Comic Con and Tanning

SO. Big few days lately.
This past weekend was Denver Motherfucking Comic Con! It was glorious! Absolute nerd heaven. I even got to stare at George Takei, whose gay babies I would love to have, from like twenty feet away and just drooled over his amazing witty Asian gayness. I love him.

Of course, I cosplayed. I chose to do X-23 from the X-men, who is a female clone of Wolverine. Basically she was engineered to have the same ademantium coated bones and claws, though she only has two claws that sprout from the knuckles of each hand, the other two come out of each foot. She also was made to not have a conscience so that she would be a more effective assassin. She is supposed to be about fourteen, scarily skinny, and super pale due to her lack of socialization/freedom/time in sunlight.

Here are a few pictures. One is with a few dudes who were decked out in "tactical assault" gear, but were really just airsoft players who took the whole camo thing really seriously. They were nice guys. The other picture is of me with my boyfriend, who was dressed up as Gambit, also from the X-men. X-23 and Gambit fought together on the X-Force team, which had its own subseries. Just Google X-23.

Anyway, pictures. I don't know how big Blogger will make these, but you can always click to expand:

I made a bunch of new cosplay buddies due to being semi-scantily clad and having an accurate costume. I ended up getting stuck in a lot of places because people would just surround me, or me and a buddy, or me and a group of people, and take billions of photos. I honestly couldn't make it more than twenty feet at a time without someone stopping me for a picture. It was a little ridiculous, honestly.

The entire weekend was a huge confidence boost. It was enormously flattering to have people photographing me all weekend and to know that I had the most accurate and well-made costume. There were a few other girls who did X-23 as well, but they all either had shittily-done costumes or just had the wrong body type. This one girl, who is used to dominating cons because she has amazing costumes, did X-23 on Sunday and actually fleed and hid in the exhibition hall after I ran into her. I am usually in awe of the work she does because she has infintiely more sewing talent than I, but her costume just didn't measure up to mine. I felt bad for stealing her thunder, but one simply cannot be tall, curvy, tan, have tiny tinfoil claws, and pull off an X-23. It just doesn't look convincing and was an iffy choice on her part.

The convention was an awesome break from working and having to hide my nerdiness. I now get to return to the real world and conceal my geeky hobbies and such.

I spent the entirety of last week doing hardcore corporate training for my new job, which is at a fancy-ish tanning salon. It's a little insane. I can be superficial at times, for sure, but making a career out of it is like a whole new level of aesthetic obsession. I now have to wear gobs of make up to work and straighten my hair constantly, along with always having to have my nails done, and of course, I have to be tan in order to fit in.

Not that conformity has always been a priority, but I'm in sales, and in order to sell products, I have to use (or at least look like I use) what I'm selling. 

I am not a tanner. I have always been flourescently pale and have loved rocking my porcelain complexion, but now, in order to make decent money, I have to sacrifice my skin. I have an newly-developed expertise regarding UV tanning, UV-free tanning, and tanning products, but in order to truly be convincing, I really have to be tan so that I can provide a goal/example to every new customer. It's all business, I suppose.

So, today, I lay in a tanning bed for the first time in my life. It was absolutely terrifying. It was horrendously bright, even with my eye protector thingies on and with my eyes squeezed shut the whole time. It was hot and I could feel my skin absorbing the UV lights, even though I figured out how to get the bed fans going, and I really just couldn't find a way to relax. It was truly scary, lying naked in a lit-up bed feeling like I was getting baked alive into some Hannibal-style human cupcake.
I don't even know if the excruciating seven minutes in the highest pressure bed in the salon was worth it. I don't look very dark, just freckled all to fuck. I feel like a toasted marshmallow.

I suppose bed tanning is not for everyone, but I'm going to try it once or twice more this week before I swear off of it forever. I'm going to give lower pressure beds a chance because I know that I'll need a base tan before I go to that outdoor music festival at the end of June to avoid lobster burns. As it stands, I'll probably just stick to spray tanning 90% of the time anyway, because I don't want to have permanently screwed-up skin, and I'm already a prime candidate for cancer after two benign tumors.

I just wish I could leave my skin alone AND still be okay. I feel like bed tanning once or twice a month will probably be an okay compromise. I can still build a believable color with spray tans and keep myself from looking too Snookified by DHA tanners by bed tanning every so often.

Sigh. I want to be pretty and I want to be financially secure, I just don't want to be tan. Oh well, girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do and the opportunities for advancement with this tanning company are too amazing to pass up, not to mention this is a sales position where I can sell things that I would actually buy. I feel like with this job, I can still maintain a basic level of integrity and actually be proud of my work.

Upcoming plans: rave in a few weeks, Electric Forest music festival in Michigan, Anime Expo Convention in LA, and a possible trip to Rochester (ugggghhhhh noooooo) to see family.

Hope your summers have all been blissful so far!


Julia