Sock it to Me

Puppets have a history of being creepy. I don’t know what it was they did to deserve that. Maybe it’s their knack for being creepy. I guess some puppets are fine, but they move all unnaturally so uncanny valley and there’s maybe a weird eccentric person behind ‘bringing them to life’ and they might smell or murder or something.

Whatever it is, puppets aren’t generally a highly sought after thing. Unless!

• you’re going for something creepy
• you’re kind of a creepy homie
• you’re celebrating something creepy

Turns out, recently, we celebrated a holiday that!

• celebrates creepy crap
• encourages creepy peep(ie)s
• makes people… go for? creepy things!

It’s called the ‘Ween. Maybe you’ve heard of it. You may have even Hallowed it. I know I did. And how did I? By becoming a puppet, of course.

Cue more Arts & Crafts!

Perhaps you know a thing or two, and either that thing or one of those things is about my blog or personal history. If this is the case, please learn more things or use your allotted things on more important things to know! In the past, I have made Halloween costumes. In the same past, I have written about them on this blog. In the present, I am doing the same. In the near near (SO NEAR) future, you will read about it, unless you decide to go somewhere else on the internet, or in real life, and don’t take this blog with you. Otherwise, come on a journey with me.

Ideum

The first step in all of this was to come up with an idea worth sharing--you know, something Upworthy could get behind. To do this, I thought and eventually had things enter my brain. One of the things to enter my brain was this:

Another thing was this:

Odd. Amusing. Relatively simple. Let's give it a whirl.

Plans or something

The next step was coming up with a plan for making it. I listed the materials that I would need, and then obtained said materials. What I ended up needing:

• sock-looking fabric
• really big buttons
• something hairy
• I think that's it

Not a lot of things! I went to Hobby Lobby (which isn’t even just a lobby lol) and looked at a million things. Then I bought like 4 of them.

Creationism

Now that I had all of the things for making, it was time to make. First I took the fabric, folded it in half, and sewed 3 of the sides to make a giant pocket. I trimmed the corners to get rid of excess fabric and flipped it inside-out. And thus the fabric became like a giant sock.

Attachments

Now to attach things to it. I took some of the stringy goodness I got at HL and basically just used it like giant string. I sewed on the buttons (that I had previously painted) without the benefit a giant needle, which makes sewing much more difficult. Once the buttons were on, it was time to coif. I sewed a string down the middle of the puppet’s head and then tied one side of a bunch more strings around that string. I dangled the untied sides in every conceivable direction. Just like I do with my own hair. I applied the finishing touch by painting a couple of lines on the bottom to complete the illusion of tube sock.

Curvaceous

Once I had crafted everything, I tried it on. Turns out human bodies are not really shaped like human hands. When putting on the sock, it draped over my body in such a way that… it didn’t resemble a sock puppet. It was more like a cactus with no arms, or a delicious creamsicle, or cauliflower.

To replicate the flat top of a sock puppet, I stuffed a pillow inside the sock and balanced it on my head. That gave the sock the necessary shape to create the illusion of puppetry. Then I punched a hole in the mouth area for seeing, and I was set.

And voila!

A giant

creepy

socky

puppet.

This ended up being a very uncomplicated costume, except for the getting everything situated. The inexactness of the pillow placement and having to balance it made it kind of an endeavor to get everything in its right place. But once it was all aligned, it looked as good as I had hoped. One downside to the costume was HEAT. The material I ended up getting for the sock was fleece. I wore a pillow on my head. I give off HEAT. All that heat just stayed inside the sock with me. Stewing in my own funk. Mercy me it got so hot.

On the contrary, a cool thing about the costume was: anonymity! I went to a friend’s Halloween gathering. At said gathering, I maybe knew 3 or 4 people. Everyone else met me as a giant sock puppet. I got to have conversations with several people that had no idea what I looked like. There was something fun and liberating about that. Be anonymous. It’s good for your self esteem.

Paranormloia and the Mystery of the Squatch

This morning I went on a hike. I've been trying to do that regularly of late, taking advantage of the nice weather to keep in shape. This morning, however, I went quite a bit earlier than usual. I woke up before my alarm and couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd make the most of the extra time. It ended up being great—I was up and back before it got too hot, and the rising of the sun made for an aesthetically pleasing venture. Plus, a certain peace attends the early morning as many still lie aslumber, abound in dreams of whither their minds might wander.

The only thing that concerned me about the hike was that the peace and quiet might necessitate extra precautions. My mind is an imaginative one, which makes for fun and terrifying experiences. A factoid that I frequently remember on my hikes is that cougars and bears are not foreign to the Wasatch Mountains, which is where I hike. Therefore, paranoid as a clam, I am constantly on the qui vive for signs of dangerously adjacent and adjacently dangerous animals. Except for scat. I am no scatman. Today, as with every other day, there were no signs of dangerous animals, and no cause for worry. Except for scat.

...until...

By the time I had climbed and was heading back down the mountain, the city below had begun to stir. The most notable sign of this was the construction happening just downhill from my trail of choice; I had noticed the familiar clank and whir of heavy machinery when I was about halfway down the mountain. As I approached the section of trail that ran adjacent to the construction site, I glanced over, mildly interested in what they were working on at the moment. I didn't expect to see much, as they were still at the point of leveling the dirt. And I didn't, really. A bulldozer, dozing bulls, and dirt. However, as I continued to watch, the bulldozer lurched forward, and, like a drawing curtain, gradually revealed a mysterious scene. In the trees behind where the bulldozer previously worked, there stood a lone, dark figure...

My first thought was bear, because I'm bearanoid. But then logic came acallin', and I remember'd that bears usually avoid loud noises. Heavy machines, which were directly nearby, produce loud noises. Therefore, etc. Upon examining the shape further, I decided that it was probably just a dark stump or rock or other thing of limited interest. Drained of any previous intrigue, I was about to forget the spectacle entirely when my mind stumbled upon an astute association: wooded surroundings, indistinct dark figure, mystery... This was the perfect set-up to make my very own instagram joke/insubstantial claim about Bigfoot! Along with possible danger of death, my senses are also always on the qui vive for instagram fodder.

So I stopped along the trail and pulled out my phone/camera. I was a good ways off, so at first I was concerned about how the resolution of the picture would turn out. But further consideration led me to realize that the blurrier it was, the more similar it would be to all of the other Bigfoot evidence pics. I chuckled to myself as I zoomed in as far as my camera could and tried to find the dark shape on the screen. It was difficult to aim the camera precisely, as is common with zoomed-in long-distance shots. I glanced up at the actual scene to find a point of reference from which to work. When my eyes rested on the scene below, I suddenly became uneasy. The dark figure that I had assumed to be inanimate began to move—just noticeably at first, before it sunk slowly into the surrounding foliage...

I stood there, dumbfounded, and a little disconcerted. My eyes remained fixed on the spot. For a moment, I hoped that the shape would reappear so that I could still get some sort of shot. Or was it the hope that another look might quell my fears? Man. What was that?

I snapped out of my stupor and continued the final leg of my hike, this time picking up the pace a little bit and glancing over my shoulder from time to time. Seeing mysterious, mobile, black shapes in the woods doesn't help bearanoia. It also doesn't help paranormloia, which is paranoia of the paranormal if you're not good at dissecting words that I just made up. I had sasquatch on the mind while all this was happening and my logical conclusion from earlier was that it probably wasn't a bear. So my next logical conclusion is that it was probably sasquatch, or a construction worker. But if it was the latter, that dude was pretty sasqueschtrian, which means abounding in sasquatch-like features or having to do with the squatch if you're still not good at dissecting words that I just made up. He would have probably been teased about it in the past, in which case I would feel bad, but wouldn't deny that it was true. I don't know. The color of the thing was uniform and it was super dark and moved lumberly and creepily. If that was human, get that man a posture coach. I don't know if that's a real thing (it is), but I'm making weird suggestions to cope with the discomfort I feel at having witnessed the unknown—perhaps something that precious few have ever seen before. In my heart of hearts, I believe I have joined the ranks of the Squatchwatch: an exclusive guild that I just made up of eyewitnesses of the mystery of the squatch if you're still not good at dissecting words that I just made up. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the squatch; he was trampling out the vintage where some grapes and stash were watched. Glory glory, hallelujah. There's no turning back. So be wary as you wander the foothills of the Wasatch—there is magic about. There's big in them there foothills, if you catch my drift. Perhaps, henceforth, they should be referred to as the Swasatchquatch. Sqwatchsatch? Wasaquatchs. I'm no good at this.