Halloween is upon us! This fantastical break from the norm is the holiday season’s clarion call. Ushering us away from summer’s final, languid whispers, it's the perfect instrument for arousing us from early autumn dreaminess. The anticipation, festiveness, and excitement for Halloween reawaken our holiday-muscle memory, minus the toil, expense, and crazed over-scheduling that November and December offer in abundance.
Having the permission, nay, encouragement to be more macabre/racy/outlandish/goofy than my regular self makes Halloween feel sort of like Mardi Gras of the Fall. It’s one last fling with carefree fun before serious holiday strategizing begins. Best of all: dressing in costume (duh). Second best: my costume highlight reel. The highlight reel is imaginary – literally, because it’s in my head – so I’ve had to enjoy it solo…until now! YAY!
I didn't wear my first costume, gypsy girl, until age four. My mom, a no-nonsense immigrant, saw no point in dressing me in costume before I could wrap my head around the whole taking-candy-from-strangers paradox. My mom made a dark, floor-length skirt for me and tied a thin, flowing scarf around my head. She let me wear several strands of her beads and lots of gypsy-like jewelry. With my long black hair, dark brown eyes, and heavy brows, I looked like a true Roma, albeit a tiny one.
In first grade, as dictated by Little Girl Law, I was all about Wonder Woman. Instead of Shaun Cassidy, I chose the Lynda Carter poster for my bedroom door and spent an hour every week watching the Wonder Woman series on TV. She was so badass with her invisible jet, Lasso of Truth, magic tiara, and bullet-deflecting bracelets. Accordingly, I wanted to be her. The next best option was dressing as Wonder Woman for Halloween. My parents bought me the vinyl costume with plastic mask. It was cheap, cheesy, and probably my favorite costume ever. Unfortunately, I wore my Wonder Woman costume so frequently prior to Halloween that I was actually sick of it. I ended up trick-or-treating as a cat that year.
My mom looked askance at my declaration that I was going trick-or-treating in seventh grade. She assumed that I was too old for this sort of thing and probably suspected I was doing something boy-related instead. My best friend and I did indeed trick-or-treat as planned, however. We thought we were so avant-garde in our “punk rock” costumes: self-mutilated and graffiti-ed T-shirts (safety pins preserved our modesty and looked radical), glitter spray on our spiked up hair, and bad-girl makeup. We stopped at the home of the family that I babysat for, which, in hindsight, was a poor decision. They were very conservative and very religious; the only records they owned were from the Contemporary Christian genre. Thankfully they didn’t answer the door (and likely didn’t even celebrate Halloween) or I probably would have been looking for another gig.
When I was in high school I worked as a hostess at a semi-conservative restaurant, but we were allowed to work in costume on Halloween, which WAS AWESOME. Restaurant people are fun, so I felt comfortable wearing a fun costume. I donned one of my mom’s maternity dresses, stuffing the control top of my panty hose with rags so that I looked pregnant. I rolled my hair in curlers and applied 1960s-style makeup. I was a sixties housewife; it was so obvious. Many of our customers thought I actually was a pregnant 16 year old, though, and several women touched my belly disconcertingly, not getting the joke. I thought this was hilarious and supreme praise for my costume design. My employers were not appreciative.
San Francisco is a special place on Halloween. It’s impossible to accurately describe the menagerie, but it’s spectacular. S. and I decided to go to the Exotic Erotic Ball when we were about 21. At the time, this was a requisite Halloween event. I assembled a super sexy outfit, complete with stripper shoes, big hair, and major makeup – very slutty. Not. I was ill-prepared for what Exotic Erotic Ball-slutty really entailed and I looked like a sad little square.
I’m transgressing my timeline here, but I wanted to end with THE highlight of my highlight reel. In 1979 I was absolutely manic for the album “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer. My favorite song was “Bad Girls”. I was aware that “Bad Girls” was about prostitutes, but you know, the kind that are sexy, desired, and in control. What can I say? I was nine. As such, I was a slave to the whimsical infatuations of youth and decided that I would dress as a hooker that year. Somehow, this choice was sanctioned by my mom, a fact that still mystifies me. She helped me put together my outfit (keep in mind that at age nine I was the same size as my tiny mom): a gold, crocheted mini dress, back seamed stockings, and black high heels. For “boobs” I used the halves of two L’eggs containers, the large halves of course, and wore my mom’s bra. I remember one neighborhood mom looking down the neckline of my dress to find out what I had going on in there. “She thinks I have boobs!” I marveled. Conversely, my totally hot 16 year old sister wore our grandfather’s flannel pajamas and slippers to escort me around the neighborhood. Such is the wonderful incongruity of Halloween.
Hope you enjoyed my retrospective as much as I always do (LOL. That would be impossible.) Wishing you lots of frightful fun tonight.
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