Oh, today. *sigh* Today was Catwoman’s first day back, and my first in a while. I was supposed to go in this weekend and get the last few days of the big crowds and (ideally) big money, but it was overcast and cold and my Padmé costume is pretty much toast. She had a good run for a one-time wear cheapo store bought costume, and earned her money back and then some, but the time has come to make a real Padmé costume — it’ll be so cool, just wait — and put the old one out to pasture.

But I digress. We have plans. We started doing new things today. I learned that those Snap & Go curlers are indeed crap, and both of us may have texted each other about the new No Texting While Driving law while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. I’m choosing to go with the fifth amendment to keep from incriminating myself.

We decided last night to meet at H&H at 9 AM, since Catwoman had two auditions to go to and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hang out on the boulevard by myself, which I would have had to do if we carpooled. Bat A and the Junker were the two victims touted by the rappers the last time they went bragging (after Freddie’s cowardly from-behind beating), and this threatening and chest thumping did indeed drive dear Denim Jack away. 🙁 Though not to Florida, as someone told me, but he might as well be that far away. He’s out of state, that’s all I’ll say. Still, with him and Bat A gone, we can’t enjoy ourselves nearly as much as we used to, another reason to not linger as much as we used to.

Anyway, we met up in the bathroom we always get ready in, and I have to say that I’m impressed with the fact that Catwoman can recognize me by my boots alone. Good to know. We head out — and it’s absolutely dead. Bat M had always told us that weekday mornings were better because the tourist buses unload around 9:30, and then they loiter about until about lunch time, when business drops off. It looked like the buses forgot to run that morning. I don’t think we’ve ever seen it that empty. On top of that, practically no one was out. Only Homeless Jack, who kept to himself, thankfully (he admitted to having given up on Catwoman shortly before she left), was out, and Charlie Chaplin in front of the Chinese Theatre. He was very happy to see us and warmly welcomed back Catwoman. He’s a really nice guy.

We were the only ones around for a bit, and the going was slow, but the first few photos Catwoman and I got all gave us $5 tips to split, so that made up the difference. Eventually a Spiderman showed up — I don’t even know what to call this one, there’s so many — and another Catwoman. Now Charlie had been telling us about Scary Catwoman, and how volatile she seemed to be getting lately. He had worked with her, or at least around her, fairly recently, but it apparently hadn’t been going well lately. He said that a few years ago she had been a nice girl, but she disappeared for a while and snapped, and now felt she was the only one that should be Catwoman on the boulevard, even though she hardly ever showed up and was sporadic at that. She had gotten in Wonder Wig’s face a few times, as I’d witnessed once, and seemed to have the biggest problem with her, but Charlie just kept saying, “If she gives you any trouble, call the cops. She needs to be taken down a peg.” I guess she’s getting that bad. Sheesh. Thankfully, she never showed up, but we did give Other Catwoman her space and stayed away from the Chinese Theatre for a bit.

Big Love, some cable show I don’t watch because I don’t have cable, had a big box set up on the sidewalk in front of the Kodak Theatre. After wandering past a few times we decided to check it out, and it was a box with photos on all four sides of people walking down a busy sidewalk in a large city. Probably New York, because that’s the only major city outside of San Francisco’s Financial District where normal people walk. Anyway, some employees were handing out earbud headphones to passersby, and they were encouraged to plug said headphones into the jacks strategically placed in the photos to “overhear” strangers’ secrets.
“You do it,” Catwoman urged me. I shrugged and took the headphones offered me.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“To show that everyone has secrets,” the girl said, and nudged me towards the box. They had a photographer or two on hand to snap people listening to the box, and Catwoman said she took photos as well, so look for a Batgirl listening to a wall with a stupid look on her face soon. At least I have a backup pair of headphones for my iPod now.

A film crew came and seemed to film us just milling around for quite a bit, and while we never did ask them where they were from or what it was for (Spiderman shouted his questions from 20 feet away, and they didn’t bother to answer), I heard one of the tour sellers say something about a BBC news feature. Maybe he was joking, maybe not, but I did my best Sir David Attenborough nature documentary impression on the wildness of Hollywood Boulevard. I guess you had to be there.

Then some crazy guy came up to us and was openly checking us out. I guess we missed the Cute Guy Boat, now that the holidays are over, but I wish the Crazy Guy Boat would have left as well. It wasn’t clear if he was homeless as well, but he strolled up, ogling us.
“Um, hi?” Catwoman said.
“How you doin’?” he asked, still staring.
“Fine, how are you?” I answered. He finally began making eye contact, and I think we may have said some things. I remember him asking who exactly I was — he knew I was Batgirl, but didn’t know who she was in the Bat Universe — and when I told him Batgirl was Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, he said, “You know he just died, right?” I know some people, usually just small children, like to quiz us in character to see if we know our stuff or to answer questions that aren’t easily answered by cartoons. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the character Gordon or an actor who had played him, so I said I hadn’t heard.
“Yeah, just died of cancer. He was 87.” I made a mental note to look it up when I got home (which I didn’t do, having forgotten until now — thanks, mental notes!), and whaddya know? Crazy guy was right. That still doesn’t make up for this next part.
The conversation died, and he still stood there, awkward and staring. He took a step back to give us both the once over again, but his eyes lingered on my crotch. And lingered. And lingered. If he was Superman, his X-ray vision would have boiled my bone marrow, he stared so long. Finally, he said goodbye and shuffled off.
“Oh my god,” Catwoman laughed, a funny mixture of nervousness and relief.
“I’ve never had anyone stare so openly at my crotch,” I said, more astounded than anything. Not very far away, crazy man turned for another look. “Oh my god! Are there magnets in my crotch and his eyeballs? Look away!”

A weird thing happened throughout the day, too. In the beginning there was only one rapper out hawking his wares, probably because the Wonder Twins (my new name for the cops that are always there) were out making the rounds. After they’d left everyone seemed to come out, and for some reason the rappers were being extraordinarily friendly with us. At most they’d ask how we were doing, or say we looked good, but today they kept striking up conversations, and one of them even hugged both of us. Knowing what I now know, and also not knowing which one exactly is responsible for calling up his friends to gang beat my friends, I’m wary and uncomfortable about this. I don’t want to be mean, and I don’t want to piss them off, but I also don’t want them to think I’m friendly with them. They work right in front of us intentionally and put people off on someone approaching them, and there’s that whole big thing where they don’t like the guy characters. Kind of a problem. Still, maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I get the feeling that they were all going out of their way because they know something’s up. Like, if they can argue that us teeny women are chummy with them and don’t feel threatened, then there’s no way they’re involved with the savagery going on around us. I don’t know, I just don’t like the feeling I’m getting.

Catwoman went to her first audition as the herds thinned even more for lunch, and I changed back into my street clothes to check out the costume shop up the street. Denim had said we should try them for any costume needs we might have, and I need yellow gloves and yellow boots. The Batgirl costume, stupidly enough, came with gauntlets but no gloves. And I had ordered yellow go-go boots last year (har har), but the sellers felt in no particular need to ship them at a decent time, despite the fact that they were just down the way in Orange County, so I canceled my order in a snit and decided to try my own luck on foot. I should have stuck to the Internet. Hollywood Toys & Costumes isn’t anything remarkable, let me just say that up front. They have a large selection of cheap, generic, one-time costumes and plastic wigs, but nothing for anyone trying to make a quality, lasting costume. Even their high end Star Wars costumes were cheap yet overpriced (a lethal combination). And there was no service to speak of. The staff outnumbered the few customers by far, but they were too busy counting false eyelashes and gossiping to help anyone out. Awful. So still no yellow gloves or boots, which irks me. I had ordered some gloves off of Amazon, but I was sent orange gloves, so now there’s the whole return shipping and trying to get the right colour sent back to me nightmare. I just want to have a decent costume! Is that so hard? Apparently.

So yes. After that pointless trip (though I walked on the south side of the street, which was vastly different from the north side, for some odd reason — and now I want to hang out at the Pig n’ Whistle after work), I was hungry and craving french fries. It would be cheap and filling, and if we’re only going to be making $20-30 per day during the dead months, I’m not going to spend it all on food. So I went back to H&H and nabbed a big bag o’ fries from Johnny Rocket’s and sat in the car and ate while listening to music. Maybe I’m strange, but I like just sitting in the car, listening to music. Judging by the strange looks I was given, though, most people don’t agree.

Catwoman’s texts to me, sent half an hour before I’d gone 3 stories underground to where there was no phone reception, finally got through to me, and I rejoined her. Oh, technology. The crowd was much better now, loads more people, and we were the only characters there!
“Come on, we’re the only game in town, you have to take pictures with us!” Catwoman said. Though not very loud. As if they heard anyway, a nice steady stream of people came up looking for photos, and most tipped. We’re not as aggressive as most others, and we don’t chase down or even yell a “Hey!” after the ones who say okay and then amble off (at least, not yet), but most people are still good about it. Freddie stopped by out of costume and he looked 100% better, though he was quick to show off his one remaining battle scar on the inside of his lip. Still, he looked good and I told him so, and he seemed pleased. He also hasn’t asked Catwoman out yet. 😉

We stuck around until about 3:15, when Catwoman had to go get ready for her next audition. There was no point in us coming back afterward anyway, so we tried to will one last rush of people to photograph with us before taking off. Instead, we got this:

A group of raggedy hipsters wandered past, did a double-take, and came back. They were obviously excited to have just walked past Batgirl and Catwoman.
“Aw, dude!” the ringleader said. At least, I’m going to call him the ringleader, because he was the only one doing the talking.
“I gotta get a picture of you guys!” he enthused.
“Okay. Just so –” Catwoman tried to tell him the “we work for tips” bit.
“I gotta get a picture of you guys kissing!” he interrupted.
“Oh! Um,” Catwoman said.
“You definitely have to pay us for that,” I said. “We don’t do that for free.” Cops be damned, there’s no way I’m getting my lesbian on in full costume on Hollywood Boulevard without some cash crossing my palm. They can arrest me after I make some good money.
“I’ll give you a cigarette,” he offered. Oh yay.
“No, I’ll taste bad,” I said honestly.
“Dude, I gotta get a picture of you two kissing!” he insisted. “I’m gonna put it on my MySpace page. I got, like, five thousand million friends. I’ll come back in a minute, and you gotta do it,” he said, and the group wandered off.
“There’s no way I’m going give something like that away for free on MySpace!” Catwoman said.
“Seriously. Publicity isn’t enough, I want money.”
“I was thinking $50.”
“Each,” I insisted.
“Well, yeah.”
“A hundred each if they want us to make out.” She laughed, and we probably talked way too much about how much we’d kiss each other for a hundred dollars each.