Walking Dead: Dia de Los Muertos.

So I'm in this samba group here in Austin, and on Saturday, we performed a Dia de Los Muertos show at Central Market.  That's Skeletor me, above.

Right before we went on, everyone was running around putting on their finishing makeup touches.  I couldn't stop taking pictures of everyone's faces!:

This is Rendi (left) and me, being serious skeletons.

Happy skeletons!

When I was a kid growing up in San Antonio, I used to see touches of Dia de Los Muertos here and there: Pictures of dancing bride and groom skeletons, carved skeletons in people's houses.  I even had an art teacher once who gave us plastic white skulls to decorate, and having gone through a brief Jem and the Holograms phase, I painted pink eyeshadow on mine and gave her awesome pink earrings with a pipe cleaner.  She still didn't look as pretty as real Jem, but that was only because she lacked ... skin.  A serious handicap.  

But even as Dia de Los Muertos surrounded me, I didn't understand the holiday for a really long time.  As a child, I found it freaky and morbid.

When I learned later what Dia de Los Muertos was all about though, I thought it heartbreakingly beautiful.  And it's funny, you know?  All that exquisite San Antonio culture I took for granted while I was living there.  I'm just now able to appreciate it.  We performed in San Antonio on Sunday too, and I was reminded of the whole "more is more!" ethos of San Antonians.  They LOVE parades and they LOVE bright colors and they LOVED us dressed up as skeletons.  I was telling Ross that I may have to do my makeup like this every day, because you get treated so incredibly well: Smiles, nods, doors held open for you!  People really do respect the dead.

(This is what a skeleton looks like when she's getting ready.)

Return to the living!

here's to your beloved dead, and speaking of spirits ...

happy halloween today, reader!