Monday, November 03, 2003

Halloween has come and gone

Wouldn't you know it? It seemed like it would never be October 31st, and then it was, and now here we are on the ugly side of Halloween going, what the hell?

For those of you not yet informed, I feel obliged to tell you that Madison has developed a reputation for crazy halloween celebrations--most lately involving riots on State Street. So Friday we grad students decided to head out of town and get dinner at a Chinese Buffet (one of the HUGE ones) on the west side, and then we went to Rhett's apartment for "28 Days Later" and "Evil Dead": both of which I had not seen yet, and if you are in the same predicament, do what I did and SEE THEM BOTH!!! I was amazed at how heavily "Blair Witch Project" draws from "Evil Dead." But then again maybe Evil Dead is drawing heavily from something else? Like your mom?

Saturday was a nice day. Went to lab, came home, made cookies and hung out with Dave, went to the comic book store and also the 1/2 price bookstore and bought another Gibson novel, wished I had a bookshelf to show all my Gibson novels on. We ate dinner together at the local pub and I came back to hurredly don my plastic armor over street clothes to wear to Rose's party.

Rose has a little apartment that's part of a duplex near campus. There I got praise for my cookies and drank some delicious adult chocolate milk (read chocolate liqueur). Danced a little, ate a little. At one point randomly Petra showed up with two mexicans--real mexicans dressed up in sombreros and mustaches and blankets. They left as randomly as they arrived.

After a LOOOOONG time, we as a party finally got our act together, grabbed our coats, and began the 15 minute walk to State Street. It was raining a little, and we were all detectably drunk and peeing in bushes and whatnot, but that's how it should be no?

It's definitely good to be pleasantly lit when you run into a main street crammed with several thousand other drunk, costumed folks. So what was it like? where first, here's a rundown of the good, the bad, and the freaking weird:

Most popular costume:
a tie between gigantic inflatable penis and gigantic inflatable banana

Most obscure costume:
The monster from sesame street that goes "yip yiip yiiip yip yip awwwwhaaaah"

Best costume from a movie:
Two guys dressed up as hooligans from "A clockwork orange"

Costume I was suprised no one had beaten them up for wearing:
A tie between Harry Potter, Legolas, giant inflatable Hulk, and Michelangelo's David wearing a zebra strip shirt, feather boa, and giant prosthetic penis.

Best Group Costume:
Well, although I really loved the bicycle pack of 30 costumed riders, one of which toting a guy on a cart playing a drum set. . .. I think I have to give it up for the Crab People from South park, who paraded down State street singing "Craaaaab people, Craaaaaab people!" I gave them a hug, and they gave me a condom to prevent crab people.

Total # of times I got my ass grabbed:
Two. I'm more amazed than disturbed. I was in the top 5% of most covered costumed females, and still my booty must have called out to that creepy santa claus. . . .

It began to rain, and eventually lightning and thunder as we walked all the way back to Rose's house. Creepy, and I would have thought it would prevent rioting to occur this year--what with the rows of police standing by down there, but still, apparently at 3AM they rioted again, but word is that it's out of towners that did it. Who knows.

That's basically my weekend! And now I've got a huge grant proposal I need to work on, that's due next thursday. big gulp.