Flashback Friday: Halloween
I know you've been waiting all week for a blog here, so I feel bad for doing this, but I don't really have a choice. This is going to be a special holiday-themed entry. Lame. I know.
So I've deduced that tomorrow is Halloween. And that got me thinking about costumes of my past. I had some pretty pathetic ones. This is not meant to be a criticism of my dear mom. I can hardly blame a woman for opting not to hand-stitch a princess dress for a 5-year-old with a proclivity for changing her mind. As proof of such, when I was in kindergarten, I was supposed to be a little Indian princess. That is, a Native American princess. In 1989 I don't think this was considered culturally insensitive yet. Anyways, I had a really nice costume and real moccasins and everything. I wore it to school, but when it came time for trick-or-treating, and I found out that my brothers were going as ninjas, I decided I wanted to be a ninja too. So goodbye nice costume, hello makeshift ninja costume. (Black sweatsuit.)
Most years, we would go through the box of old clothes that we took out of the attic, and that's where our costumes came from. Most of the contents of the box were just relics of my mom's outdated wardrobe. I do believe this led to a lot of cross-dressing for my brothers. Or maybe it's the chicken and the egg. I don't know. But my mom would pick up an article of clothing and say something like, "Here, this could be a gypsy skirt." Or, "You could wear this and be a rock star."
So, in second grade I was a gypsy. And in third grade I was a rock star. The rock star costume consisted of me wearing shiny black leggings and a black glittery top that I think my mom probably wore at some point for New Year's or something. The costume was completed with a black fedora and a tranny amount of purple eyeshadow and heavy blush. And while it wasn't exactly part of the costume per se, I also wore enormous purple glasses that covered half my face. (Thanks a lot, myopia.) Anyhow, I suspect that neither my mom nor I had ever actually seen a rock star, so this seemed like a perfectly fine costume at the time.
By fourth grade I had at least abandoned the big purple frames, but I was getting older, weirder, and considerably less cute. When it came time to prepare for Halloween, all I knew was that we got a black kitten that year, and I wanted to incorporate her into my costume. So out of the clothes box came a big, billowy red dress. And so it was proclaimed a "she-devil" costume. So I wore a giant long red dress with long sleeves, and a red cowboy hat. And I carried my cat, Kramer. She was scared and confused, rightfully so. We even made her a red cape. I think this was the only sewing that ever went into one of my costumes. But I was happy because I got to take Kramer to school. Why a she-devil would carry a kitten, let alone a kitten wearing a cape, I have no idea. It was only years later that I realized I had unknowingly dressed up as a crazy cat lady.
So I've deduced that tomorrow is Halloween. And that got me thinking about costumes of my past. I had some pretty pathetic ones. This is not meant to be a criticism of my dear mom. I can hardly blame a woman for opting not to hand-stitch a princess dress for a 5-year-old with a proclivity for changing her mind. As proof of such, when I was in kindergarten, I was supposed to be a little Indian princess. That is, a Native American princess. In 1989 I don't think this was considered culturally insensitive yet. Anyways, I had a really nice costume and real moccasins and everything. I wore it to school, but when it came time for trick-or-treating, and I found out that my brothers were going as ninjas, I decided I wanted to be a ninja too. So goodbye nice costume, hello makeshift ninja costume. (Black sweatsuit.)
Most years, we would go through the box of old clothes that we took out of the attic, and that's where our costumes came from. Most of the contents of the box were just relics of my mom's outdated wardrobe. I do believe this led to a lot of cross-dressing for my brothers. Or maybe it's the chicken and the egg. I don't know. But my mom would pick up an article of clothing and say something like, "Here, this could be a gypsy skirt." Or, "You could wear this and be a rock star."
So, in second grade I was a gypsy. And in third grade I was a rock star. The rock star costume consisted of me wearing shiny black leggings and a black glittery top that I think my mom probably wore at some point for New Year's or something. The costume was completed with a black fedora and a tranny amount of purple eyeshadow and heavy blush. And while it wasn't exactly part of the costume per se, I also wore enormous purple glasses that covered half my face. (Thanks a lot, myopia.) Anyhow, I suspect that neither my mom nor I had ever actually seen a rock star, so this seemed like a perfectly fine costume at the time.
By fourth grade I had at least abandoned the big purple frames, but I was getting older, weirder, and considerably less cute. When it came time to prepare for Halloween, all I knew was that we got a black kitten that year, and I wanted to incorporate her into my costume. So out of the clothes box came a big, billowy red dress. And so it was proclaimed a "she-devil" costume. So I wore a giant long red dress with long sleeves, and a red cowboy hat. And I carried my cat, Kramer. She was scared and confused, rightfully so. We even made her a red cape. I think this was the only sewing that ever went into one of my costumes. But I was happy because I got to take Kramer to school. Why a she-devil would carry a kitten, let alone a kitten wearing a cape, I have no idea. It was only years later that I realized I had unknowingly dressed up as a crazy cat lady.
Labels: lack of imagination
posted by lady at 2:09 PM
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