My Halloween Evil

Every Halloween, much of the female population dresses as sexy, skanky, whory as possible. This year my costume was an inanimate object not normally considered sexy, made sexy. It's part of an inside joke from a few years ago (mainly with NBF) that somehow seemed funnier if most people witnessing the costume weren't in on the gag. Aural Girl and Possible Boy ended up going to non-Chicago portions of Illinois for the weekend and my social awkward/laziness landed me at a single party where I pretty much laughed alone.

But the costume turned out very well and I was walking sex.

I spent much of the past week growling at the extra 15 pounds Emsam exploded around my middle. I actually got stuck in the corset that used to be too big for me, and shirts and dresses all seemed to point directly to the weird lumpy bulge popping out at my waist line. I tried to contain it and hide it and wondered what I was doing bothering with a sexy costume at all now that I'm such a lard-ass.
Fucked. Up.
I still fought with the tights that wanted to roll beneath my roll, still buttoned my sweater lower than I would have a year ago. But once I found tight cotton short-shorts to wear over the tights, I remembered the First Rule of...well, certainly not Fight Club. Aesthetics Club? They'll be staring at my ass, not my middle. And if that's embarrassing or whorish, in autumn it easy to forget how much less we wear to the beach in summer.

But here's the real deep-dark "secret" of it all: I like the attention. I like the sense of power. Not only was my costume an inside joke with myself, so was the reaction the costume produced. I got to be Holly Golightly and Mae West all at once, boys' sly remarks caught in their tied tongues.

When we're dressed up as someone else, we get to be ourselves. And for me, as I think for a lot of women, ourselves are a lot more sexual than we think we're supposed to admit. I think my ideal is a smile with just a shadow of smirk wrinkling my lip. Enough to remind myself I'm in control but no real malice.

I could have brought home one of the boys. Considered it. But once I'm reminded that even with my awkward and crazy and my gimpy migraine life, that I can still command a room, then I get to require basic things of a boy like intelligence, attractiveness, and giving a shit about me. Greedy? Perhaps. Thinking a whole fucking lot of myself just because I wore something slutty? Yes. But I'm hanging out with Ken on Tuesday and no matter how sexual I'm feeling, that's a much better option than random strangers.

Happy Halloween.