Oh My Goth! ~ Then & Now

Image by ME!

Back in January, I blogged about some ideas I'd had for Some Dark Romantic. I'd built it as a platform for my author persona, as a way to connect with folks who might get a kick out of the kooky romances I like to write. In my first year of blogging I made loads of great connections with other bloggers, which is le awesome, but I felt perhaps I was drifting from my bloggy purpose, just a wee bit. So I considered who I am, as a writer and as a person. I strongly identify with being a Goth Mom (Lite!) and decided I should expand on the Goth part of this self-conferred title.


I got into the alt rock back in the early 80s, when more traditional rock was being tsunamied by the "new wave/post-punk" movement in music. Beginning with the New Romantics, Duran Duran, with whom I fell in love, I grew to dig Depeche Mode, Blondie, Ministry, New Order, Yaz, Love and Rockets, B-52s, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, The Smiths, and The Cure, to name just a very few. I eschewed the bright, bubblegum pop of the day for the synthy, bassy, often dark and spooky vibes I caught from the above, as well as other bands I heard on my favorite New York radio station, WLIR (the station that DARED to be different).

Oh, to go back in time and even out those bangs!

My closest friends, who were all about the Doc Martens and black eyeliner, could take the train into Manhattan to hang out in Greenwich village. Those chicks got the cool stuff from thrift shops and whatnot, and really got properly into the Goth lifestyle. Not I. I was very, very, very sheltered. I couldn't go anywhere that wasn't school or family related, so I never got to hang in the village and kick it Goth style, as I'd have liked. I did the best with what little I had. I wore dark colors and vivid red lipstick. I strove to spike my hair but wound up less Siouxsie Sioux and more Generic Big 80s Hair (as evidenced by this pic from my senior year of high school). I wrote songs and short stories about sex. (This hasn't changed.)

Anyway, my Goth sensibilities were more about the music and fantasies than about a particular look, though I was so well known in my family for wearing mostly black that a cousin once remarked of me, "There she goes...always appropriately dressed for a funeral." Like I said, I didn't have the opportunities (or freedom) to experiment, so I did what I could and shrugged off the rest. I stuck with the black, mixed it up with blood red accents, and pressed on with long, sweeping skirts and dark, smutty thoughts.

Goth Mom Lite today...my, what an unfortunate nose...

Then I had my kid and life changed. A lot. I went from marriage to separation to single-motherhood to having to settle-the-fuck-down, put-aside-my-dreams, and provide-for-my-child, in what now seems a heartbeat. I suppressed a lot; in fact, I still do. But the wanna-be Goth Chick within yearns to break free. I continue to don the dark garb and paint my lips red, but in a manner which might now be termed "Corp Goth," or Corporate Goth. I'm not as nattily attired as some Corp Goths, though (money's tight with The Kid at college and I've got loads of single-mom debt). But, again, I do what I can with what I've got. I look forward to the day when I can let my inner Morticia cut loose. (I look forward to this like you just wouldn't believe...) I console myself with the thought that she's in there, just biding her time, and that she's always been with me, even if only in the deepest, darkest recess of my heart.

Blog, the First

Some...

...girls are bigger than others?

...day, someway, maybe I'll understand you?

...people dance cheek to cheek?

...like it hot, and some sweat when the heat is on?

...times the truth is harder than the pain inside?

Dark...

I first became aware of mortality, generally, and of my own in particular, when I was about five. I was in kindergarten at a Catholic school and, as my classmates speculated about that spring's Easter Bunny haul, I was haunted by the "Davey and Goliath" Easter special, in which Davey's grandmother dies, which I seem to recall thinking was pretty messed up. (GAH, just watching this clip tied my stomach in knots.)

Anyway, my mind's traveled a gloomy trajectory ever since, though I prefer my doom with a liberal dose of L.O.L. (I adore "Shaun of the Dead"). Also, I prefer supernatural monsters to psycho-killers (though the Talking Heads tune is groovalicious), 'cause they're, like, totally not real. Probably. Anyway, as time goes by and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune perforate my poor, tortured psyche, I find I gravitate even more closely toward that which is...well, dark.

Romantic...

I gravitated toward books at an early age too - possibly, my first literary obsession was the Nancy Drew series. Sure, I enjoyed a good, neatly resolved mystery, and how could I fail to love that it was the chicks who figured everything out??? But, being completely honest, the thing that absolutely drove me to read more, more, MORE was the hope that something...special would happen between Nancy and her boyfriend Ned. I wanted their love to blossom. At the tender age of 9 or 10, my sweet, school-uniformed, unquestioning-obedience-to-authority, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth self wanted Nancy and Ned to...put on some Marvin Gaye. (I had no idea what this meant back then, and yet somehow, I kinda did.) And beneath what I sensed was a physical event I believed should lie a grand, passionate, everlasting love...and since Nancy had it all, I wanted it for myself, with one whose heart could match the nobility of my own.

So, as dark and somewhat twisted as I am, the romantic in me allows hope to dance her dangerous way through my heart...which brings me here to pollute the world with my nonsense, 'cause, you know, all the other kids are doing it.