'tis the season...(for blood and gore!)

Happy Hollow’s Eve!

Back in high school, I always looked forward to celebrating “Spirit Week” during the week of homecoming. Whether it be Gender Swap Day (which quickly got banned, I think it made my principal nervous at how enthusiastic the male population got about wearing women’s clothing for a day), Red Carpet Day (which is supposed to mean “dress like a celebrity” but was intentionally misinterpreted by a friend and I… yeah we wore big strips of red carpet to school), or Run-On Sentence Day (joking, you get the point), I always got super excited about it.

High school is over. And so is spirit week. And Halloween is the only thing left to provide me with a small remnant of that excitement—because I get to dress up. Thus, it’s probably one of my favorite holidays.

Halloween is never taken lightly to me; I usually have my costume options narrowed down by the end of May and have the whole ensemble ready to go by the beginning of September. Last year, I dressed as Peggy Bundy. The year before, I was Bristol Palin (yes, the pregnant version). I have also dressed as “your mother”. I hate wearing store bought costumes—being original is not only cheaper but it guarantees that you won’t run into seventy-five girls dressed as the EXACT same thing. (I once shelled out a whopping $80 on a speed-racer costume only to realize later at a costume party that three other girls were wearing the same outfit, NOT COOL!)

Bristol Palin

Your Mom



Peggy Bundy

This year, however, has been a very different year for me. Instead of spending my days thoughtfully calculating a creative and original apparatus to wear on the most fun day of the year, I have been diligently hammering away at my soon to be finished education, my part-time/full-time job leasing apartments, and petting my cats (at least two hours a day, it’s a tough job). Which leaves me here… on the day before Halloween… without a costume.  

So what do I do? Crack and go buy a store bought costume? No siree. I might be desperate, but I’m broke too. Plus, originality is a key to my hallowed success.

Despite the great diversity observed in the array of costumes I have sported in the past, I realized that I have never been anything scary. Not even relatively. So this year, I’m going for the gore. This evening, I will join the last minute Eve shoppers in the bare aisles of the once thriving Halloween store. I will purchase fake blood and black face paint. I wish my sister were here to help—she’s an expert in theatre makeup. She made herself look like a cat once, I’m sure she could turn me into the bloodiest dead person in Wilmington in a matter of minutes. But she so happens to be in Tennessee at the moment, so I’ll have to improvise.

My sister, Ali as a cat

So if you’re lucky enough to see me downtown this year, prepare to be SCARED. No, I’m not really dead… I’m just suffering from a case of Creative Costume Block (CCD).

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEEN!

(insert evil cackle)