It's called Halloween--look into it

I always love to post about Halloween, because it's so damned fun and also because it's always a source for exquisite absurdity in our lives. Who can forget Spider Man on Belvedere Street? Or a bag full of popsicle sticks? Or sitting on our stoop drinking red wine and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters of the Haight, which included chain smokers, teenage mothers, various homeless crazy people, and about a zillion kids? Not me.

Which is why I'm a bit melancholy this year. Three things make me sad.

1. We got three groups of trick or treaters at our new home. One group included members of our own family. I think the other two were lost. Last year, we had four Costco bags of candy and we ran out at 7:30, forced to turn out the lights and hide from the still approaching throngs of little sugar junkies. I talked to friends about my disappointment and apparently, none of them got trick or treaters either. Who did? Folks on Mapleton Hill, where apparently the rich folks give out full-sized candy bars, Amex Centurion cards and gallon Ziploc bags of coke. They scoff at our bag of chocolate. "Fun size" indeed.

2. They cancelled Halloween in the Castro. Even though I'm 1000 miles away and even though it's been Night of the Drunken Violent Homophobes from Milpitas for the past decade or so, it's still a bummer. I remember going to the Castro when we first moved to the city, back when people were still fun. For the cost of a muni ride and the amount of effort it took to put on black clothing and a pair of cat ears, you could drink oil cans of Fosters and watch streets full of happy revelers loving the shit out of life. One year I went as the missing girl on the side of the milk carton (complete with amazing giant milk carton) and for one night I felt what it must be like to be famous. I was the center of attention and must have had my picture taken about ten million times with a parade of gay men dressed as cows, babies, milk maids, or Judy Garland. We still had the milk carton until we moved in June. If only I'd kept it, I could have relived the experience in Boulder (except without the party, or the gay men, or the open containers).

Little lost girl and big gay cow, circa 1994

3. My own daughter boycotted Halloween. We need to run a DNA test. I was so looking forward to going out with Tea this year. At two and a half she is actually old enough to get fired up about dressing for Halloween and going door-to-door for candy. And for Tea, going door to door and putting on a performance for attention and accolades is hardly a stretch. It's her destiny. But in a bizarre turn of events, by the time I got home from work on Wednesday, she flat out refused to wear any costume and she would not go trick or treating, no matter how much I begged. (And I did beg.) We ended up sitting on the couch watching Blues Clues and waiting for our three visits from trick-or-treaters. L-A-M-E. Rick took the kids to the Munchkin Masquerade on Pearl Street earlier in the evening and we have a lovely commemorative picture of the kids sitting on a bale of hay--Gianni in full Darth Vader regalia, and Tea dressed as....Tea. Oh well.

Pearl Street's own Axis of Evil

Good thing I have a whole year to figure out how to make Halloween 2008 less beat. All I need are a few bags of coke, 100,000 drag queens and a giant milk carton. Piece of cake. Be there or be square.