Hallowhatever
Sat Oct 31, 2009 12:57 (UTC -5)I’m kind of ambivalent about Halloween. On one hand, I like candy, but on the other hand, I don’t like wearing costumes.
I never really have good ideas for costumes, anyway. Off the top of my head, I can remember that I’ve been a ghost, a nerd, a doctor, a Beatle, Fred Astaire, myself, and a dinosaur. I could explain some of those, but I don’t really want to. The best costume was probably the dinosaur one from when I was little, but you can only pull that off at a certain age (especially because the costume was tiny).
I’ve always had pretty lame costume ideas, and then there was a time when I thought I was too old for trick-or-treating. For a few years, I would sit at home on Halloween night and hand out candy or just chill. One year, someone (possibly another kid who lived in my house??) started a rumor that I read a dictionary instead of trick-or-treating. Actually, I was watching a football game on TV, but I guess the truth was stranger than fiction. Better yet, that story made an appearance a few years in a row. So, yeah, I was a pretty happy child on Halloween.
I couldn’t think of anything to be this year, but I figure it really doesn’t matter as much as I get older. College students just wear costumes to make their wild Halloween parties more fun. I’m going to a non-wild party, so I feel I can get away with not wearing a costume. It’s also a football party, this being a big game day, so I guess I could say I’m going as a football fan? In that case, I’m being myself for Halloween again.
After all, this isn’t the first time I’ve watched a football game on Halloween. Really.
Readers of the Independent Florida Alligator may have noticed my name in the newspaper this week. I had a letter to the editor published on Thursday in which I pulled out and picked apart a previous editorial‘s passing claim that the words “one nation under God” cannot be considered broadly offensive because they’re found in the Pledge of Allegiance. No follow-ups to my letter have been published, but the online version has attracted its share of vitriolically tangential double posts from pseudonymous capslockers.
I was pleased to see that my letter had been published and that some of my friends (and my boss) took notice of it. I had sent in an unsolicited column and at least one other letter to the editor in the past, both to no avail, so I didn’t have high hopes that this one would be printed. But I knew I had to write it anyway. If I don’t stand up for my rights, who will?
Finally, good things to know: 9 Ways Marketing Weasels Will Try to Manipulate You. (Via Get Rich Slowly)
8 comments
#1 by kristen: Sat Oct 31, 2009 13:41 (UTC -5)
when were you fred astaire?
and also, vitriolically tangential double posts from pseudonymous capslockers is a very impressive sentence fragment. band name perhaps? hahaha.
#2 by casey: Sat Oct 31, 2009 21:10 (UTC -5)
to this day i still believe the reading the dictionary thing. don’t make me think my life to this point was a lie.
#3 by Jordon Kalilich: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:26 (UTC -5)
@Kristen: We were little, and I was wearing some generic suit and you were like a ballerina/butterfly thing, so Mom and Dad said we were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
@Casey: Don’t think that my life to this point was a lie.
#4 by Andrea: Sun Nov 01, 2009 18:57 (UTC -5)
I happened to find my party exceedingly wild, thank you very much!
#5 by Jordon Kalilich: Wed Nov 04, 2009 21:16 (UTC -5)
It turned out to be!
#6 by Sarah: Thu Nov 05, 2009 14:30 (UTC -5)
Yeah, at the Halloween parties I attended this weekend I had the best (in my opinion, of course) costume at each. For one, I was Flannery O’Connor, and for the next, I was BooBoo Glass. Although I was amused at being accused of being a Rice University student (uh!), some people were like “Uh, nice costume.” Don’t worry about not dressing up. Just say you’re an auther from the fifties and comb your hair back and put on some glasses and look like an irritated guy with a little too much to drink. Last year I was Sylvia Plath and just hung out by the oven. Big literary lols.
Yeah, I’m a book nerd, what am I gonna do. Ha.
Good luck with the costuming next year! And for the record, I think more people should have non-Halloween costume parties, and more Halloween non-costume parties.
#7 by Jordon Kalilich: Thu Nov 05, 2009 17:35 (UTC -5)
I agree with you there, Sarah. More parties in general would be great.
Nice costumes, by the way. I’d never heard of people having multiple costumes for one Halloween until this year, but I guess it’s something people do a lot. Do you usually have more than one?
#8 by Sarah: Thu Nov 05, 2009 17:36 (UTC -5)
I only did because I went to one party Friday night and another Saturday night and didn’t feel like wearing the same thing.