cupcake_goth | Recent Entries

Whoooo, it's write your annual review week, a time no one celebrates. But I'm embracing AI, and set our internal tool to going through my 1:1 documents and the weekly recaps I've been having AI generate. I now have a pretty impressive and thorough document, written in manager speak! Will this impact my review score? Probably not, because those are pretty much decided before people turn in their reviews, but at least it looks good.

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Shallow consumerism and makeup news: MAC is bringing back some of the classic frost lipsticks, and I'll admit I'm super tempted to pick up Jet. Do I need it? No, of course not. But oooooh, I want it.

Sooooo did I mention that our vacation in the UK helped confirm a suspicion of mine about having a sensitivity to US -grown wheat? My normal background pain/inflammation level is 5-6, and over the course of being in the UK that dropped to somewhere around a 3. Ever since we got home, we've been avoiding US flour; yes, we're ordering EU -manufactured flour, and the Madwoman in the Attic bakes bread for us every week.

Last night we went to our favorite local Italian restaurant. Because we're regular customers, our server comped us an order of foccacia. I ate one piece as a test. Between that and my ravioli, I spent the night bloated and in a LOT of pain. Today all my joints feel swollen and I'm still in a lot of pain.

Yeah, I'd say I've got some sort of sensitivity to US -grown wheat. Ugh.

Day two of awful migraine, wheee. Which comes with a side of anxiety about my job security, so, y’know, the usual. God I want out, but :: gestures at capitalist hellscape ::

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Magic: the Gathering has “Secret Lair” sets, which are based on other companies’ IPs. They’re the Funko Pops of M:tG. The upcoming one is Labyrinth, and they’ve started releasing art previews. I am not impressed. Out of everything I’ve seen, the only good pieces are by Rebecca Guay, who is not only one of the old school M:tG artists, but also a highly respected “fine artist”; gallery shows, running her own atelier, and so on. The Stroppy One is annoyed he wasn’t commissioned for the set, but also admitted that he would have driven himself insane trying to paint a perfect Jareth. (Which no one else managed except Rebecca, but we all know how deep the Stroppy One’s perfectionism goes.)

I have been depressed all day, probably because I had to cancel social plans yesterday due to a migraine. And of course, living in a capitalist hell. I took to Tumblr, as one does, and asked the peeps to tell me good things, no matter how small. There were so many delightful things shared! Pictures of cute dogs, people excited by birds and bugs and animals they've seen, that they slept well the night before ... lots of good things. And that helped!

The other thing that helped is that my necklace from Blood Milk, that I ordered in July, arrived today! Onyx, sterling silver, and a keyhole and a key. This may be my favorite piece by them yet, and that's saying something.

For those who don't know witchy things, this necklace is all Hecate all the time. Who has been dropping anvils on me since while in the UK, so I need to start Doing Witchy Things.

Dear Sandy Claws I have been SO GOOD this year, please oh please let this be true this is all I want for Christmas.

EDITED TO ADD, because I can’t get the image link to work: A twitter account about music industry leaks (that apparently has a great track record) posted:

My Chemical Romance

Album and tour - 2027

::screams::

Yesterday

minim_calibre kindly came and got me so we could spend the afternoon roaming antique malls and thrift stores, which are an enrichment activity for us. We didn't find anything at the Value Village or Goodwill we went to; in fact, the Goodwill was more desolate than other Goodwills have been recently. I expect browsing Goodwill to be lackluster these days, thanks to them pulling *anything* good to put on their auction site, but this one was dire. Value Village was better, but nothing leapt out at us.

However, at the antique mall something definitely lept out at me. One of the stalls had a very soft and cuddly "classic" Winnie the Pooh plushie. I picked him up, squeezed him a few times, and set him back on the shelf because I know I don't really need any more plushies. (Plus the Stroppy One has said something along the lines of "Dear god, don't bring home more plushies".

Then about five minutes later I turned around and grabbed Pooh bear, because he was calling to me. The Stroppy One understands when this happens, I absolutely have to bring the critter home, no question. He was still a little skeptical, but after the bear spent the night amongst the rank and file of the Evil Bunny Alliance, The Stroppy One agreed that the bear looked *much* happier, I did make the right choice, and that oh, the bear's name is Browsy. So yay, new bear!

I also found a small rosary made of steel beads, and a vintage holy water bottle. The rosary will hold my shiny new Blood Milk pendant (which should be shipping tomorrow), and the holy water bottle is going on my altar.

All in all, it was an excellent day. I need to ask more of my friends if they're willing to come out and get me to drive/wander around.

:: screams in fangirl ::

The release date for The Vampire Lestat on physical media has been announced! November 3rd, and it's available for preorder NOW. Which I did last night, only to discover this morning that there's also a super-deluxe limited edition version that has extra features, and is the ONLY way to get the CD. So I canceled the preorder for the basic version and clicked the shiny preorder button for the deluxe one. Which will be released on December 15th.

The funniest bonus feature that's on all versions? Karaoke/lyric videos! Yes, the Stroppy One is already muttering "oh dear god" and side-eying me. I should probably promise him that I'll only indulge in that feature when he's out of town. Should.

Tags:

the vampire lestat

Here, have photos from Saturday. Trying to get image links on a mobile device is apparently nigh impossible.

Big news hit the MCR fandom last night! At the San Antonio show, Gerard said, “ we’ve always wanted to make another record [...] you guys kept us alive so long, you guys deserve another record [...] "

POSSIBLY A NEW ALBUM?!?!?!!

Yes, the calmer people in the fandom have pointed out that “wanted to” isn’t the same as “will”, and the statement was part of a longer speech about grief and stagnation, as one of his best friends & creative collaborators had passed away last summer. But this is more hope for new music than the fans have had for a long time, so of course we’re all freaking out.

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Left the house yesterday! We went to the farmers market, I checked out a herbalist shop that I kept meaning to go to, and I went to the local Discovery Shop thrift store. I found a fist-sized labradorite sphere that came with a metal stand for $21. Except when I got to the counter, I found out that I had misread the tag and it was actually … $12. And THIS is why I prefer small independent charity shops

I continue to be exhausted, with a side of feeling glum and/or grumpy for the past few days. I have NO interest in doing work things, and am trying to force myself to read process docs that I'll need to follow for next month. BUT I DON'T WANNNNNNNAAAAAAA.

The only things I want to do, besides sleep, is zone out on the couch with a movie on and work on my outfit for the Halloween MCR show. (Beaded blood spatter on a black frock coat and pink lace jabot and cuffs. I'm almost done making the jabot, then I can move on to beading.)

But seriously, I lowkey hate everything, including myself. Should I just write this day off as a loss and work on Sunday instead? Ugh. I don't know.

For the upcoming 20th anniversary (OMGWTF) of the release of The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance is releasing a remastered version with additional material. I was only going to buy the CD, and then I looked at the collection.

Oh no. Hello, I am a target market, and you're damn right I bought it. Now I need The Cure to release a pink vinyl version of Disintegration.

Tags:

A week after the trip to the ER to be be told I was dealing with an "atypical migraine", I'm still so easily worn out. I hate this, because I was already dealing with this sort of thing, and now having an added level of "hahahaha nope no energy for you" from my body is bullshit. I feel even more like a Victorian invalid that needs a relaxing trip to the seaside.

I checked with my neurologist's office about getting an appointment with the actual neurologist, not with one of the (very nice) ARNPs who handle my Botox appointments, only to be told that the MD specializes in movement disorders, which means I need to find an actual neurologist and hope they can help me.

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In other news, I am late to the party, but I've discovered Twin Temple, and I'm charmed. They're a satanic doo-wop/country band, and they're so damn good.

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You know what I miss? The weekly gothy stitch & bitch. I miss sitting with a group of my friends, working on assorted projects. The difficulties in restarting that are, of course, finding the time, distance from each other, and transportation for those of us who don't drive and are not nearby. Hell, I'd host, but we don't actually have enough seating. More importantly, no matter what we've tried, Miss Ezerbet No Biting continues to randomly treat the entire house as her litter box, so there's always the faint scent of cat pee. But damn, I miss those sorts of social events.

On Tuesday night, my migraine came with a side of blackouts. Tiny, few second blips, and extreme vertigo. I took meds and went to bed. Wednesday morning I still had the migraine, but it didn’t seem as bad as the night before, so I logged into work. Then the blackouts and the extreme vertigo came back. My insurance no longer has an on-call nurse line, but options of different telehealth companies, which I don’t trust. So we went to urgent care, but they couldn’t do the tests they felt were necessary because the software they use was having outages. I won a trip in an ambulance to a hospital; over the course of six hours I had an EKG and a CAT scan, the results of which were that everything was fine with me, it was probably an atypical migraine, and I should make an appointment with my neurologist to discuss things.

I came home and slept for 12 hours. Everything seems okay, but I’m resting and being very aware of how I feel.

I've been feeling exhausted, woozy, slightly stricken with vertigo, and in a lot of pain since Sunday. I've been sleeping more than usual to try and fix it, but it didn't help. Then yesterday evening I had two instances of quick - no more than a few seconds - blackouts. (This was after I'd stood up from the couch and walked to the bathroom.) I spent the rest of the evening incredibly dizzy, with a few more of the split-second blackouts, and with the Stroppy One keeping a very close eye on me. Then migraine symptoms started rolling in, so I gave in and took my migraine med and went to bed early.

Today I'm still exhausted and a little dizzy, but feel much better than I did last night. But the Stroppy One and I are on high alert for anything weird, and if I start having any of the blackouts, I'm going to call the UHC nurse line that is part of my benefits package.

To say I'm less than pleased with my mortal shell is an UNDERSTATEMENT.

I got my hair cut on Friday! It now brushes my shoulders, which is the shortest I've had my hair since high school. But the reduction in weight plus some layers definitely makes my hair look fuller. Of course, this means I'll probably need to have regular haircuts to keep it like this, which is another thing I haven't done since HS.

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The Bloodmilk Jewelry trunk show on Saturday was fun. There's a huge fan community, no surprise, and some people travel to attend them (!!!), which means there's always fun conversations and catching up while we're all in line. Yes,

minim_calibre and I were in line three hours before the doors opened. Look, having a chance at limited edition items is Serious Bizness.

However, shockingly, I didn't buy anything. Everything was out of my very strict budget, woe. I'm consoling myself by frequently reminding myself I have a piece on order, which I should get a click-and-ship notification for Any Day Now. ANY DAY NOW.

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I slept until almost 2pm on Sunday. In part because of a migraine, but also because I felt exhausted. And I still feel exhausted today. Dear Body, knock it off.

As I mentioned in the previous entry, on Saturday I'm heading to Olympia for a Blood Milk Jewels event. (They're located in Philadelphia, but occasionally travel to satisfy the ravening hordes of collectors.)

So anyhoodle, I'm thinking about my outfit. I know what layers of jewelry I'm wearing - that's the easy part. But the actual dress and belt? That's more difficult. The outfit I'm currently pondering:

"Governess" dress (long sleeves, high collar, long full skirt, POCKETS) in pink lawn with black lace accents.
Black elastic belt with skeleton hand buckle
Chatelain that holds a powder compact, chainmail bag for a lipstick, notepad and pen, and a coffin pill case.
Small leather Victorian-style bag that's just large enough to hold my wallet, keys, and inhaler.
Black zip-up ankle boots with black buttons.
Wide-brimmed black hat decorated with lace, tulle, and an enormous black bow.

So pretty much classic Cupcake Goth. But the Body Image Demons are mumbling that I'll look enormous, shouldn't I wear a more slimming color, blah blah blah. I'm doing mostly okay at ignoring them, because 1) hello, classic Cupcake Goth, 2) fuck "flattering", fat is a value-neutral word, and 3) the idea of this outfit makes me happy.

But, y'know, Body Image Demons. Argh.

Here's a photo of the style of dress I'm talking about, even with the belt I'm thinking of!

Tags:

shallow fashion dithering

I finally got around to listening to the original Broadway cast recording for The Lost Boys musical, and I now understand why Ali Louis Bourzgui won a Tony for playing David. Some of the songs are hit or miss, but turning the vampires into a rock band and David as the lead singer? Yes, I endorse these changes.

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Speaking of rock star vampires, AMC put the entire Lestat concert for viewing, and hooooooooo. Hi egotistical rock star vampire boyfriend, how are you? Damn. And kudos to the movement coach listed in the credits, because they certainly helped Sam Reid nail the performance.

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On Friday I go get my hair cut, and on Saturday I go to Olympia w/

minim_calibre for an in-person Blood Milk Jewels pop-up shop. I expect everything to be crazy expensive and I doubt I'll be able to afford anything, but I wanna at least look at the shiny limited edition objects.

Apparently I come up with clothing modification ideas when I'm waiting (and waiting and waiting) to fall asleep. So, as some of you might remember, I found one of my holy grail J. Peterman items, a silk frock coat, in a size that's closer to my current one. *Closer*, because it's about 2.5" too small. Usually I add lacing strips to the inside of jackets that are slightly too small so I can lace it up to have an open front that fits me better. But I don't want to do any sort of sewn alterations to this jacket. I had the idea to use dress clips to secure the front, but then realized that the teeth on the clip hardware would possibly damage the silk satin.

My morning brain remembered what I thought of, and I searched Amazon for magnetic dress clips, and why yes, they exist! I ordered a set of these, and will report back on how this idea actually works.

(Will the weather support wearing a silk jacket right now? Ha, no. But I know that if I wait until autumn, I'll have forgotten the idea.)

Tags:

gothy diy

I now have all of the BPAL scents for The Vampire Lestat!

:: cackles ::

I've only tested one so far. You guessed it, the scent for my beloved Brat Prince himself, Lestat.

"His scent opens with a theatrical blaze of warm cognac, aged beeswax candles, and feral lupine musk. At the heart of his perfume beats Medieval French church wood, incense smoke still clinging to the stone, all aflame with the black leather, sweet brandy, and glam-glittered crystalline musk of a rock god."

It works on me, yaaaaaaay! In fact, it works so well that it's made it into my top five scents, which are, in no particular order: Blood Popsicle, The Vampire Lestat, Goth Club 89, Lord of Misrule, and Coromandel.

This weekend, barring migraines, I'm going to sample all of them and write a review for Gothic Charm School. I'm a little wary of sniffing Black Licorice, because some licorice notes make me recoil, but I want to give fair reviews to everything.

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As mentioned in an earlier entry, I did my therapy homework from last week, being a whimsical bitch! I sewed fangs on Pooh Bear, then we had a discussion about if he liked them. Pooh Bear did not, so they were removed. But he did like the cape I made, which I think turned out really well.

My weekly homework from my therapist is to "Be a whimsical bitch!". Because I've been so exhausted, sick, and stressed about work that I've lost touch with that part of myself. So this weekend I'm finally going to make the vampire cape for my Winnie the Pooh plushie and give him fangs. The impetus for this comes from a past conversation with the Stroppy One where he declared the fastest way for someone to understand my personality is to know that Dracula and the Winnie the Pooh books are part of the core foundations of me. He's not wrong. Hence my need to make my Pooh bear a vampire.

Now I just need to find where I put my stash of vampire fangs ...

When real things happen to imaginary people

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MOAR SCREAMING IN FANGIRL

Left the house!

If you see me running into traffic don't you panic I'll be fine

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screams in fangirl

Meh

Come one, come all to this tragic affair

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I’M FINE, but here’s an update

So that was a thing

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Ridiculous things I think about to help me not growl at work

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We're the therapists pumping through your speakers

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