all_hallows_eve raze happy_halloween_red_children. what's your favourite halloween memory? i remember dressing up as frankenstein, a werewolf, a ninja, and a few other things for halloween. when i was the grim reaper, i screamed, "give me some candy or i'll steal your soul!" i took it pretty seriously. i always kept circling back to being a vampire. i loved that. slicking my hair back. my mom painting my face white and giving me a widow's peak and a trickle of fake blood on my chin. slipping the cheap white plastic fangs over my teeth. donning the black cape and adopting an eastern european accent. "blah! i vant to bite your neck!" (mom, of course, was always a witch.) "horror sounds of the night" was the soundtrack to every halloween when i was growing up. just looking at the black cassette tape with its orange label was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. whether i was handing out candy with the tape blaring from the stereo speakers inside the house or coming home after trick-or-treating to the sound of its distant moans, those creaks and groans and bloodcurdling cackles and singing saws and dissonant church bells and pipe organ melodies were never far away. my own personal halloween soundtrack: matt maxwell's "c'est_l'halloween". when i was twelve or thirteen i dressed up as the bride of frankenstein. we drove to a part of town i didn't know and i knocked on doors attached to houses i'd never seen before. a cute girl who looked about my age was behind one of those doors. she handed me a mini snickers bar and said, "oh my god! i love your dress!" she thought i was a real girl. a few years later my mom got this genius idea. she made me up to look like a life-size prop. i wore a plaid shirt that was way too big for me. we stuffed it with newspaper. i put on a monster mask. i sat on the front lawn in a folding chair next to a card table that held a huge plastic bowl full of candy. i made sure i was slumped over to really put it over the top. right when the trick-or-treaters were about to reach into the bowl and take whatever they wanted, i straightened my back and turned to face them. i think i can still hear their screams. 211031 ... tender_square (i was going to post about "c'est l'halloween" today! that song is forever stuck in my head) 211031 ... tender_square i have to say that during the era of brandon, i had some pretty epic halloween costumes, sometimes as joint outfits we did together, sometimes on my own. but every costume was culled from pieces i already had or thrifted for, which made it more special. our first year together we dressed as margo and richie tenenbaum. another year we went as the guys from flight of the conchords, i was jermaine and brandon was bret (i don’t know what it is about halloween but i love cross-dressing for it). other costume favorites include mr. dressup (complete with hand puppet), captain planet, and prince (when i arrived at annaliese’s party, she thought i was a dude). * not a costume story, just a random story. mike and i went to mini put-put at colossanti’s one year and they had decked out the green with lots of halloween décor. at one point during our game, i heard some weird techno/rap song come through the speakers with the lyrics “halloween, 31st, you might see me in a hearse. halloween!” it was truly horrific. i’ll never be free of it for as long as i live. 211031 ... nr even when i've been exhausted or sick or there's been a worldwide pandemic, i've always dressed up for halloween. some of my costumes have been punny. for a couple of years i took advantage of a bee costume i had; one year i was a zom-bee, and the next year i was a spelling bee. one year in university, i went as zombeethoven, with the zombie trimmings and beethoven hair and a bloody copy of "moonlight sonata" coming out the top of my blazer pocket. i was pretty proud of that one. speaking of dressing in drag, when i was 18, someone was having a halloween party and told everyone to come dressed in drag. they then cancelled that request, but my best friend and i had already decided we'd go as a fancy-dressed couple (me as a man, her as a woman with her arm linked through mine). i still love that photo of us. a few years ago i went as a jellyfish, carrying one of those clear birdcage umbrellas with a battery-operated glowing purple light taped to the top and tentacles taped to the sides. yesterday i went to my family members' house, where they had made a good effort on decorations, and welcomed trick-or-treaters. there weren't many, but we saw a couple of adorable spiderpeople and storm troopers. i was wearing a fun neon blue wig i've had for over a decade; it's so realistic people have asked if it's my real hair. the day before, i went as alexis from schitt's creek, and won a costume contest. vroom vroom, bitches. there's just something about a holiday that encourages you to be something you're not with absolutely no shame. 211101 what's it to you? who go blather from