Halloween

B1 was the toast of the Halloween circuit in our 'hood (and from his school) -- people were blown away by his Hancock Building costume, would compliment him on the street, saying how cool his costume was (and when they saw that I'd added a red LED reflector light behind his head, that was like the cherry on top of the satisfaction sundae -- people kept saying "Look, he's even got a red light on there!!"). They did a Halloween parade at his school, where the costumed kids would go from classroom to classroom, and older kids, upon seeing B1, would say "Hey, that's the kid who was the Hancock Building! He came to my class!" And so on. "Cool costume!" All of that. If only B1 were able to appreciate the school-cred he earned!

One yuppie guy, part of a sidewalk Halloween party whose attendees all applauded upon seeing B1's costume, reached into the candy bin and took out a handful, and said "You win the prize for the best costume I've seen all night!" B1, for his part, took all the praise with a guarded grace, in his way, which cracks me up. The one design flaw of the costume was it made navigating stairs difficult, and so many of those places in our area are walk-ups.

I think probably what blew people away was it was a thoughtful costume that was also handmade -- most kids just did store-bought costumes, versus anything handmade, and certainly nothing as offbeat as being a building, or as carefully thought out.

Halloween's my favorite holiday, by far.

I painted my nails with glow-in-the-dark polish, although you can't really see the glow unless it's pitch black. I wanted to find black polish, but got to the CVS too late to score any. D'oh!

B1 was a little under the weather yesterday and the day before, so we didn't do a marathon trick-or-treating yesterday (against my old-school instincts -- for me, Halloween was a marathon event, where you'd try to score absolutely every bit of candy you could). And, again with the old-school eye I have on Halloween, I noted which streets were more forthcoming than others, and how much competition there was for goodies, etc. You have to get all of that tactical stuff sorted out for future outings.

While we were walking around, I thought about how cool it would be to set up a close-to Halloween Zombie Walk -- like a charity event (like the assorted walks that occur), but one that had people dress up like zombies for it, and how cool that would look. I don't quite know how people set up things like that, but think that would rock, this mass of zombies walking for charity. Hee hee!

In Cincinnati, there's an event called "Run Like Hell" that is a 5K, where people are encouraged to run in costume. I think that's pretty great. We need something like that in Chicago, yes? The Zombie Walk might be just the thing. There is a Trick-or-Treat Trot or something, but I'm talking a fucking Zombie Walk, here.

Anyway, that'll be lurching in my head as I already think on next Halloween.

Music: Ministry, "Every Day Is Halloween"