Snoqualmie

At the quarter-century mark we feel the need to turn back the clock.

Most of you have probably heard my favorite Halloween story. I'm going to tell it to you again. See, when I was four, I decided that it was time to start creating my own Halloween costumes. The year before, I'd worn a witch costume that my mom made me (for most of the year, but that's another story). I have no recollection of any years before that, but I knew the basic formula: you got an idea, you got some clothes, you got some face paint. So I put on my stripey pink sweatsuit and my fuzzy slippers. I took my sister's face paints and painted myself white with bold black accents. I confidently presented my ensemble to my parents, who, to their infinite credit, proudly took me out trick-or-treating. It went like this: I'd knock at a door, a parent would open it, and they'd carefully praise my originality while tactfully asking what the hell I was supposed to be.

I would answer happily, "I'm a different kind of watering can!"

I've heard it said that children are basically naturally high until about age ten, and I tend to feel that my behavior during the 1980s supports that hypothesis quite well. I still have no fucking clue what kind of watering can I was, or how such a can could be represented by a girl in a sweatsuit and face paint. I do, however, remember being utterly sincere and unquestioningly confident in my costume. This story is now old enough to vote and drink, and it still never fails to delight me.

The way in which my costume for this year recalls those fond days of watering canhood is not in the confidence or the incomprehensibility. It's in the assembly of a costume from one's own wardrobe and random articles nabbed from one's cohabitants. I'll borrow my housemate's camera later today and post pictures, but for now you'll have to take my word for it that I am rockin' it today as the All Free-Pile Giraffe. I've sponge-painted squarish brown spots on my khaki pants and beige shirt. I found a furry beige hood in the Kingman freepile and more beige faux fur at Stebbins, and made a giraffe head with ears and horns. The sash for the tail came from Northside, and the shirt whose sleeves became hooves for my hands came from Casa Zimbabwe. The style, baby, is all me.

I'm a bit overenergetic today from the combination of Halloween candy and taekwondo class this morning, so I've been quickstepping around the stacks practicing my kicks. The way I figure it, you could probably think of something funnier than a giraffe doing martial arts in a library, but I just don't see the need. I'm also planning to go to my Prehistoric Art class this afternoon and plaster myself against the wall as a South African rock painting. Look, Ma, I'm a therianthrope!