Here’s a quick post about two of my favorite t-shirts. I think...

Here’s a quick post about two of my favorite t-shirts. I think they’re the oldest articles of clothing in my closet. I’ve kept them both for about ten years and I have no plans to give them away.

The first is a Series of Unfortunate Events t-shirt that my mom bought me the day that The Carnivorous Carnival came out. If you’re not familiar with this children’s book series, it basically follows three newly orphaned, super smart rich kids as they’re running away from an evil man who’s after their inheritance. At least one person dies, is kidnapped, or seriously injured in each of the 13 books. It’s gothic satire for children. It’s fantastic. My tattoo was inspired by a fictional secret organization in the series. I own all the books and I plan to read them to my children if I ever decide to adopt (though it’s more likely that I’ll end up reading them to my snake). I’ve only heard the author speak in person once and it was at a lecture for writing students that I snuck into, so I had to sneak back out before anyone noticed that I didn’t belong there. I was too nervous to talk to him anyway.

My dad bought me the second shirt at Comic Con 2004 (side story: while we were there, I met Keanu Reeves but didn’t shake his hand because I had a cold, he looked sad, and I didn’t want to exacerbate his obvious misery by getting him sick). The original Dawn of the Dead is my favorite zombie movie and has been since I was a child. Zombies are a family favorite. It’s been pretty cool having parents who’ve always indulged in these things with me and my younger sister. We regularly attend horror conventions and play homemade zombie board games with other family and friends. I know it’s bizarre to a lot of people that we’re like a modern, Mexican Addams family, obsessed with horror culture and death and paranormal phenomena. But just like the Addams family, we’re perfectly content in our eccentricity. We’ll sit in the kitchen and drink Abuelita (not my actual abuelita, I mean the hot chocolate) while watching Evil Dead because that’s what makes us happy.

Elsewhere: Facebook | Bloglovin | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest