Gravedigger ramble

The past 24 hours have been insane. Massively unexpected car crash (luckily only my car involved) after my first time hydoplaning (hates driving even more now) and a random door-to-door nurse who ambushed me in my office with the flu shot. And FYI - it makes your arm really hurt!! Anyway, I'm going to blah all the excess details about a more peaceful time...the Gravedigger's Ball!

Gravedigger's Ball 10/29/10
I get to K's later than intended (as always.) She opens the door wearing a costume much more appropriate for a 20-something than me: black corset, skirt, and stockings with super tall black stripper heels. She's got the cutest devil horns to round it out. Me, on the other hand, - wearing a child's miniskirt for $5 from Wal-Mart (it flounces!), black leggings with yellow/black striped leg warmers, black heels, a yellow shirt, wings, and bee antennas. I cut the shirt there so I could get a second opinion, just enough to show black tank top. My heels are modest and not stripper-like. Even so, I'm about 5'9'' and tower over her ala J-wow towering over Snooki.

Fl/Ga is always cramping my style, so I wasn't optimistic about parking, but we get right in for $5, sweet. I'd been feeling tired and nonplussed beforehand but once we got up to the bloody door I was REALLY excited. Ok, so VIP tickets were overpriced, and no one even checked for wristbands, but there were so many excellent costumes, like:

-gingerbread man
-crazy dancing Bert (ala Ernie and Bert)
-big giant alien
-about 50 Mad Hatters and Red Queens
-giant stilt bird
-oh, and at least 20 bee girls who looked way more like bees than my cheap a$$

First thing is this aquarium room (with another bee AND devil girl in it, I may add) where 2 women are giving crystal ball readings. We have to try this. I sit down and she asks me to picture a question, an issue that I need answered. I think about some dumb romantic question involving a guy. She squints into the ball.

"I see an airplane... a trip? A journey? But there is positive energy on this journey."

I mentally try to relate this to romance. She tells me she also sees stress and recommends that I close my eyes and count to 3 when I feel at my wit's end. I don't tell her I'd be doing that so often I'd be walking around blind.

MOSH is really the perfect venue b/c it's got so much that can easily become weird and creepy: giant teeth, dinosaurs, muscle tissue, etc. And it's all done up for Halloween. We push past some hookerish sailor girls and head up the stairs when all of a sudden, K's stripper heel just dies. The platform detaches and just hangs off sadly. Holy hell, this is not good. We make it up the stairs but her platform doesn't; it detaches and tumbles down. Like some dark, modern Cinderella. I awkwardly backtrack to get it, but luckily a pirate gets there first and hands me the shoe. So we peel the other platform off too, but that makes it worse. No other option: we have to leave, get another pair of shoes, and come back.

We're almost at the front when this spunky lady in a shiny blue geisha dress tells us we're going the wrong way. I explain the shoe crisis. The lady is horrified and immediately offers to help:
"I'm Sabrina. I run "Go Cocktails" upstairs. I have flip flops! Why don't you borrow my flip flops?!"
Omg you're a life-saver.
We slink back past half-naked staff to the cocktail girls' dressing rooms. It's very behnid-the-scenes. Sabrina's Aunt pops in to help. We're trying to unlace K's heels- these things are done up like Victorian shoes - and Aunt's fingers just fly down the hooks and laces while I'm still trying to undo the knot on the other shoe.

K isn't thrilled, but this seems like Best Case Scenario to me. We muck back up the stairs, and the next floor is awesome- lottsa people and drinks. VIP is on the roof, and the only way up is one very slow elevator. A crowd of mutinous drunk people mulls around in line, including this agressive zombie I have to give a mean look to. This giant evil pumpkin head guy walks out of a wall and glances around before running off. We see him again once 20 of us have squeezed onto the elevator. His pumpkin face is pressed up against the glass from outside while he pounds the walls and his demonic red eyes flash.

The doors finally open into a dark hallway that leads into open air - food and drinks and a skyline view. We're 2 seconds into rounding the room when a...cannibal? some guy comes up to us and starts chatting. He pulls us over to his friends, a nun who does not look holy, a red riding hood, and a mobster guy. "How old are you?" he ends up asking.

"Guess," I say. They always think I'm younger.

He narrows his eyes. "21?" I wonder what he would have said if it wasn't obviously a drinking event.

"Did you come together?" one of the girls asks, maybe the nun. We say we did, and they "Ahhh." I'm pretty sure they think we're lesbians.

We chat some more and then I decide it's drink time. The Go Cocktails table has lots of girly drinks, so it's hard to choose. I make a dumb choice with a sugar-free cosmo. Nothing sugar free ever tastes right! But it's pretty. It's also super strong, and I feel it about a quarter of the way through.

We people watch for a while, when the Party Animal comes up to us with a monkey head. He has a lot of beers around his waist and I tell him so, because it's disconcerting to have someone with a monkey head stare at you and not say anything. He takes off the head and starts talking. He's really nice, but it comes out in kind of a slur.

He asks how old we are. ("Howz old mmmz r yoo?") I tell him to guess. He says 21 too. I laugh, and he looks confused. He starts telling us how to make a good drink and something about the West Side.

We wander back down to the dinosaur area below and hear some kind of pulsating loud house music coming around a corner. It's the planetarium- massive laser show. Kids are slinking all around the walls and strung out of the floor staring up. A laser of a giant desk lamp floats around with some trapezoid shapes shaking. A Nordic guy sees me taking pics and leans around my shoulder. He wants me to take a pic through his 3D glasses to see the effect (blurry, btw). He lets us keep the glasses, but they're not 3D after all. They split each image up into about 15 litle images all spinning around. It's too trippy for me. But I loved it.

We make it out to dinosaurs and weird ameoba-like creatures and camwhore. Then the ambiguously gay duo rushes past to take over the costume contest. There are at least 2 people way taller than me - a giant alien and a tan cute guy dressed as a nerd. We make another trip to VIP. They had pasta, for heaven's sake, and I'm going to make use of my $!

We head out before closing, b/c K's a little down about the shoes. We're able to get them back and leave Sabrina's flip flops in the dressing room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Overall, I liked it. I was really glad we went. Really sucks about the shoes, but lucky it worked out. Overpriced though. I think next year I'll go all out.