Not a zombie

Many of my friends, colleagues, vague acquaintances, and people who friended me on on Facebook keep complaining that dressing up as a zombie, while looking quite good, is already done and I should do something different. Some complain that their Facebook news feed consist almost solely of my zombie face, since they have no other friends that ever post anything and that they feel sick when they see that photo.

I wanted to try something new this year, but had no good ideas. I finally found some photos and video clips of people making their faces look like ceramic doll faces, with cracks. This looked good, but I feared that since I have no skills in the art department, it would not look that good when I did it.

Here is a link to a video where it looks good: broken doll make-up video.

I first tried it with my leftover white body paint, but the white paint kept flaking off when I added other colors. I gave up after 15 minutes or so and washed it off and tried a white grease paint crayon I had found in a 100 yen shop (a "dollar store"). This did not make the skin that white, but I figured it was close enough to be useful. Then I instead had problems with getting the black to stick. The black that looks really black did not stick on top of the grease paint, and using black grease paint just made everything grey.

Again, I washed all of it off (which was more difficult with the cheap grease paint). I tried the white body paint again, and using a paint brush to put on the other colors very lightly. It worked well enough, and since the party I planned to go to had by then almost started (and it was far away from where I live), I figured I would have to make do. The results look more like a clown, with weird black lines and spots on his face. Or her face? People kept telling me I looked like a girl.

I figured it was better than nothing and rushed to the subway. I rode five stops, including all the big stops in Sapporo, and got many weird looks. But since I am a foreigner, people often look at me anyway so I am used to it.

On my way home, some of the other people from the same party were going the same way. They all changed into "normal" clothes before leaving, and thought I was weird for riding the subway like that. They also took photos of me in the subway. And they were kind enough to explain to me that: "This girl that does not know us and that is laughing very much, she is laughing at you". Which I already knew, but still.

When I off the subway, I stopped by another Halloween party close to where I live too.

When I finally got home, I ended up riding the elevator together with a young Japanese woman. I asked her which floor she wanted, and she said that she lives in the apartment opposite mine. We have never met before, but I think she is not so much a stalker, she just figured that the blond person is probably the one living in the only apartment with Latin letters out of the 200 or so apartments in our building.

She also asked me: "So, you are from a place 'like that'?" (「そういう店ですか？」), with which I have no idea what she meant. I said that I had been to a Halloween party, and she said "Ah! I see." So apparently she had been thinking of something completely different.