My Halloween

My last posting before the gap was October 4th, and then things started getting crazy and overwhelming, followed by maddening and depressing. We'll go into that more later. I just mention it now to explain that I was fairly busy and stressed.

I should also point out that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the creativity that comes with it, as you dream up costumes and spooky settings and pumpkin designs. Naturally, creativity requires some mental capacity, and executing it calls for some time.

There were a few things going on at work. Obviously, Halloween itself was on the weekend, but the Thursday before (because so many people are out on Fridays), there was going to be judging of costumes, desk decorations, and of the scary Halloween treats that people brought.

I have a go-to Halloween treat. Back in college one year, when I was really hyper, I made skull sugar cookies for my Spanish class. They were inspired by the Day of the Dead confections. I don’t do bright colored fancy streaks, but I will scratch on teeth with a knife or toothpick, and make eyes out of inverted chocolate chips.

I am never really satisfied with them, because I am shaping them freehand, and the details could be a lot clearer, but people like them. It made my Spanish teacher’s day (because she had an otherwise bad day, but she said the one good thing that happened was the cookies).

Decorating the cube sounded great, but I did not have time to come up with anything really clever, so I just pulled out the stuff I already had and arranged it around my cube. It was overwhelmingly plush. I mean, I like stuffed animals, but I think it gave the wrong impression. Since right across from me there was a giant rat attacking people in a graveyard filled with green mist, I felt somewhat lacking. However, I do think the spiders milling about and then forming a column marching away from the web was good, because you could tell they were bent on world domination.

Someday I have this really ambitious idea of working with my natural curls to create snakes and have this really amazing Medusa costume, but that was not going to be 2010. (Odds are against 2011 as well.) I bought a witch hat, and paired it with my fancy red blouse and a black skirt and my spider earrings. Initially people thought maybe I had a date or something, until they realized the clothes went with the hat.

There were two basic problems with the costume (besides needing to keep an eye on my cleavage, since that neckline kind of borders the danger zone). One issue was that with my thick hair, once I put on a hat I can’t take it off. I get really bad hat head. So I was wearing it all day, and on to the Max station, and on the bus, all the way home. It would have been a little better on Halloween itself, but this was three days before, and no one else was dressed up. (Obviously someone else at work was wearing a costume, because I did not win the prize, but no one else on my team was, though one outfit did reference Wednesday Addams.)

The other issue was that not wearing this particular shirt much, I was not aware that with a little bit of moisture the color would run. I have a pink bra, and a partially pink slip now. I guess I need to wash that with some vinegar or something.

So, I did not win any prizes, and at times I felt silly, but I tried, and I did add to the general mood. People enjoyed my contributions, even if they did not live up to my dreams. And at the time, that seemed to be the story of my life, but it wasn’t awful. It was okay that I was accomplishing something at all.


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