Bat Symbols and the Pride With Which We Still Wear Them...

On the weekends, I work at the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha Wisconsin.
This is a place more-or-less completely over-run by nerdy and geeky people on an every day basis. (and yes, I mean every day. Even during the week, when there is no faire, those who live temporarily and permanently onsite are all card carrying members of the Geekdom world. They work at a Ren Faire, for heaven's sake.)
When the Dark Knight Rises came out at midnight, and the shooting occurred in Aurora, I was upset for the families and people affected by this tragedy, but also for the film itself and the outcome of that night. I thought, and was correct, that this would be an end for a lot of the costuming that people do in celebration of a new movie and a midnight premiere, for security reasons; this would also shine a very negative light on many of those who attend Midnight premieres and partake in the costuming aspect because it would imply that they may think they are or wish to be characters in the film. James Eagan Holmes dressed in black ballistics and died his hair before his crime, and when he was apprehended, he claimed he was the Joker.
We're not all like James Holmes.
But these were reasons that we could mourn for, on the side of the tragedy of the victims.
This meant that our fandom was being frowned upon for the evil of just one of our number.
I thought it would be hard for some to represent themselves as a fan of the Batman, now. But I was very wrong.
This past weekend, among the crowds of people, I spotted probably close to a hundred Batman logo tee-shirts and backpacks and even some drinking vessels (that means cups), among the throngs of garb , belly dancing and chain-mail clad patrons, over the course of just the two days.
In every color, and throughout every age group, I saw many people sporting the Bat Symbol.
I recall turning to a cast mate and commenting about how happy I was to see that many folk in the symbol and Jaqui (my castmate) said:
"that's the community doing their part to mourn and still show their support for our Dark Knight."

If I wasn't supposed to remain in costume, I would most certainly have gone back to my car and changed into the Dark Knight Rises shirt I had inside that I got at the Mind Frame midnight premiere.

Much love, best wishes,
Wear the heck outta your Bat Symbol!
-Bridge

Dark Knight Rises and the Sanctuary of the Picture Palaces

I'm sure many of you got a chance to see the newest and supposedly final installment to Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy. I, like many of my fellow DC fans, bought tickets ahead of time, slipped on a catsuit, made a leather mask and stayed up late with my boyfriend and a few close friends to see Bale take on yet another strife, saving the city of Gotham once again, and perhaps for the last time, as the Dark Knight, Batman.
The film had me standing and fangirl-ing in my black cat ears by the end, and raving about it outside in the parking lot until everyone else but us had left.

It was when we arrived home and I got a chance to check my tweets that I finally read the news of the Denver, Colorado Dark Knight Rises shooting, in which at least 10 had been reported killed (at the time-later it would be declared 12) and more than 30 injured (later numbers ranged at 59-70), by a masked and armored man in possession of no less than four fire-arms. The shots were fired about 39 minutes into the film, and the patrons in the theater at first believed it to be special effects of the film. This was only after a form of irritant (some form of teargas) was released on one of the four theaters. The bullets passed through the walls of one of the theaters and into the one next to it, hitting a patron in that theater.

James Holmes was arrested outside the theaters moments after.

Reading the tweets and news reports about those injured and dead because they happened to be out enjoying the Cinema late at night for a special event makes me rethink the phrase:
"At the wrong place and at the wrong time", because people like Jessica Gwahi (@JessicaRedfield) and her friend Brent, who was with her at the moment that Jessica was shot twice and later passed on; people like Alex Sullivan, who died taking a bullet for his wife, had EVERY RIGHT to be there, as did every single person sitting in those seats. Enjoying something that was supposed to be safe. Something that was supposed to be fiction.

In the 1930's and '40's, the movie theater was a haven. A place to escape the struggles and strife of the everyday world. You didn't have to be trying to keep the bank from forclosing on your house, and the War didn't have to have taken your brothers, sons, and husbands away. Dorothy always made it home, Shirley Temple always gained a family, and the good guy always defeated the baddies.
A Theater is a safe place. A sanctuary. The one place in this whole world where the ones who sacrifice and perish, and the ones who fall victim are always okay in real life.
That safe place, that line between fiction and reality has been blurred, today. The terror that was to stay behind the screen was unleashed, and that may be one of the cruelest elements of this event- the lack of security regarding what's real in the refuge that is the cinema, and in our own minds.
What I fear most about this event, is not the guns used, but is the deception. And, curiously, the disappointment.
I try not to think about this, but I can't help but realize how excited it was for these movie-goers to be seeing this film at midnight. It was supposed to be fun. We were supposed to be free from the worries. Some of us will now will never get to have worries again.
It's the contrast between the excitement they felt and the truth of the events that have me swallowing tears.

Much love, best wishes, and do your best to atone for the mistakes in our species by doing something selfless this week.
I love you.
-Bridge

The Rites of Passage: This year I can....?

I'm just sitting here in the library at the computer, (which is an incredibly awkward way to sit at a computer, seeing as how I always assume EVERYONE is reading over my shoulder and EVERYONE is watching me stalk my new Ren-Faire castmates) when it occurs to me that there was a time when I couldn't use the computer in the section of the library where I now sit. I had to use a computer in the children's room.
And oh, how I wanted to use a computer in the reference section, just like the grown-ups.
This made me think, also, about how every age for an adolescent (or a child, really!) is a landmark
Here's some that I can name:

Age 4: the first age that I can remember ACTUALLY SUBSCRIBING to. I remember when people used to ask how old I was, I would hold up 4 fingers like I was only a year away from renting a car.
I don't honestly remember conciously knowing how old I was before that.

Ages 5-9: Bit of a blur. I was homeschooled. I had no age-defined privliges.

Age 10: The double digits. Why this mattered in particular, I don't really know. I was a 4th grader. I was a hopeless loser as well.

Age 11: I still say that my mom stole my letter from Hogwarts. I know one was sent. But I wasn't the "Chosen One", so I guess they didn't send more than one owl my way.

Age 12: One more year 'til I'm a teenager! And I'm officially a Middle Schooler now! Well, I was a 6th grader last year, but it hardly counts... And I always called it Junior High, even though my school district had stopped calling it that and had it adopted title of Middle School around '96. But Junior High sounded better to my Wonder Years, Boy Meets World, & Dawson's Creek fed mind. I knew/KNOW the name is coming back.
I was so retro, I was hipster. Even at age 12.

Age 13: Officially a teenager! I could see PG-13 rated movies (though I never did). I was also, the top of the school, seeing as how I was an 8th grader, and next year would be walking the thoroughly guilded halls of the High School.
Big leagues now, baby!

Age 14: I was a freshman...BUT I ALSO COULD NOW USE THE COMPUTERS IN THE REFERENCE SECTION OF THE LIBRARY!!!!
Age 15: I could legally have a part-time job with hours that ranged from, like 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. limiting the hours to 8 a week. Not that I did have a job! Also: in 6th months, I would be allowed to go for my permit! Which ment that Driving Lessons began and thorough Awesome-ness was right around the corner!

Age 16: I could officially, legally get my drivers license, if I passed the test...which I didn't...5 times...delaying me from getting my license until...

Age 17: Yep. I got my license this year. BUT! I was also:
Allowed to watch Rated-R movies (which I got into even when I was 16)
An adult Sim
An Adult Wizard
Allowed to donate blood (which I also didn't do until later in life)

Age 18: A legal adult...I haven't done anything note-worthy.
Technically, I can move out, but I'm a student and my room is decorated.
I can be charged as an adult for any crime I have committed, but I haven't committed any...
I actually donated blood this year, but I could have done that at age 17.
If I was a guy, I'd need to register for the Draft, but I'm a girl.
18 isn't as eventful as it seems...

Well, that's that then.
I really am no different from 4-year-old me. The only exception being that I drive a car, I can go to scary movies, I look a bit taller, and a pint of my blood is potentially flowing through 3 people's veins.
I'm not a whole lot smarter, though.

Much Love, Best Wishes, and Yours Cordially,
Bridge

Sub Count: 10

It's Leap Day. The title of this post has nothing to do with it's contents...

So I've been away for a long time...
Let me sum up my past month and 10 days:
1.Me and Tyler didn't work out. Do your best not to look too shocked.
2.I was Wendy in the musical Peter Pan. Not to toot my own horn, but I rocked it. Proof:

3.I was cast as Sandrine & Hope in my community theater's performance of Almost, Maine.
4. I got Bronchitis
5. I auditioned for the Bristol Renaissance Faire. I was supposed to drive 2 hours to get there. It took me 3 both ways.
6. Bronchitis because a Sinus Infection due to poor care of my Earthly Vehicle (my body)
7. Found out I got into the Bristol Renaissance Faire as a member of RenQuest (Hurray!)
8.Was invited to spend a week this June in Ireland.

So...Lots of stuff have been going down.
I'll get back to you with other coolness sometime soon!
Yours Cordially,
Much Love, Best Wishes
Bridge

Sub Count: 9

Dear John Green...

I've read every one of your books. Most of them several times.
And I have come to a conclusion.
You have written, through 3 of your 5 novels, and through 3 of your many characters, a variation of a recipe for the girl living my life thus far. 
Although I know there are probably 30,000 teenagers who are saying the same thing that I am right now, I feel like I'm on a different plane. 
I'm sure they do as well.
But my being is different. My story is different. And though I have always been an avid reader of many books, what you posses and command in your writing, while it is yours to do so (i.e. before it reaches the hands of it's readers) is the ability to write people. Not characters, but human beings. 
I am, in a manner of speaking, what one would get if one stuck Pudge (Looking for Alaska), Hazel (TFiOS) and Margo (Paper Towns) into a blender, pausing only to remove small, unimportant details like, say: testes, cancer, an 1/8 of the melodrama. 
With friends who change our lives by ending theirs, by committing me to a humiliating (yet nostalgically comical)1. 3 years of failing a drivers test, by tossing me in with one boy who broke my heart but opened my eyes, and another still who will tell me his life story by writing it in dry erase marker on a lazy Susan of a whiteboard in the center of a circular table in the library of a college neither of us attended....I sufficiently feel that my whole story is adequate enough to be the plot to one of your books. 
The only thing I'm missing: the epiphany that each being comes to in your novels. What makes them see what we don't.
What makes them...novel.
So I appeal to you, John.
Write me an epiphany?

Much Love, Best Wishes
Bridge

Things are going right, and I can't explain it...

Okay, so everyone who has followed my blog/twitter for the past year knows that I am a stranger to good fortune. Nothing goes my way: Not in relationships, not in family life, not in jobs, not in opportunities and CERTAINLY not in scholastics. (I like learning, just not their way.) In short, last year sucked. Big time.
Well, God and fate must have gotten together and decided that I've had my fair share of misfortune, because this year,
EVERYTHING IS GOING RIGHT!
and I don't know how to cope.
First of all, back in December I got the role of Wendy in the musical. But the actual show is in February, so I'm counting it as this year. Also, I got confirmation on going to LeakyCon, which is being held in Chicago this year, and there is no way that it's ever going to be closer to us than it is now. I was recently told to audition for a part in the cast of this years Bristol Renaissance Faire, something that everyone knows that I've been simply DYING to do for years. And last, but certainly not least, I went to Dorian a week ago, which is a vocal music festival where I sang with an outstanding 1,200 voices. That's way more than who I sang with in Carnegie Hall. (Yes, I know I still owe you all that blog post.)
While I was at Dorian I made some truly fantastic friends. We called ourselves the Wolf Pack and were so named: Alpha, Beta (me), Delta, Gamma, and Omega. There were also a few hunter nicknames mixed in.
Here's a picture of most of us:

However, while I was there, I met a boy. (can you spot him?)
Now, I'm not usually the type of person to get swooney about boys. In fact, I'm not swooney now. But I can't say that I don't like him.
Honestly, what's not to like.
The thing is: he's totally wonderful, and he really likes me. I just don't quite understand why I'm suddenly interesting enough for a guy like him.
I guess we'll be seeing where this takes us, no? 
Much love, best wishes!
Bridge


Sub Count: 4

My the Force, and the Tardis, be with you...

My the Force, and the Tardis, be with you... by bridgetincognito featuring skinny leg jeans

Dsquared skinny leg jeans, £314
Madewell vintage hosiery, $13
Converse hi top shoes, $45
Black handbag, $58
Pendant, $28
Star jewelry, $5
Nagellack - kläder och märkeskläder online - NELLY.COM, £149


This was what I wore to school today. Literally. Well, the only exception was the necklace. Instead of being the Tardis Key, it was the Doctor Who logo, made for me by an artist friend. Anyway, I hope you appreciate the TSWGO bracelet I added!