MeMadeMay 2019 Day 18

“MeMadeMay (2019) day 18. No, I did not go out of the house like this. That is to say, I wore pants when I was outdoors. But since I’m in face for my show tonight (Raven Gemini), I thought it would be fun to be a little more risqué with my photos. You can see various cameo bits of Monterrey Jacques in the background. (mostly his feet, lol.)”

I’ll be REAL honest. These are some of my favorite photos. Ugly Snowflake Tank is still Simplicity 8246. I look fantastic, and it is hilarious to me to see Kenneth’s head randomly growing out of my arm.

Sometimes, I miss being this person. Sometimes, I don’t miss her at all. Sometimes, I still make hypothetical playlists of new songs I’d do acts to, or think about how I’d have to remake all my costumes, and what I’d do differently this time.

I won’t ever really go back, I do know that. There’s really nothing to go back to. There’s one venue here in Chicago, and maybe a couple of really sporadic bar shows, and it seems to me like it’s just the same 15 or so people, passing the same $20 (or $50 or $200 or whatever they’re insisting on getting paid now) back and forth between each other.

And I burned all my bridges anyway. As I hinted earlier, my exit from burlesque was colossally traumatic for me, and there was a period of time where I couldn’t even think about other people still working in the business. I ended up blocking a lot of my friends on social media, not because I didn’t love them, but because hearing about their Zoom show (this was during lockdowns, no less!) would leave me losing hours to hysterical tears. I’m pretty sure most of those people took it rather personally that I chose to do that, but I’m not ever going to apologize for doing it, because I had to protect whatever there was left of me, and I certainly wasn’t in any right mind to try and explain that rationally either, particularly because no one seemed all that interested in treating me with any kind of patience or rationality (or kindness or understanding or nuance or, or, or) either.

…Anyway, there’s a reason why, prior to 2020, I never used my real name publicly, and was basically to the point where I had even asked Kenneth to just refer to me as Raven, and why, after that, I have never once used that name. She really just doesn’t exist anymore.