happy halloweeny

at eight years of age, i simply could not understand why my dad refused to don the giant felt fluorescent-orange pumpkin costume my mom had purchased at a garage sale a few weeks prior and accompany me on a run about the neighborhood to knock on doors and meet and greet america for the most glamorously fabulous night of our lives.

"no, no, and no," he emphatically declared. after a time, my mom gave up insisting. we walked out into the dark streets, my princess layers of luxurious, flowing, sparkling yellow silk feeling suddenly less sensational and infinitely more lonely.


later halloweens became an exercise in my mother's desire to simultaneously up the creative ante and economize. much to the demise of my elementary school popularity.

"what are you," my best friend, heidi buehner, stated (more than asked) perplexedly before bursting into a stream of histrionic laughter. we were in sixth grade, and a small part of my little heart wondered if i shouldn't just try again at the making-new-friends thing. yes, i was strange and korean and still brought chopsticks and squids in tupperware for lunch, but couldn't i at least try?
that morning, my mother had wrapped me up in a few yards of dark green netting, ordered me to roll about the piles of gathering leaves in our front yard, and dusted me with fixative. as a finishing touch, she took a few of the leaves and weaved them through my hair, declaring her vision beautiful.
i couldn't help but feel sheepish confusion as i attempted to respond to a heidi that was now doubled over on the floor, sobbing with laughter.
"i'm a bundle of leaves... can't you tell?"

other years resulted in large star shaped pillows pinned to my anterior and posterior ends (as a starry night), a bright yellow body-bag with white gloves (as an m&m), and spandexed pants with ski poles (as a cross-country skier, my last attempt to try at cool).


at the moment i'm seated in the center of the noshhh! zone of the byu library, popping trident's tropical twist gum like candy between the occasional wrinkled grape i've smuggled in the left-pocket of my backpack. i'm dressed as myself, thankyouverymuch, with a jcrew jacket and zara pencil skirt, molecular biology book in hand, and i can't help but eye the fairy or aluminum man or renaissance maid in the row opposite with a bit of a quizzical brow.
i mean, seriously. what.the.hell.

what's happened to my unrealized visions of milk cartons and flappers and gypsies of halloweens past?
sadly, it appears i've refused to put on the pumpkin suit.

i've become my father.

and halloween and i have come to the fatal realization that despite our attempts, we may have to resign ourselves to mere acquaintance status.


(this won't, of course, keep me from throwing on a white sheet and floating about the house tonight, muttering the occasional "boooooo.")