Halloween

by Tess Lennon­Dorn

Halloween

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I’m at that point in my development where I still wear slutty Halloween costumes, but like recently read an article about how little boys’ costumes are accurate uniforms for specific careers whereas little girls versions of the same costumes are often sexualized, and the majority of girls costumes aren’t even for a career. They’re for being a princess or a fairy or a cupcake or a cute and non intimidating animal. And I got frustrated about it. And then was like maybe this year I should be something unsexy and realistic toward a career. And then I was like, “No. But that was a good thought and I respect myself for having it.”

How old is too old to wear a slutty halloween costume? 24? 26? 30? Is it different for different women?

My mom and I used to dress up in matching costumes. One year we were fancy cats. That was in part due to the fact that my private school didn’t allow disney logos. They felt it interfered with the rich white children’s imaginations. So we were fancy cats, and she made me a leopard turtleneck leotard with a skirt with fuzzy black lining at the bottom and a little tail. She even let me wear lipstick because it fit with my costume. Another year we were poodle girls. Her skirt was bright blue, and mine was bright pink. They each had a poodle on them with a leash in sequins going up the skirt. We tied our hair in half pony tails and more white keds.

That was back before I went to art school and got into therapy and creative writing and became kind of a shit head. I don’t know when it happened that I all of the sudden went from being this chubby eleven­year­old with a bad outfit from Kohl’s and low self­esteem, to a mildly stuck up art school student

in a mildly stuck up grey knit sweater, twisting around on a mat in Feldenkrais. When I took Feldenkrais, I used to think, “This is for rich fucks.” Who else has time or money to lay on a mat at ten a.m. on a Tuesday, practicing moving their arm around. I used to think, “How can I be sitting on this mat, talking about my process of discovery of moving my leg around on a stupid blue mat when there’s people on the other side of the world running from gunfire and bombs?”

Then there were those Halloweens when I was too young to have a life, but old enough to know I didn't have one. I’m gonna say fourteen. When I was fourteen, Halloween consisted of chili with my family and an Alfred Hitchcock movie, with the periodic doorbell ring, and my family’s glances at one another as if to say, “I’m not getting it.” It’s a weird shift for a family when you go from the kids being elated to trick or treat, to annoyed by the trick or treaters.

I don’t like being scared. So the times in my life that I’ve agreed to do something scary, it was because I was trying to fit in or impress someone. It’s never been worth it. Once was at U of I, when I agreed to go to a haunted house with my new friends who I knew would judge me if I declined, and another time was when I agree to watch “Quarantined” with this bipolar buddhist that I had the hots for.

The haunted house was in an old church. You walk into this church, and it’s completely silent. It’s empty and dark. You walk up the stairs into the main room where there’s pews and the altar. You walk down the altar, taking light and nervous steps forward on the dirty red carpet and suddenly these figures jump out at you from the pews. Then you walk into this side room that leads to the basement. You walk down the rickety winding staircase of church basement. It’s dark and there’s loose light bulbs on the floor so you can barely see anything. It’s crammed in with bookshelves full of papers going all the way up to the low ceiling. Suddenly, as you’re quivering through the path in the basement, this guy jumps out with a chainsaw. I scream, and start running as fast as I can. He chases after me. And as I run, scared out of my mind, my heart pounding against my chest, I think, ‘Why am I trying so hard? Why do I have to let a

stranger chase me around with a chainsaw just to feel like I’m socially acceptable? To prove to myself and my Big Ten friends that I’m not a total hippy homeschool pussy? Why can’t I just become friends with people who don’t like haunted houses? I mean, honestly at the end of the day I am kind of a hippy homeschool pussy. And they’re going to find that out eventually anyway.”

And then again, as I laid on my bed next to the bipolar buddhist, both of us nineteen, not in school, I thought, “He totally doesn’t want to fuck me. And no movie I watch with him is going to change that.

And yet, here we are. Watching people give each other rabies in an isolated mansion, until the last of the survivors is on the floor, slowly crawling toward the exit, when they are swiftly grabbed by the ankle and yanked into the abyss by this gnarling slimy rabid monster.”

I think sometimes grown women do the same thing as me. Them dressing in slutty costumes is their version of watching Quarantined or going into that haunted house. Like they just do it because they think they’re supposed to want to, and they want people to think that they want to. But really, what they probably want on Halloween, what we all really want on Halloween, is to be curled up in bed with a glass of wine watching “Narcos”. If you haven’t seen it, you’re living a lie.

I just think little girls should be allowed to be non­slutty­looking police officers and astronauts and lawyers and scientists, and grown ass women should be allowed to be grown as women who stay home on halloween and smoke a joint and take a bubble bath, like an adult. And not feel like they have to want to dress like Wonder Woman or a cat or a mermaid. Fuck that, it’s cold. I mean I do it, but resentfully.