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real life

A 3621-post collection

PLNs and high finance

I got my travel insurance settled, yesterday. As well as all the mad dash to get a substitute skirt done with minutes to spare. So to speak.

The price for the finished emergency outfit is literally one tenth the price of the dream dress. Which, I might add, Hello Cosplay is now not sending out until... either today or tomorrow.

I've enquired about them sending it to me by overnight express [since regular post delivers inside 3 weeks] but I haven't heard back from them.

Today, I am checking the capelet MeMum made for warmth, doing some test patches on the underside of my arm [both for effectiveness and effect], making a closure for the capelet and wearing and singeing my "photo" so that it looks like it's been through the wringer.

Meanwhile, 80Km away in Boronia Heights, MeMum is slaving over a hot sewing machine to get the firkin skirt done.

My corset should arrive today, and if the emergency skirt fails, then I can plausibly head out in my petticoats. Fuck it. It's steampunk. People will wear whatever the hell ancient lingerie they please.

I still gotta wax my abundantly hirsute legs, trim my monobrow, refresh my supplies of pills, arrange to blue my hair, get a doctor's note for ALL of my supplements so I can take a day's dose up on the plane o_O

And I have $20 in my wallet to last me until next week. Sorry, Mum. I had to go shopping at Golden circle for Poppas and I found a bulk supply of those tissues I was talking about.

Argh.

I will eventually reach the Fuckit Point, where I gleefully announce, "fuck it!" and pack whatever I have and that will be definitively it.

Cue the Lone Ranger Theme Music

This is the email I got from Hello Cosplay. You can understand that this is nails-down-the-chalkboard stuff for me.

My corset is in transit because I now dwell in the 91Kilo zone. My dress is in limbo.

I had to rush arrangements for the kids because I will be in Boronia Heights, 80K away, getting a kludge skirt together out of whatever we can manage.

At least Spotlight takes Amex.

Alas, I shall also be rushing today's Instant because I only have

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More lessons learned

Post makeup lesson one: I should have applied vaseline.

It's the little things that "everyone knows" that trip a body up. In this case, "everyone knows" to put vaseline on body hair before applying sticky stuff.

Not I, said the mouse.

Following the usual thing-making, I shall be posting pics of my horrible face again. Be warned.

[Shown here: reassembled clock]

Beloved drilled some holes and we re-screwed in the embellishments. The bell will be pointing towards my rear, so people will

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Tests and Finessing

Be prepared. This blog contains images that some may find disturbing.

That's right, gentle readers. I finally got my keister in gear and did a makeup test.

But first - a little about what we're doing with the clock.

[Shown here: clock bits]

First, we took off the bell and the two brass feet so we could remove those weird little bracer things. They'd just get in the way.

[Shown here: Red clock insert and belt clips]

This is the result of

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Round, round, I'm run around...

Welcome to the Last Mad Dash, the final 80Km relay in the Cosplay 2016.

Today, I am taking my admittedly limited funds to Spotlight to get the best look material for Bitzer's capelet. It has to be warm, because night-time temperatures in Tucson head to the single figures, it has to be woven, because MeMum can't pilot an overlocker, it has to look pretty nice, because Bitzer's a robot with standards, and it has to be cheap because I'm almost broke.

You

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Print crazy

Many of you probably don't remember the first time you got a printer. I do. Of course, this was before I found out what the internet was, but the ability to make copies of things, or even print out stuff on demand? It was like magic.

I'm pretty sure I did more damage to the rainforests of the world with my first printer than I have throughout the rest of my life. Heck, I even printed and bound a "book" of sorts,

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I got Beloved a gift!

It's always hard to shop for the snuggle-buddy who can get everything they want for themselves. Unless, that is, Aldi's happens to be selling 3D printers for $500.

The next-best commercial price for a 3D printer is around $1600, from Jaycar's. So this thing is literally less than half the price.

Caveat emptor - you have to at least know something about these things to get anything decent out of it. Including that it uses absolute meters of filament to print anything

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Progress and setbacks

I hit the 92 zone, this morning. 92.6 kilos. On one hand - hooray, I'm losing weight and that should be good for me. On the other - boo, the corset I have is now too big. And I have no idea where to get cheap and comfy corset stuffing.

I have got in contact with the corset people to see if I can swap it out for the same style in one size down. Fingers crossed that it won't break

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Spoonless...

The blockage in my lungs is not preventing me from getting air, apparently. I've been taking the nebuliser to little or no actual effect. And certainly zero relief.

I couldn't sleep because of the blockage. It's a struggle to breathe in. So, long about midnight, we had the home service doctors swing on by and take a look at me. That's how I know my asthma meds are working, even though it feels like some invisible python is crushing my windpipe. Or

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Zip ties and superglue solve lots of problems

...but not the one where I have to spend a lot of money to keep breathing.

Beloved and I restocked my medication stores, yesterday. It was quite the shopping list:

  • Ventolin nebules
  • Atrovent nebules
  • Magnesium tablets
  • Olive leaf extract tablets [I refuse to take the liquid, it is gut-wrenchingly gross]
  • Vitamin C
  • Probiotics
  • Cough syrup of the expectorant variety
  • Herbal anti-anxiety stuff

And a few items of sundry miscellany that were neither here or there. Now... how much would you expect to

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Asthma Games I Play (and other business)

I want it to be understood that a shortness of breath is something of a default state for me. Asthma creeps up on me by slow increments that are nearly invisible. I should be checking my nails for blueness, but if I do so regularly, I don't notice how much blue has crept up on me.

So I play really odd games like:

  • Is it a cough or a tickle?
  • How shallow is my breathing?
  • Do I really need my medicine or
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A cup of vegemite, a hug, and a good lie down...

Way back in the bad old days when procreation was all the justification needed to keep people from being equal... And Bex was known as an effective painkiller and not an addictive substance... the panacea of the time was "A cup of tea, a Bex, and a good lie down."

Well, I need a panacea that works because I'm now panicking about really minor things. As well as battling some asthma from Hades.

And no, dear Americans, I do not eat Australia's

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Aaaaaaahhhh...

Packing just got ten thousand percent easier. Turns out a discussion about luggage got me crosswired into thinking I could only take a carry-on-sized suitcase for all of my convention needs.

Now that I'm packing a proper-sized suitcase, all is well and I am much more relaxed about getting things together than I was, yesterday.

I'm up to the Unneccessary props, now. Things like "Maman's" photograph and the hip crank. I don't really need them for Bitzer's little routines because I've figured

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LUGGAGE!

Ok so I'm only allowed one small suitcase and one carry-on.

The small suitcase is BARELY big enough to hold the hatbox.

If I'm careful about how I pack, I can fit a lot of my cosplay extras in with the hat.

BUT - the makeup containers I have are too messy to go in with the hat [maybe if I ziplocked them into baggies?] and too big to go down the sides with other, more compactable things.

There's no real room

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Coming together!

I have some prednisone to help combat the bad asthma I've got. I should be done with it in six days, and back to what passes for normal before then.

The inside of the mask has a few more coats to go before it's prosthetic-ready. Naked paper maché is a thirsty material.

And as for the heart...

[Shown here: heart base with the springs inserted]

The final assembly is ludicrously easy, compared to the rest of it.

I got rid of the

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