Going to a goth club? Are you lean and pasty, spiked, lipsticked, and eyelined? That's fine, but you have to know how to dance:

You went out to your local goth club in your black velvet frock coat, your hair teased up bigger and rattier than Edward Scissorhands', and lace dripping from your wrists and throat. You looked fabulous. But as soon as you got on the dance floor, everyone started laughing — eventually, they had to toss you out of the club for being "deleterious to the proper level of angst."

You need to learn to dance gothic.

It's not that hard; just learn these simple moves and soon you can blend in with all the other spooky individuals on the dance floor at your local batcave. After all, for such an individualistic crowd, it's kind of surprising how goths all seem to use the same moves. Maybe it's something encoded in the Goth GenesTM rather than just lack of originality...

All difficulties and Goth Ratings are on a scale of one (pathetically easy or ridiculously non-gothic) to five (tragically difficult or stylishly uber-gothic).

Washing the Windows
Put your hands in front of your face or maybe upper torso, elbows bent at about a 45-degree angle. Your palms should face away from your body, and your arms, wrists and fingers should be very loose. Now make swirly motions with your hands — the usual is circles going outwards at the top and back in towards the center of your body at the bottom, but some people just wave their hands around seemingly at random in a vertical plane in front of their faces. For maximum goth effect, the rotation of your circles should be a little out of phase — one hand should reach 12 o'clock in its circle a little bit before the other one.

It helps if you make slight wavy motions with your fingers while you're doing this one. These motions need to be slow, however — you don't want it to look like you're waving bye-bye; you want it to look like your fingers are gently weaving in an almost hypnotic pattern. Don't move your circles independently — that just winds up looking silly.

Variation: For extra stylishness, you can move the center-points of your two circles simultaneously from one side to the other, letting your hands trail off into some other gesture when they get too far. (This can segue nicely into "Which Way is the Exit?")

Need big hair pointers? They've got that too:

So the Cure concert is only four hours away, and you still have no idea how to get your hair big enough to outdo the other obsessive Cure fans and random goths. Here are a few tricks included in step-by-step instructions for making your hair rival even Fat Bob himself.

Equipment Needed:
Crimpers
Rave Hairspray, Level 4 (mega hold)
Aquanet, level 3 or above (I use the kind in the purple can)
Teasing comb (a fine toothed comb with a long, thin handle)
Blowdryer

Time Required:
At least 30 minutes, usually more

The Process....