Asterisk Uses Skills Inherited from Mother to Turn Roommate into Lady Gaga (For Realz!)

Halloween was always a creative experiment in my house. The one I remember best was probably about first grade when I went as a bat, and my Mom made me an absolutely brilliant pair of bat wings with a long stretch of black fabric and some slices of that foam tubing that you put around pipes to keep them from freezing. She used the foam tube pieces as the cool bones in bat wings, and looped the fabric so that my arms were went through the top, meaning I could wrap the wings around myself and hang upside-down over the back of the couch like a real bat.

I think I got more enjoyment out of that cape after Halloween than I did the actual night. It ensured that I could be a bat whenever I wanted. Cool, right?

When it came to the impromptu Halloween costume, my mom was fabulous. She always made our costumes, outright refusing to spend $30 on one of those shiny, plastic, mass-produced costumes you can buy at the Rite-Aid, and instead pieced them together out of the stuff we had at home, sometimes getting weirdly imaginative.

When I was five, I went as a cardinal, meaning she made me a huge bird mask out of construction paper. I don’t remember it too well, but it was super cool. At least, it was cool from the perspective of a five year old, anyway.

I didn’t really let my Mom test her creative side too much, though, since practically every year from the age of four to about eleven I wanted to go as a cat. I think the bat and the cardinal were the only two that weren’t just a headband with little construction paper cat ears and a black stocking full of quilting fabric for a tail (and painted on whiskers, of course).

My little brother was the real trial. One year she had to figure out how to re-create Darth Maul out of house-hold items, and another time I think she build a spider out of the same kind of plumbing tube as the bat costume. Not to mention the Alien made out of a bike helmet, some egg-beaters, and way too much shiny green fabric. I think she must have had more fun with Halloween than we ever did.

And I learned a lot from it. For example: the costumes they sell in the store are cheap and awful, and are guaranteed to fall apart. Unless you want to spend $50 on a costume, engineer it yourself. (I'm not saying I never wear mass produced costumes. I just prefer the homemade kind.)

I’m pretty good at this. I’ve managed to get an eye for what I’ll need, and how everything should fit together. I’m also pretty good at Halloween makeup (and how I wish that talent translated to actual makeup).

I’ve also kept just about every idem I’ve ever thought to use as a costume. Previous outfits, random accessories, and weird old clothes, Goodwill finds, anything. At home, I had a couple bags in the storage room, and fortunately, here at college I’m still able to keep a box in my room that I refer to as “the costume closet.”

So incase I forget about Halloween due to my complete inability to ever plan ahead, I always have a couple back-up options.

(I’m especially lucky, because it turns out my roommate this year is the same way.)

On that note, this year I’m suffering major costume-block for ideas, so we’re concentrating on my roomie. I'm starting to think helping someone else make a costume is more fun, anyway.
She got the idea to go as Lady Gaga months ago, but took on the crazy decision to attempt The Meat Dress after the VMA photos came out. I took her to the fabric store, and we’ve been going crazy ever since. ROOMMATE PROJECT!

We’re not going exact, but it’ll be completely obvious who she is due to two awesome aspects:

A)    A long blond wig. With bangs.

B)     A red dress covered in steaks. (Well, they’re fake. Who knew it was possible to find fabric that looks like meat?)

Thus far, we’ve constructed about 30 six-seven inch “steaks,” which I drew based on a clipart I found on the internet. The next plan is to spruce them up with a little fabric paint, and from there, we’re layering them on the dress, and keeping them in place with safety pins. It helps that the roommate is super hot, and makes it funnier that she’s not naturally blond. Also, making a meat dress is probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever had to construct. (Too bad Lady Gaga can’t say the same…)

All in all, I’ve had a ton of fun, although it has worried me a little bit that while helping orchestrate and construct the costume that will turn my roommate into a pop star, I’ve realized yet another part of me that is just like my mother. Good thing I’m taller—otherwise we’d be dangerously close to being the same person.

~Asterisk.