My Most Unsettling Products

I give good Church Lady. Makes sense since I grew up in Midwestern Evangelical churches. I am not, as some people derivatively put it, a “nose-pierced, tattooed-up, blue hair,” although that mostly has to do with me not liking needles and being far too lazy to maintain hair color. This means that very normal people think I’m one of them. Ha ha! You have walked into my repression trap. 

If I had my way as a teenager, I would have been a romantic goth. Unfortunately, my Evangelical school and my not-handling-puberty-well father were not on board with my aesthetic. Although I did manage to sneak a few days in dark velvets with smudged gray eye-shadow and dark burgundy lipstick, looks I still think back on fondly. Now in my 40s, I mostly dress colorfully and vaguely retro, but I do break out my black tutu dress and glittery combat boots every weekend and luxuriate in feeling like my forbidden self.

Indiana is not exactly the edgiest of scenes. I do try to be respectful of people and will edit my displays based on what town I’m in, but I can’t hide who I am--a repressed goth with a dark sense of humor. A lot of blonde beige moms and clean-shaven dads see my bright display and pop in my tent. Then I watch confusion slowly seep into their faces. These are the (often best-selling) products that seem most to upset the local beige scene:

Anything with skulls -- Skull boxes. Charcoal skull drawings. Cat skulls. I love bones. I love them because they are human with all of the markers of time and personhood stripped away. (Also, people are less critical when a skull is drawn a little wonky versus a face.) For some reason, some people find this very dark. At one of her events, a friend of mine who also makes a lot of art featuring bones was lectured about how skulls are tied to satan. (My friend is a former Sunday school teacher, by the way.) Buddy, I have news for you. In the Christian belief, skulls were created by God. All of the bones were. Satan did zero creating. There was no transfer of property. Also, skulls are not exclusively about death. In fact, you are carrying one right now. There is a skull on you at all times.

What I find so interesting about this one is that they are not upset about the two anatomical heart prints I have. I suppose this is because of all of the Bible verses about hearts. There aren’t many references to skulls. 

Strangely, my “Broken and Beautiful” skull seems to be exempt from unsettling people. Call it flower power.

This coaster -- It's a maple leaf. On the other hand, this coaster makes me instantly cool to any guy under 25.

Prolly thinkin’ ‘bout death sticker -- I made this sticker pink and holographic in honor of Barbie's existential crisis during Barbie summer, but it's about me. Having grown up attending a lot of funerals, it was only natural for me to be attracted to death and darkness. I spent most of high school trying to make sense of my father’s trips in and out of the hospital and then his slow decline. I wasn’t into dark things because I thought I was deep or wanted to shock people. I wanted to figure them out. And I started to see that they weren’t as scary as people made them seem. 

The sticker is about that sad part of me that misses people I've lost. It's about that part of me that is comforted by Agatha Christie murder mysteries. It's about that twisted part of me that listens to true crime podcasts all day long. It's about that artistic part of me that sees a dead animal and wants to draw it. It's about the chronically ill part of me that wants so much to live, but knows one day I will greet Death as a friend.

Apparently, I also made it for people who hate their jobs and put it on their work laptop. No matter what your reason, if you've bought one of these stickers, know you are my people.

Three-eyed stag -- I had originally drawn this stag as a Christmas card, and copied the design to do a different style. Before I even started my second holiday design, I could hear Cecil in my ear: Welcome to Nightvale. While I wouldn’t call this WtNV fan art, that was definitely the inspiration. Surrealism is one of my favorite types of writing, and I often can’t resist the urge to make things weird.

Happy. Stubborn. Bastardous. sticker -- Years back, I saw someone on tumblr describe dandelions this way. To say it resonated would be an understatement. I love dandelions, which are lovely and useful and friends to bees. I also love fringe people, like myself, who have opted out of many social races and are living their best, weird lives. We are happy and will stubbornly keep being happy especially when we know it makes you mad. We will dye our hair, pierce what we want, dress how we like, and keep a 12 foot skeleton in our front yard all year long. Thank you, and goodbye.