This past weekend I attended a Halloween themed party and was excited to go and to dress up! I rarely have a reason to dress up and cannot always get into the mood of it, but this time I was! I knew what dress I wanted to wear and I bought a sailor cap on eBay for a sailor girl type of look. But the day before the party I realized that I never bought the fabric to make the scarf! D’oh! It was late afternoon and so I looked around my tiny home to see what I could find or cobble together. I recalled seeing a pic on buzzfeed or some other such place about DIY costumes and remember a gal with a lego hat and figured it’d be worth a shot.

With an empty box of tissues and two plastic cups I fashioned the “lego” by tracing and cutting the holes for the cups and then trimming down the cups to fit inside the box. Then I Krazy glued them into place and headed to the craft store for some blue paint. I just grabbed some cheap 89 cent craft acrylic paint from Michael’s and went home and applied many coats of it with a foam craft brush. The next morning I added one last coat (I didn’t want the word Kleenex visible!) and then went about affixing it to a headband. All of my headbands have stuff on them already, flowers or whatever, so I took one I rarely wear but covered it in tape to protect it from paint, just in case. Then I had to find the right position and then used some clear shipping tape and a touch more krazy glue (the tape didn’t want to stick to the paint for some reason) and it was done! 

Next I had to put on my dress and make up! But when I put the dress (Eshakti, from 3 years ago) on the bust was too big! Oops! I’ve had it for ages, but hadn’t worn it (I have the identical dress in red) until that day. I attempted to take it in by hand sewing it on the inside after pinning it but I fucked it up (I don’t know WTF I’m doing!!!) and ended up taking it out again and just wearing it as is. It was fine. But then as I grabbed my make up bag from my bathroom and headed to my little love seat (all of 6-8 steps, mind you) my knee popped out of place and wouldn’t go back in!

I was in horrific pain and tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t breathe the pain was so sharp! I moaned and grunted and cursed and yelled and my little puggyman didn’t know what the hell to think! But I was too excited for this party and was determined to work this shit out! I hopped the rest of the way to the couch and sat down. I straightened my leg to try to get things aligned and propped it up a bit, too. I massaged it, tried to move my knee cap around, nothing worked. When I went to try to bend the knee again it was just PAINNN!!!! I sounded like an angry wrestler, but I got up and took some Advil and drank some water and dried my face.

I looked down and saw this silly face:

He looked like he had something to say but didn’t manage a peep. Maybe he was cheering me on? Who knows?! I hopped back to my little sofa and stubbornly put some eye make up and lipstick on. Then I snapped a selfie to send to my bff Mychii:

Her reaction was all I needed, “That lip tho!” and grabbed some ice packs and hobbled to my car. In the car I grabbed my pashmina and tied it around my knee to keep the ice pack in place for the long drive (2 hours). But I made it, despite the traffic and construction. I made it and when I walked into the party I was met with a wall of, “SARAAAAAHHHH!!!!” Whoa! I was not expecting that reaction! I was in the right place, yo! I love this little fatty party crew! I asked the hostess with the most-est if she would snap a pic of my outfit for me and here ya go:

Turned out better than I could have imagined. So simple and fun! And it cost me all of a buck! I posted these pics to my facebook and instagram (thanks for suggesting that Mychii!) yesterday and was stunned at the responses. When you spend so much time in your own head, isolated from the world because of PTSD and anxiety and general poverty, you forget what you look like, how others see you or even that you can in fact be seen! I am so glad that I did ask someone to take these pics. I had such a great time and laughed so much my stomach hurt the next day! I may have been in terrible pain, but the incredible people at that party made me forget and feel supported and loved and seen!

I don’t yet know if I’ll be up to going out or dressing up for Halloween on the actual day/night, but I hope this just shows that you don’t have to spend a lot of time or money on a costume to make it awesome and your own! And really, if you have a solid color dress you can do a lot with it! I could have made a crayon hat or a Tardis! So many options! I could have made a cloud hat and been the sky! And hey, I still have my sailor hat so that’s always a backup idea.

And funny thing, the next morning when lil’ puggo woke me up for his breakfast, my knee pain was gone! My knee must have popped back into place while I was asleep. I didn’t even limp the whole day! I don’t know what caused it or fixed it but let’s just hope it doesn’t happen again.

Rad Fatty Love,
<3
S

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