Teenage Garage Sale with Katie Alender, author of Bad Girls Don't Die series

I haven't made it a secret that I love Katie Alender's Bad Girls Don't Die series. It's well written, has AMAZING characters, super scary situations and gripping plots. I had the extreme please of interviewing her when my blog was just starting up and now she's back here to promote her newest novel From Bad To Cursed by hosting a Teenage Garage Sale.

1) My black dress with the roses on it. ($5 if it were in one piece. Sadly, it's not.)
When I was in high school, everyone was wearing these long, flowing floral dresses. I had one that was black with bright pink roses on it. I felt so pretty in that dress! Especially coming out of middle school, when I basically NEVER felt pretty. I used to wear it with black tights and black shoes, and occasionally my big sister's black-and-white plaid jacket with shoulder pads. I actually still have it... kind of. (I chopped it up to include a piece in a quilt.)


2) An entire box of Catwoman toys. (25 cents each. Free to those who "meow" convincingly.)
The movie "Batman Returns" had a huge impact on my life. I loved how powerful Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman was (and I felt like I understood her loneliness, too). So in tenth grade, I was a little Catwoman crazy. Every Happy Meal toy, every tchotchke I found at the mall--I had to have. One of my friends gave me a pair of plastic Catwoman earrings, and I wore them for my tenth grade school picture. I told the photographer, "Focus on my earrings. I don't care if my face is in focus." 


(In fact, I would buy almost anything with cats on it. I loved cats. Unfortunately, when I left for college, I became allergic to them. Now I'm a dog person.)


3) My Star Trek uniform. (Wait... I don't think I can sell that!)
I was a highly devoted fan of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Starting in ninth grade, I went to all the conventions that came through Palm Beach County. My stepmother, a talented seamstress, made me a Star Trek uniform. I wore it not only to conventions (and won the costume contest, by the way) but also to school. Yeah, I was cool. Luckily, my high school was awesome and nobody even blinked. (I also had my stepmother sew me a catsuit, so I could dress like Catwoman. I also wore that to school. Which makes me wonder what my parents were thinking.) 


4) Large or extra-large men's suit jackets. ($3 each)
These were a staple of my wardrobe. Tee-shirt, jeans, black shoes (or boots with jeans tucked into them... but not Doc Martens, those were too expensive--just whatever I could sneak from my sister's closet or buy from Payless)--all topped with a giant blazer, purchased at Goodwill for $3. It all started with what I think must have been a discarded stewardess's jacket that I wore with a long black skirt and a white button down shirt. I remember walking home from the bus stop past the "normal" high school and some boy asking me if I went to a private school. He assumed my clothes were a uniform. I just about bit his head off and walked away haughtily as he tried to explain that he wasn't trying to insult me. 

5) An entire album of pictures of my cat. (Not for sale.)
I used to introduce myself by saying, "I have a cat named Tigger, and he's beige." Tigger was an odd cat--he wasn't exactly a rocket scientist to begin with, and then he ate too many lizards and got liver flukes and a really high fever that I think took him down another few IQ points. But he was incredibly sweet and friendly. He loved to be carried around like a baby, and he would purr like a freight train. He would do anything for goldfish crackers. Tigger died in 2009 at the ripe old age of 18. 

6) The Beavism Notebook. (Priceless.)
My senior year, my friend Kelly and I developed an entire system of government based loosely on "Beavis and Butthead." We had nicknames based on the periodic table of the elements (I was Alfred Europium; Kelly was Barney Calcium), a salute (fold down the three middle fingers of your right hand and hold your thumb to your forehead, pinky proudly in the air), a few cheers, and chants, and rules... Plus we had a Constitushun and we would issue each other citashuns for bad behavior. What amazes me looking back is that the teachers put up with our constant Beavis and Butthead-inspired cackling and grunting. We had about thirty people who would put up with us and answer if we called them by their Beavism names.


7) Box of movie scores on CD. (Best offer.)
 used to fall asleep every night to the "Batman Returns" soundtrack. I also loved "Edward Scissorhands" (pretty much anything Danny Elfman did), "Toys," and "Last of the Mohicans."


8) Sunblock. (Free to good home.)
Despite growing up in hot, humid South Florida, I stopped trying to be tan in eighth grade. For a couple of years, I was too self-conscious to even let my arms be seen, so I wore long sleeves every day. Then I got over it. But I think I was actually out of college before I would be seen in shorts in public.


When I hit my mid-twenties, I had this sort of realization that I was "past my prime." I don't mean that in a bad way--just that I was finally old enough that people would take me seriously based on more than what I looked like or whether I was "hot" or not. And suddenly I found that I didn't really care what people thought about how I looked. It was incredibly freeing... like letting out a breath I'd been holding for years. I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self not to worry so much about not looking like a swimsuit model.


9) My sticker collection. (Send me a snailmail and your reply will be covered with stickers!)
I used to write letters constantly--three or four a week. And I started putting stickers on the envelopes. Then, when I got to college, I started collecting stickers. As a result, I still have a lunchbox full of stickers, and that's why, if you ever get anything in the mail from me, it will probably be covered with stickers. I am fully aware of the fact that a lot of times the stickers I'm attaching to letters I send to my readers are older than the readers themselves.


10) My Ayn Rand books. (Oops, still in use... let me just put those back on the bookshelves...)
"Atlas Shrugged" is one of my favorite books. It had a huge impact on me in high school. I can remember exactly what my bedroom looked like and where I was sitting and what song was playing when I read John Galt's speech! I still read it every couple of years. (But I'm not looking forward to seeing the movie... even though I know I'll Netflix it eventually!)


Thanks so much for stopping by the garage sale! Be sure to check out this amazing series. You absolutely won't regret!

Thanks so much to: