Ah, Hallowe’en, once my favorite holiday. In years past I enjoyed this day above all others. I got to wear pretty or weird clothes and people gave me candy to devour. Then around the age of 12 or so the joy died. It became a huge debate should we, should we not. I remember that it was around 7th grade that the girls started using halloween as an excuse to get all tarted up. One of my friends Kim Keyes actually dressed up at school as a ‘hooker’ i.e. tight clothes and lots of make-up and all the boys made comments. I think that was the year that Melissa Dimitrios, Kim and I all went trick-or-treaing together and we ran into a group of older boys (maybe 14 or so) and Kim in her night-time version of her costume got ‘felt-up’ by one of the boys while Melissa in her witch outfit and me in my devil outfit were ignored. I remember blaming Kim in my mind for how she had chosen to dress. Social conditioning starts early.

Many have commented on halloween’s tranformation into a lecherous holiday, an excuse to let it all hang out. That element has lessened some of the joy I once took in it cos I felt like if I dint partcipate in the hoochi-ness then I wasn’t doing my part to support the troops. In the last few years I started getting my strength back and this year I said, ‘Forget about it.’ I will not be a sexy-whatever-cop or a sexy-fairy-something-or-other in a short skirt. I will be the character I choose to embrace sans shortness or sluttiness. So I spent hours shopping and working on my apron and I was, for a few short hours, Alice. Wade was a 6′2″ White Rabbit & a few days later Mon Cheri was a sweet little pirate. We did it ourselves to our own exacting standards & enjoyed it immensely.