10.31.02 – Charleston, WV

onomonopia

lolita

16th c. tart

el nino

stage manager barbie

rock

genie

belly dancer

alien

southern belle

dead girl

coca-cola can

rubix cube

halloween is my favorite holiday. i’m not doing anything particularly fun this year, as i have an early morning call for a show, and well, i’m in a strange town and all the haunted house stuff seemed to be back in Michigan, but it’s the little things that make me happy anyway: the ambiguously gay redneck (i don’t think it was a costume) at the hotel desk gave us all little packets of halloween candy; walking thru a shopping mall this evening and seeing fairies and punk rockers and human ketchup bottles going about their normal business, as if there is nothing out of the ordinary about wearing a foot-high mohawk or a heinz label. and i love that split-second reaction when you glance at someone and think, “is that a costume or do they just look like that all the time?” there were a lot of people around downtown tonight dressed in suits and conservative clothing, carrying little american flags and saying things like, “i hope my pictures come out!” at first i thought they were just going as republicans for halloween, but it turned out that a political rally with president bush had just gotten out at the civic center.

my college roommate, lauren, always celebrated halloween by popping out of bed and putting on The Monster Mash first thing in the morning, a tradition that i dearly love her for. this morning i was halfway thru load-in before i realized that i’d missed the monster mash ritual, and it made me sadly nostalgic for the our dorm room in toyon hall from sophomore year. that year lauren and val and i went out dressed as devil with a blue dress on, baby spice and el nino, respectively. monster mash came on the radio later today while we were driving to west virginia, but the trouble is that monster mash always makes me want to jump up and boogie in that only-when-no-one-else-is-looking sort of way, and i was in the driver’s seat, so….