Halloween for Grown-Ups

/http://rosebrettingham.blogspot.com/

Halloween can be sort of awkward for grown-ups, or at least for people who once loved Halloween as a child and slowly grew out of all the socially acceptable activities therein. I’m convinced that is the reason to have kids, so you can keep going trick-or-treating and have an excuse to dress up and have a whimsical night out and share your tooth decay with a tiny person who won’t judge how much you eat in one sitting. The costumes, the decorations, the constant fear of something or someone jumping out from a dark corner; these are the things that make life the wondrous and contradictory thing that we find ourselves caught up in, against our will, all our endings plagiarized. I love Halloween, ask anyone, they’ll tell you. It’s my one chance a year to be anyone I want to be, unhindered by skill or ability or money (if you’re a creative costume maker) or distance or any of the other infinite numbers of things that hold us back in this life. Halloween is, for me, pure magic. But even for me, Halloween as a grown up is sort of awkward. 

Why? Because I like the whimsical version, the candy coated, tacky plastic jewelry, glowing pumpkin version, and when you get older some of that is lost. If you love going out and getting drunk, then problem solved. And don’t get me wrong, I do love to do just that every now and then, but that’s not my priority on Halloween. This year one thing struck me much harder than ever before about Halloween as a grown-up, and this is where this blog post becomes relevant to the topic of this blog: I don’t watch enough TV to dress up for Halloween as an adult. 

I have never felt so out of touch than I did Friday night, out with some friends for a spooky good time on the streets of Charming Charm City, the part of town I assumed would be full of hipster versions of Disney characters and lots of bloody masks. And yes, these two categories were represented in abundance, however most of the costumes I saw were characters from TV shows that either happened in the prime of my generations’ TV watching years, or are still currently happening and watched by people my age. All I saw were girls wrapped in plastic bags and others carrying logs and lots dressed as cartoon characters I only have a vague awareness of. When did this happen? When did I get so out of touch that I don’t even recognize the most popular characters that TV has to offer? It's not like watching TV takes any effort, it's not something you have to try to do or make time for or practice to be good at. You just put it on, job's done. I’m not ashamed to be unaware of which Housewife of some county just passed me by at the bar, but when there was probably a character from Mad Men there as well that goes unnoticed, that’s when you know you have a problem (I have not watched a single episode of Mad Men). The only TV costumes I understood were Carmen Sandiego (there is always one, and I’m always jealous it’s not me), the Hound from Game of Thrones (which I’m still not even caught up on, but thanks to the internet, is completely spoiled for me regardless) and a gigantic and impressively constructed Cyberman from Doctor Who. Although I’ve only seen the Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes, so I don’t really know anything about Cybermen, not really, just what they look like. So that barely counts. Also in attendance however was Max from Where the Wild Things Are (classic) and Good Cop Bad Cop form the Lego movie, which just made me so happy that I momentarily forgot how I’m basically an old woman living under a rock. At least I saw the Lego movie. 

So what I’m really trying to make quite clear is how deeply unqualified I am to be writing on this blog, this great blog that none of us give enough attention. I either need to step it up, watch more TV, go to the movies more often, or read even more books than I already do to make up for it. Although at this point I don’t think that’s really humanly possible unless I quit my job, and that’s not happening. I really dig my job. 

Next year I need to do things differently. I need to team up with someone who lives in a neighborhood that gets trick-or-treaters so I can rain candy on all the tiny Darth Vaders and Supermen and Ladybugs, complimenting them on their fantastic costumes that don’t make me feel out of touch and out of my mind. 

Onward and Upward,

Maria