I'm like a little kid when it comes to Halloween. There's something about costumes and candy and mass wackiness that just gets me, every year. When I was growing up in Boulder in the '70s and '80s, Halloween was a huge deal. The annual Mall Crawl hadn't yet disintegrated into a drunken, violent frenzy and was still a chance for everyone in town to come out and see one another, compare brilliant, creative, silly, political or downright disgusting costume concepts, and stroll (very, very slowly) along the Pearl Street Mall with 30,000 of their friends and neighbors.
My sophomore year in high school (also known as The Mohawk Era, or, if you're my parents, The Year We Gladly Would Have Sold Madeline To The Gypsies), a friend's mom allowed a small group of us to have a party in her store on The Mall. My punker friends and I spent the evening dancing in the window and writing notes on scrap paper to the people outside. We were protected from the crazed, ass-grabbing throngs (and the annual Halloween freeze), but had a front-row view of the fun and madness. I was a vampire that year, complete with a fabulous homemade black satin cape (even punkers can convince their mommies to make Halloween costumes) and a spider web painted on my shaved skull. If you doubt that I actually had a mohawk, I assure you that timeless proof exists on page 19 or so of the 1986 Boulder High School yearbook.
I always try to come up with a great costume idea. A few years ago, I was Tropical Storm Madeline, since my eponymous weather event had blown through Florida just a few days before. My costume consisted of a bikini, grass skirt, tropical straw hat, sunglasses, and Storm soda labels on my face and chest. And a squirt gun!
This year, I'm going as Betty Boop. As I hinted yesterday, there's a story behind this costume . . . .
Back when I was in private practice, I did pro bono work for the Jewish inmates in Colorado's prison system. One of them developed a rather alarming crush on me, and regularly sent me novel-length discussions of kabbalistic texts, vegetarian recipes, disturbing amorous declarations, and unusual gifts (such as a hand-made, purple knitted scarf and hat, which I donated to a local shelter). After I finally paid a visit to him and some of the other Jewish guys in prison, he decided that I looked like Betty Boop, and that I was a modern-day Betty Boop (his reasoning was that she brought hope and cheer to the soldiers during the war, while I brought hope and cheer to the Jewish inmates. Both the analogy and the resemblance are pretty weak). Then one day, a package arrived at my office with an etched mirror depicting Betty Boop (sort of) under my name. Trademark violations aside, this triggered mass hilarity among my colleagues, and my secretary began buying me Boop stuff whenever she found it. Somehow this evolved into a "thing," which has stuck with me to the present.
So this year, I'm going to be Betty Boop for the Halloween party I'm going to on Saturday night. I actually did this a few years ago, and have never received so much male attention in my life! But that's what Halloween is for, right? I get to dress sexy and get hit on enough to last me for the other 364 days of the year.
The party we're going to is a big benefit-type deal, and I have no idea whom I'll know there. Somehow I'm more excited about going to a party where I don't have to mingle with people and can just enjoy drinking, dancing, and taking in all the crazy outfits along with a few close friends. My blogging buddy Rebecca and her bike-guru husband Dan will be here and are transporting costume fixings all the way from Austin. Steve is going to be the Incredible Hulk, assuming we find the necessary makings during tonight's expedition to the costume shop. I think Betty Boop and the Incredible Hulk make a cute -- or at least colorful -- couple!
UPDATE: As of January 14, 2004, photos of our Halloween silliness can be found here.
Hola faretaste
mekodinosad
Posted by: AnferTuto | July 27, 2007 at 06:33 PM