I haven’t liked Halloween for at least 12 years, because I think age 9 is around the last time I had anything resembling a positive Halloween experience. Walking around the loop of my neighborhood, sloshing my little pumpkin-bucket of candy around and extorting candy out of complete strangers… man, I think I’m feeling phantom tooth-rot. Coincidentally, that was the last time I fit into my $15 Superman costume.
Throughout high school and my first four-ish years of college though, Halloween basically became yet another social function within which I would never, ever fit in. I mean, geez, I find it hard enough to not dress like a penniless sitar player 99% of the time anyway — putting the effort into a costume is practically death for me. Death!
This video pretty much sums up my conception of Halloween
So it was very much to my surprise that I was actually excited about Halloween 2006. I’m not sure why. The new company that I work for has this biggish annual Halloween party where they rent out a club in LA, with an open bar and like 3-4 DJs. Normally, really not my thing (excessive drinking and dancing). But some combination of how much I love my new company (they’re really a fine gaggle of nerds), how long it had been since I’d gone out and partied (roughly — a million years), and how eager I was to surpass this current point in my life triangle (see previous post) made really, really want to go.
Ten bucks at the thrift store + old ripped jeans + terrible Hot Topic belt + one random jacket later, I had some semblance of a costume. I really didn’t have any interesting ideas though, so I basically went as an exaggerated version of myself — though what I actually told people varied between “80s Punk!” and “Rufio, from Hook!”. For the most part, people just dug the hair.
The night of the party came up, and I was super nervous about going to the party for some reason — partly because I didn’t want to look dumb in front of the coworkers that I see for eight hours almost every day, but really, I was terrified that going to this party wouldn’t help me break through the wall that I’ve been slowly building around myself for the past few months. Terrified that I would arrive at the party, immediately slump on a chair somewhere with half a drink, people watch myself into further depression, and then drive home and pass out watching Arrested Development for the 70th night in a row.
And thank god, I had a metric crapton of fun. Hey, did you know that drinking lots of alcohol can make you like to dance and lose almost all inhibitions? Apparently, I became some sorta freak on the dance floor — at one point, this woman pulled me aside asked if I’d be interested in auditioning for some dance agency in LA. I laughed and told her thanks, but I preferred to stay behind the camera — but man, this comes a long way from the guy who once punched his date in the boob at Winter Formal.
Pictures:
Pow!
Womp!
Bam!
Poom!
Pllt!
Wee!
November 2nd, 2006 at 02-11-2006 @ 7:05 PM
loved the pics. bring over the wig next time for guitar hero fun!
November 8th, 2006 at 08-11-2006 @ 7:32 PM
i remember the boob punch.
good times.