Thinking=Drinking

Halloween is growing near and i have nothing to wear. It's actually a relief this time around. I don't have to find a costume or a good time when there plausibly may not be one in my vicinity. For the sake of nostalgia and posited engram, I would like to take a reverse chronological leap in time, a stroll down that lane of Halloween and its dolled incumbents. By reviewing my past choices of mimicry perhaps i can reach some handle of what i wish to be in this life (the real one).

Growing up we didn't celebrate holidays. At least that's what i told all my friends. In actuality, we did... though we omitted the "holy" and just did as we pleased. There was Thanksgiving when we would gamble and us kids would find a bottle to work on. There was the occasional Fourth of July when my uncle would attempt to set new records for height of flame. Pyromaniacism runs on both sides of my family. There was the "Special Day," which unlike a birthday (an alternative to...)~ did not come every year. It came whenever one wanted it to. The family would conspire together and throw a shebang for one of its members. It was as simple as that: unpredictable. There was a New Years thrown in every now and again where i'd get to smoke a cheap cigar or two with my family and marvel at fireworks from the Space Needle or, more often than not, indian reservation antics in our front yard.

We celebrated when we felt like it. And growing up, us kids always felt like Halloween. We were determined and methodical in our approach to trick-or-treating. My parents would aim us toward the hills above town where the one percentile loomed in their mansions and three car garages. We played the role and were rewarded with full candy bars and greedy handfuls. But this isn't the interesting part cos we, my brother, sister and i, were your typically donned pirates, princesses, and ninjas. Nothing special. Nowadays, these things live on... mixed in with a Power Ranger here and there.

I broke out with Jesus. I was fifteen or sixteen, long-haired and pretty. I practiced my innocent face of compassion in the mirror. It was blasphemous and beyond. The following year i followed it up as a babe, pink dress, ribbons and bows... i was a knockout and knew it. For so many years i'd been mistaken and now i stood to the occasion. I was in my third year of college when i returned to the biblical splendor as Judas Priest. Wrapped smartly in a white robe, hair flowing, a beard formed of the lichen Usnia longisima. I was (am) a natural science nerd of botany, bryology and the like, as were my friends. I ate a handful of Psilocybe cyanescens along with another of P. baeocystis. i washed it down with a few cups of hot liberty cap tea. It was a good night.

The following year i moved to San Francisco and found myself down on the Castro with a mob of people. I was Princess Leia and it went over pretty well for the area. My hair twisted in bobs about my ears and a makeshift gun assembled from a peeler, the cardboard from a toilet paper roll, and plenty of black electrical tape. Next year i was a greaser, then a Beastie Boy, and most recently Hansel (with Gretal in tow). I forget my point about all this reminiscing. Is there a point to make?

There seems to be a recurring theme for the effeminate role mixed with a few plights as womanizer or heartthrob, brought down to earth with the holy of holies. Fuck it... enjoy yourselves all ye and everyone. A shoutout to Bobcat in the great Northwest, may ye prevail in the hippie motherland, get down on the shuffleboard at The Brotherhood, and drink deeply of our finest microbrews.