Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006 10:57 a.m.

halloween

when I was a young child, my family celebrated halloween like normal people and I dressed up and went trick-or-treating and got candy and all that.

when I was around 7 or 8 or so, we stopped celebrating it. halloween was considered bad, evil, the devils holiday. so we celebrated "harvest time" and dressed in non-evil, sometimes even biblical, costumes and went to the church fair instead. we still got candy, so I didn't care.

when I was in middle school, we stopped celebrating it altogether. we'd turn off the porch light, make candy apples as a family, or go to my christain school for the praise and worship night they always held on halloween.

I never really cared, though. I was always a part of something different, part of a different world, growing up - and what happened out there, in the real world, was foregin and unimportant. and halloween was part of that other world.

I have always liked dressing up, though. pretending I was someone different. trying on goofy clothes, making up silly plays. I wished there could be a holiday where everyone dressed up for fun - no evil spirits or witches involved. but there wasn't and I waited patiently til I was a grown-up and could do what I want.

I'm a grown up now. and this will be my 4th halloween out here in L.A., on my own. I still like dressing up. but I realized this morning that I'm still not part of the normal world when it comes to things like this.

I'm reminded of the scence in mean girls where lindsey lohan wears a corpse bride outfit to her first halloween party, only to discover that most girls use halloween as an excuse to instead dress sluty. lindsey lohan felt out of place and awkward.

I feel out of place and awkward.

K found out about a party and wanted to go tonight. then he changed his mind. I asked why. he said that I probably wouldn't feel comfortable there - the theme is vampires and vixens. I told him we could still go; I didn't care if my 50's housewife outfit made me the sore thumb.

but then, 5 minutes later, after it sunk in...I realized that I did care.

I think K would like for me to dress up like that, like all those other girls. he wants to feel like I'm the hottest one in the room, and that he's won me, and be proud in public of me in that way. I know he does. but it's not me to dress up like that.

I've always wanted to be different than every other girl. and sluty outifts seem so boring, so banal.

it's like tereza from the book unbearable lightness of being. she hated the thought of being naked, because it made her the same as everyone else. she wanted to be her own person, her own body, her own individual nature seperate from everyone else. and nakedness made everyone the same.

this is what I feel - pressure to be like normal girls, to use this holiday for what girls typically use this holiday for...while feeling as though giving into it will destory the very essense of my individuality. it will make me the same.

but I know that K really wants to go to this party. he wants to have fun, be social, show off his costume. and he wants to go with me.

but, though I don't want to dress like all the other girls, I also don't want to stand out. so I'd rather skip the whole thing and stay home and write. or sleep.

but that's being selfish.

so do I go with him, risk the certain and imminent awkwardness which will probably leave me bored and unsastified - or do I stay at home, remaining anti-social, dissapointing K, but getting things done that I personally care about more?

it's easier being single sonetimes.

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