Ok. So there might be such a thing as too much Halloween. I may have considered it at one point this year … possibly at the 11th hour on the afternoon of the 31st, when I was still scrambling to make the first of my two costumes.
It’s not so simple pulling off Hannah Montana on your left side, while looking like Miley Cyrus on your right. I’d purchased a black hoodie and a red flannel button down, cleaved each down the center and, around 5:30pm day-of, I was sewing them into one shirt like a maniac. The finished product worked out to render my left side a Demur Country Western Daughter of the Mickey Mouse Club. On my right half, the black hoodie read “Bangers Tour” in pink and had tiny figurines super-glued all over it. I pulled up my hair into a top knot and shoved Christmas decorations into the bun.
The second night’s costume was more intense. It demanded a trip to Sephora, an hour in the makeup chair, and sitting on my floor, making giant push-pins out of Martha Stewart brand red glitter and styrofoam balls. I rounded out my Pin-Up Voodoo Doll ensemble with David-Bowie-worthy eye shadow and pig tails … because I don’t know how to do Pin-Up Doll hair.
I love Halloween. I love it so much, I start planning around July. By September, if I haven’t narrowed it down to a solid three costumes to choose from, I (reasonably) start to panic. I always overdo it. I’ve never had a year of trick-or-treating where my fingers weren’t stiff with super glue from last minute adjustments.
I live on a diet of Sweet Tarts, Gummi Bears and the occasional fist full of candy corn for 31 straight days. The chewing of shelf-stable wax really puts me in the mood to tackle the craft store. I know you’re shaking your heads … but if Zombie Apocolypse ever happens, you candy corn haters gonna be hatin’ … but you ain’t gonna be starving. Those little Egyptian-shaped nuggets will outlast the toughest cockroaches.
So, you get the idea.
For me, it’s not the actual night of Halloween, as much as the excitement building up. I love making costumes. I adore the ride to the top of the rollercoaster as much as I like the stomach lurch when you head down. No surprise that this year, like so many others before it, I was vibrating like a chainsaw strapped to the tailpipe of a Harley all month long. Now I’ve come hurtling back to Normal November.
The sunset tonight put a curtain down on the 3rd. It’s been 75 hours since it ended, and there’s a Jaw-Breaker-shaped hole in my soul. There’s the swooping candy comedown. I’m fumbling for the Advil … lamenting red skittles, crushed like sticky ladybugs in the bottom of my purse. Not even close to a week later, and I need it to happen again.
I want to watch axe murders shuffle through the woods on my television every day. I want to laugh at college girls dressed up like slutty bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, shivering in the streets … waiting on cabs that will never come. I want fake spiderwebs in the restaurants, ghosts made from old bedsheets, and Jack-o-lanterns with devious grins.
Dammit … I want to hand a stranger’s kid a Snickers Bar and have it not be weird!
Instead? There’s a lingering inch of superglue in my hair and glitter orphans in my bra. I’m contemplating making some kind of Advent Countdown Calendar to next year. I’m not even kidding.
I miss you, Halloween. I wish I could superglue you to my heart and carry you always. Always.
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I am so proud to be the mother of a person who truly appreciates Halloween in the way that my mother taught me to make it the most fun holiday of the entire year!
YEP! All comes from you! Thanks mom.
Jenny, your descriptions are masterpieces. What an accomplished writer you are! And, all of your photographs could win awards. This post is even better than the cats in Taiwan post which was super.
Your blog is the most entertaining one to which I subscribe. Thank you.
Well … this just MADE MY DAY! Thank you Nan Morrison!
(for the rest of you out there who don’t know, Nan Morrison was my amazing college advisor – so this comment is HUGE!) 😉 Miss you and Charleston so much!
How did Richard Nixon get involved in this? ! He was sort of old news by 1985. I do remember the evening pictured because we had to put you back in the bathtub after scraping out the pumpkin. Your brother smashed pumpkin slime into your already wet hair. You were an awfully cute little devil!
That mask looks like a Richard Nixon devil to me. Doesn’t it to you guys?
I was awfully cute. I think I might have peaked between 3 and 5.
Peaked at 3-5? I think that you look pretty darn good at close to 35.
Thanks mom. I think you look pretty darn good too. Must be a genetic thing, huh?
While not an amazing college advisor, I too find your writing fantastic and from the very few blogs I am subscribed to, yours is actually the only one I always read… You’re 35 already? Don’t look a day over 22 😉
Ralf … if you had been my college advisor, I would never, ever had graduated. HA! As a travel advisor, you’re aces.
And I’m glad you read my blogs. I read yours too and feel the same. I’m only 34. Not sure why my mom’s trying to age me? haha