Conjuring Up the Halloween Spirit

I loooooooove Halloween. There's a Halloween scene in both of my books and I foresee writing one for the third book, too. It just seems natural because I adore the holiday so much. And yet, here we are, a little less than two weeks away from Halloween, my favorite holiday of all time, and I'm ashamed to say I'm not feeling it. Again. Three years ago, I went to a pumpkin patch with a Corn Maze and it was the best Halloween thing I'd done in quite some time, but when I tried to go again this year, it turned out they weren't open yet. And it was the only weekend I could go. I bought a pumpkin a couple of weeks ago when I was in Michigan, but I'm hoping I can convince my boyfriend to do the actual carving because as much as I want to do it myself (even though I am so unskilled), I have a feeling that getting pumpkin guts all over my hands will make my eczema act up and it's just starting to get better. I know I totally sound like an old lady. Believe me, it's upsetting me horribly.

Last year I didn't celebrate Halloween at all because I was knee-deep in IWBYJR revisions. This year I thought I'd make up for my total lameness by throwing a Halloween party. But I've been encountering the same overcommitment time suck issues as Barb blogged about in the post before this one. Since I'm in a mad scramble for writing time as it is, I couldn't cram in party-planning. Sigh. Maybe next year. If I'm still bartending then, Halloween will fall on the day I work and I could throw a huge bash at work and actually make money to boot. If I'm not still bartending that means I'll have more time for party-planning. It seems like a win-win.

So this year the party's out, I haven't had time to go to the local haunted house like I wanted, and I only made it to one of two cemetary tours I planned on doing (though the one I went too was seriously soooo cool! I'm writing a newspaper column about it which I promise to link to and expound upon in my blog next week), but I still need to get into the Halloween spirit somehow. I refuse to be lame two year in a row. I made a promise to myself at sixteen that I would always celebrate Halloween with as much panache as possible. That was the year I trick-or-treated for the last time. I know sixteen sounds a little old to be trick-or-treating, but I had a good excuse. My friends had some French foreign exchange students visiting and we needed to show them how much fun Halloween in the USA was (it is not celebrated in other countries to the degree it is here and I feel so bad for everyone else!). We decided to do it at the last minute, so I dressed up as Sid Vicious's ill-fated girlfriend Nancy Spungen. It didn't take much effort on my part because I already had the torn fishnets, leopard print skirt and the rest of the punk rock clothing, I just had to buy a blond curly wig. Honestly it felt a little half-assed because in grade school I was always the kid who had to come up with the most unique costume idea. One year I was a Queen of Hearts playing card, another time I was a TV set, and another time I was a dye (as in dice, but singular). Not to say my costumes always looked the best because they were always homemade (mostly out of boxes or posterboard), but I definitely got an A+ for effort. That was grade school though and admittedly it went downhill after that. I promised to do better after Nancy Spungen, but the Ice Queen costume from when I was 21 was probably the only time I really put major effort into a Halloween costume.

This year was going to be different. I planned to be a roller derby girl because derby girls kick ass and I could totally roller skate around my basement all night, it would be fun. But now it's looking like I may be going to a concert on Halloween so roller skates are kind of out and I'm at a loss for costume ideas. I've always wanted to dress up as Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks, but like dead Laura Palmer, all wrapped up in plastic the way she was when they found her body on the pilot. I'm not entirely sure that is the best costume for a concert either. So any ideas? Something fun, but not entirely complicated? Because otherwise I have a bad feeling that I'll end up deciding to nix the concert too because sitting on the couch watching cheesy horror movies (like maybe finally break down and rent the Lost Boys 2 and watch it and the original???) is sounding pretty appealing to my tired self. So give me some inspiration, tell me all about your costumes and favorite Halloween activites to get me in the spirit! And like I said costume ideas for me would definitely help!