Happy Halloween

Time was, Halloween wasn't about dressing like whatever superhero/-villain was popular that summer (guys) or as Slutty Cat/Nurse/Freddy Krueger (girls). Then again, some options are far, far worse. And sick. And five kinds of wrong.



(I think I need to put bleach in my eyes now.)

I love Halloween -- candy! Dress-up! Spooky stories!-- but haven't had much call to dress up in recent years. Growing up a book- and movies-obsessed kid with a mom who's a skilled and imaginative (not to mention patient) seamstress led to amazing costumes, which in retrospect were a little odd. What seven year old girl wants to be a Can Can Dancer? At least it made a change from the procession of fairies, princesses, and fairy princesses that I also went as for much of my kidhood.

But probably my childhood favorite was a Wonder Woman costume made of swimsuit material that then had a second life the following summer as a bathing suit. Dad made me the tiara and bracelets out of cardboard covered with gold contact paper. It was teh awesomez.

As an adult I went through a pretentious, too-clever phase that included going as the Stock Crash of 1929, which consisted of a black flapper dress accessorized with a 20's-style headpiece and boa made from the stock pages from the newspaper. A friend and I went as Death and Destruction one year in college, costumes that were utterly indistinguishable from our normal goth-girl outfits except for more makeup and temporary hair dye. I went once as Crazy Jane from Grant Morrison's run of Doom Patrol, and you get warm comic book fuzzies from me if you know what the hell I'm even talking about.

Halloween usually sneaks up on me, so I don't really plan like I did when I was a kid. I have a lot of vintage clothing, so I can usually pull together a Rosie the Riveter or Random Swingdancer pretty easily. I also still have my stage makeup box from my theater days so I can do Undead Swingdancer or Rosie the Riveter with the Plague. An easy and comfortable costume one year was Suburban Vampire Victim: pajamas, robe, hair in curlers-- and dead-white makeup with bloody neck punctures.

What's your favorite Halloween costume? Past or present, worn or seen, doesn't matter.

And if you say creepy full-body Papa Bear suit, I am SO calling the police.

EDIT: Fixed the Krueger spelling...