Plaidophile

For the first time since middle school I actually dressed up in a costume. I went as an aging raver. It wasn't much of a stretch since it was mostly composed of things I already had in my wardrobe, though I bought some "relaxed fit" pants (which I'll probably wear a lot in the future), a studded belt (which I probably won't), some yellow sunglasses (which I wanted for driving anyway), and a Hello Kitty trick-or-treat basket to hand out lollipops, candy necklaces, glow sticks, etc. to people (and it's Hello Kitty so hell yeah I'm keeping it).

Most of the crowd at the party I was at was either too old or too young to understand what I was, but there were enough people who were just right, and it wasn't that difficult to explain it anyway. Not that I've ever been to a rave or taken Ecstasy or anything, but I've seen Better Living Through Chemistry and I've had friends who have related their E experiences to me, so that's nearly just as good, right?

One of the cooler things was that some James Brown CD was playing and it kept on skipping, but it was skipping JUST RIGHT to make it sound like it was being done by a purposeful DJ and not by some random eyelash or something. I rather enjoyed it (and danced to it), as did most people (who didn't), but the owner of the CD got annoyed and switched to another CD. Booooooo.

I want to give a shout out to Target for having pretty much everything for my costume slash day-to-day wardrobe. The only thing I got elsewhere was the sunglasses (from Rite-Aid). Well, that and my underwear, but that's not really part of the costume per se. Well also I'm not entirely sure where this long-sleeve shirt came from. I've had it since high school. I think it's from Target though. I know the short-sleeve shirt I wore over it came from Target though.

The best thing was how all of the adults were like "Candy necklaces? OMG! I haven't seen those in YEARS! Where did you find them?!" and I was like "Target!" and they were like "OMG! And what about the glow sticks?" "Target!"

Oh, right, my shoes didn't come from Target either. But the shoelaces did. And those are what made the shoes work with this get-up.

I should have totally brought my blacklight though. I was thinking of bringing it but for whatever reason I decided not to. Not that it'd have done much but, still. Oh well.

One trend I noticed in costumes was a lot of "high concept" stuff. There was one kid there who was in bandages and crutches, and had a picture of an elephant pinned to his shirt, with the caption "Republican party, 2008." And then one other person there had plastered the entire block with "lost dog" signs and was dressed up as an old lady at the party, and was giving out flyers and telling everyone how sad she was about her missing dog who she hasn't seen in a few days, and sticking out of her backside was the back end of a plush dog.

Then Laura and Amy (Spud's daughter and wife) both dressed up as witches, but this was because one of Laura's class assignments was to make a halloween costume which embodied the word "predictable."

Spud showed up as a pro wrestler. Ben showed up as (his concept of) Spud, though Spud was not totally happy with it because there was a serious disconnect between Ben's idea of how Spud dresses and how Spud actually dresses (of course, most of these were subtle things that most people would miss, like how his outer shirt is always untucked while his undershirt is always tucked). So Spud gave Ben a spudification makeover, and conveniently enough had some spare red socks with him (that is so like Spud). So at the end of the evening, Ben was a pretty convincing Spud, albeit with a hat because Ben didn't want to shave his head for his art. He's just not cool like Marcus is.

I tried to be in-character for a raver but all I could manage was stoner. I've just spent way more time with stoners than ravers. Sorry, ravers who might be offended that I acted like a stoner. At least I had a can of Red Bull with me as the night wore on! When I didn't have it with me earlier! (I was very very sneaky and had another bag of stuff which I'd hidden behind the couch, with refills of lollipops in case I ran out and also with four Red Bulls. So when nobody was looking I raided the bag.)

Oh yeah. The wallet I bought a month ago (to replace my horribly bulky tri-fold one) came with a chain on it, which I removed since I liked the wallet but not the chain. But for tonight I put the chain back on, and I must say, the chain was actually pretty convenient and stuff. So I might leave it on. We'll see.

I also rather like this look on me. The extra width on the pants makes the belt not look quite so horrible, and I've done the short-shirt-on-top-of-long-sleeve-shirt thing before (even though Bucky Katt says it looks stupid) but like, aside from the glow sticks/candy jewelry I think this look actually works well on me. But if I wear it on a day-to-day basis I'll no longer be able to claim that it's a costume, so I'd have to actually be creative on Halloween. Hm.

Anyway, I'm not coming down from E, but I am coming down from Red Bull and a sugar rush, so maybe I should go plop into bed soon.