Barbie Project Runway Winners

We've had many challenges in our past as Barbie Project Runway competitors, and as my friend and fellow competitor Jackie once said, we've grown as designers.

The first challenge ever was to create something that told everyone who we were as designers.  The winner was Liz with her party dress and vest combo:

The second challenge was to create a look on our sign of the Zodiac, known as "The What's Your Sign Design."  The winner of this Challenge was Jackie with an amazing combo of black and red for her Scorpio Dress.

The Third Challenge was to create a Wedding Dress out of things we could find in our local Grocery Store.  The winning look was actually a tie between Judy and Me.  Judy used pasta to achieve her look and I used cake, frosting, and coconut. 

The fourth challenge was to create a look for a Drag Queen.  We brought out the Ken dolls and brought out the camp.  I thought all our looks were inspired, but Judy's look shone like a star for all to see!  We called it Marie Man-toinette. 

The next year was a reunion competition.  The challenge, which invited new designers, was to create a look that inspired you as a designer.  We had many amazing looks for this, and I will post pictures to showcase the variety we had, but the winner was me with my purple evening gown. 

And our last challenge in 2011 had a fairytale theme.  We were to base a look on a fairytale of our choice.  Once again we had many successes, but Angela won with her Red Riding Hood design.

I can't wait to see what the new challenge will bring.  I was telling Joseph that I wanted to have a challenge based on the "Pretty in Pink" dress, because I hated the actual one in the movie.  But Joseph said that our new challenge should be based on MY FAVORITE BARBIE EVER.  So 2012's challenge is to create a look based on 1984's Peaches n' Cream Barbie.  We have old favorite designers, and some new competitors to show us what they got.  I can't wait, the party is on October 19th, and I've just begun to work on my look.  Watch out, BPR fans! 

Top Ten Barbie Project Runway Craziest Outfits

The "Barbie Project Runway" challenge my friends and I made up for ourselves has lead to some memorable moments.  Here are the top ten Craziest Outfits:

10.  Angela's Drag Queen Design.  After the feather boa came off, her drag queen-turned-stripper offered us a look I like to call "Rooster Cock-burn."

9.  The Salami Net and Tinfoil Dress Rolaine entered for the Grocery Store Wedding Dress Challenge had a lot going on:

8.  The Handkerchief Ho-Down, which was created by Karen, was a very bare bones use of a snot-rag:

7.  Roberta Sanchez had to spend time in the refrigerator for this one from the Grocery Store Wedding Dress Challenge:

6.  Raquel brought the Glue Gun to new highs with her off-the-hook feathered cocktail dress!

5.  We're half way there!  In the Design for your Sign challenge, I wanted to make a look that brought the idea of a lion for Leo out in the open, so I made what I thought was a beautiful gown with a break-away skirt.  No one was buying it, this fashion faux-pas received zero votes!

 

This was the break-away skirt from above, Roberta was literally a Lioness!!!

4.  Paul came to one of the challenges to enter his Barbie (who goes by the moniker "Chunk-of-Junk")  and when we saw the look we were shocked that it was so tight that it was literally painted on. 

3.  From the Drag Queen Challenge, I created a look I entitled "Burqa Al'Gaydah" which featured a see-through burka.  Not the most PC, I know, but this is what being a Drag Queen is all about:

2.  Also from the Drag Queen Challenge, Judy wowed us with her dazzling look entitled "Marie MAN-toinette."

 

AND FINALLY!!!  The number ONE choice for our Barbie Project Runway Craziest Look is from our first challenge ever!  Jackie created a look that expressed her edgier take on the challenges.  In all her bondage styling and crazy baby carrier, her Barbie wore a fashionable dress made of Duct Tape!

Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear which was your favorite crazy look!

 

The Shirt

So when we took our little vacation (Joseph took a whole week and I had eight days, which overlapped into a long-ish weekend) to Idaho to visit the family, Joseph got his fishing in.  I mean he really got it in.  We got there on Saturday and he went and bought his license.  Then on Sunday and Monday we fished.  Tuesday we left.  I got to see most of my family because they came fishing with us on Sunday.  Then on Monday, I got some good face time with Mom, the only family member to go out with us.  I don’t fish, I read magazines and talk a lot and basically annoy Joseph when I drink too much Fisherman’s Coffee (a weak-as- tea blend in a thermos) and my feet start tapping the dock.  I had wanted to see friends.  I had wanted to go walk around my home town a little, maybe grab a fancy Idaho dinner with wine and paper napkins.  But we had to make do with a little lunch and shopping in Bonners Ferry between the morning and afternoon fishing trip on Monday.  It was nice.

    Joseph had to hit the store, too.  You know THAT store: the one that is the largest retailer in the world; the one that promises the lowest prices; the one that they say is destroying America.  Yep, we shop at THAT store.  And we love it (sorry little Chinese children).  We try to balance our love of this store by demanding Made in America items in other stores.  We have double standards, but that’s not the point.  The point is that I was very, very good and I didn’t buy anything for myself.  Joseph bought me a bar of soap at a tourist shop in Bonners Ferry, but I didn’t buy anything for me.  Joseph bought his fishing license, and the tackle, and spent the gas getting us up to the fishing holes, and he bought two new shirts.  One was a long sleeve tee that had a dog fishing for a boot and it said, “Still beats a day at work.”  The other, my friends, was beautiful.

                This shirt was a basic men’s flannel shirt with the collar and the buttons down the front.  Done up in mostly brown, the plaid also incorporates an ecru and an indigo-toned black.  Joseph bought it in his size, so when I was freezing my anatomy off on the first fishing day, Joseph pulled it out of the bag for me to wear over all my other sweatshirts.  And that’s when I knew.  I loved this shirt.  It loved me.  We were meant to be together. 

                Let me be clear, I have never stolen any of Joseph’s clothing (except for a red hooded sweatshirt, but I maintain that I knew he would have given it to me after it shrunk in the wash).  But I was going to have to steal this shirt.  I was the first one to wear it.  I was the first one to feel how soft and loving it was.  I was the one who could wear it over all my other layers.  Joseph usually gives me things.  He gives me everything that shrinks in the wash.  So I have a lot of hoodies that are in boring shades of men’s colors: gray (I actually love this one), black, etc.  Sometimes he gives me a shirt he’s done with and then sees it on my side of the closet a year later and accuses me of stealing it.  His memory is fuzzy and easily confused and very, very convenient for him.  That being said, I knew this shirt was mine. 

                We got back from vacation and I washed our clothing.  I put the shirt on my side of the room and wore it shopping.  Then I wore it to work.  And then, this morning, for no reason at all, Joseph was wearing the shirt! 

                “Hey,” I said.  “That’s my shirt!” 

                “No , I don’t think so,” he said, and left for work!  Just like that! 

                So then I whipped out the cell phone and start texting.  I am now going to disclose a real-life text conversation:

Frank:  Don’t get anything on my shirt.

Joseph: Fat chance woman! (He calls me woman as though it’s degrading, he’s very sexist.)

Frank:  It’s a LADY’s shirt!  You look like a lesbian!  (I’m very homophobic.)

Joseph:  Nice try.

Frank:  What was that?  All I could make out from your text was “cats, lady mullets, tampons.”

Joseph: Oh, you have the lesbianese translator function turned on … seeing as how you are GAY and not lesbian, I recommend you turn it off …

Frank:  Then how would I understand you or Oprah?

Joseph: I am sure you will figure it out. 

                So now that sexist cracker (and I think it is okay that I call him that because we are both white, right?) is prancing around his work place in MY shirt!  And now he’s getting all his manly vibes on it and when I get it back it’s going to smell like him!  It might be nice to smell him on clothing I borrow from him, but my clothes should smell like me!  (I currently smell like Butterfly Flower from Bath and Body Works.) 

                I need to plan my next move, which may be to embroider a supper cool flower on the collar … which will require I actually learn embroider, which I won’t, as I am lazy.  This war is far from over.  This shirt is mine.  Mine.  Mine.  Mine.

Existential Laziness

So I just came across a very lovely picture of a deciduous tree all lit up in a field of snow and I know that it was the very tree that graced the cover of Living, Martha Stewart’s impeccable magazine.  It is all white lights with big white star lanterns hung in strategically casual places.  It is glowing.  It is wonderful.  It is beautiful.  And I hate it almost as much as I hate stepping in poo. 

                Without a doubt, last year’s Christmas tree was a flop.  It never quite felt like Christmas at my house and I strongly suspect that is because of my choice in trees.  This picture was came along after I started my decorating process and made everything I was trying to do look like crap.  This year I will be back to the old drawing board.  And why not?  This is a new Christmas, and it’s our first Christmas renting a new house in Tacoma … our first Christmas in Tacoma!

                But what is this Christmas going to be?  Joseph and I have been straying away from our normal “make all the gifts and even if they’re crappy they still mean more than something from Nordstrom’s” mentality.  We aren’t made of money (duh, we’re in the bottom ninety-nine percent in this country).  But I have very little love in me for knitting, or sewing, or canning jams, or any of those crafts that used to contribute to the bulk of our gift-giving.  Joseph mentioned yesterday that he felt like knitting more rugs for this year, but I think that just might be the cold weather giving him a burst of energy. 

                And that got me thinking, too.  I’ve identified myself so much with trying to be a would-be crafter, I haven’t really thought of what I might be if I’m not a knitter or a canner.  Maybe I’m just lazy. 

                Well!  The television isn’t going to watch itself!

Barbie Dolls

When I was little, I used to be fascinated by the Barbie doll commercials that played on Cartoon Day, the day also known as Saturday.  I’m aging myself a little here, because as a nation we’ve become so indulgent that now there is never any day when there are not cartoons on the TV on some channel. Kids are no longer taught that they must wait patiently for six whole days until they see another cartoon.   But I digress. 

I was a boy.  Boys did not play with Barbie Dolls.  I had to ask my mom why they showed Barbie Doll commercials to little boys when we weren’t allowed to play with them, and my mom’s answer was that it was the same reason little girls were shown commercials for boys’ toys.  This was a non-answer, sure, but it quelled my line of questioning.  I was a boy, boys didn’t play with Barbie dolls, and that was that.  But why did I want to play with them so bad? 

Then one day when I was four or five, something amazing happened.  I was watching cartoons (which meant that this was a Saturday, because, as I’ve pointed out, that was the only day with cartoons on TV) and a new Barbie commercial came on.  This, my friends, was the best Barbie to ever be made, and the commercial made you KNOW it.  She was Peaches and Cream Barbie, and she wore a devastatingly beautiful gown with a sequins bodice and full, peach skirt.  She had a wrap of peach tulle which you could style in a myriad of ways to suit the occasion she was going to.  This, my friends, was the forbidden fruit in my own personal Garden of Eden: it was not an apple, it was a peach. 

My cousin Nita is six years older than I am, and her birthday was coming up.  This meant that she would have been turning ten or eleven years old.  My Gram decided she would take me shopping so that I could pick out a gift to give to Nita.  I was excited.  I knew we weren’t shopping for toys for me, but shopping for toys period was enough to get me going.  And this would be shopping for girl toys!  This was truly going to be a magical day!  And when we got to the toy aisle, there she was: Peaches and Cream Barbie in her shining cellophane packaging.  She looked into my eyes, and I looked into hers, and she winked at me, I swear it. 

“Gram,” I said, “this is what we HAVE to get for Nita.” 

Gram was not only down with my decision, she one-upped me.  She said we should get the doll and a package full of accessories to go with her!  It was almost too much.  I can still feel my heart swelling up in my throat when I remember driving back to Gram’s house to wrap our gifts up.  If it was possible, the real, live Peaches and Cream Barbie in my hands was even more beautiful than the model they used for the commercial.  She had a California tan, naturally wavy blonde hair, big blue eyes, and lips tinted peach.  The accessory pack included jewelry, a mink wrap, some brushes and hair clips, and a few more pairs of shoes.  This would be the greatest, most wonderful birthday gift anyone every received.  This was f***ing Peaches and Cream Barbie!

We went to the birthday party and Nita was playing with all her friends and I waited.  We had to all eat dinner, and I waited.  We had to sing happy birthday to Nita and she had to blow all the candles out, and I waited.  Finally it was time to open gifts.  Why couldn’t she open Peaches and Cream first?  Why did she have to wait?  Couldn’t she feel the energy radiating from the package I had helped Gram wrap with curly ribbon and a bow! 

Finally Nita opened the package. 

She looked at Peaches and Cream Barbie. 

She looked up at Gram, and she said thank you.

And then she dropped Peaches and Cream Barbie into a pile of  other presents and never looked at her again. 

I was a boy.  I wasn’t allowed to play with Barbie dolls, but I could barely eat my slice of birthday cake because of the lump in my throat.  I wanted so badly to see her again.  I needed to free her from her cellophane prison and hold her in my own hands.  Why didn’t Nita see that this Barbie wasn’t just any Barbie?  This was Peaches and Cream Barbie!  The Best Barbie!  She had her own commercial where she danced with Ken in the pale moonlight!

Gram came to my rescue. 

“Sister,” she said.  Gram always calls Nita Sister.  “I think Frankie might like you to open your doll so he can see her better.” 

Nita obliged.  I wasn’t allowed to play with her, boys can’t play with girl toys.  But for a few shining moments on my Aunt Sis’s couch, I sat silently and held Peaches and Cream Barbie in my own hands and stared into her deep, blue eyes.  There was love between us.  I knew it.  I could feel it.  Peaches and Cream Barbie and I were meant to be together.  But I was a boy and she was a girl toy, so I had to leave her behind and never see her again. 

Many years later, after relating this story to my friend, Judy, I received a nostalgic remake of Peaches and Cream Barbie for Christmas of 2010.  Thank you, Judy.  She is, to this day, one of my most prized possessions.  But it set me to thinking about girl toys and boy toys.  We know as children that they are separate.  If we are one gender we can never play with the toys of another gender.  But what if we divided up the toys based on skin color, or ethnicity, or religion?  What if I couldn’t play with Peaches and Cream Barbie because I didn’t have the right social status? 

Marriage, for me, is like a beautiful Barbie doll.  I can see it, I can want it, I can look deep into its eyes and know that I would love it dearly.  But because of my gender, and the gender of the one I love, I can never have it.  Marriage must be protected from boys and girls who play with the wrong toys by a shining cellophane package.  You would never think to deny me my marriage rights if I picked a spouse of another skin color, another ethnicity, another religion.  But because of the gender of the participants, we all look away when it is denied.  Why is it okay to deny a right in our society because of gender? 

I see so many marriages thrown into a pile of presents and never looked at twice by the people who are allowed to have them.  All I want to do is sit on my aunt’s couch and hold a marriage for a while.  I would love it.  I would treasure it.  I would make it my own.  But I can’t, because I’m a boy, and boys can’t have marriages to other boys.  Grooms are a girl’s  toy. 

Funky Tut

I was looking forward to this weekend so much.  First of all, I was going to the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center with Joseph and my friend Katie and Katie’s sister.  Katie and I are enthusiasts for all things Ancient Egyptian.  And my most favorite thing of all Ancient Egypt is the goddess Isis.  I love her!  Katie and I decided we were the new Priestesses of Isis, which mostly involved us bothering our super-Jesus loving coworker Taylor with pagan slogans we made up and using Isis-code-names for each other.  I was Frankertiti and Katie was Katiepatra.  We are pretty cool, I know.  Joseph was almost willing to be seen with us for this trip. And then I was going to go to the Zoo with one of my most favorite nuclear family units in the whole wide world on Sunday. 

So here are my complaints:

First of all, I’d like to apologize to the Pacific Science Center’s cash register cashiers.  I am so, so sorry I spent money that goes to pay your salary.  I could tell you hate customers, and I have to tell you that the feeling was mutual.  I am so sorry you had to help me.  I am also sorry that I found my way to the exhibit despite your directions mumbled at top speed.  (I’d like to seriously thank the HELPFUL PSC employee who directed us to the bathroom and the exhibit, you are amazing, I was totally lost! Don’t tell your jerk-face coworker.) 

Second of all, I can’t believe I didn’t pass out when, after waiting in line in the August sun I was herded into a small dark room with forty other people where the temperature was even hotter than out in the sun.  I am also at a loss as to why the little park ranger with the microphone felt the need to speak in a movie trailer voice. 

Third of all, I am an adult.  I can chew gum without getting it all over ancient statues.  Don’t police me, police the four year olds.  I can keep a stick of gum off offfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Ghack!  I was holding my gum in my fingers to prove a point and kind of got it stuck on my F key!  I think it’s good now. Fff, yeah, pretty sure.  Sorry about that.

Fourth of all, I have never felt so underwhelmed with ancient statues.  I didn’t even have an overwhelming urge to touch one just to say I did it.  Everything was so overly lit and dimly encased in glass that I felt like I was in a boring jewelry store.  The black draperies were a little overkill; if they had gone with a turquoise or a powder blue I might be reporting a different impression right now.  And yes, King Tut’s statue was a little pudgy and black is slimming, but Tut has a reputation for opulence, and he could have used some Tiffany Blue, just saying. 

I will take a little time to report on my favorite piece.  It was a cat sarcophagus, literally a stone coffin built for a cat.  It was also Katie’s favorite, because she’s a lover of cats.  For me, though, it was the one place I found what I was looking for.  Joseph and I were admiring an Ancient Egyptian toilet seat (seriously) while I was telling some random guy that I’ve been trying to get my toilet seat in a museum for years, when I looked over at the Cat sarcophagus and saw a carving of a goddess with a certain house-basket hieroglyph on her head.  I knew from the Discovery channel that this was Nephthys, the sister-goddess of Isis, and that on ancient sarcophagi the sisters were depicted on opposite ends of each other.  I grabbed Joseph, pointed it out, and excitedly exclaimed, “If my calculations are correct, Isis is just on the other side!”

And she was.  Isis was hiding on a small cat sarcophagus waiting for me to find her.  I know King Tut’s father disbanded the worship of old gods in favor of a monotheism based on the Sun God.  One of Tut’s few accomplishments as a young Pharaoh was to turn the power back over to the priests and allow the traditional gods of Egypt like Isis to be worshipped again.  I didn’t expect to see much of Isis during such an exhibit focused on a time period trying to hush up old gods.  But I was sad I saw only one small depiction of my favorite Egyptian goddess, who stood facing a corner of the room like a punished toddler who tried to chew gum at a King Tut exhibit. 

And then I woke up on Sunday super excited for the zoo.  My GI tract was also excited, but not for the zoo.  So I had to miss it, and my favorite little nuclear family.  I’m super sad about it, but someday I’ll make it to the Point Defiance Zoo, which is in T-town, go Tacoma!  (Although, I kind of blame Tacoma City’s water for my GI problem.)

Athena Polias

 I grewup in Small Town, USA.  The people wholived there were complex, and simple, and wonderful, and awful in the way onlysmall towns can be.  Growing up, I alwaysfelt like an outsider looking in.  I sawfriendships form that I should have included me.  I saw causes and stands made that should havebeen my causes and my stands.  And when Ilooked at my wonderful, crazy, and very beautiful family, I wondered why I wasa part of it.  I never felt at home in myhome.  I never felt at ease in myskin.  And I never felt like I was givingthe world all that I could offer it. This may have been because I was gay, and being gay—especially in SmallTown, USA—meant being an outsider.  Itmight have been because of some kind of ambition that fought with my internallaziness.  Or it might have
                I firstmoved out at nineteen.  And then, when Iwas twenty, I moved to Europe to be with a boy. That went as well as you might think it went, and so I moved back inwith my parents when that European experience went sour.  But I moved out as soon as I could.  Being at home, for me, isn’t the same as itis for my brothers (who are so at ease being at home, they have no compunctionto move out, let alone to raise their children anywhere other than my parents’house).  I have an ingrained need to bemy own person, to be other than my family. Don’t get me wrong.  I love myfamily very much, but I need them to be my background, my foundation.  They are the place I come from so that I cangrow from them.   And I did have a driveto grow from them. 
                When I wastwenty-one, I moved from an amazing rental house I was living in with threeother roommates, two of which are very good friends of mine.  I had had enough of the small town, and Iwanted more from life than Sandpoint, Idaho could offer to a young gay guy inthe year 2000.  I wanted the big bang ofa city, but not too much bang.  So whenmy friend, Carr, offered me a place to sublet in her apartment in Seattle, Ijumped at the chance, and made the move of my lifetime. 
                I movedto the city. 
                On thethird day of the ancient Greek month Skirophorion,the people of Athens celebrated a festival in honor of their patron Goddess,Athena Polias—Athena of the city.  InSeattle, I became Frank Polias—Frank of the city.   I worked in a shop on the corner of 5thand Pine.  I made my home in the U-district.  I drank vanilla breve lattes like they weregoing out of style.  And I fell into theGap and started rocking tight, black, ribbed sweaters.  I saw Seattle for all its worth, its possibilities,its seediness, and its triumphs.  I fellin love in Seattle, and I did the most Seattle thing one could do:  I moved with my love to a small farm outsideof Seattle. 
                I mademany wonderful memories on that little, two-bit farm.  But now I am back in a city.  This time, the city is Tacoma.  But I want to do this city living justice bywriting about it in my blog.  I am goingto be Frank Polias, again, and I am going to harness all my identity as anoutsider looking in to give my blog a taste of Tacoma the way I see it.  Each week, give or take a week, I plan onwriting up my experiences with T-town and publishing a blog about it.  Athena Polias willing, I will give to you myinsights and observations in a yummy little funny story for all of you to eatup and enjoy.  I thank you in advance andlook forward to our future correspondences.