holidays – The Tragic Queen

So This is Christmas…

January 3, 2025January 3, 2025Uncategorized1 Comment

“Bah humbug”

–A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Usually when it’s beginning to look like Christmas, this fact brings joy. Instead, once you’re an adult– and you’re no longer waiting up at night to try and get a peek at Santa– Christmas becomes more about your dwindling bank account and the family members you still haven’t bought any gifts for.

Cats break beloved Christmas tree ornaments. Every song on the radio is either a Christmas carol from the fifties that you’ve heard a thousand times before with dated lyrics like “take a look in the five and ten” and “children will listen” or a modern pop monstrosity that is basically Silent Night with a beat behind it.

The instinct to just get through the season takes over.

The moment that it’s time to buy something for my family members, they suddenly become humble beggars who couldn’t possibly ask for anything, giving me no clue as to what I should buy them for Christmas.

In the days leading up to Christmas, I want to be cocooned in a warm house, tripping over presents in my living room and drinking out of a highball.

Instead I find myself rushing to finish work before the year ends, putting together last minute holiday cards, sniffling through a head cold, ugly crying at It’s A Wonderful Life and The Family Stone, and then wondering how I’ll ever pay down my credit card once the holidays end. I’m like a woman in a Hallmark film who needs to be taught “the reason for the season” by a guy in a flannel shirt in my hometown.

Then Christmas day comes and the whole thing is like a pregnancy: you forget about all of the agony that came with bringing it to fruition and the whole thing suddenly is a beautiful, life-affirming experience you would do all over again.

For me, it’s not Christmas until Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas to me. There’s nothing like a kids Christmas special that tackles seasonal depression and commercialism, like the Charlie Brown Christmas Special does. Even if you don’t think that that is the true meaning of Christmas, I always love at the end when Linus says “peace, goodwill towards men.”

*Happy holidays to this queen who insisted on getting in my selfie*

In all seriousness though, I love Christmas time and I love my family, who always make it special. I sat on my couch on Christmas morning, hemmed in by a bunch of really great gifts, because I am not a humble beggar who has any problem asking for what she wants.

So happy holidays. I hope you have peace, and goodwill towards men (and women and those outside the binary).

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out how I kicked off the holiday season, when I went to go and see my first ever burlesque show.

Burlesque

December 26, 2024Uncategorized1 Comment

Before going home for the holidays, I watched my first ever burlesque show at The Slipper Room on the Lower East Side.

It was a festive holiday burlesque show, presided over by a woman wearing a thong and knee-high socks, who was ready to show us “the reason for the season.”

This was not the kind of burlesque show where the women wore Santa hats and have tassels hanging from their nipples, but the kind where the women do trapeze stunts over the audience.

I spent the evening with a good cocktail and a nice date, watching half-naked women fling themselves through the air like it was nothing and then unravel onto the stage.

My favorite performer was a woman who was dressed like Eve, which is to say that she was in a nude bodysuit wrapped in fake ivy, as she swung from the rafters with an apple in her mouth while the song “MOTHER ATE” played. For those unfamiliar, MOTHER ATE contains the lyrics “crazy how the very first sin was a woman who ate” and “devoured, no crumbs left in sight.”

Another woman hung from her hair and acted like it was nothing, even though I had a headache just looking at her.

I felt like I did when I was 14 and watched a street performer in Italy hula-hoop with a ring that was lit on fire. I was impressed by the talent and the artistry, with a dangerous sense of “I could do that.”

“I could wind up in the hospital” is more likely.

*There was a puppet show*. *The poodle puppet was wearing cheetah print pants, a cheetah print coat, and black, knee-high boots. I have that exact outfit at home.*

I’d had other plans for the night and seeing the burlesque show ended up being my back up. It’s not often that you think you’re going to see a movie and then end up watching women hanging from silks while a Chapell Roan song plays.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

Halloween 2024

December 15, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

“All of this has something to do with a girl named Marla Singer.”

–Fight Club

Halloween when you’re a child is one night of the year and it’s the highpoint of your calendar. Halloween when you’re in college is a month of festivities every weekend once you hit October. By the end of the month, you’re pining for the next holiday.

For Halloween this year, I went as Marla Singer from Fight Club.

My brother and I watched Fight Club when we were in middle school after we found it on TV and caught hell from our mother for being up so late watching TV.

I read the book in high school but didn’t finish it.

One of my teachers told me that it would be hard to read a book about how capitalism was destroying our society when you still listen to One Direction.

Regardless, I went as Marla. I love a messy female character, which makes Helena Bonham-Carter’s body of work perfect every Halloween. Everyone thought that I was someone from The Devil Wears Prada or a witch of some kind.

I made slutty brownies for the party. Slutty brownies, for those who don’t know, are brownies that have oreos and cookies in the mix. They’re indulgent, hedonistic brownies and they’re a big hit.

The next night, I had another party to go to. The assignment was to come dressed as your favorite writer, so I went dressed as myself.

I wasn’t sure if it was iconic, cringey, or just pretentious, but I thought it was funny and easier than putting together an Edgar Allen Poe costume at the last minute.

So how did I dress to be myself?

A black turtleneck, black boots, cheetah print coat, red nails, and giant sunglasses on my head. In other words, I dressed as a parody of myself.

I also thought that there was a 90% chance that everyone else would dress like themselves as well, but no. David Foster Wallace, Nabakov, disgraced J.K. Rowling (a person wore a bag over their head), and Edgar Allen Poe, just to name a few.

Continuing the festivities, my friend Julia and I carved a pumpkin, whilst watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown,” a proper Halloween tradition.

Olivia and I went to a party in midtown in which I knew no one there, but I nonetheless walked around, explaining my costume to everyone anyway.

On Halloween night, I went with my roommate, who was dressed as Chef’s Kiss, and her friend, who was dressed as Reverse Cowgirl, to Columbia’s gay-straight-alliance party at a nearby bar. We spent the night getting free drinks from a bartender that was dressed as Bob Ross, and meeting people who did not get our costume references.

Then, I brought the curtain down on my Halloween season, 2024.

It wasn’t a wild Halloween filled with an in-costume bar crawl, but I did damage to my liver as part of my favorite holiday.

I can’t wait for Halloween 2025.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Read about the Halloween that I spent in Italy and went to a nightclub dressed as a character from Rocky Horror Picture Show in Creature of the Night

2023 Royal Portrait

April 21, 2024Uncategorized1 Comment

Singular Royal Portrait

/rɔɪəl pɔːʳtreɪt/ Noun.

A representation of a member of a royal family
A photo shoot I do every year with a friend in order to get a smokin’ hot photo of myself for my blog and holiday card

It was that time of year again, where I take an obnoxious amount of photos of myself for my blog and holiday card and post them for the world to see.

Now, you may have noticed that it is mid-April, but we are just going to ignore that and just enjoy the pictures that I did put on my holiday card, because sometimes, it is hard to get around to posting your royal portrait photos.

Padgett came over for my “royal portrait” photoshoot, bringing with her a special light and her phone. What I wanted this year was to take a picture with my cat– something I assumed wouldn’t be a lofty goal.

I leaned in to take a picture with her. Suspicious of my intentions, she gave chase.

It took us an embarrassingly long amount of time to catch her, which we eventually did by cornering her in my bedroom. The only thing missing was the Benny Hill theme song.

What I was going for:

What I got after cornering my cat:

After still failing to get a decent picture, Calypso darted out of my room. My cat may never forgive me for trying to get a picture with her, despite rescuing her from a 17 cat litter in what I’m pretty sure was a trailer park.

*A photo of us when she still trusted me*

Otherwise, the shoot was lovely. My face was not behaving, but that’s nothing that a little alcohol couldn’t fix. I’m sure that that’s how the real models do it, anyway.

I changed clothes, I played music, and in the end I got some great pictures, with or without my cat’s cooperation.

Shoutout to Padgett for sacrificing life and limb to lean over my bannister to get a picture of me lying on the floor.

BTS

For the original shoot, I wanted the cover to say Happy Holidays, with a nice respectable photo of myself, and then the back to be a messy jumble to prove why we truly needed to be wished luck in the new year.