Sandtrooper Update: It’s been just under 5 months since getting my Trooper armor.

I’ve only worn it twice, and very fleetingly. Just to test the straps and get a sense of how long it takes to try to figure everything out (and discover that I usually fuck up the leg pieces). When I wear it I sort of have to angle my torso when I walk down our hallway: the shoulder poulson hits the artwork displayed in our hall. I’ve not rushed to work on the re-fitting because I’m savoring each upgrade, each modification that makes it mine.

Yet because Halloween is so far away I’ve been scheming up ideas and reasons to wear it out in public, other than joining the Canadian 501st, of course. I’ve thought of creating a short film that incorporates the uniform, or “Sandy” as I’ve come to call him, as a way to give the suit a test run and to wear it out in public.

At the gym yesterday, I had been working out the details for this movie in my head when I came across the cover of Thursday’s Metro News, showing 6’7″ Argo football player Joe Eppele in a Sasquatch costume. Beyond his obvious scruffy hotness there was something else that made me keep the rag and stuff it into my gymbag.

For the rest of the day I was fixated. During my break I started to notice small details in the picture: like how the seam in the crotch could have been sewn better or the fur combed out from between the stitching to hide the seam, that his fingers are actually extended rubber gloves, or that the chest plate was nicely done but didn’t really match the overall look of the suit, and were the upper thighs real or were they padded…?

…Holy shit.

I was waaay too into this.

And then it hit me: What if this was “a thing” for me? What if I really was a Furry? A bonafied “yiff in hell” cosplaying CSI-fodder costume wearing freak that got off on dressing up?

Like a Fight Club changeover the last couple years came flooding back to me one outfit at a time: Mumu trailer park momma, The Luchadore, the Liza Minnelli Jedi, getting into our company’s mascot for a day and really enjoying it, The Gay Werewolf, stealing SharkBoy’s Max from Where the Wild Things Are jumpsuit and now this, the Trooper.

I think this is coming to light because SharkBoy and I have been watching marathon runs of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Season 2 and catching up on Season 3. Now let’s be clear… I have no desire to do drag, but… I have nothing but utter respect for these ladymens. What they do is a fabulously bizarre mix of technical prowess, gender fucking, comedy and drama, personal or otherwise. The worst drag queen brings something of quality to the table, even if it’s just tragedy. Each episode I’ve marvelled at every outfit and how it could have been created. However, honestly, I have no desire to go that route. Dressing in drag seems too obvious for me, being gay and all. The work to get it right seems to me too labor intensive for the payoff.

I type this as I glance over to my Trooper armor and think about how to stop the feedback inside the helmet microphone and the HOVI TIPS speakers. Too each his own, I shrug.

I do know I’m not a Furry in the sexual sense of the word. I’m not sexually attracted to dressing up. I don’t find anything sexual about it at all and the thought of dry humping someone wearing a plastic cup of a Trooper outfit bores me. However, I do find it intriguing to be someone else. The masquerade.  And then I wonder if I have low self esteem because of my desire to mask who I am or am I just having fun? Then I decide I’m being maudlin and figure I think it’s just me, not growing up. If I have one regret in my life it’s that I didn’t get into movie special effect kind of costuming.

There’s a racist joke in the gay community about getting old: When you hit fifty, you’re either into leather or Asians. I think I’m into fake fur.