Tjuze You!

What's on that dude's head?

One of the many groovy things about Galveston is our collective love of a good time. This may be due in part to our higher than normal freaky people quotient – we have a lot of freaky people, I promise you – or it could be the balmy weather we’ve been having lately.

Maybe its solar flares or a down job market that’s left too many freaky people with time on their hands.

Whatever the cause, I likes it. I likes it very much. We have a mad flurry of decorating on our hands. It’s as if the entire island decided to tjuze their houses all at once.

For the record, I did some high speed Googling and according to the wordsmith and style superhero, Carson Kressley,  tjuze is the preferred spelling of that magical, super gay way of fluffing, poufing and z-snapping your look. Pronounce it zhuzsh and then, for goodness sake, tjuze already.

Here on the island, we’re not content to merely tjuze our personal looks. We take it to the extreme here. We decorate and fluff and pouf everything we can get our happy hands on. Drive around the island and you’ll see.

There is a Mardi Gras explosion going on around here. Beads hang from every surface – which makes sense when you consider what the heck else you’re supposed to do with Mardi Gras beads.

Purple & Gold, Baby!

Is it just me, or do other people sit down on Hung-over-From-Fat-Tuesday-Wednesday and meticulously go through the year’s bead haul, separating out the “good” beads from the “throw” beads? I do this every year and I could not, on pain of death, begin to tell you what makes some beads “good” and what makes others merely sad “throw” beads.

I do, however, know what to do with the “throw” beads. Besides throw them, of course. You hang them from your fence, fling them up into the trees, drape them over your banister rails and hang them from your mailbox.

And that’s just the beginning. Then you get to add giant Mardi Gras colored balls and garland and wreaths and inflatable Santas wearing beads and holding frozen hurricanes. You can hang beads from your tree carvings, festoon your dogs with them, annoy the cats with them. I know people who routinely put up Mardi Gras trees. Straight people even. This tjuzing thing is contagious.

Why do we do it? Because we love all things festive on our sandbar. Drive the island during any holiday and you’ll see houses decorated from stoop to gable. A particular favorite of mine is on Avenue O near Ball High School. It’s two tiny shotguns joined together to make one medium sized house and on every holiday, I mean every holiday, there’s a festive round of something hanging on both houses.

Ruff Ruff. Throw me somethin' Mister. Ruff Ruff.

Currently the owner appears to have decided to split the difference. One house is Mardi Gras Fabulous and the other is Valentine’s Day Sweetness. It’s a nice compromise. As awesome as the Avenue O Mardi Gras house(s) is (are), when the owner does Easter, it’s even better. Then the giant stuffed bunnies come out and are attached to the walls (usually by their necks which makes it a touch ghoulish, kind of like the way blue Peeps always look like they’re suffocating under the cellophane wrapping) and plastic eggs hang from the trees.

We here on the island will take any opportunity to tjuze our homes. We will celebrate any holiday that comes our way. Throw in a costume party or two and we are the happiest people in the world. We care. We care a lot. And if you stand still long enough, we’ll tjuze you, too!

P.S.  One word of caution on the beads and dogs thing. If your canines are anything like my Death Breaths 3 and 4, you run the risk of finding bright, bead-threaded poops in your back yard. It’s festive but alarming. And it annoys the dogs.

I smell Mardi Gras biscuits!

¡Yo quiero Beads!

I ain't yo beatch!