Halloween: Costume Hall of FAME!

I was the only one wearing a costume at our pumpkin carving party, but that bothered me not one bit. For one thing, it was a pumpkin party. For another, I didn't tell anyone else to dress up. And finally, I'm just not sure how much these friends "dress up" anyway. {sigh} OK, maybe that's not fair to say. Perhaps they dress up in their spare time all the time, but where are the invites to fun Halloween parties then, people?!*

I've always been a HUGE fan of Halloween and obviously one of visual puns as well. In the above picture, I am a "devil with a blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, devil with a blue dress on." In middle school, I once xeroxed to scale a LIFE cereal box, affixed it to a cardboard box that I wore, cut a slit in the front of it, and walked around stabbing myself with a fake knife. Yep, cereal killer, haha. Another time my wife Laura (who grew up on a ranch) went as an Indian maiden, and I (who am 1/8th Native American) went as a cowgirl. We thought we were HILARIOUS, despite the fact that we kept having to explain the joke and our ability to do so as the evening went on declined in direct portion with how much alcohol we had to drink. But it is not just that. I've found deep and true joy in dresssing up since I was a young child. Take, for example, my AWESOME home-made (thanks, Mom) Wonder Woman Costume!!

Other famous costumes from back in the day?

The year I was obsessed with Charlotte's Web and--are you ready for this?--went as Charlotte the spider. I wore all black, except a bright orange tank top stuffed with a pillow as my "eggsac." Then, my mom wove my hair into eight braids reinforced by pipecleaners to make them stand in bent "legs" emanating from my head, and I let her because I was, like, eight and thought this was really cool, not realizing these are the kinds of pictures you never want found later in life, like when you have a boyfriend, for example.

The year I was obsessed with Madonna. This naturally coincided with the decade every other girl within a ten-year radius of my age was also obsessed with her. My commitment to Madonna was so strong, however, that I even pierced my virgin ears "the very first time" for her, not realizing they wouldn't heal in time for me to wear the hot pink, plastic, fake jewel-looking heart shaped dangle earrings that went SO WELL with my tutu, bracelets, high ponytail, hooker makeup, etc. Now the best part about this year's costume was not the costume itself, but the fact that my best friend Oh Sook had also wanted to be Madonna, but I was such a little bully (but with such a sweet face)** that I wouldn't ALLOW there to be two Madonnas, so I made her go as Cindi Lauper. HA! Only poor Oh Sook still doesn't find this funny.


If you know me at all, you can probably guess that the whole Madonna-80s look was not quick to die. It actually lasted until my college years. Amazingly the below picture was NOT from Halloween but, instead, some random 80s party on campus.***


And this picture was taken Halloween 2004 when Laura and I went to the Pyramid for a good old-fashioned night of 80s music ... and COSTUMES! I went as GAP Madonna, and I think you can figure out which Madonna Laura went as. (I am still immensely proud of helping her think up the Cone Boob costume and for helping her position those babies on with doublestick tape. Unfortunately, the careful placement was lost on the gay men who were feeling her up all night.)

Then, uhh, there were the times we went as, well, evidently big sluts. The look on that dude to the left's face is PRICELESS. This was about noon on a Sunday, because Halloween had happened to unfortunately fall on a Sunday. And evidently we hadn't had enough of dressing up despite going to parties on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. No, not enough, we had to look like hos on a Sunday morning. Please note that I do have both ruby red stilettos and Toto, the Dog, in my little basket. I was Dorothy and I wasn't messing around about it!!


This year Laura was Tinkerbell, I think, and I was Evelyn Nesbitt, the "girl in the red velvet swing."That's just the thing: I want to start whining again about how much I miss New York now. Halloween was not just another day to New Yorkers, it was a friggin federal holiday. Halloween lasted so long that people were throwing parties, and bars had theme drinks, and people were wearing costumes for a good couple weeks prior to the actual weekend. The Halloween Store on 4th and 11th had lines snaking around the store for almost all of October. For a different crowd, it was, like, bigger than Christmas.


For example, in the two pictures below, it wasn't even Halloween! It was EASTER! But look at us, all turned out in our Sunday best. Damn, we're looking fine with our fake pearls and fancy dresses and suit. (I had some fine looking roommates in my day.)

Easter at SUSHI SAMBA! Hell yeah! This was no Church-going Easter! This was Easter with Bloody Marys (haha, get it) and delicious Japanese fusion food!!
And this picture was taken on a random night freshman year at Sarah Lawrence. Laura and I were hitting some parties around campus, and decided (most likely she decided!) that we needed to put on evening gowns and boas. Then we drank too much wine, Laura skinned her knee, we both sat down in the middle of the road, and along came one of the hottest straight boys on campus, this Indian guy (whose name shall not be typed here) who could make the words "hello there" sound like "I am going to take you back to your dorm room and make sweet love to you and you're gonna like it." I still count this as one of the most (a) enjoyable memories and (b) embarassing moments of my college career. Thank god we'd had plenty of wine and didn't realize how weird we were till we were sober in the morning.
Oh! And this picture is from our infamous joint 23rd birthday, when Laura got us a limo and we hit The Donkey Show, dressed in matching nuclear pink dresses and devil horns.




And who could forget our "Babes for Boobs" training photo shoot at Tiffany's, our shameless campaign of self-promotion ... for the good of breast cancer fundraising, of course. (I'd like to think this was perhaps a seed that helped launch von Hottie's calendars of 2007 and 2008.)

Here we are, looking in the Tiffany's window on 5th and Madison, with our croissants, coffees, and tiaras positioned just so.
Here I am massaging Laura's feet because it is a hard job curing cancer!!
And here we are side by side down the streets of New York, me and my wife, totally engrossed in whatever the heck we were talking about. I miss those days. I miss that place. I miss my wife. And on that note, I'm going to call it a night . . . this post is longer than some of my fiction!

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* Seriously, people!! Where are the fun costume party invites?! West coast, you're letting me down.

** Not much has changed. Just ask Dave.

*** This night sucked for everyone in this picture.