Halls of the Dark Muse

So I was down in L.A. visiting my sister for a few days for Halloween, well obviously not for actual Halloween Day since I am here now, but we had some Halloween related plans, some cool events going on down in L.A. and I use to frequently spend my Halloween's with my sister but I haven't been since she had kids and the experience was both frightening at times, as well as miraculous.

I have this joke that my sister is trying to secretly kill me, because it seems like every time I go and visit her I befall some misfortune, misadventure, or physical injury. and it all started the night before my flight.

I was going to bed, and it was late and dark, and I didn't both turning on the lights in my room, and ended up tripping over my luggage bag, and than falling into the side of the bed, messed up my knee which is still kind of soar now than I could not get to sleep because the fall jolted me awake, but finally I did and than the morning came and it was time to go to the airport.

For those who remember my drama with the DMV to get a new ID card for the flight, well it never came in the mail in time, so I was worried that my outdated ID would cause problems at the airport so just in case I got pulled aside I had to bring other documentation to prove my identity, well at the Oakland airport they let me through without remark about my ID than it came time to go through the metal detectors and I set off the alarms twice.

The only thing I figure is that is must have been my rings, because I did not have any other metal anywhere on me, and my rings usually do not affect the detectors because they are all sterling silver, but must have been because I was wearing so many that it set it off, so I was pulled aside and patted down. To add insult to injury, usually when I fly the flights are pretty quiet because it is mostly just people comminuting for business reasons, but because my flight was also a connecting flight for people coming from somewhere else it was jam packed and I had someone sitting right next to me, in my past experiences I have always been lucky enough to have the seat next to mine empty. You can imagine how much I enjoyed that being such a people person. As a general rule I do not like to have any sort of psychical contact with anyone, even friends and family are not aloud to hug me or touch me in any way and the next to me was working on some puzzle in one of the magazines so every now and then when he moved his arm would brush up against my side, accidentally, but it kept freaking me out though the whole flight it was just like someone's touching me.....someone's touching me....someone's touching me....so I just tried to retreat into myself as much as possible. When he first sat down next to me I had close my eyes and meditate to prevent myself from just being tensed up during the whole flight.

Surviving that somewhat traumatic experience I reach my detestation at last and I had packed my favorite pentagram necklace, which originally I wanted to wear, but because it was metal I was worried it might set off the detectors so I ended up throwing it into my bag instead, so after I got off the flight I wanted to put it on but I could not find it and I knew my sister would be there to pick me up so I did not want to take too much time so I figured I could look for it when I got to her house, well after searching my bag like 3 times, and completely emptying out the pocket I knew I put it in, I could not find it anywhere, so I was really depressed because I thought I lost it somewhere at the airport and I could get other pentagram necklaces but none quite like the one I had, which was so perfect. But my sister was going to take me to this New Age bookstore where I could look for a possible replacement.

Well the next day I am getting something out my bag when the necklace I thought I lost suddenly pops up, how I had not found it when I was trying to look for it I do not know, but I was so stoked that is was not lost. Of course I still wanted to go to the New Age bookstore, and for the longest time I have been looking for a small-mid sized, reasonably priced Shiva statue, but everywhere I have been which has them, they have always been really big and elaborate and expensive, so I was beginning to think what I wanted just did not exist than when we were just on our way out of the store I happened to look into a glass display case, and there it was, exactly what I wanted. An affordable, and mid-sized Shiva statue, and I knew I would never have this opportunity again, so I had to buy it, even though I already spent 40$ in the store, between two new necklaces and a new Tarot Deck.

Now the main event which I was going down there for a play which was going to be performed in a cemetery at night and the play was actually a performance of 3 different short stories. The Chimes by Dickens, The Cask of Amontillado by Poe, and The Unnameable by Lovecraft. So I had to of course dress up for this event, so I dressed up in what I call Victorian Goth. I had my little black vampire dress, of course my black cloak, and I wanted to wear my sexy black Victorian Gothic boots, which look awesome with my dress, but they are horribly uncomfortable to walk in for a long period, so I generally all where them to events which do not require having to walk or stand a lot, and I figured a play, that would be perfect, I will be sitting down most the time.

Come to find out, after I was already in L.A. my sister was looking up info about the play and they had this thing on their web site all about how it was a walking productions and the guests will have to be doing a lot of walking and they especially said you should not wear high heels and my awesome boots of course have some killer heels. So I was very bummed out because the only other shoes I had to wear were a pair of brown sneakers which decidedly did not go with my costume.

I was out shopping with my sister, and I decided what the hell it is a long shot, but I would see if I could by chance find some affordable, low heeled black boots which I could wear, so we pop into Ross which I like because it is both cheap and often has shoes that will fit me (I have hobbit feet) and low and behold I find these really cool black shoes that would be appropriative for walking in and look good with my dress and were super cheep.

The play itself was wicked awesome, but before I tell you about the play I have to tell you what we did before the play. My sister took me to an Eco-Sexual Purple Wedding to the Moon, yes you have heard me right, and yes it is pretty much as crazy as it sounds. For those of you who do not know what an Eco-Sexual Purple Wedding to the Moon is, I will tell you, it is a celebration of the environment and Gay Pride rolled up into one. It was a performance art piece in which there was a symbolic wedding being held between two people who were getting married to each other and inviting the moon into their relationship to show their love for the earth and the environment as well as to embrace ones womanhood, because though there were men and women there alike, it was focused primarily upon women and specially Lesbian women. The whole thing was part Pagan ritual, merged in with crude sexual humor, and part Gay Pride parade because there were people there in an array of elaborate costumes. But because of the play we could not stay through to the end, but it was a very unique experience.

Now to the play itself. This was a totally awesome experience, for one thing I was just exited about the thought of being in a cemetery at night, something I have always wanted to do and for another I was excited to see one of Poe's stories performed. The way it worked is that it was broken up into three groups, and each of the different plays took part in different parts of the cemetery, and each play had a guide which would lead the gusts where they needed to go, and at the end of each play everyone came back to the same spot and the groups would rotate until all 3 groups so all 3 plays.

The Chimes was located in the chapel, The Cask of Amontillado was performed in the Mausoleum and I absolutely loved just getting to walk around the mausoleum, I have never been inside one before, and it was so awesome, with all these winding dark hallways, than The Unnamable was in the actual graveyard, which was awesome.

The most frightening thing all night was the creepy old guy who kept trying to hit on me, and that is not me just exaggerating because I don't like being around people, thankfully he was not in the same group as us, and as soon as he left with his group my sister turned to me and was like "How creepy was that?"

Than the other thing I went down there was this Victorian Halloween tour, there is this historical park called Heritage Square which is all authentic Victorian Houses and they put on this special Halloween event, a lot of it was talking about customs relating to the dead practiced in Victorian times. One house had a display in it for rituals of mourning, and traditional mourning clothes women had to wear and articles about mourning practices for women. Another house had people telling ghost stories, and it also had a set up with traditional Victorian Halloween decorations and these cool little things called treat boxes. Than another house, which actually once was the largest house in all of L.A back in the 1800's and maybe early 1900's had in one room was set up like an actual funeral service, with a coffin, and people in costumes acting as mourners, and one person was playing an organ, than another room had Memento Mori which were photographs taken of the dead, than another room had spirit photography which was popular than, in which a person recently in mourning would have their picture taken in the hopes of seeing the spirit of their loved one appear, and than the next room talked about mourning jewelry, and hair jewelry which was quite common, and by that I mean jewelry made out of ones hair.

One of my favorite stories which the woman told us about the jewelry, was because it was rare to have photographs back than, it was quite common that men who had to go off and fight in the civil war would give their sweetheart a broach with a lock of their hair inside so if they died, that would be the only memento that person had of their loved on. That was just so tragically romantic I thought. It also made me want to make jewelry out of my hair. Than in the last room they had one woman who was telling fortunes form a crystal ball and another woman dressed as a gypsy reading palms, so just for the heck of it I decided to get my palm read, and the woman was such a rank amateur, I could do better Tarot Readings than he attempt at reading my palm, and after the 3rd time I called her out for being wrong she just wrapped the thing up to get rid of me because I swear she spent more time talking to the people before me than she did with me, she just wanted to get me out of there.

Than the other thing they had which was pretty cool was an area outside where you could play traditional Victorian childhood games. Another thing that was cool was there was an actual paranormal investigator and me and my sister went to talk to him and he had this board with all these different photos on it, which were fakes, or false proofs as he called it, and he explained either anomalies that show up in pictures which is explainable but the people don't know what caused it so they think it is paranormal, or the things people do intentionally to try and stage paranormal evidence. And he had one photo on the board which he thinks might actually be legitimate.

So that was my Halloween extravaganza. I have some photos but they haven't been downloaded on my computer yet, but I will post a few up when I have them ready.