The scary thing

I told my friend Marcel once, “The moment we stop dressing for Halloween, it’s the end of life as we know it.” True enough, every end of October was marked by trepidation: Who would we be this time? Existential drama aside, figuring out who our alter egos were going to be for Hallow’s Eve was serious business.

I always came as an entertainer. As a child I liked going as a prostitute; no one explained to me what a prostitute was and I thought it was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. When I found out its true definition, I opted for superstars. This is perhaps because I did not know how to sing and dance and there was nothing in this world that I wanted to do more than sing and dance. One Halloween, I came as David Bowie, Thin White Duke era, complete with a bespoke white suit, gray contact lenses (nothing to do with him, just my own touch), covered by a purple eye patch. (My boyfriend came as Iman.)

Then one year I came as Liza Minnelli. I looked completely warped and had to tilt my head a certain way for people to get who I was trying to be. I kept saying, “I’m not a violent alcoholic!” like a parrot in honor of her latest scandal with then-hubby David Gest. The most disturbing thing was someone actually asked for my number that night. He was an absolute pervert, I thought to myself. I loved it when I came as Cher, too. My personal favorite was coming as Grace Kelly Warholized, meaning I dressed up like her but wore Technicolor makeup and had my hair dyed hot pink. I looked like something my dog spat out after eating Spam by accident.

Marcel once came as a tranny. I was very impressed. He had a tank top on that said “Rave Party” in glitter. He wore four-inch heels and a mini-skirt and loads of makeup. He came as part of a “pussy posse” with his best friends. It was hilarious. My friend Chut came as a Martian from Mars Attacks — he bought the costume in LA. No one could figure out who he was for hours! Another favorite was Mark Nicdao who dressed up as a gorilla. Being the photographer he was, he took advantage of the costume and Bea Ledesma took photos of him hailing cabs, withdrawing from ATMs and eating at fast-food restaurants.

I was never big on going pretty. Lots of my friends would come as princesses or pop divas. Then there’s that line from Mean Girls: “Halloween is the one time of the year the girls get to dress up as sluts.” I never saw the point of it. That was a regular Saturday night, no?

Halloween was always a reminder to us all that we were young. We were creative. We could have one night being someone else. It makes me sad now thinking about it. Aside from Marcel, my favorite Halloween buddy was my other best friend, Joel, who passed away almost two years ago. I remember he was the one who gave me the idea to come as Grace Kelly as rendered by Andy Warhol. He called me three months before Halloween with that idea, stepping out of a board meeting. How he came up with that was beyond me. He, like the pretty girls, was a pretty boy. He once came dressed all in white, like he had just come from Capri, and said, “I’m Dicky Greenleaf” (of The Talented Mr. Ripley fame). He was coated with Bloom bronzer and looked like an Oscar statue. I said maybe he was “Dickhead Goldleafed.” He once said he was a rocker, wearing leather pants, which we all wore during our S&M phase, complete with collars, harnesses — Joel once even had a whip. That lasted for an embarrassingly long season. I told him he was getting lazy.

We planned for Halloween for months. What sort of soiree would we have? Of course we’d have to hit every Halloween party we got invited to, to show off the fruits of our labor. Then it started tapering off. I remember calling Joel and saying, “Dude, what are we going to be this year?” in a panic. “Let’s just go as ourselves, we’re scary enough,” he said, trying to mask his disinterest. The long holiday suddenly was treated as that. We left town and chilled out and left our sacred tradition abandoned in the passing of time. This year I’m looking for a place to hide out for the long weekend. Then visit Joel. How things have changed.

For a day that was supposed to honor the time when the Greeks believed evil spirits became dangerous to living ones and wore masks to placate the spirits, Hallow’s Eve has certainly gotten molested. How is going as a triathlete a costume? Should I wear my Pilates outfit, too?

I guess it’s scary when you feel the kid in you dying inside. I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who would say, “I’m too old for that.” But here I am looking for weekend getaways as Plan A or watching Season 5 of Project Runway or Season 4 of Weeds as a lowly Plan B.

I feel myself getting older. Less in love with the world. Married to my life. I think this is the part where you look at everything around you and say, “This is it.” It’s not said with discontent, just melancholic surrender.