One of the first regular customers that really talked to me was Daniel Petersen, a man in his late 50s to early 60s. He was someone who you could tell loved to talk, and it wasn't long before he knew my last name was also Petersen. For the first several months, I would actually see him pretty regularly. He would come into the store and say "Hello, Ms. Petersen" with a smile and I would grin and say "Hello, Mr. Petersen". From time to time, he'd also call me his "namesake" as a joke. After awhile, I didn't see him too often as he would come in on Thursday mornings and I don't usually work then.

The last time I saw him was Free Comic Book Day. The store was packed with people and he was in a hurry. He grabbed his bag of things, made a little small talk, but had to go. He hadn't been feeling well for awhile, I guess he picked up pneumonia sometime before and was having a hell of a time getting past it.

Today when I walked into the store, Bill, the manager, stopped me and asked me if I knew a particular customer. I vaguely remembered his name, but couldn't place the face. Apparently he was the nephew of Daniel Petersen. He told Bill that last weekend, Daniel went in to see why it was taking so long to get over pneumonia and found out he had cancer. The doctor told him he had two to four months to live.

Daniel Petersen died two days later. I didn't know him very well, but he was a nice guy, funny, and one of the first to actually respect me as a comic fan, rather than seeing me as "the girl". What's weird, is the day he died I thought of him out of the blue. Nothing I was doing actually reminded me of him, I just suddenly thought of him saying to me "Hello, Ms. Petersen."

So, for the last time,

Goodbye, Mr. Petersen.

I totally disavow this woman. Her "argument" is easy enough to dismantle, so I won't even bother. I just had to post since she's the epitome of what people think of when they hear "lesbian feminist". Hell, she's the epitome of what some think of when they hear "feminist".

It's about time!



Now if only I could play the original Beyond Good and Evil. My Xbox died and so far Xbox 360 can't play it. Sigh, it's such a good game!

Not this guy:


and certainly not this guy:


This man is Cap:


He may be from the UK, but he can do American accents. He can fight (see Rome and Kingdom of Heaven), and he can act (May have Rome Spoilers). He has the grizzled war weary face we see in Rome, and the sympathetic one we see in Journeyman. What more do we need? Seriously, I've said it a lot, I know, but this guy would easily make the movie.

The company put out a survey thing several weeks ago to get an idea of how things at the new store were doing, how people liked the new location, the layout, etc and so forth. It also included some ratings on the employees as well. For the overwhelming majority of the comments (that mentioned employees) it was all very very positive. There were one or two that were moderate to negative...including one in reference to me. This isn't an exact quote, but it's close:

"I rated the employees lower than I would otherwise, mainly due to the red headed female employee. She consistently gives me the bare minimum amount of customer service and never smiles. At first I thought it was because I was female and she was being territorial, but a male friend said she was the same to him. I understand hiring eye candy, but every time I come in she's sullen...Every time I come in and see her, I know I'm going to get sub par customer service." [Emphasis mine]

Thing is, I could have been moody and/or sullen when she's been in. I haven't had the best year in terms of my family, and I freely admit there were days it was so bad I probably wasn't in the greatest mood at work. So it's entirely possible there's some merit to that aspect of her complaint. And considering there were so many others that WERE positive about my customer service, I'm not really worried about one person's view on it so much.

What bothers me so much about what she wrote was what I put in bold: "I understand hiring eye candy." Wow...seriously. It's so nice when someone, especially another woman, discounts the possibility I just might be hired at the store because I know a massive chunk of useless information about comics rather than a need for "eye candy". I always suspected some people were thinking that I was just there because I'm female and they needed the "token chick", but to actually have it down in words, and from another woman no less.

You'd think she herself was subject to the same sexism I am, and thus would be more likely to consider that I was there because I liked comics. I'm positive that in at least one store (less likely mine) she was asked if she was getting stuff for her boyfriend/husband/whatever; and likely it irritated her to be marginalized by that. I would think that she would be conscious of that when filling out the survey.

That really is the only thing that bothers me about it, that my position at the store was so marginalized, and by a woman who should know better! When I was talking about it with Jake, he made the point that it was insulting to the guys at the store as well, implying that they were shallow enough to just hire someone for the reasons she believes.

What's kind of a funny side note in all of it is that my hair's not red. It has some red to it, but it's more of a light brown (though some say it's a dark blonde...I refuse to believe them). I'm the only woman who works at the store on a consistent basis, so it has to be in reference to me.

It's nice to be appreciated. Or, a sexist compliment that actually makes me feel good.

One thing I like about Jake's Saturdays is that he often catches up on work in the back room while I spend most of the day in the main part by myself. This means the customers have to ask me questions rather than going to whichever of the guys happens to be there. And it's really nice to be the one person they go to, even if it is just every other Saturday.

This past Saturday a man was in with his son. The man had been into comics when he was younger and was now looking to get his kids into comics as well. Obviously, quite a bit had changed since he read comics, so I got to fill him in on quite a bit. Including stuff in relation to the Comics Code Authority, The Seduction of the Innocent, and current rating system on some major publishers (or lack thereof. I'm looking at you, DC). While explaining it, another man, about the same age as the first tuned into the conversation and during a pause, commented "Wow...you really know your stuff!" and asked me a question (to which he knew the answer) about the whole Harry Osborne drug addiction story that was asked for by the anti-drug part of the government and rejected by the CCA part. I answered it and he was more surprised.

The two men talked about other things for awhile, like current comics and how things had changed. As the second man was leaving he came up to me and said "I have to say, I'm really impressed. Did you know this before you worked here, or did you have to learn it?" I told him I knew it before I got the job.

"I'm just surprised, you're the only...well..."

"You're the only woman I know that reads comics, let alone knows all this history." Chimed in the first man.

"Yes, that's it exactly!"

So there it was. I definitely got the impression from their reactions before that they were impressed because a woman knew all of this stuff, so I wasn't too surprised when they actually told me. And considering their generation and being out of comics for awhile, I can't fault them too much on their perceptions. During the time when they were into comics, there were very few girls and women who were into comics and even less who would publicly admit it (they're a few decades too young to remember the female audience comics had pre CCA). And neither of the men were condescending when talking with me, they were just surprised.

So in the end, ironically, the sexism behind both stories is basically the same: the perception that I'm just there as a token woman rather than merit. Funny how context can make all the difference, huh? And with the guys, their perception that women don't read comics is now changed...even if it is just a little.

Ralph Nader has thrown his hat in the ring...again. Late February. As a very left wing Independent.

Ok, seven years ago he ran and siphoned off some of the more left votes. Granted, those may or may not have gone to Gore (some probably would have gone with Gore had Nader not gone in, some would just not have voted.)

Now it's about eight months until the election, and he's just NOW announcing his candidacy. This tells me he's not really serious about it. I mean, come on, his chances of winning are already clearly very little, but he's starting so late after others have so much momentum. His chances are so small, and this has been proven quite often. I am so not saying we shouldn't expand how we have elections, have more than one party or anything like that. That will take a significant restructuring of our electoral process and is something for another, longer post.

But Nader knows he's not going to win. Hell, everyone knows there's no way in hell he's going to win the majority of the votes/electoral college from the Democratic and Republican nominees. It's just not going to happen.

Which leads to one of two possibilities.

A) His ego needs some stroking.

or

B) The right wing hires him out.

This isn't to say he doesn't believe in what he says, but it just adds a different dimension to what he does. I can totally see him taking money under the table from the right wing to basically run as a distraction for liberals. Hell, he even may see it as a necessary evil to accept their money to do what he thinks is right (and to stroke his annoying ego). Granted, this would be total hypocrisy due to his stance against corporate interests in government, but he may not think of that.

It just seems odd that he jumps in now, especially after the 2000 election results. Hell, after over a decade of him getting very little support. Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have more than two parties, I think we do. (I actually think parties should be done away with entirely and people are elected on the merits of their platforms and records) I just can't see him being elected, and I can't see him actually believing he'd be elected.

The only bonus is I think most people have learned from 2000, so I doubt he'll do as "well" this time around.

Ok, a quick so this story requires a little explanation up front: I'm skinny. It's not because I don't eat, or I eat too healthily (if there is such a thing :P ). I don't eat an extreme amount, but what I do eat is often high in fats and calories. I drink at least four glasses of whole milk a day. This isn't to brag or anything like that, this is to make sure the next part is put into full context.

I was walking across the street to my girlfriend's apartment for the night. Where we live, they have alternate side parking each night to allow the plows to go through if there's snow. And there's been quite a bit of it, though the plows haven't really utilized the alternate side parking on my girlfriend's street. Anyway, as I'm walking across, a car pulls out of the mall parking lot. It's a small mall made up of basically old yuppie stores. Usually it's pretty quiet.

This car, though, had a guy in the passenger seat that felt the need to shout out to me "Eat something, for the love of shit!"

The car was away before I could even respond. On the one hand, I took it with humor considering the irony and ignorance of what he said.

On the other hand, it pissed me off! Where does he get off commenting on my body? Or how much I eat? If I was a guy, there's no way in hell he would have said anything. Yes, there are women that don't eat, or don't eat enough in order to stay skinny. Yes, there is a problem with the fashion industry in always portraying ultra skinny women, often pushing their models into eating disorders to keep up.

However, this doesn't speak for all skinny women, or men for that matter. And it certainly doesn't give this ass the right to comment as his friend speeds by. Ugh... Ok, rant over.

It's been quite awhile since my last SCSG update. I know, all of one person thought "Wait, wasn't there some semi-regular blog about a...ooh, chocolate!" Anyway...

Listen to the girl, save six dollars

It's so incredibly irritating how often people in the store (female and male), will ask me questions, get an answer, then later ask Bill or Jake the same question and get the same answer. It's annoying, though sometimes amusing. In this case it was amusing because if the guy had just listened to me, he would have saved $6.

It was near the end of the day, and I was doing inventory. Which of late isn't anything new. Inventory in this context, is defined as a level of retail hell that lasts forever. This man walks in and kind of looks around a bit. He's kind of a jittery personality, like he's had too much coffee or a cola or something. He comes to the desk and asks if the Wizard we have out is the latest. I tell him it is. He asks for an opened copy. Lucky for him, we actually do have one.

He flips through it for a few minutes, then asks if we have any more back issues. I tell him we have last month's, but no open copy for it.

"Do you have the Indy edition?"

"You mean one Wizard puts out devoted to Indy press?"

"Yeah."

"No, they haven't released one yet. Or in awhile for that matter."

"Oh...do you know when?"

"No, not reliably."

"Thanks."

He walks away for a bit and Bill comes up. The man walks back with last month's Wizard.

"Can I open this, I'll buy it."

Bill looks at him funny, but says "Uh...ok, sure."

As he opens it, he starts asking Bill the exact same questions he just asked me. Bill gives him the same answers I did, and of course, the last issue of Wizard yielded no results for him. Which meant he had to shell out $6 for an issue that he didn't really want for an answer I gave him ahead of time. I so wanted to say "See, 'the girl' does know what she's talking about. If you listened to me, you would have saved money!"

I have a secret stalker admirer

I'm going to be kind of vague with this one. Mainly because I don't know who this guy is, and I'm pretty sure it was not meant to be threatening in any way. Well, that's assuming that it's not the creepy guy that I originally thought it might be.

I got into work a few months ago and Jake came up to me and said "Meg, I have something to show you." in this slightly foreboding tone. I thought "what, did I frak up the bank deposit last night?" Jake opens up his email and clicks on a link. This link is to a page that's in a "men seeking women" section. I won't say exactly what it says (trying to maintain a small level of anonymity here), but it's basically pretty clear the guy is talking about me. And that he has a crush on me.

This is kind of strange, honestly. The internet part. I'm all for meeting people online (hell, my girlfriend and I first met online). But I guess posting that you have a crush on somebody and leaving a contact email (which is made anonymous through the site), you'd THINK they'd just take the initiative and talk to me, if not tell me directly. Whoever it was, they weren't a regular, that much was clear from the message itself. I know there are a few guys who have a crush on me who come in. They talk differently than others, not in a condescending way, just in a way that I know they're crushing. I'm pretty sure that they didn't write the entry since I'm pretty sure they know I'm gay (hence the girlfriend thing. Seriously, pay attention!).

Jake had been sent the link by a friend of his, who wrote "She probably would want to know about this." Which I did. Bill and I thought it was this creepy guy who came in a few weeks before, who just kept looking at me funny (literally...he had his head cocked to the right), and mumbled quite a bit. When Bill came up and saw the guy, he was about to head out to get some food. He'd stopped to make sure the guy didn't try anything, that was how strong the creepy vibe was. The guy mumbled more and left. With more distance between that and the online thing, I tend to think it's not him. He never came back to the shop.

Some of the customers also stumbled across the ad page. I think what's stranger than the ad itself is when people ASKED me about the ad. Just kind of "So, you've got an admirer, huh?" So, I got some crap for it for awhile; from both co-workers and customers. :P

That is one hell of a Christmas gift

Months ago, I was talking to a customer (call him Luke) about a game that he had a part in making. In the game, you could choose if your character was female or male, but aside from that difference, the stories were the same. Including the love interest being female, regardless of the gender of your character. Which I was so surprised and happy with. It turns out this guy had written that in there to see if it would pass. And it did. I told him that it had really made me happy to see that, and the surprise was so very cool to me. It's not often you see a lesbian romantic interest in games, especially one not done for titillation.

A few weeks later, in early December, he asks if I've played Mass Effect. For those of you in the geek world who haven't really been paying attention, Mass Effect is a new RPG that came out for the 360 in November to some controversy. You can create your own character, female or male, and develop relationships in the game. One of those relationships for BOTH female and male versions is a potential romance with an Asari (an all female race. Well, technically they're mono-gendered and "not female". Which seems to be more of "We're gonna do it this way so we can shrug off some conservative rhetoric" than actual biological reasons. So I'm just gonna say they're an all female race, because well. They are. Hell, the game's description of them says so). Anyway, I'd said I was familiar with it, but I couldn't play it being that I was (and am) poor as hell. BioWare did KotoR, which I absolutely loved, so Mass Effect was something I'd wanted to play, even before I knew about the lesbian romance option.

A few hours later, he called to ask how much I could pay for a used 360. I guess a co-worker of his wanted to sell his old one for an Elite. I told him while I would definitely like too, I couldn't afford even a used. I thanked him for thinking of me, wished I had more money, and then pretty much put it out of my mind.

That Saturday we were busy as hell. I'm looking down at the time, working on someone's gift card. Jake is helping at the register and looks up first.

"Uh...Meg..." I finish the gift card and hand it to the customer when I see Luke standing there with an Xbox 360.

"It's for you."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, it's yours!"

"You're not serious."

"Yeah, he's just a mean person here to taunt you. Of course he's serious.", said Jake.

Luke sets the 360 on the counter and puts an unopened copy of Mass Effect on top of it. "I didn't pay a single penny for all of it. I had some things to trade around and that's how I got it. Merry Christmas!"

"Wow...Thank you. I don't know what else to say. Thank you so much." That I probably repeated for the next several minutes as we talked. I wished I could do something in return, like give him his stuff for a year at cost or something. Or a discount. Or something. Since I couldn't, I just thanked him a lot instead. It was so surprising and generous of him to do that, and he did it for the generosity. Very cool.

Anyway, I'm going to write something on Mass Effect later. Since it doesn't really have much to do with a comic shop, or at least the one I work at, it will be in a different entry.

Next issue: Meg goes insane with Avatar and their multiple damn covers without barcodes, tosses those back issues into a shredder.

In this week's Batman, is that Steph's  Robin costume in the display case?  It looks like it.  Granted, Bats is a bit out of it and hallucinating...

Wish you coulda hung around longer. :(

But I hated One More Day's finale.

( Minor Spoilers )

So apparently this "expert" rode around on a unicycle in public, documented people's reactions, and determined men are naturally funnier than women. Because of his unicycle. Apparently, the "intrinsic humor" properties of his cycle are sufficient in its scientific base to determine unequivocally that the responses he got from 400 people in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. Seriously...absolutely brilliant piece of scientific work there, Doc.

Sure the BBC story probably dumbed down what exactly he did in his studies, but if the article has any truth to it, I hardly see it as remotely concrete proof of anything other than that riding unicycles can make you look like a dumbass.

Journeyman's alleged last episode aired tonight. Honestly, it was a pretty decent wrap episode for a show only 13 episodes long. It wrapped up enough that if it doesn't return, at least most of the questions have been answered that I'm not left wondering what the hell's going on. Still, they did leave enough of the mystery in the show on the off chance it does keep going. I'm hoping it will, it's such a great show that keeps getting better and more interesting each episode. There are some really great powerful moments that happen, such great drama (the good kind ;) ). The last scene of this episode was one of them. Not the most, that would probably go to Monday's episode. Though Dan talking to his dad on the night that his dad leaves, trying to convince him to stay with his family was right up there too. Sigh...

Oh, and speaking of Kevin McKidd, he totally needs to be cast as Captain America.

Journeyman has been getting better and better each week. This week's episode is just...soooo cool. There's only one left after this, and that sure as hell isn't enough. :P

The title of the game is weird and I'm feeling to sick to look the game up at the moment (I will later, promise). The game, however, looks VERY fun; and the fact that the main character is female and NOT used as a sex object (at least not in the trailer...) is absolutely fantastic. She's fully clothed too! Yeah, at one point she's in the tub, but I don't so much see that as sexualized...not much of her is visible and she's just relaxing. It kinda reminds me of Serenity/Firefly style of story, but not quite. The Old West meets tech thing (and the women kick ass.)

The only downside is regardless of what it comes out on, I can't play it! (or review it for Grrlgamer) I miss having all of the current systems... (I had all of the last gen. It was nice. Sigh...good times...)

I'm a few days late with this, but I wasn't here when it came out. There's this too, which while it says some of the same things the first link does, he does get in some other points.

I'm not going to go into a long post here, but again, I wanted to make note of it. I can't believe some people went as far as they did; the written stuff I'm less surprised at (but still disgusted), but actually taking time to draw panels with Jade Raymond in a porn like that takes a certain degree of malice. The comic "artist's" comments on it are even more sickening; as surprising as that may sound. He actually claims there was no malice there, that she's just collateral damage. To paraphrase "I don't think 'collateral damage' means what he thinks it means." The porn comic was about her, how is she just an innocent bystander who happens to get hurt?

I've read about other women's experiences in gaming and comics, running up against sexism. I've experienced it quite a bit myself; from small things like "Dude! It's a chick!" (hence the title of this blog) to blatant discrimination and sometimes even hate (people hate snipers...people hate snipers who are women even more; apparently). This just goes beyond anything I expected. I seriously hopes she sues the "artist" and his host site into oblivion. They certainly have warranted legal action.

Rumor is, Bruce Wayne is a dead man. If it wasn't for the past few years with DC and Marvel's fetish of perpetually ongoing events with "shakeups" all the way, the idea might be interesting. But between events in Marvel (which granted, DC isn't a part of) not to mention DC's lame "let's-do-a-Crisis-every-few-years" fetish, with a scattered "minor" events (like Amazon's Attack, drastically changing Wonder Woman's world, but no one else's, really); it's apparently showing no signs of stopping. "Event fatigue" has been thrown around for quite some time, and honestly, it really doesn't seem like a rumor. The people I talk to in the store are either starting to move away from events or are vocalizing their intent to. Yes, things like this can get an increase in sales, and it has. It doesn't mean that will continue; the saturation of the market is inevitable and at some point, fans will get tired of it to a point that events will bomb and bomb badly.

If sales are anything like they are at the store I work at, Countdown is floundering, yet they're pumping out a ton of side mini-series. Just this last week, there were three or four outside of the regular Countdown. At $3-4 a piece, plus the regular books. it gets to be pretty expensive. People are going to drop the superfluous eventually. Hell, I even see some people dropping their favorites because of it.

Cap has actually done well with the shakeup, and while most think how he died (presuming he actually did...I'm still skeptical), the follow up is actually interesting and engaging. Yet World War Hulk feels like it's leading up to a House of M like ending, though I haven't enjoyed WWH as much as I did most of House of M. Endangered Species is over, and it didn't really go anywhere. The multipart story could have easily been condensed to a 3 part mini-series, rather than forcing people to buy several X-titles for just a few pages in the back. Messiah Complex (or Messy Complex, as I've dubbed it :D ) is also slow in starting. You've got the Spidey thing that's taking forever to finish up ("One More Day"...ha. It's more like "One more month, we swear we'll get it out by then!") There's WWH wrapping up (and taking its sweet time doing so) and leading into Aftersmash. There's the Secret Invasion starting relatively soon (with a prelude in this weeks New Avengers Illuminati) and that's sure to shake things up like crazy. That's just Marvel.

DC has Countdown and its Infinite Crossovers to finish up, leading into Final (we swear) Crisis, as well as the Sinestro Corps War, Marriage of Black Canary and Green Arrow (if they actually did get married, considering the reveal recently), Return of Ra's al Ghul, The Death of the New Gods, and so forth. DC's apparently getting so lazy they're telling you the results right away with the titles. Gee, could Ra's al Ghul be coming back? And the New Gods are dying? Why bother reading it? That's kinda taking away the, you know, suspense part.

Anyway, it's going to run both companies into trouble soon enough. They won't be able to keep up the current status quo (which is to say, there is no status quo) for long. Who knows, maybe the end will start with the death of a bat. I think it's already started.

I mentioned in my last entry that I was going as Spider-Girl for work on Halloween. I worked out most things, such as getting hospital booties from a co-worker to keep my feet from getting dirty (the costume doesn't have any padding or protection for the feet. It's all the same cloth), working out a hair net (My hair is long and hard to get into the mask alone) and finding a pin to hold the neck together more so I don't look like I have a massively bulky neck. :P

I went to the store out of costume and put it on in the bathroom. I can see why the Spider-people leave the costume on underneath. It takes way too long to put it on. :P After struggling with my hair and the makeshift nylon hair net and zipping the costume up over all of that, I was out in the main part of the store after 5 minutes, mask and all.

I usually wear fairly tight fitting clothing every day, at least in summer. I didn't think the Spider-Girl costume would really feel all that different on me; it didn't in the comfort of my own home. I should have guessed that being in something that is essentially a second skin in a comic store would feel totally different. I felt naked, yet clothed. It's an odd feeling and for the first half hour or so I wasn't really sure what to do with myself.

I also couldn't really see all that well. I could recognize faces and see where everything was. Reading was an entirely different thing, though, as the words tended to be blurred by the mask's eyepieces. I also couldn't look down, not without holding the top of my head. The costume itself is made up of the very flexible spandex lycra material. Unfortunately, the zipper going the full length of my spine is not, so I wasn't exactly the most flexible Spider-Girl in that costume.

What was pretty cool was most of the customers at the time I showed up to the store were regulars, so I wasn't debuting the Spidey look in front of a whole bunch of people who didn't know me. That would come later...

I got a lot of compliments on it right away, most were amazed (er, no pun intended) at how accurate and well made the costume was. It had me wishing I had sewn it myself, rather than being lazy and ordering it online. Still, it was nice to hear the compliments on how it looked.

The shop has a Halloween store next to it (at the moment), so there's quite a few people walking by the store that normally wouldn't. Right away, there was a mother and her daughter passing by on their way out of the Halloween store and the girl stopped by our entrance and just stared at me with this stunned look on her face. I waved at her and she waved back, then kind of ran away from the entrance. It was very cute.

At least I know Mayday deals with it too...
Unfortunately, most people know of Spider-Man, but not Spider-Girl. Which means "Spider-Girl" wasn't the first thing that came to mind when they saw me standing there in the store. In the space of fifteen minutes, there were probably five to ten instances of "Look, it's Spider-Man!", to which I would say "Spider-Girl!" in an increasingly exasperated tone.

Twice parents came in with their kids and their kids excitedly said "Spider-Man!". After I said "Spider-Girl", they seemed to notice that this Spidey had a feminine shape to her. Oddly enough, both times the parents would come back and say something about "Spider-Man" in reference to me, probably something like "Say goodbye to Spider-Man" and the kids would say "Spider-Girl!" Again, very cute. One kid was really polite and actually thanked me for dressing up as Spider-Girl. (Which was kinda weird, honestly...)

One customer heard everything and told me his daughter had run into the same trouble before. She had gone as Spider-Girl, but was called Spider-Man by those who saw her. He said she was reacting pretty much like I was (getting exasperated and all that) so he told her to let her pony tail show. She did and no one called her Spider-Man after that. It was nice to hear I wasn't the only one (and I remembered that they even wrote that into the Spider-Girl comics). Still, I was too much of a purist. I wanted the costume as it was intended, so I left my hair inside the mask.

After about 45 minutes, the mask was getting to be kind of a pain, so I took it off. It was actually pushing my nose down, and after almost an hour of it, my nose was starting to hurt. Of course, right then one of the regulars who is a big Spidey fan came into the store. The mask went back on, and I inadvertently made the man quite jealous. Apparently he got a store bought Spidey costume, but hasn't had a chance to wear it. I'd shown him pictures of my costume a few weeks before, but he was surprised and how it looked, especially once I put the mask back on. As he left, he said "I'm going to go home, put on my Spider-Man mask and stare at myself in the mirror" in a pitiful tone.

I left the mask on for a little longer, I did like having it on. Oddly enough, with the mask off a lot of people didn't seem to notice unless they were relatively close that I was wearing a Spidey costume. When I wore the mask, there was immediately obvious no question that I was dressed as Spidey. It was also fun to "be" Spider-Girl. With my mask off, I was "Meg in a Spider-Girl costume." While I do share hair and eye color with May Parker, I doubt many would see me as her just on that alone. There are plenty of blue eyed brunettes wandering around.

The store slowed down around 7pm, which was likely due to Halloween itself. One guy kind of laughed as he bought his comics. I don't know if he was laughing at me or at Bill (who was dressed as an Arkham Asylum inmate.) He wouldn't say, and just said that he was laughing at himself for not wearing a costume.

The store closed and nine, and I changed out of the Spider-Girl costume and back into my everyday clothes. Halloween was over for me for another year, which is sad. I love the holiday and I hate getting out of the costumes I've looked forward to wearing for so long. It was like that for the zombie flapper girl costume I wore the week before for a Halloween party. There totally needs to be more Halloweens in the year! Still, it was nice to be in regular clothing, not to mention to be able to actually be able to grip things normally again. Ironically, in the Spider-Girl costume, I had less of a grip than usual. It's not surprising, just ironic.

My Spider-Girl costume came in the mail yesterday,(  some pics of me in it behind the cut. )