If You Hear Him Coming, Won't You Sing For Me

[Part One Here]

Part Two:

The next day was actual Halloween, and I spent a decent amount of time preparing for my second costume. Which is probably one of my lamer costumes ever--but also one of my most fun.

Janet, my lab twin, has a questionable taste in television, trending to the Disney channel and various shows starring models. Since becoming inseparable in lab, we discussed several team costumes, and finally made a choice:

We decided to be Hannah Montana and her best friend Lilly/alterego Lola. Yes, many of our items of clothing are from the Miley Cyrus line at WalMart [and, in fact, my entire outfit--except the shoes--came from the junior section of WalMart].

Pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself--we debuted these costumes at our lab mate Nicole's Halloween party, and enjoyed an hour or so of sangria and food. And I discovered that spray-in hair dye is a bad bad idea, because--by the time I was ready for our next event--my hair was already matted into a hot pink mess...

Part Three:

The last part was the part I'd been waiting for the longest. For the past two years, our second test of the fall semester fell directly after Halloween, preventing me from going downtown and celebrating in style. This year, Charlie and Garrett knew they had the nights and next days off, and Joey, Rob and Adam were spending their first year here, so we all made plans to go downtown.

We assembled at Rob's house to pre-game--drank beer and rum and vodka, played Circle of Death until we were sufficiently tipsy to go out and walk miles of sidewalk. We suited up in our costumes--Rob was a Mormon missionary; Joey, a YouTube video; Adam, poseidon; Charlie, Token [from South Park]; Garrett, a banana king--and I reprised my internet spam costume, with pink [matted...] hair and tights left from my Lola costume.

We walked, literally, miles before we finally found a bar with a sufficiently short line to even attempt getting in--but getting there was enjoyable, all of us switching up walking partners. I would turn to see Charlie talking to Rob, Joey to Adam, but then would

watch as we slowly shifted spaces--back and forth, natural and laughing. There were tons of college kids out, most dressed in pretty impressive homemade costumes. We complimented and were complimented--laughed and were laughed at. We even found some people dressed in the same costumes as Rob, and they insisted that pictures be taken:

When we finally reached a bar with a short line, half of our party made it upstairs before I realized I didn't have my ID. Rendering me unable to get into any--ANY--bar. We had to call our friends who were already upstairs, and make them come back down. I felt so awful--I was worried I'd ruined everyone's Halloween! But all of the boys were extremely gracious [although Charlie had already bought me a beer, before he knew I couldn't make it up there--what an incredible boy!], and they didn't make me feel crappy about being negligent. Instead, we continued to wander around and finally decided to go to our favorite pizza place [which also serves beer--so not all was lost]. On our way, we watched a kid try to jump a VW bug [quite unsuccessfully, I would say, as he ended up cracking his knee on the windshield and hobbling away]. And Adam and I found this incredible graffiti mural of a very angry ocean, and decided it was perfect backdrop for his costume:

So we ate pizza and drank beer, and we watched the clock as it went from 1:30 to 1:45 to 1:59 and then to 1 again--celebrated [or bemoaned] the changing of the time, and went home.

But I think my favorite part of all of Halloween was the aftermath, after we got home with sore feet, the hair at the napes of our neck dripping with sweat. We all poured ourselves another drink, Joey and Rob went and smoked, and we sat around on the couch, sinking into each other and watching TV. Everything was still and it was much later than we should have been up. But we just kept going--kept watching, kept talking. Kept laughing, with pink hair and tired eyes, until eventually--one by one--we all retired. Until Charlie and I--hours after Joey had passed out--cut off the 4 AM TNT Law and Order, took our places on the couch and ottoman, and drifted off.

It was, genuinely, a perfect Halloween.