To All the Ghouls I've Loved Before

October 31, 2005 - 6:66 pm

Three cheers for Halloween, people. GAH DAMN I LOVE IT. I go bananas over playing dress-up, and I’m a Grade A psycho about it. In doing research for this entry (i.e., pouring through thousands of photographs in boxes) I found multiple photos of me in costume that could not be tied to any Halloween event. A Victorian lady, a handicapped person, an abused wife, a pregnant lady, and deformed hands, just to name a few. I figure those need their very own entry, something titled What Is Wrong With Me.

But for now let’s just take a look at my Halloween costumes, starting at age 13. One would think that I should have photos of costumes all through childhood, and I do vaguely recall wearing a witch’s hat, but I have no photo evidence to prove it.

In chronological order:

1989: This is me and my best friend in 8th grade. That’s me on the right, with my corn teeth accentuated by the white face makeup. I didn’t even smoke or drink coffee in 8th grade so I’m beginning to suspect that maybe I was born with the corn. BORN WITH CORN. My new bumper sticker.

I don’t remember what our costume was, but evidently it was My Mom Would Only Buy Me Rainbow Hairspray and Clown Makeup. Or maybe just: I’m a Sweatshirt.

Our hair didn’t look too different from that on a daily basis.

That girl ended up having both a white baby and a black baby before we finished high school, for reasons that were never quite clear to me.

I didn’t even own anything like a gym shoe that a cheerleader might possibly wear. That was during a half decade where I was completely self-absorbed and spent my free time drawing anarchy symbols on my folders and writing a research paper on Malcolm McLaren and why 90s pop music sukked. I walked around with my head inside of my own ass and my cool friend’s asses continuously. The only athletic shoes that were cool enough for my anti-establishment duck feet were Chuck Taylors, of course. So there I am wearing “rare” blue suede Chucks with purple laces, completely ruining my cheerleader motif. Like only an asshole would.

That girl next to me was a foreign exchange student named Olga whom I pitied and invited out with my friends, even though we had no idea what the hell she was saying half the time. And I have no idea what the hell her costume is supposed to be. I don’t want to know.

1994: Here I am, fresh out of high school and living with my butt-plug loving British homo boyfriend. That’s him, as a priest. That should have been a sign that he liked boys and buttholes. This is when I had a career flipping burgers, and I may as well have been shoveling horse shit for a living for all it was worth.

You may find this disturbing, but stay with me here. That was a dance costume that I originally wore to a recital when I was eleven years old and had no boobs. It still fit when I was eighteen and drank Zima and lived in sin. (Double sin because he was a homo). I think I forgot to eat all through high school because I was too busy being self-righteous.

The best part was that the fabric was made specifically to glow under a black light, so that night we went to KC’s Halloween party and his whole attic was set up with black lights and a dance floor. I was on that dance floor going crazy and disco dancing like an ABBA girl and I was literally the center of attention because I just GLOWED like a ball of pink and yellow light.

(One of) My ex-boyfriend(s) who dumped me because I wouldn’t have sex with him was at that party with his new goth girlfriend who put out. Their costumes were “I am Goth” – of course. She sat in the corner and moped while I spun around on the dance floor, my ruffles shuddering and all aflame as I shook my ass and sweat poured off me. But in her eyes, and his eyes, I was one giant middle finger, turning round and round, saluting them with my confidence and, well - arrogance. I was on top of the world.

-----

1995: I think this is the year I started drinking and my mental archives are pretty empty. I have no idea what I was that year. [CORRECTION: KC has just informed me that 1995 was the year that we ditched all of our dirtbag friends and cut out drugs and drinking entirely. We were left with no friends at all and spent Halloween at a coffee shop talking about how we had no friends.]

That girl next to me, the angel smoking a cigarette, became my best friend the following year. I invited her to live with me in Chicago and things were good for awhile, but we ended up hating each other and had a vicious falling out and I threatened her life both verbally and in writing. The day I moved out I secretly sabotaged some of her belongings. Belle stuck his dick in her tin of lip gloss. We took great satisfaction in knowing that she was smearing his dick germs all over her lips every day.

Don’t ask me what is going on here. I don’t remember giving anyone permission to do this to me, but I’m certain that Boone’s Farm was involved. I have a whole roll of black and white film of me making scary faces with that stupid makeup on. Example #2 of My Mom Would Only Buy Me Clown Makeup.

This was the next day and my costume was Lady Miss Keir of DeeLite. Fairly lame also, but I must defend and say that I was limited to the Salvation Army for my costumes for many years, when I had negative cash flow as a student.

That girl next to me was not my friend but someone made me take a picture with her anyway. Her costume was Pamela Anderson, which was supremely annoying because she strived to look like Pamela Anderson every day of the year but then feigned ignorance when people would say, “You look like Pamela Anderson.” Every penis this side of the Mississippi was constantly pointed her way, like their dick was a compass and she was NORTH. I think all of that sexual attention eventually made her a little bit crazy and I heard she ran away to live in the mountains or something.

1998: This was totally the most badass costume I’ve ever had. Bride of Frankenstein, but this picture was taken before I was fully ready but I had added more makeup and bolts on my neck.

This was when I lived with the smoking angel from above, who happened to be a hair stylist. I sat in a chair for 8 hours while she sewed LONG BLACK HAIR EXTENSIONS to my head, because at the time I had short red hair. It was awesome. She built some kind of armature on my head and was able to make all of the hair stand on end.

The reason why I invested so much energy in this costume was because I had to waitress at a bar that Halloween night and my boss said that there would be a costume contest among the employees to encourage people to dress up, with the winner taking home $300. I was so broke at the time that I decided to gamble that if I invested $50 into a costume, that I could win. And I did win, by a landslide, because when I showed up to work no one even knew who I was. People were sweating me the whole night.

But my midget asshole boss reneged on our agreement and laughed in my face when I asked for my $300 prize. “You didn’t think I would really pay that, did you?” That $50 was my grocery money for the whole month, and that was back when my rent was only $275 a month so $300 was like, a fortune.

Not to worry, that terrible man still works at that terrible bar and I saw him on the sidewalk a few weeks ago, appearing to have aged about 70 years, balding, and still the proud owner of tiny little hands that I call Cabbage Patch Hands, because his fingers appeared to be fused together.

This is getting really long and I still have 7 more Halloweens to go, including 2005, which involved 3 days, 4 parties and 2 costumes! Phew! This is going to have to be a two part series, so tune in next time for Crippled Superman, Al Qaeda and Fat Gnomes!

Happy Halloweenie!

Previous - Next

The Latest Babel

The Fast, Days 1-6
January 28, 2007