six random facts: halloween edition

six random facts that either tell you
everything about me or tell you nothing at all
(...for my all-time favorite holiday...)

1) the first halloween costume I ever had was when I was seven months old. my mom dressed as a gypsy and made me her gypsy baby. she sewed matching dresses, and I got a matching headband with two long yarn braids attached to the band, to stick on my bald baby head. we lived in the grad school dorms (my dad was an RA, both of them trying, unsuccessfully, to finish degrees), and my mom took me around trick-or-treating to all the residents. it was very cute.

2) I've never worn a store-bought costume. all of my costumes were either made by my mother (usually sewn) or by me (usually cobbled together from existing clothing pieces/props or hastily stitched and pinned).

3) in 2002 I dressed as a zombie cheerleader and went with a bunch of friends to the Motherfucker Halloween Party, the trendiest downtown party in new york. we had nothing else to do. I was pretty proud of my costume (black skirt and tank top with red and white piping I stitched on, little "ZHS" zombie high school lettering on the skirt and jacket, matching pom-poms, everything ripped up and covered with dirt) but I was also very proud of my Zombie Cheer. It had three verses, one of which was: "We may be dead/And we may rot/But we got something/You ain't got/We're Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!"

so imagine my surprise when I got onstage for the costume contest and stood next to costumes both uninspired (random whore-wear) and totally awesome (five green plastic army men) and did my cheer, and the motherfuckers at Motherfucker booed me off the stage.

losers.

4) I decided to spend halloween at my dad's one year because I had nothing going on in my mom's town (where I went to school). I must have been in junior high, and even though I was too old to go trick-or-treating, I was still excited for the holiday. my dad lived in a suburban condo so I expected a ton of little kids. we bought bags and bags of candy and I got everything set-up by the door and waited. and waited. and waited. I don't remember a single trick-or-treater that night. it was heartbreaking.

the next year I was at my dad's again, but I'd learned my lesson so I didn't buy any candy at all this time. when the first trick-or-treaters rang the bell I ran around the house in a panic looking for anything sweet to give them. after the third adorable kid in costume I had to greet pretty much empty-handed, I turned out all the lights and hid in my room, trying to ignore the doorbell. this, too, was heartbreaking.

5) my three favorite halloween candies: orange and black M&Ms, Harvest Mix candy corn, and these little chocolate-covered marshmallow lumps (ostensibly shaped as witches and ghosts), individually wrapped in little foil wrappers with super-cute pictures of witches and ghosts on them.

6) I love carving pumpkins but they usually all look the same: triangle eyes with little half-moon pupils, a triangle nose (sometimes two rectangles for variety), and a wide, smiling mouth with square teeth (one above, one below) or two fangs. my sophomore year of college I talked my three roommates into going to the farmer's market with me and getting pumpkins to carve. we sat around the kitchen table and hacked and gutted and cut and drew. Amy was mainly interested in getting the seeds out so we could salt and bake them. I was all excited to design and cut the face (though once again, it was clearly related to every other pumpkin I'd ever carved in my life). Meg sat at the table, completely focused on carving. Amy and Rachael and I were long done and on to homework and t.v. and dinner while Meg sat there cutting elaborate eyes and curlicue eyebrows and complicated sneering lips. we teased her about it, but she stayed on task. and when it was done, hours later, it was the most beautiful pumpkin I'd ever seen.

(my typical pumpkin, not meg's cool ass one)

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