To Halloween or not to Halloween

First, a few truths:
1) Halloween is for kids. There is no costume that is out of bounds for little kids. They’re cute in all of them. And then there’s the candy.
2) Halloween is for hot people. The ONLY exception to the costume rule for kids is the classic “slutty BLANK”. Hot girls are why grown-ups continue to celebrate this holiday at all. And when two hot costumed people hook up, at say a costume party or the local watering hole’s Halloween freak-out? It’s a wonder they don’t just burst into flames.
3) Halloween is for the sentimental. Raise your hand if you don’t get excited by the annual showing of “The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and I’ll slap you upside the head with a pumpkin pie

…now, with these truths established let’s talk Halloweening for the REST of us. Because I’m no longer a kid, I’ve never been “hot” and though I’m sentimental that starts and stops with classic Halloween tv. So, for instance, what to do when my work decides to do a big Halloween celebration? Do I dress or not? What about any other Halloween parties to which I got invited – go? Don’t go? How to spend the holiday itself – home or out rambling from Halloween Happy Hour to Halloween Happy Hour in cape and short-shorts?

First, the work party. I dressed, but only just barely. I’d considered ambitious costume ideas, but my problems with that goal were three-fold: 1) I only moved some of my stuff when I relocated up to my new life and my rather silly-but-ambitious stash of costumey things didn’t make the cut. Pirate? Sure, except that I brought the puffy shirt and hoop earrings, but not the sword or the corset. Nor did I bring all the pieces for the black cat, the space cowboy or the Amazon Warrior (do NOT ask). 2) I’ve been sick this week, not enough to keep from going to the office but enough for me to want to be at all ambitious when home. (in this moment “ambitious” is being defined as “doing anything beyond sleeping). So on Thursday night, when I had to do this thinking stuff, I was about up to “I want Jello. If only it weren’t so damned hard to make…”-level of ambitious. Making a costume is nowhere near this. 3) The people at my work place don’t know the truths listed above, or don’t care. Either way, for many of them this “dressing up” thing is at epic proportions. So you really gotta decide how much you want to compete when you come in. ½-way is kind of the worst option you’ve got.

With all of this in mind I dressed all in black and topped it off with my trusty Batman t-shirt. You can decide what the actual costume was: Batman? Hopeless Nerd? Michael Keaton? Yes. All of these things.

Next I had actually been invited to a collection of possible Halloween parties for Saturday night, so the question was to go to any, and if that question came up a “yes” then the follow-up question: which one? I opted for the easiest of the three, both in terms of “setting the bar” costume-wise and also comfort –level while there; it was a fete thrown by some friends of mine in their house way up on a hill. “house way up on a hill” is ALREADY satisfying the spook-requirement, and I figured the guest list there would include parents of kids and other items that tone down the ambitions for costumes. And I was right! The other options either had a level of costumery ambition I was completely intimidated by or would be chock-a-block FULL of sexy hot-n-tots.

So then the costume question again. I poured through my closet and the costume stuff I DID have up here and finally landed on a workable option: 1930’s cocktail dress (THE best piece of clothing I own) plus vintage hat (no idea how that got moved either. Possibly I thought they’d come back into style?) plus garter belt and stockings (I’d claim authenticity, but it was honestly the only forms of leg covering I had in the house!), pearls and a dot over the lip ala Marilyn and you had it. 1930’s starlet? Possibly. I preferred to think of myself as the original Lois Lane, ready to break the next big story, Chief!

Next year: Amazon Space Pirate Cat. With heels.