I'm No Fun at All: Just a Bubble Bursting Old Hag

When I first saw this magazine I thought it was a parody. There were lots of pics of people who may actually believe that they are vampires or that dressing up like a vampire somehow brings them closer to  the fantasy characters they revere (there is a difference between a costume party and going through life in a costume).

In a sense Bite Me is a parody of over-indulging in our enjoyment of fantasy.  I do, and have always loved fantasy and sci-fi, but you  can love it, even be a bit obsessed,  and still know where fantasy begins and ends.

You can even be a bit overly obsessed -- camp  out for five days for the premiere of a movie, eg. Eclipse, but when the premiere is over you know to go home, take a shower,  and go back to school or work and talk about how much fun you had, how grotty you felt after not getting a shower for a few days, how cool it was to see the actors, etc.

But, if  you used a year of rent or mortgage payments, gave up your employment or a scholarship, to fly around the world to camp out for five days to see Robert or Taylor or Kristen, and when you go home you will have been evicted and turn to drugs and prostitution then you have lost touch with reality. If you actually think Edward is leaving Bella to marry you then you have experienced a complete disconnect.

I  agree that at first glance a fantasy world seems so much more interesting than the real world.  But, look, Stephenie Meyer's characters face some really tough issues which even their super-strength  and speed cannot counter.  Bella is faced with losing her parents to be with Edward. She even gets stomach flu and spends a weekend harking up her guts.  Her boyfriend breaks up with her, and her best friend rejects her for a while as well.

In another book series, Harry Potter, imagine poor Harry's delight, cowering in his cupboard, at learning he was a wizard, and possibly the most important of all wizards. But, he also has to deal with really tough issues: people dying or being injured through their association with him, bullies,  and getting in trouble with teachers. And, don't forget, the event that made him really special, losing his parents, also causes him the greatest pain.  Life is not all hunky dory on the other side of the veil. Let's not forget that our first fantasy stories, fairy tales, were cautionary.

But, Bite Me offered some useful links, event information and such.  Some of the links were defunct or grossly out of date. It had apparently developed out of some people who attended a big Vampire Costume Ball.

I know that I may get hooted off my web page for this -- after all, we should be able to express ourselves in the way we dress! That is certainly true within a socially accepted norm that prevents our self-expression from being detrimental to our future.   Like the older person I am I have the strange ability to look back at my rather misspent youth and see my foibles and missteps.  And, trust me, there were so many missteps I am lucky I didn't break my life permanently.  I know my husband isn't Edward, or any of the men in any of the fantasy romances I read. But, he has the advantage of being a real person who is a good man who loves me and doesn't care how many fantasy books I read as long as I know where the book ends and we begin.

A Blog Tip I wish I could tell you where I learned this trick,  but as an "older person" I also have the strange ability to forget stuff! It may have been ikupilli - see the link below.
When you visit another blog, instead of just leaving a url why not leave a link that will allow the blog owner to click it to visit you. When you enter the code it is better to be in HTML mode as I have noticed that the extra stuff that tends to snag onto code and mess up your page is less likely to show up that way.

<a href="Blog url starting with http://"><Blog Name></a>

It will come out looking like this except of course, that it will be your blog link and not mine.

Fangs, Wands and Fairy Dust