What's this? Two posts so close together?

 You know, the best part about you, my audience, is that you're incredibly forgiving. Nevermind the fact that it's because you don't exist. No, I choose to believe that you're an ambivalent, understanding audience, so I decided to reward you with yet another post. It turns out, I do have a problem with procrastination, and I'm dreading the portion of my book's editing process I'm currently in.

I've debated which story I wanted to tell next, and I've decided the best way to start would be to go in chronological order. This means today's post is going to be about Sithbelle. Don't worry, this is a much happier story. At least it will be.

When we last off, I was in the worst depressive episode of my life. It lasted for over three months, and there was nothing that I could do that would lift the fog out of my mind. I knew that I had to start preparing for a trip that was coming up in mid-April 2017, but my brain couldn't make myself care. My boyfriend (now-husband) was understandably troubled at my predicament, but was a trooper and stayed by my side throughout it all. I don't know where I would have been without him.

To rewind the clock just a wee bit for some context: Teresa, my stepmom, got my dad and I tickets to some Star Wars convention in Orlando as a Christmas present the year before. Based on the vague description Teresa mentioned about it, I figured it was going to be something close to AWA, a local show that specialized in a particular genre. It would be quaint, but nothing like the amazing experience Dragon*Con was. In fact, from the beginning I had been warning my dad that while this was going to be cool, it was unlikely that it was going to be the top-of-the-line experience it could be. By the time the depression struck, I had no interest in looking further into it.

Still, my parents kept poking and prodding at me, asking about my costume plans. By now, my love of cosplay was well-known to anyone who knew me, so they had natural expectations that I would leap at the opportunity to create something. Problem was, I had no interest in doing, well...anything. I kept up a brave face to them, giving them various excuses to buy me some time. But the weeks slipped past, drawing ever closer to the deadline, and I hadn't even pulled out my sewing machine yet.

The weekend before I was supposed to leave on the trip, the looming deadline weighed over me. Boyfriend had left for a trip with some friends, so I had a few days to myself. During the silence, I felt a stirring of life again. In my deepest heart of hearts, I knew that I really didn't want to go to a con dressed like a normal person, and I had to do something to fix it. Then finally, the instincts of a seasoned procrastinator began to reawaken.

With the time I had left, I was in a bit of a predicament: first of all, my only Star Wars-related costume was Huttslayer Leia, and I was not about to wear that in front of my dad. Not only that, I was no closer to figuring out what costume I actually wanted to do. So the task was now to create a good (or at least halfway decent) costume in approximately five days, when it normally took me weeks to put everything together. Suddenly, I was kicking myself for not trying to snap out of my depression sooner. 

I went through the lexicon of characters that were in Star Wars, thinking about their costumes and what it would take to put it together with what I currently had on hand. At the time, I hadn't seen any of the shows, only read the books, and all of the people I could think of would all take too long. I had no time to special order anything, so it had to be something relatively simple. Unfortunately, that ruled out anything Amidala-related, and I didn't have anything close to what Leia wore, apart from her legendary bikini. I dreamed of doing a Twi'lek, but if I didn't have time for Leia, then I certainly didn't have time to mess around with latex and lekku.

That pretty much left a generic Force wielder, and I'll be damned before I'll be a Jedi. That left the Sith. My foray into the heavy metal scene meant that I had a number of black articles of clothing, so it seemed like a good start. I decided to think about what kind of Sith I wanted to portray. Somehow in the brainstorming process, I had the random thought of creating a mashup character, and it didn't take too long before the answer came to me.

Waaaay back in 2013, I went to Dragon*Con dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast thanks to a whole lot of help from my Grandma (perhaps I'll make its own post someday). It was the first time I'd ever had a sewing project that required a sewing machine, and she taught me so much during the time she was making it (I was far more of an apprentice than doing any real work). I was primarily in charge of gathering the materials together, and I made a pretty severe miscalculation in judging the amount of fabric I needed to make the dress. It turns out, I bought an entire block too much, and I had a ton left over that I'd held onto ever since.

Now, I'd learned a lot about sewing since then, and was pretty confident in my own skills. I decided that I would create a Sith version of Belle, or Sithbelle, as I started calling her out loud (in my head, her name was Darth Vanitus, her fall to the dark side caused by her inability to look anywhere but inward, but normal people don't usually appreciate lore, and Sithbelle is a lot easier to say and conveys the idea much more clearly).

With this new idea cemented into my head, I was suddenly jolted back into reality for the first time in months. With the bits and bobs and scraps I had on hand, I worked at a feverish pace with every spare moment until I had put together something I liked. On the mannequin, most people guessed it was a Mortal Kombat costume, but that was just fine with me. I knew the true strength of the costume was in its details. That's where the character really came alive. 

Finally, the time had come for the trip. Dad and I were excited; not necessarily because of the convention, but because we were also using that time to go to Disney World. He and I are very close, and we've bonded over our love of Star Wars and Disney over the years. Needless to say, we were both were eagerly anticipating the trip, and I was excited because I finally felt something akin to alive again. 

We arrived in Orlando after an uneventful flight, and got ready for the convention. My plan was to not  dress up the first day of the con (Thursday), and instead save my costume for Friday and maybe Saturday. By the time we had arrived at our hotel, I'd been awake from my mental break for long enough that I really regretted not making more costumes for the rest of my time there.

Thursday morning, we arrive at the street where the convention was to be held, and as with every other convention I've been to, trickles of dressed-up nerds were proudly and excitedly marching their way towards the line to enter the building. As we drove on, we realized that said line was several blocks long already, which didn't bode well. We parked, then joined the throng. Through sheer luck, we managed to find a side entrance to the building which had just opened up to allow better flow into the building, but nobody knew about yet. We skipped the hours-long line and immediately walked into the exhibitor's hall.

The first thing I noticed was the near-life-sized T.I.E. fighter that occupied a small portion of floor, surrounded by other vehicles fully kitted out in Star Wars décor. We then turned a corner and saw a gigantic vendor area that was covered in costumed people and Star Wars fans. It was at about this moment that we realized that this was no mere local convention. This was Star Wars Celebration, the largest Star Wars convention of them all, and we owed it our allegiance--no wait, wrong fandom. But in all seriousness, Teresa had accidentally given us the greatest gift ever, and we realized what a treat we were about to be in for. 

The first day, we just were absorbed in the wonder of it all. Dad had never been to a nerd convention before, so he was introduced to the culture and fell in love with it just as much as I had. On the floor, there were giant televisions around playing news clips and streams from the panels around the convention. We pulled up at one point early on to find the beautiful sounds of John Williams' soundtrack for the saga playing overhead. When I finally got a look at the TV, I was shocked to discover it was being played live, and conducted by none other by the legend himself. 

Ya'll. I legitimately cried. Performing in his symphony has been a dream of mine for as long as I've known who he is. The fact that he was conducting somewhere in the same building I was currently in was as close as I'll ever get to that dream coming true. It was a profound experience. 

Eventually, the performance ended and excitement returned. We found a few panels that sounded interesting and decided to check them out. There was one in particular that I was curious about that was supposed to be an analysis on Rogue One's soundtrack. Dad agreed, and so we went to check it out, saying if it was boring, we could always leave.

What followed was one of the most pivotal and important hours of my adult life, and I am not speaking hyperbolically. As a linguist and a musician, I've always had a love of languages and music. David W. Collins, the speaker at this panel, taught me how the two intermixed, and gave me tools to fully understand what I already knew instinctually. He broke down how the composer told the movie's story using a wordless, but powerful language, and how it shapes our perception of the events we're watching. (Years later, I learned he had a podcast that similarly breaks down other soundtracks, and I highly recommend it.) 

This was revelatory to me, and it healed a musical part of my soul that had been festering up until that point. It inspired me to reembrace my first musical loves, classical music and movie soundtracks, and I have been a better person for it ever since. This particular event is crucial for later stories I'll hopefully tell at some point, so I hope you remember it well. But it's not the primary focus of today's story.

The remainder of the day flew by in a whirlwind of overstimulation, and we were suddenly back at our hotel game planning for the next day. After a restless night, we woke up even more excited than yesterday, which had seemed impossible before. It was going to be the first time I'd ever debuted Sithbelle in public, and I was nervous about getting everything right. Luckily, dad is an excellent cosplay buddy (he's helped me with costumes before at the Ren Faire and is a very helpful guy in general), so everything was able to come together perfectly.

We drove back to the convention center, and I put on the finishing touches of the costume. Finally, I was ready. We headed into the convention center, where there were much shorter lines, much to everyone's relief (I knew we weren't going to get so lucky as to find a secret side door again!), and I began trolling around for other Disney mashups and to see if anyone would enjoy or get my costume.

It didn't take too long before I had success on both fronts. People really seemed to like my outfit, though I did get called "Jedi Belle" a bunch. It's ok, I'll Force choke them later. 

Dad really developed an appreciation for cosplay culture while following me around. He told me he enjoyed watching people's eyes light up with recognition when they figured out who I was supposed to be and seeing them gush over the outfit. I told him it was my favorite part, too.

I found so many princesses to take pictures with, and I even found a Jedi Gaston! We joked about how we were both technically on the wrong side. It was so much fun to riff around and have fun with other like-minded nerds. In fact, one of the best parts was I actually got to meet my friend Brandon there! (For those who don't know, Brandon was first featured on a post about Humans vs Zombies waaay back in the earliest days of this blog. We've been friends for a long time, and still chat every once in a while!) He was dressed as a mashup himself of his own heritage mixed with Captain Rex, and was unfortunately recovering from an injury a bit earlier. It was so cool to catch up with him and hang out with his girlfriend (the Sith Ariel).

Finally, day two ended at the convention, but the party was just getting started. Disney, in their infinite wisdom and ability to see dollar signs everywhere, had closed out Hollywood Studios early for an exclusive Star Wars night, and we had been lucky enough to be able to get tickets to go. We were encouraged to go dressed in costume, which meant I actually got to wear my Disney / Star Wars mashup in the land of the Mouse himself. I'm proud to say the cast members were all very complimentary of my costume, which made me very happy. If the Disneyest of the Disney people like it, it must be pretty good!

There were special cocktails, photo ops, and they re-themed a couple of the rides to be Star Wars-themed. The best highlight of the night for me was riding the Rock-n-Roller Coaster to the tune of the trench run in Episode IV. It was so freaking cool! At the end, they had a huge fireworks show to Star Wars music, and everyone raised their lightsabers to the sky. It was culty for sure, but it was my cult. I wish they still did this event, honestly. The new Star Wars land is really incredible, but there was something special about how they did it back then.

The rest of the convention was spent doing much of the same as the previous two days. My second day as Sithbelle was similar to the first, and by Sunday, we were pretty tired and a lot of people had left. We called it a bit early ourselves and decided to start the second part of our vacation on a high note.

I think I'll leave our Disney trips for another blog post in itself. Suffice to say it has become a long-standing tradition whose most recent chapter will be written in a few months, and I would like to include that if I still remember this blog exists by then.

After the vacation, I felt back to my old self. Well, perhaps "old" self wasn't quite right. I felt better ready to take on the realities that I had been faced with, and I was ready to start forward with a brighter outlook. I now had a new and deeper understanding of musical language, and I spent time with one of my favorite people, in some of my favorite places, doing something that I really loved. And not only that, I had a new creative identity, something that was uniquely mine of my own creation without anyone's help or input.

I was ready to live again.

I have a cold.

It always starts the same way. You wake up, and your nostril (left or right, I'll let you be creative) is stuffed up. You groan inwardly: partially because you don't feel good, but mostly because you realize how much you don't need this right now, because of your job, or school, or the big date, or because you simply don't want it to happen. You stand up, and after the initial dizziness which makes you lose your vision for a minute, you realize that your nose wasn't as sniffy as you thought it was. You force down some orange juice, and consider what other alternatives would be best for cold prevention. You decide on sheer will power.

The day proceeds, and you're feeling mostly ok, though a little off. Finally, you arrive back home and relax in your comfy chair. As you're reading / watching tv / reading my blog (I kid, I know no one ever really reads this thing), you realize that the stuffy nose is back, but you since you're wide awake, it's nothing you can't handle. When bedtime arrives, you decide to err on the safe side and take some NyQuil (or liquid hell, whichever name you may prefer). It doesn't take long until you've collapsed in your bed to experience the really weird dreams and a hope that you'll feel better in the morning.

Liquid hell.

Morning comes. Guess what? Not only has the snot moved from one nostril to the other (a phenomenon that astounds you every time you have a cold), but your cold has now gotten worse and to top it all off, you're groggy because of the bad decision that is NyQuil. This particular morning, the stuffiness doesn't go away after the vertigo of standing up. You drink half the carton of orange juice this morning, as well as take one of those vitamins that your aunt keeps giving to you because she swears they work 100% and she hasn't been sick since she started taking them even though you know she had a cold just a few months ago. Your appetite somehow disappears throughout the day, but that's probably because you're being fed a lifetime supply of goo from your nose. You finally make it home and fall asleep in your comfy chair because you weighed the benefits of actually getting to your bed and decided that death would be just as comfortable in a chair as it would in a bed (e.g., NOT).

You wake up the next day (or is it just a couple of hours later? You don't know, and you don't care), and you're somehow in your bed. You don't even question how this came to pass: you're too pissed off that you're still alive and whatever power above didn't see fit to ease you from your misery. You decide that there's no way you're moving from that spot to do anything unnecessary today (eating and going to the bathroom aren't necessary, right?), so you go to call in sick. Only your phone is in the other room, right by your comfy chair. Thus begins the debate of whether or not your boss really needs to know if you're sick or not. After what seems like an eternity (in actuality, only 7 minutes passed, 3 of which were when you accidentally dozed off and then re-awoke in a panic), you finally roll onto the floor and begin the crawl to your phone. This is the part where if you live with a spouse or a roommate, you're saved. Generally, your noises of agony and misery attract the attention of your housemate, and he or she will wonder why on earth you're lying on the floor halfway in the hallway. They will see you and take pity on you, and then force you back into your bed. If they are truly amazing roommates, they will call your boss for you, explain the situation, and then come back into your room with some soup and some medicine. Unfortunately, the only time this will work is if they're also your mom. Most likely, they might throw you your phone and will only help you out if you promise them favors which they will cash in on as soon as possible.

You don't look this cute.

A few days pass, and you're not getting any better. You've caught up on all the soap operas, know all of Jerry's catch phrases, and you haven't bathed since that first day you got sick (remember? you took that shower because you thought the steam would clear out your sinuses. Guess what: it didn't help). You have cracker crumbs in your bed, and you're very uncomfortable. You have a coherent thought through the fog: perhaps it's time to see a doctor. It's apparent at this time that the cold isn't going to "go away by itself" like you thought it would.

You call in another favor from your roommate, and he / she helps you to the bathroom. You turn on the shower and sit in the tub for a while, just letting the water bounce off of your head. After about an hour (or whenever the hot water runs out), you finally roll out of the tub, attempt to towel off, put on the nearest pair of PJs, and have your roommate take you to the doctor.

These things are heaven when
you're sick.

You wait in that waiting room for an hour with all the other sick people. You try to stay as far away from the puking kid as possible (there's always one), and at last you are finally successful at one thing. You count this avoidance as a personal victory, and are feeling proud right as the nurse calls you back. You roll out of your chair and do the zombie walk into the back room. She leads you to a room with that cool chair / bed thing, and you notice that she is trying really hard not to touch anything that you've touched, even though she put a thermometer in your mouth just a few minutes ago. You then start thinking about what kind of sickness you must really have. It must be really bad if a nurse is avoiding contact with you. Perhaps it is worse than you originally thought. Maybe you're deathly ill. Perhaps you're the cause of the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Maybe you're going to die. That has to be it...Your illness is so bad that you're going to die and the nurse doesn't want to catch it and you really start freaking out...when the doctor wakes you up.

He takes one look at you, goes "Yep, you're sick" and then orders for you to take a shot up the butt. You ask what you're sick with, and he rattles off the scientific term for what you have, and when you ask him to clarify, he says "you're sick."

I hate taking pills...

One shot in each buttcheek and a copay later, you walk out of the doctor's office to go get your meds. Your roommate takes you to the nearest pharmacy, where you pay a ridiculous sum of money for 30 gigantic horse pills. You go home, take one, and pass out from your exhausting day. After a couple of days, you realize that you are starting to feel better. You take your tentative steps out of your room to get your own orange juice for once. You don't even feel tired when you get back to your room. Your boss calls, wondering when you're going to be back into work, or whether they should start looking for a new employee. You tell him / her that you're feeling much better, and you'll be in tomorrow, and you're good to your word. You feel tired, but that's about all. You go into work, and realize that nobody really even missed you, much less knew you were sick.

As for the horse pills, once you decided you felt better and you didn't really need them anymore, you stopped taking them. That turns out to come in handy, when a few months later you wake up with one of your nostrils all stuffed up...

Just thought I'd note: The pictures (except for the paint drawings at the beginning) aren't mine. You should be able to look at their properties to find out where they really came from.