The Green Light District

Halloween Past and Preview

So, Halloween is this weekend. I love Halloween. Even back before I appreciated all the seasons and did not feel a fan of fall, I still liked Halloween. This year, I have a Halloween party to attend on Friday, and my costume is all ready to go. Yay!

A few years ago I had an opportunity to dress up for Halloween for the first time in a number of years. A good friend of mine was having a party. I didn’t know what to go as, and I encountered a number of cute costumes as I perused the familiar lingerie websites where I did much non-Halloween shopping for possibilities. My attention was caught by a bee costume that I found one of the most adorable things I had ever seen.

At the same time, there were a couple references to bees that had occurred in my experience recent to that time. I had read for the first time The Secret Life of Bees a couple months prior and found it one of my favorite novels ever. I had just made the decision to leave the day job world for the sex work world, and I had procured and profoundly appreciated a documentary called Portraits of a Naked Lady Dancer — produced by Queen Bee Productions.

Thus was the first time it occurred to me for a Halloween costume to be not a random choice but rather something that seemed relevant to my experience during the given year/time. That influence was there when I chose to go as a bee that year. (Later, when I met Rick, whose favorite holiday is Halloween, he informed me that he had consistently chosen his Halloween costumes that way — the idea didn’t even seem to be a surprise to him when I shared how fascinating I had found it.)

Incidentally, last year I did not have an opportunity to dress up for Halloween, but following the theme I just described, if I had I knew exactly what my costume would be. The reading of the Japanese-themed Amorous Woman by Donna George Storey, along with making the acquaintance of Donna both online and in person, were significant aspects of 2008 for me. With this introduction to Japanese culture and fascination particularly with geisha, I determined sometime in September that if I had a Halloween party to attend that year, I would go as a geisha. Alas, those plans did not work out, but even though I did not actually get to execute it, the costume choice of geisha for me was a distinct reflection of my response to Amorous Woman and the immense pleasure of being personally acquainted with the author.

So back to the bee costume. I love my bee costume, and as I commented on P. S. Haven’s recent Halloween post, I would love to find more opportunities to dress up as a bee and use it again! I also wrote a story inspired by the costume (and a little bit of autobiography…) that Alison Tyler included in her K is for Kinky anthology.

Here I am decked out as said bee following the Halloween party I attended that year:

As I recall, the next year I didn’t have opportunity to dress up for Halloween. The following year, however, I was doing a model promotion for a new sex toy/product company in the area. Their launch party happened to be on Halloween, which delighted me because it meant I got to dress up. (Yippee!!) There were again reasons I chose the costume I did, and that year I went as an angel. Unlike with my bee costume, I didn’t actually buy an angel costume but rather put it together with things I had or procured — white corset, white mini-petticoat, white arm-length fingerless gloves, white stockings, and clear high heels. And a white fuzzy halo and feathered wings.

I also determined that I wanted to be glittery (not unusual), so on Halloween evening after I had assembled and donned my costume, I took the opportunity to sprinkle silver glitter over my hair and self in general. I did this because angels seem glittery to me. Well actually I did this because I love glitter and would do it all the time if it seemed appropriate to shed glitter everywhere I went, but anyway, I had a little container of silver glitter with holes in the top like a saltshaker and stood in front of the mirror shaking glitter on myself. Funnily enough, silver glitter is actually quite like salt in that even though you do not necessarily see it coming out of the shaker, it is indeed coming out. Failing to realize this, I kept shaking and shaking, not understanding why no glitter seemed to be coming out.

Uh, yeah…it was. When I moved, it was like Pig-Pen of the Peanuts cartoon except instead of a cloud of dirt, I had a cloud of silver glitter puffing around me. Turns out in the exact angle at which I was looking at myself in the mirror, the silver glitter wasn’t visible. A microscopic turn, and there it was. Oh, yes, there it was indeed…. I left a considerable trail of silver glitter in my wake everywhere I went that night.

Here’s the full-length costume (which would have been better taken not against a white background…):

(And here’s a pose where the wings are more visible ; ) ):

I really don’t have a picture in which one can see how much glitter was all over me. Like the angle at which I (apparently) was standing in front of the mirror, the angle at which the photos were taken doesn’t do the abundance of glitter justice. I later ended up with a rash on my legs because so much glitter got in/on my bed, however. Yeah, as pretty as it looks, the stuff is actually sharp.

It will likely not surprise readers familiar enough with this blog to have been reading back in April that this year, I am dressing up for Halloween as Minnie Mouse. My costume is ready to go, but I will not be stepping out in it until Friday when I attend the Halloween party on my calendar. (The next night, the actual night of Halloween, I am attending a concert to which I will probably wear my costume as well.) I plan to take pictures again this year, which I look forward to posting here if they turn out. ; )

Happy Halloween to all!

Love,
Emerald

“Dressing up to touch all this, I’m dressing up to dance all week…dressing up to be all this…”
-The Cure “Dressing Up”

Posted by Emerald | Filed under: Sex+ Diversion|