The day I celebrated my birthday (it's actually the last day of this month), two of my best and I went to a book signing by Kim Harrison. (Check out the Appearances page. There's a picture of me and Mashi Chan in both the Fistful or Charms tour and the For a Few Demons More tour, the two signings of hers we attended.)
Kim Harrison writes The Hollows series which follows Rachel Morgan and her journey to find happiness, something I'm sure many of us can relate to. She's sort of a cross between a private eye and cop. Ergh, it's hard to explain, but the hero of our tale is a witch, who's partners with a living vampire and a pixie, and who's legally part of a two person werewolf pack (for insurance purposes). If that doesn't get you, perhaps the villainous cast of demons, dead vampires, and smooth talking business men will. How about all the fun it pokes at Disney with curses like, "Damn it all to Disneyland!" and "Tink's panties!" and "Tink is a Disney whore!" Or how about the killer, genetically altered tomatoes that decimated about half of the world's human population? Humans getting tomatoe products on the down low? Illegal human genetic manipulation? Line dancing vampires? Come on, this series is just a whole lotta awesome! It's awesome prime! While I doubt it will be featured in the literature section of the bookstore anytime soon, this series is a great fun read. While it has plenty of serious and dark plots going on, Ms. Harrison injects so much fun into it that you never feel like slitting your wrist after reading it. You should hear her read it aloud too; her fun tone is very evident. Already on the fifth book in her series (I think), each book is just as good and if not better than the previous one and I have high hopes that she can keep the series up, unlike those series that tend to go downhill after a few books. Keeping my fingers crossed for the sixth book, although perhaps I should finish number 5 first. Dead Witch Walking is the first book in the series, so check it out if you need some light and lite reading and don't let the whole it being in the horror section thing scare you away.
But, this post isn't really to pimp her books out to you, this is about Ms. Harrison's style and her green-eyed dragon conjuring ability at looking good in photos.
Exhibit A) Pick up For a Few Demons More, her latest novel and first hardcover. Flip it over and look at the back of the cover where her author picture is. She made herself look amazingly tall with those black pants and the fun pose.
Exhibit B) At the book signing I went to, she had the coolest jacket. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I got with the jacket in it, and you can't see the awesomeness that is the back of it. It has a little bounce and a jagged hem. Now while that has little to do with the whole photogenic thing, I just had to mention it.
Exhibit C) Look at the picture at the top. She reminds me of a superhero. I think it's the flippy hair. And the stance.
Exhibit D) Doesn't she just remind you of a black rose here?Here's a better look at my dress for the signing.
It's a Forever 21 dress. It had this annoyingly ugly, decorative and non-functional shoe-lace bow on the front, which I cut off. The length was also a little long for my preference, since it made the dress look like a lazy swimwear cover up, which the dress very well may have been. With the way it showed ALL lines south the bustline, I hope it was. You might be able to tell that's so not me if you've read even the teeniest portion of this blog. My solution? I ripped out the seem below the best (and cut the back which lacked the waist band) and cut a few inches off from the bottom portion of my cut, and then sewed it back up with elastic thread. I had to use elastic since I had to hand sew it quickly as the machine wasn't coorperating. I kind of like the scalloped edge effect the elastic thread produced.
As for the design, I used black fabric paint to post a line from one of the character's of the Hollows series, "For the love of Tink!" on it and then painted tiny foot prints since the character is a pixie.
In the picture on the top, Mashi Chan has a line by the same character on her shirt, which says, "Sweet Mpther of Tink!" She's also sporting a red bandanna as the character does at a point in the story as a simple of peace.
The Sabre Kitty right next to me in that photo is sporting a shirt that says, "Kissed by Kist," another character from the book. I swear she convinced all of Oakland we were gay lovers, by hanging on to me, giving evil glares, and enticing me to join her in Ipod Karaoke (which was actually really fun because it's totally what I want to do when listening to my mp3 but fear doing because I'm convinced I'll be stoned for it) because of all the attention I received for wearing my minidress. I mean, have the people of Oakland never seen a minidress before? On the BART this one guy just seemed mesmerized by me as I stood (coming into his view for the first time) and exited the train. If I notice it and can't argue it as something else, you're really bad at subtlty.
Anywho, back on track, the tee I'm holding up says, "It's All Part of my Master Plan," which is a reference to more of a theme in the book. Many of the characters have plans going on, but the original intent of the tee was to make it for Ivy, the character who gets screwed the most by Harrison. You know, the character who everything bad seems to happen to. I felt her pain, plus her first name is the same as my internet first name, while my full internet name wouldn't be out of place on her for the same reasons it applies to me. So, some Ivy Tamwood love, peoples!
The back of all the shirts (not including the dress) say "Go Turn Yourself!" A wonderfully fun curse from the book that I won't explain so as to not spoil the books for you anymore. You must understand why Ms. Harrison loved it so much she gave me and the friends charms.
The star fell on the ground and the guy that the friends and I assumed was a bodyguard (nice guy =) said it was bad luck. He told us to take one charm each, but I had picked up the star and tried to give it back, but my attempts kinda failed... (You know how stuff just kinda goes fast and you're just like, "Okay.") So I kept the star and the heart. I don't fear the bad luck though, since bad luck tends to turn into good luck around me. It's kind of odd; as Midoriko is for demon souls, I am for bad luck. So far, it just seems to give me an odd attraction to cats (one which followed me to the best stop this morning, demanding I pet it directly after running away from two other people who tried to pet it) and a general feeling of happiness. Kim Harrison must be some sort of super hero witch (No relation to Tarot), since she's always handing out charms and wearing cool that witch-chic coat... Maybe that's why her pictures are all so awesome!
Pictures: Click for larger versions and more info. The shoes in my outfit are these payless spray painted a softed yellow than they appear in the picture. Bakers has a slightly more expensive option in bold patent yellow (as well as other colors such a red) with a more almond toe than round.
"I'm going to be the master of disguise,"
Ivy Frozen
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