dress-up

My favorite party that I've ever had so far was a really spur-of-the-moment event that happened one summer when I was home from college. My sister was home, too, and our old family friend Anna. Plus some other hangers-on; a number of Anna's college friends were in town for the weekend. Jocelyn and I had never met them before.

Anyway we decided to have a party. "Come over to our mom's house later" we told a couple of people "we'll hang out over there."

When I say "party" here, you should not envision a bunch of people standing around drinking drinks and making small talk. Instead, you should envision about ten 20-something college kids rummaging through a treasure chest for costume items and dancing around the living room while "Camel Walk" is on repeat, really really loud.

A newcomer showed up, straight from the airport, in the midst of all this. He was one of the ones I hadn't met but he took one look at the scene and made a beeline for the costume box. A few minutes later, he was decked out in a brown wig, a tiara, a Marvin-the-Martian neck thing, a tutu, and some cowboy boots.

Then we played Zoom Schwartz Profigliano for a while, and practiced our Fancy Walkin.

My other favorite parties were the Science Parties we had in Minnesota. Those had costume boxes, too.

There is something really great about having people show up to your house and the first thing they do is dig through a box of stuff to find a costume. I think it marks the fact that now you are at a party; you MUST be at a party because look at that crazy outfit you're wearing!

We're having a Halloween party at my house on Saturday. I am partly excited and partly sad. The excited part is because Halloween is fun! And I get to wear that big giant head costume and dance around. The sad part is because I like dressing other people up and all of my fancy costumes are in a box in Minneapolis.

I'll improvise and everything. But it won't be the same. Last year I made an Evil Tooth Fairy costume for Trisha, including a tool belt with dental picks and a necklace of bloody teeth. And a Rapunzel-in-the-tower costume with a wig made out of bright yellow yarn. And an Andy-Warhol-painting-of-Marilyn costume where your eyes looked out of the picture, just like in Scooby Doo.

Then I made a lot of costumes for the adorable elementary school play I was the boss of. Wolves and ravens and a huge horse head. Princess hats. Fur-trimmed cloaks. Etc.

Why didn't I realize I would want these things for playing dress-up? It totally would have been worth the price of shipping one more box.