On Halloween Costumes

I have never been very invested in Halloween. I think I was raised with a bias against such things by a rather pious mother. (I also grew up disliking The Emperor's New Groove and Harry Potter 6 and 7.) Also I am lazy. First of all, brainstorming costumes takes effort. Second of all, actually making and wearing a costume? Soooo much work.

In my defense: I started thinking about Halloween in July (of last year, and started this blog post last year, and am finishing it almost a year later). I don't know if I can really call what I did "preparing" for Halloween because I was not thinking of costumes and drawing out plans of what I would wear or how I could look.

What happened was that I was bored on a Saturday afternoon. What I did was make up paranormal valentines with my roommate. Paranormal being the Halloween related part. Ingredients that went into this misadventure: me, my roommate, the fact that we'd been in our apartment too long, the fact that we'd known each other for too long, pen and paper.

Indulge me.

We began with poor puns:

The Mummy: "I'm all wrapped up in you."

The Ghost: "My love for you is transparent."

The Werewolf: "You bring out the animal in me."




Yes, generic. We thought we were clever.

It gets worse.


The Zombie: "Dating you is a no brainer."


Then, as always seems to happen, we proceeded on to creepy weirdness. Some people I think have a filter or a little blaring light in their head that beeps and tells them when they should stop doing something. When they see someone's eyes widen in surprise they think to themselves: I've been to weird, I need to stop. Or some people even think about what they are doing BEFORE they do it and their brain analyzes their actions and says: things are getting weird, better go for a walk, or go jump rope, or leave the room and drink a cold beverage.

Unfortunately neither I nor my roommate seem to have the flashing light to warn us of the danger zone. And our eyes don't widen at this kind of stuff:

Vampire: "You're sweet, I can tell."

Frankenstein: "Both Frank and Stein want to be your Valentine!"


The skeleton: "We should get married—as long as you don't have a dog."

Think about it for a second. I'd explain it, but explaining jokes tends to leave them exceedingly lame. So if you can't figure out why it was supposed to be funny you can just assume that you are right, that it isn't funny, and that I was high on warm summer air and a muggy apartment —and at that point LOTS of things start seeming farcical that really are perfectly dour.

Anyway. . . if you are still reading this I will now get back on topic about Halloween costumes. I began brainstorming actual costumes the end of September.

I had some rational ideas about what I could be for Halloween. There are always options like being a pirate, or a cowboy, or a jedi. These costumes can be convenient if you're lazy because there are a few items that are generic enough that people will understand what you are TRYING to be, even if you aren't actually succeeding. Example: if I wear an eye-patch it is likely most people will understand that I am "dressing up" as a pirate. Likewise if I carry around a child's plastic light saber people will usually guess correctly that I attempted to dress-up like a character from Star Wars.

After that my costume ideas ran dry. I did spend three minutes on the internet being entertained by costumes other people had created, taken pictures of, and put on the internet. —This turned into a pointless hour being amused by weird couple costumes. The ideas range between the sexy bat-girl and batman duo to couples dressed up as eggs and bacon.Wow.

I think what I ended up doing on Halloween was waiting until about 8pm to feel peer pressured enough to wish I'd prepared a costume. Because I couldn't just go buy a costume, because I don't believe in spending money, I was left with one option. I went to my closet and stared at all of my clothes. There just aren't a ton of options for someone who primarily wears jeans and t-shirts. —My most inspired outfit would have to be an incognito super hero, which would be pointless because it is Halloween and the POINT is to dress up.

Side-note: another super stellar (side-note on the side-note: "Stella" means "star" in Latin. So this phrase literally means "super star." Just in case you were wondering. Also on another blog post I should rant about Valedictorian...) costume idea I had was to dress up as a hobo. You may think I'm joking but this is actually a real plan I had. And I was actually rather stoked about it. —This plan was particularly brilliant for two reasons:

1. It would cost me virtually no money to make this costume because I already owned most of the clothing I'd need. The clothing being: Pants with holes in both knees, a grungy t-shirt, shoes —preferably stained and worn (I'd had mine so long the soles were falling off and my big toes stuck through holes in the material), and final touches. —Final touches included some all-organic dirt I planned to rub on my face and my hobo coat.

The hobo coat is a coat I'd probably had since I was fifteen. I LOATHED it in high-shcool because it was thick and fluffy and un-stylish. Coats have a bad rep in high-school, I have met very few that are teenager worthy. I began abhorring the coat when I saw a picture of myself wearing it. I was hunched over and grimacing in the picture and the fluffy interior lended itself to the look in all the wrong ways —I looked like a hunchback! After that I rationally decided it was better to go to school with goosebumps every day.

I became sensible in college when I started having to buy my own clothes and realized I hated being cold. I wore my hunchback coat All The Time. I wore it so much throughout college that my sleeves started getting holes in them (I did stall the unraveling process by sewing up some of these holes. Unfortunately this did not improve the look of the coat). I didn't realize how shabby I looked when I wore my coat until my roommate pointed out that it looked like I chewed on my cuffs, or had a pet mouse.


2. This costume is Warm. As stated above I HATE being cold. So much. I was concerned enough about being cold that I looked up the phobia of being cold (which is called Frigophobia in case you were wondering) and its symptoms. Thankfully I don't think I have quite reached the phobia level yet. However, my fear does effect me enough that when I see people in their cute, scanty, tight-fitting costumes I do not sit and jealously wish I had better thighs. I stare at them and think to myself that girl is an idiot. Why isn't she wearing a coat? Thus, being a hobo in a large worn coat and jeans was a good idea for everything except my exposed knees—and even I can deal with that.




The reason this costume was not currently in the running was because my roommate had begged me so many times to get rid of my coat (probably because, to me, it seemed silly not to keep wearing it as long as I still had it. In public.) that one day I had a moment of sensibility/weakness and threw it away! My hobo costume—a work of my pure genius—was effectively ruined.

End of side-note.

Fortunately for me I have very understanding friends who were still willing to hang out with me despite my obvious lack of forethought, motivation, or creativity. I think the night ended with me in pajamas carrying around a blanket.

My friends and I sat on their couch and watched moderately scary movies while we ate popcorn. Which turned into my friends watching a movie while I slept on the couch and woke up at the scary parts when people were screaming. Which turned into me waking up at odd hours of the morning with a pounding heart and vague images of contorted monsters chasing me around. Which somehow morphed into a bright November morning.

I would consider this a moderately successful Halloween.