too: 

However, obviously, I did not die.  
 
I even had a panic attack at one point, but managed to somehow stifle it into a series of stupid jokes.  

One of which was actually, "Well, I'm not dead.  So, you know, that's better than I thought would happen." 

Rob illustrated my emotional journey: 

The constant joking and being silly while clearly exaggerating was partly to calm myself down, but also to make sure the nice lady giving the test wouldn't feel bad.  Then, consequently, when she laughed, I felt like it wasn't a huge deal either.  

This entire "personal story" aspect of this blog has a lot to do with the power of reshaping our stories and finding humor and beauty where there is otherwise pain.

Now then... 

The day went pretty smoothly.  My mom picked me up from my apartment to take me to my parent's house.  Rob was at work in the morning, but took the afternoon off just to be supportive. 
*Insert proud grin*  
Meeting at my parent's house just wound up easier than meeting at the doctor's office, with it's three or four waiting rooms and such.  

I spent my morning desperately trying to ignore how nervous I was, and did this by doing the following:

1.) Playing stupid dress up games online, including games that allow a person to have careers.  Some of these careers are easy enough to really have, while others are almost impossible to get in real life.

2.) Staring at my toys and thinking about ways they could do a whole television series of just the minions from Despicable Me.

I freaking love those guys.

3.) Eating bacon and eggs, lovingly prepared by my momma, 'cause I'm an adult.

 There are very few foods that don't freak me out, and bacon is one of the consistently "safe" foods for me.  I can't even explain why.  
A lot of the foods I go to are heavily processed and probably inherently unhealthy on some level or another, but having no allergies to preservatives or dyes and ALL the allergies to organic foods on their own anyway...  
I just don't care.  
If I'll eat it, awesome.  

Rob showed up, we hung out for a bit, and then we were off! 

When my name was called, my heart dropped into my stomach, but knowing I had some support made me breathe again.  
At that point, Mom had Dad on the phone, who was asking for a play-by-play.  If everyone had their way, that tiny room would have been filled with people.  I felt very loved.  

The first part of the test was on my left upper arm and did not involve any needles.  
It was maybe a third of the size it was supposed to be, because I asked to not test for any foods.  I'm already on the drops for specifically food allergies, so it would have been a waste of resources and my patented Rowyn-panic. 

This was just a tray of tiny pokey things on top of the skin, yet the reaction to a couple of them was instantaneous.  

She had marked where the first tray would start with a little heart, so sideways, the first to react (grasses) looked like a little face.  

Rob and I both drew what it looked like:

 His was somehow more accurate: 

"I am the grasslord" 

Yes you are.

The left arm slowly got more and more itchy, though most of the dots of allergens didn't react at all.  That's a good thing.  

The ones that DID react, however... 

And then came the right arm.  

OH MY CRAP.  

So many tiny little needles.  I tried to just not look.  

Mostly, it didn't hurt.  ...I was still afraid though.  I think I kept it in check well.  I was told later that despite me openly stating my crippling fear, I apparently handled it like a pro.  

Rob drew some stuff during this whole right arm process, like the Cheshire Cat telling me to relax:

And his way of telling me I was very brave for facing my fear: 

He actually printed out a certificate of "Bravery at the Doctors" for me to frame on the wall.  He even signed and dated the thing. 

By the end of my twitches, wincing, and bad jokes, my right arm looked like this: 

Rob expected me to just pass out once the adrenaline wore off, and I'm surprised that I didn't.  
Instead, I just wanted to eat and not be touched ever again.

Back at my parent's house, my father told me that Batman himself had heard about my appointment and how brave I was, and had asked him to give me an awesome Bat-signal magnet.  

Yes, I'm 27.  
Shut up.
I'm the goddamn Batman.  

Later, "chicken for dinner" turned into this:

Oh, you mentioned a food in passing?  LETS HAVE THAT TOO.

...My broccoli isn't drawn well.  

...That's broccoli in the middle on the bottom there. 

...

Anyhoo, then Rob and I went back home.  

I cuddled up in my robe, going from itchy and awake to exhausted and a little dizzy.

It wasn't horrible, but the ick came in waves.

To get my mind off the crap of it, Rob played American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns so I could watch it like a cartoon.  

It's a pretty game. 

I wasn't going to sleep at a reasonable time that night, and I wound up hungry again.  Rob, being amazingly Rob-like, scrambled an egg for me.  

I'm going to be pretty freaked out the first few times I get the allergy shots.  However, I've been on the drops for forever, and I'd be getting the shots in a safe setting, surrounded by doctors and epi-pens.  

I was told the red dots from the test would be there a few days, and a day later, they are almost entirely gone.  Clearly, I'll be able to handle it.  

I have a year to decide.  After that year, I'll need to be tested again, and that's crappy, so screw it.  I'll do the shots. 

Now to figure out my insurance!  

Adventures in Fabric: Bottoms Up!

Okay, so it's true that I do sew, and I like creating stuffed animals and I do occasionally attempt altering clothing.  
Soon, I'll be attempting a dress from a pattern.  

This is scary.

So, in the meantime, I'm showing you other successes and failures in my wardrobe!  Yay!

To begin with, PANTS.

First, we have a pair which I had loved to death.  GIANT holes in the knees of these ultra comfy pants upset me.  They were also covered in paint, which happens to everything I own.  

For a while, I was wearing pajama pants underneath them, but they'd bunch up and be a pain to get on and off.  

I decided to just cut the Hell out of the pajamas and sew them underneath to the pants themselves as patches from the inside: 

 

Then (and a little before) I used fabric paint to make a bloody horror look, like someone had sliced off my knee caps.  

Next up is a pair that fit me reasonably well, were cheap, and I was bored...

So I sliced them up on purpose, added the fabric paint from both sides as "blood" and stitched them back together with thick, black thread.  Zombie pants! 

 A better look:

 The back:

Finally (as far as "horror pants" go), there were pants on sale that were normally pretty expensive ONLY because they came with pre-made holes.  I determined that there would be no reason for such holes unless they were bullet wounds, so this occurred:

 Really finally, the Bat-Pants.  These pants were also well loved and full of holes achieved in battle, and the patches are just cut outs from really soft men's underwear.  I had bought them for a boyfriend who didn't want to entertain me by wearing them, so I repurposed them:  

I have too much time on my hands! 

Weeeee!