Good Mourning!

Day 18: What's the appropriate salutation for Hallowe'en? Why, "Good mourning," of course! You might find this odd, but as much as I enjoy costuming, Hallowe'en is one of my least favourite holidays. I don't understand it. Perhaps I was oblivious to the way adults celebrated it when I was a kid, but I don't recall as much emphasis on ghoulishness, gore and horror as there is in current times. The costumes of my youth were deliciously scary, not gruesome: cute witches, ghosts haunting in sheets, the occasional vampire. Most were cleverly cobbled together from items around the home rather than store-bought, mass-produced garb you see today. I remember attending one junior-high dance as Huckleberry Finn in tattered jeans and painted freckles, straw hat on my head, fishing pole over my shoulder, and a dead fish (real, bound in plastic wrap) in my hip pocket. I accidentally sat on the fish and although I hadn't expected any of the boys to ask me to dance, social pariah that I was, my math teacher spun me through a ballroom waltz despite the fishy scent which must have surrounded me.

These days, I don't open my door to strangers. In rural Pierce County, you don't open your door for someone you don't know even in broad daylight, let alone at night. When I used to go to my fishing buddy's home for Hallowe'en, I was surprised to find that most of the trick-or-treaters were between 12 and 16, and only a few had bothered to dress up. Eleven was considered too old for trick-or-treating fifty years ago.

When the Nisqually Land Trust hosted their annual Hallowe'en tree-planting, the flyer said, "Costumes optional." In the past, this event has been billed as the "zombie planting," presumably because as a zombie, you can get absolutely filthy and it just improves the effect. That said, I now have a greater sympathy for zombies, especially those in the Pacific Northwest where the blackberry vines are in league to pull them back into their graves as they search for brains.

I Think I'll Go As Princess Leia

 Day 17: I think it'd take a lot more makeup than I have in my costuming kit to turn me into Princess Leia. I've always loved getting dressed up, and Hallowe'en gives me a good excuse but for one small issue: I don't get trick-or-treaters here. That said, the occasional get-together or event finds me dragging out the garb. My fishing buddy's great-grandkids love having costumed adults as their chaperones.

Sometimes getting into the act has its drawbacks. On one notable occasion, I'd planned to attend a friend's party as a Vulcan noblewoman, pointy ears and all. Application of the ears was a time-consuming project, painting on latex to join the prosthetic seamlessly with my skin and then blending makeup (both liquid and powder) to match the tone. I'd started early in the morning and finished up around noon, planning to leave home at two o'clock to drive to Seattle. I forgot one thing: I'd put in a call to the county weed control board in regard to tansy ragwort growing on the highway verge. When the agent knocked on my door, I'd forgotten all about the ears. If he did a double-take, I failed to see it, and thus accompanied him out onto the highway to show him several specimens of the weed, oblivious to the sight I presented. A few cars slowed down, but I still didn't make the connection. It was only after the agent had completed his interview and I'd gone back to the house that I realized I was wearing them.

Back to the idea of turning a sow's ear into a silk purse, then...I could never pull off the Princess Leia look. To wear a costume with any degree of success, you have to believe in your role. As I look at this photo, I am thinking, "Morgan Corbye is never gonna make it as a zombie," but of course I can't go as a pirate 'cuz that's my day job.