Outside my window, Seattle has returned to rain mode, with heavy clouds putting a kibosh on the joyful explosion of pre-summer weather we were all graced with a couple of days ago. Ah, but no matter, in two weeks I’ll once again dress in costume put together out of thrift store finds, and mingle with other horror fans at Crypticon, my favorite horror convention.
Even thinking of this little “stay-cation” lifts my mood out of the gloom of a rainy Monday, as I think of seeing old friends, making new ones and checking out all of the cool costumes folks put together for this Memorial Day convention. Me, being a long time horror fan since the days of watching the small black and white television with my sisters and brothers, after we separated from my abusive father.
Thinking of those halcyon days, my “salad days” I guess you could call them, I could pretty much say that television, or rather the imaginary landscapes that took my mind off life with my father, sort of saved my life. Or rather, being able to disappear into B-grade sci-fi and horror movies kept my creative spirit alive, and kept me hopeful as abuse threatened to destroy any vision of who I was to be, someday.
I could put aside any disappointment watching a good horror movie like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, or Fiend Without a Face, or any number of schlocky, but fun scary movies from the late 60s and early 70s, when I was still the geeky kid being chased home by a crowd of jeering schoolmates, eager to see me get beat up by the class bully.
As I got older and eventually left one, then a second marriage, to move to Seattle, where I’d eventually find my trans identity and become the man I’d wanted to be since childhood, horror movies became not just an escape, but a dream. I still dream of getting published, someday, as a horror writer, maybe even rivaling two of my idols, Stephen King and Anne Rice. I still want to meet my other horror idol, Neil Gaiman, who I missed at another convention, years ago, as I tend to get everywhere late, sleep apnea being my cross to bear if you will.
Someday, someday, I think, as I consider whether I’ll go steampunk (like I did at Norwescon, my favorite sci-fi convention), or evil scientist, having scored a white lab coat from a thrift store some years ago. Or do I wear the red, ruffly shirt I hardly ever get to wear, with the black pirate hat from my favorite thrift store, and do vampire pirate for this year’s Crypticon? The possibilities are fun to think about, and now that it’s been three months since I had surgery to rid me of my bad roomie (the name I gave my breast cancer), I have, I believe, enough energy to sustain me for a longer stay at this, the convention I look forward to all year.
And the cherry on top? Being able to buy a few things that’ll keep the spirit of horror alive for the rest of the year, from the dealer’s room, the place I always love at any convention. Later for Memorial Day barbecues, it’s horror and checking out cute costumes on gorgeous women with my very open minded partner for me, and I can hardly wait!
