Halloween costumes

My first Halloween costume that I really remember was the Disco Dazzler. I had no idea whom she was, but I found her later in a comic book. It stands out because I remember looking at the row of plastic suits with masks at K-Mart (that used to be the standard), and not finding anything else that wasn't male or bad. Some kids like being monsters or witches, but it was very important to me to be a good character, and ideally, something pretty and feminine.

I think I gave up on the store bought costumes after another year, and then I remember doing a rich lady costume, putting rhinestones onto a collar for my stuffed cat, and a princess carrying around a frog in 4th grade.

There were some hand-me-downs and things in there too, but I remember in junior high I started moving more towards the weird and unique. One year I borrowed a family friend's uniform, and went as a pilot, and one year I got this idea in my head of taping a flashlight to a hard hat and being a coal miner - which no one else ever thought of doing, because why would you?

The most amazing thing to me is how few pictures we have of any Halloween costumes. I cannot go back and build a visual record. The only picture I know of is from my senior yearbook. It was a nightgown and wolf mask with some curlers in the hair, representing the Big Bad Wolf disguised as Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. They captioned it "Gina Harris woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

This is mostly memorable because I had sort of encouraged some people to nominate me for Homecoming Court. This was stupid of me. I was caught between that desire to be pretty and popular, and also with this injustice that you can only be recognized that way if you are pretty and popular, and having recently done a report on the founding of our high school and seeing that it was set up to be pretty progressive. I'm not even sure how seriously I took it, but I did end up on the ballot.

The nominations for the ballot were announced at an assembly on Halloween. The girls who ended up making the court were dressed in pretty dresses of the kind that one might wear to a homecoming dance. I'm not sure if they were just really confident they would be nominated, or they had student council connections, or what.

I had no idea I would be called up, and even if I had, I didn't have any dresses like that. They looked like princesses; I looked like a joke. That is my candid photo for my senior year, and you don't even see my face.

As I was writing about Halloween, I was thinking that it's kind of weird that I don't get into dressing up. I had written it off as the hassle. I don't sew, and the things you can buy aren't always satisfying. That's partly true, but also, there are size concerns, and I realized my real issue is that I still don't really want people looking at me. A costume asks people to look, and I am not down with that.

I don't think the yearbook photo was intended to be anything cruel. It could easily have been because it was funny and creative, and I was. I worked at being funny and creative because I couldn't be pretty. I tried really hard to divorce myself from that side of things, except it's everywhere. There is this constant undercurrent that if you aren't desirable nothing else matters. I'm not always thinking about it, or even usually thinking about it, but it's always there.

Next year I am going to need to have a costume. I don't know what that means even. I don't know if I need to try and be pretty and like the way I look, or if I need to go ahead and be monstrous because looks don't matter and I'm going to play by my own rules.

I'm still working on that reading list for helping troubled teens, which is certainly part of why I am thinking about this, and influences how I think about it. I have found that I can't even finish sentences. There are so many contradictions and problems with it that it leads to a kind of inertia. Well that thought is not going to work; this one? No. Wait, I...

It's not surprising that I don't know what I need to do for a costume, but I know I need to do something. I need to face it head-on. Maybe after a few more books I will be able to sort it out.