"In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it."*

   Okay, so I know Halloween weeks away, but I’ve been trying to brainstorm an amazing costume idea for two weeks already because a. I have a fun Halloween party to go to and I already know about it so I am obligated and at leisure to plan and 2. I want to have a great, non-slutty costume all ready to go so I don’t get caught with my pants down (literally or figuratively).

   I tend to lean towards movie characters or Golden Age movie stars—I was Holly Golightly last year (and ended up having the sluttiest costume at that particular party, ironically).  But I would like to shoot for the stars this year, since Halloween really does matter to me. But I’d also like to avoid buying a wig, since, having disposed of my handy wig collection many years ago, I don’t really feel like heading down that road again. Wigs are expensive, so you end up keeping them, storing them, thinking you’ll use them again. And the next thing you know you’re a senior in college with a box full of wigs and no place to put it so you bust it out at dinner parties after you graduate and your landlord drops by unannounced and thinks you’re some sort of “dominatrix” weirdo when all you were trying to do was put your hair pieces to some good use. For an example.

   So I’ve been doing some scrolling through the Interwebs and hoping for inspiration to strike me. I’ve considered 80’s icons (Cyndi Lauper, Prince [Prince, Prince, Prince!], Freddie Mercury, and Pat Benetar). I’ve thought about 80’s movie characters (Baby from Dirty Dancing, Mrs. White from Clue). I’ve even considered revisiting some of the classic horror films (Regan from The Exorcist, Rhoda from The Bad Seed, Jane Hudson from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Melanie Daniels from The Birds). 

Scary Rhoda from The Bad Seed.

   It was when I started really thinking about scary movies that it occurred to me that you SHOULD be scary on Halloween. If at all possible, your costume should have some element of horror or science fiction or thriller about it. And the more horror films and SCI-FI classics I thought of, the more I realized that most of those evil women characters, or even the female victims in those movies are BLONDES.

   Maybe you’ve already thought of this yourself, but if you haven’t, consider this:

REGAN, The Exorcist (Blonde—and later greenish, but mostly blonde)

RHODA, The Bad Seed (Blonde. Very, very blonde.)

JANE HUDSON, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Scary, haunt-your-nightmares blonde.)

NELL, The Haunting (Annoying, hope-she-dies-soon blonde)

LAMIA, Stardust (Gorgeous and also hideous blonde)

CLAUDIA, Interview With a Vampire (Still blonde)

THE CHILDREN, Children of the Corn (Holy god, they’re blonde)

HITCHCOCK, Separate category (yeah, I know, he was obsessed with blondes)

Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, Rebecca)

Grace Kelly (To Catch a Thief, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window)

Doris Day (The Man Who Knew Too Much)

Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest)

Janet Leigh (Psycho)

Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie)

Blonde. Melanie Daniels.

   What the what? Why are all these scary ladies (or leading ladies in scary movies) blondes? Admittedly, blondes have more fun, but I thought being a brunette was supposed to be especially awesome because we are the embodiment of evil (you know, dark forces and what-not…and aren’t witches usually brunettes?). Cinema is saying otherwise, however, and unless I want to go as a Disney version of a bad lady (Malificent, Ursula, Snow White’s Stepmom—most recently portrayed in the movies by Charlize Theron, a blonde—or one of the Wicked Stepsisters), I’m stuck buying a blonde wig.

   Which bums me out a little bit.

   I should quit complaining. I guess as long as I don't dress like a whore, I'm okay. Unless I decide to go as an actual whore, in which case I can (and should) dress as one. They're usually not as pretty as you'd think, though, from my own personal experience.

   But I'll probably just go buy a wig.

   And, if you want to know the truth, I do look pretty scary with blonde hair. 

*Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004).

"Gracious! Do you think she's handsomely paid?"*

   Well, Halloween is upon us yet again and this year I dressed up and went out for the first time in…well, in a long time. And I went over to Tom and Jess’s for a Halloween party. And I dressed up like Holly Golightly.

Cigarette holder made of paper and a hard plastic straw that I spray painted. Then I had to tape the base of the straw so I wasn't eating paint all night long. Sexy? Slutty? Stupid? Who knows?

   Problem was, I think I was at the wrong party. Most of the other people were dressed like characters from King of Thrones or Adventure Time or some other obscure and/or fantastical TV show I haven’t seen and don’t know anything about. 

What other people wore.

Tom and Jess as Finn and Princess Bubblegum. 

   I didn’t know I was even going to the party until two days before and I figured I had a black dress and could make a long cigarette holder so I would be what I like best: a character from an old movie. (I’ve gone as Sugar Kane, Dorothy but also the Wicked Witch of the West (green face paint included), Sherlock Holmes, Dr.Frank-n-Furter and Wayne Campbell. Okay, Wayne’s World doesn’t really count as an “old” movie, but try telling that to anyone born in the 90’s.) I had no idea that I would end up looking like the one thing I was trying NOT to look like: the girl who dresses up like a slut because it’s Halloween. And I’m pretty sure I was the slut at this Halloween party. I was wearing a dress and heels and jewelry. Granted, my ass wasn’t hanging out and my boobs were fully covered, but when you’re standing next to a chick in full body armor or one in a monster suit made of felt, you feel a little slutty. Or maybe like you didn’t try hard enough. 

   I remember walking to a Halloween party when I was at USC. I was dressed like a pregnant nun and every other girl in the universe (especially the girls at the frat houses) was dressed like a slutty version of something. A slutty nurse. A slutty bumble bee. A slutty alien. I felt really unattractive, but I didn’t realize that Halloween had become a slut holiday. My mind raced back to previous costumes: Antigone, Cleopatra, Velma from Scooby-Doo, late-night waitress at crappy diner, Norman Bate’s mother. It became clear to me that I’d always dressed as a strong, fully clothed, independent and decidedly un-sexy lady (Cleopatra and Sugar Kane were kind of sexy, I guess; and Dr. Frank-n-Furter was a sexy man dressed like a sexy lady...so who knows where that one falls?). I felt like Lindsay Lohan’s character in Mean Girls who dresses like “an ex-wife” while all the other girls put on lingerie and animal ears.

   Side note: at the party I was drinking a beer when a slutty firefighter approached me and said, “You really shouldn’t be drinking while you’re pregnant. It’s bad for the baby.” Dead serious. If she’d been joking, we’d be best friends to this day.

   So at this party I felt like I was the slut and it wasn’t deserved. There were two awesome girls there dressed like a slutty devil and a slutty Ghost Buster (Egon? Venkman? Even she didn't know), so that helped a little bit. But they were only dressed that way because they were going to a “booty party” afterwards. So when they left I was alone again, feeling a tad too "attractive" for a Halloween party. 
   But mad props to all the people that went all-out Halloween at this party. It was truly impressive. Special mention has to go to Eric and Kelly, who were dressed as Walter and Jesse from Breaking Bad. That was pretty dope. And not at all slutty, though I did tell Eric he should be in his underpants.

   Next year I’m going as either Thriller-era Michael Jackson or any-era Freddie Mercury. That way I can be sexy but definitely not slutty. I am a lady, after all.

*Quote and costume inspiration courtesy of Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961).

**I also went to a pumpkin carving party at Chad's on Friday where I ate copious meat pies from Porto's, watched Worst Witch (hooray Tim Curry!) and Club Dread (excellent) and made this:

You can't tell from the picture, but this is a white fairytale pumpkin. I had to throw it away today because it started rotting in the extreme heat. It wasn't pretty anymore.