This is my radical cheer costume from Halloween, seen here in a photo taken with Big Mavica, vs. my cell phone before. As you can see, I spent time on this. I bought the arm things at Hot Topic, I ripped the sleeves off the red shirt, I bought the pins at the Infoshop, I got a pair of black tights, and I doodled “RADICAL CHEER” on the shirt with a Sharpie, and put the anarchy sign on the hat with a Sharpie as well.
And I painted my nails black. That was something right there. I’d never painted my nails before, because that’s just not something I normally do. I do know some guys who regularly paint their nails, but I’m not one of them. I did think it was interesting how differently that my fingers looked with the nails black instead of flesh-colored. Usually it’s the same color all the way across. Then it just looks so different when done in black. I was so taken by it that I photographed it. Take a look:
And a few of my coworkers asked if I did it myself, which I did. And you can kind of tell I did, because I missed the nail in a few places, but still did fairly well. And it’s a matter of pride to do it myself, as I actually declined a few offers from some of my coworkers to get it done for me.
After work, I bought some nail polish remover for 97¢ and in about ten minutes, the nail polish was gone, and my nails were back the way I like them.
What was also funny is that a couple of coworkers told me that they didn’t even recognize me at first. Such is to be expected, I guess, because radical cheer is not my normal “look”. This is my normal look, and add a maroon vest for work. So there you go.
Still, I had a lot of fun. I even got paid a compliment when someone said that they didn’t realize exactly how much of an activist I was before they saw me in costume on Halloween.