Alcohol Disguises Social Ineptitude. (But not really.)

This weekend was Halloween, which is proven to be one of the best holidays because you get to dress up like a maniac, get jacked on too-much-candy sugar and try to come down from said sugar high by countering with too-much-booze. My plan was to chase cupcakes with beer and then pee out all the sugar so that I'd be at some kind of idly inebriated equilibrium, because life is all about balance, kids.

I wound up at a party Saturday night with Billie, her younger brother and her roommate and began the drinking part of my plan. Half a bottle of wine and two cheap beers later, the three of us ladies surveyed the cute boy situation. Partly swaying with my wine bottle in one hand and my beer in the other, I made the command decision to indulge my inner nerd and scope out the Cute Boys in Superhero Costumes, of which there were a few. I figured we could at least bond over comic books, and then maybe bond some more by making out. Bow chica bow bow.

Sorry. I won't do that again.

Anyway, I dragged Billie around the sort-of-huge house on the hunt for Spiderman, who I thought was very cute but Billie said was too short. I said it didn't matter - he had lovely brown eyes and was wearing a Spiderman costume. We already had so much in common!

Milling about and keeping my eyes open for the adorable Spiderman, we ran into a Superman/Clark Kent who I also deemed attractive. We had a really romantic exchange that went something like:

Me: "Oh! You're from New York! What is it that you do?"

Superman: "I'm a comedian."

Me: "That's cool! More in the sitcom arena or stand-up type stuff?"

Superman: "I actually hate both sitcoms and stand-up."

Me: "Oh. :: awkward silence :: So, I really like your costume! Are you a big comic book fan?"

Superman: "Not really."

:: Crickets chirp. A tumbleweed blows by. Someone in the audience coughs. ::

Me: "So, how do you like L.A.?"

Superman: "I don't." :: Superman looks over his shoulder with a random, irritated look ::

Me: "Okay. I'm going to go stand over here now."

Obviously, I am smooth and charming, so if you'd like to know how to spend your next party like The Average Broad, commence as follows:

Chug some wine. Drink a beer. Coerce the girl dressed like Snooki to fist-pump for a photo even if she looks mad and you look drunk. Slow dance with Billie, her brother and her roommate all at the same time, a la "Romy and Michelle." Finish bottle of wine. Refill bottle with keg beer. Deem it to be undrinkable. Drink it anyway. Have slurring discussion with man in toga about the finer points of Arthur Miller's collected works. Hunt for Spiderman again. Realize Spiderman has left the building. Refill empty wine bottle with keg beer again. Apologize for bumping into the booty of a guy wearing white pants. Ask guy if he's John Travolta from "Saturday Night Fever." Call him John Travolta even when he says that's not what his costume is. Intentionally bump into his booty again. Decide that next year, you will dress up as Bill Lumbergh from "Office Space." Have another romantic exchange with someone dressed up as Antoine Dodson about who has the better costume. His comes with a catch phrase, so he wins. Finish second wine bottle full of beer. Decide you are ready to go home. Pass out on your couch watching infomercials.

It's hard out here for a pimp.

Let's think about Halloween costumes.

First of all, Halloween at my beloved college was absolutely insane. It was a week long celebration of hedonism unlike anything I had ever experienced before. My friends and roommates would go all out - dressing to the nines in at least three different costumes every year. That's a LOT of Halloween costumes to accumulate.

Yes, that is Halloween in Santa Barbara. I found that picture here. Can you imagine a week of that? Jeez.

So now you understand partly why I feel this need to have over-the-top costumes every year. It's totally habitual, mostly. Ha ha, what do you mean 'that's ridiculous'?! IT'S EFFING HALLOWEEN, YOU ASSHOLE. (Sorry. I'm switching to decaf soon to prevent those kinds of outbursts. [I'm not really switching to decaf, do you think I'm freaking crazy or something?!])

Anyway, I tend to have a problem with female costumes, because almost everything is "sexy" something. My group of guy friends would joke whenever us ladies would talk about costumes, like:

Me: I'm going to be a decapitated Marie Antoinette for Halloween this year!

Da Boys: But like, a "sexy" decapitated Marie Antoinette?

Billie: I'm going to be Betty Rubble for Halloween this year!

Da Boys: But like, a "sexy" Betty Rubble?

You get the idea. This year, Billie and I were talking about costumes again. We both were adamant in our refusal to go out and buy all kinds of new pieces and decided to reuse things from our costume drawers, putting together some kind of Frankensteined new costume from old costume bits. Brilliant, I know.

"I have another costume idea," Billie said to me. "But it's kind of scandalous."

"What is it?" I asked.

"I have this turquoise corset and ruffled panties, and then a bunch of accessories!" she said.

"So... what would you be, besides almost naked?"

"That'd be it! But with no pretense of being a "sexy" anything else!" Billie exclaimed.

"Oh, so you'd be GOING as a stripper. That would actually be pretty hilarious. Then, when people asked you what you were supposed to be, you could say 'every girl on Halloween!' Or you could carry a garden hoe and just go as a Skank Hoe," I said, marveling at Billie's genius.

"Exactly," she agreed.

While her idea definitely has merit, I think I'll stick to my gory, horrifying corpse costumes. Any excuse to run amok covered in blood, really.

Oh, but don't worry, it'll probably be like, a "sexy" corpse costume.

Some things I found out.

This weekend I was talking to my mom and found out that she birthed both EM and myself without an epidural. I did not know this until now, but it doesn't surprise me. I learn things about my mother all the time that shock and impress me. She's probably climbed Everest and just hasn't brought it up in conversation. Reason #943 why she is the toughest woman alive.

This week I was talking to a coworker who told me when he was roughly my age, he had a sugar daddy who bought him a Ferrari. I told him the most expensive gift a man has ever given me was a sweatshirt. I don't know if he still has the Ferrari, but I still have my sweatshirt. It's still my favorite.

Irish Breakfast tea is better with milk in it. Just go with me on this one.

My short story that was supposed to be done forever ago has officially reached novella length. This means I have to write another short story for my writing group, because this one is too long to discuss. Being a writer is hard when you have too many stories to tell.

I actually like sending mail more than receiving it.

I really, really like Willie Nelson.

I also really like hidden pockets, chapstick, and cloudy days.

I have no patience for reality television and tabloids. I probably shouldn't care, but they frustrate me really easily... definitely more than they should.

I don't travel enough.

I talk too much, and don't write enough.

*Sigh*

Autumn in California

I hate summer. It's hot, I don't get a vacation like I used to in school, everyone wants to do things outside which means my deathly pale skin will inevitably suffer from one or multiple sunburns and so I have to keep a stock of calamine lotion and aloe vera goo in my fridge which limits the shelf space of things that are more important to me, such as mayonnaise and ranch dressing. Also, you all may be thinking something like, "Shut up, you spoiled brat, you live in California - the land of perpetual sunshine and fish tacos and you've never had to shovel snow in your life or buy any kind of 'winter coat' beyond that huge puffy down thing that your dad keeps in storage for when you go camping Yosemite and Sequoia."

This is true, but let me just say that for a California girl, it is not at all like the Katy Perry song.

I don't wear bikini tops with cut off shorts, and why would you want to hang around someone who would melt your popsicle? That would just bother me. Get away from me, leave me and my popsicle in peace. Rather, when it gets up to 113 degrees here (I live in the hot part of L.A., just above the Gateway to Hell) you will find me lying supine on my floor in front of my mediocre wall-unit air conditioner in my Batman underwear, trying to imbibe my Slurpee as fast as humanly possible before it melts into that weird, flat soda-like liquid.

So, I complain a lot. But then something happens - it becomes less hot. It's technically called "fall" or "autumn" here, but it pretty much just means that mixed in with the 80 and 90 degree days, there will be some lovely 70 (60 if you're lucky) degree days with maybe some clouds and the occasional heavy mist (we'll call it "rain" here, but the rest of you will probably call it "fog") and I can go to Starbucks and get abnormal amounts of pumpkin spice lattes and I'll spend my afternoons texting my fellow Halloween-obsessed friends about costume ideas and trips to pumpkin patches. It's Fall-O-Ween on steroids out here, because with no beautiful leaves turning and no crisp, cool, autumn breezes that would allow us to wear those cute pea coats we bought specifically for that trip to New York and have started collecting dust in our closets, we Californians have to grasp at the wisps of fall and force it to descend upon us. Many of us will draw our curtains against the still-too-warm 85 and sunny weather, put "Nightmare Before Christmas" on loop and continuously stare at our desktop backgrounds of beautiful red and orange leaves - a photo that was taken somewhere else in the world that has more than "hot" and "less hot" seasons.

When I lived in Northern California, we had fall. We also had trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. I usually wanted to be some variation of a ballerinafairyprincess, because as long as there was a lot of pink tulle and sparkly fairy wings and a tiara, I could be really, truly happy. This year, EM and I have to keep our Halloween Candy Bowl in the fridge because it's still hot enough to melt our Kit Kats and Twix. It doesn't matter, though. I have declared it Fall-O-Ween in The Average Broad Household, and I will celebrate it in some way absolutely every day, until Christmastime.