funny bone

Ever since I was a little girl, Halloween was my very favorite holiday. At least, it’s my favorite holiday in October.

Of course you have your fairies and your princesses, but somewhere around 3rd grade (gee I wonder why…)  I outgrew all those juvenile concepts. I decided I’d wear something more original, more me.

Dad loved this movie so I did too

Dad had just became my Mom too and since architects tend to inspire creative thinking in general (and he was a little into overcompensating), we started picking out my Halloween ensembles at professional costume houses.

Not normal, I know.

But nothing about me in elementary school was ever normal. (Like it is now? Haha.)

In 4th grade, instead of your basic clown, I was “The Jester.” This was a head-to-toe satin 1-piece pull-on that was yellow on one side and purple on the other, with a hat that pushed it right over the top — a huge double-horned cap with bells that draped off each side.

Very subtle.

I’d wowed everyone that year, so the next Halloween I had to do something really wild. So for 5th grade I picked out a chicken costume. Well, it was wild for my school. While all the other girls were going as Spice Girls or wearing sparkled angel wings, I was in a furry yellow feather suit covering my entire body AND my face, AND my webbed hands AND my webbed feet AND in red stockings — oh baby, definitely a hot costume.

And not in a cool way.

ODD SIDE NOTE: I was dropped after school in front of my house in my feathers (!) when this woman pulls up and introduces herself as Lillian Zacky of Zacky Farms. (Not in LA? Zacky sells chicken in markets and I used to hear her voice on the radio all the time.) She “just had to stop” and tell me “how much I love your outfit!” (Oh really, wonder why?)  Bizarre I know, unless you live in LA.

I think I won the all-school contest that year (probably for the 2nd time in a row… is it pathetic that I still have the awards?)

But that laughter and applause at the contest when they called my name and I web-footed it up to get my ribbon —  and that laughter and praise I heard from the Chicken Lady later that day…

I guess it stuck.

Because, as I reflect on my obsession with dressing up for Halloween, I realize it’s not unlike what I do now.

Clearly I’ve always wanted to be—

someone funny,

someone surprising,

someone else.

Then, I only had that one day a year to pretend I wasn’t me.

Now, I’ve found a way to make a career of it.

But now I know it’s not so much about hiding myself under the chicken head or the joker cap, it’s about taking the parts of me that are real and infusing them into what someone else has written. Imagination + reality = humanity… despite the fantasy of it all.

Does that make sense?

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