I Wanna Be Your Blog

My name is Tessa. I used to live in Los Angeles and now I live in Brooklyn. I do this and other things.

Email:
strain.tessa@gmail.com

Twitter:
@tessastrain

Comics reviews/commentary:
DEATH-RAY OZONE

Old tumblr:
REPULSIVE INTERACTIONS

Essays about my hometown:
ON THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

Art:
NUMBER 1 PEN NUMBER 2 THOUGHTS

Here is a Halloween anecdote

I’m not too good at Halloween. In theory it should be my favorite holiday because I love outfits and spooky things and hell, even candy corn. But the fun Halloweens with great costumes and fun parties kind of have eluded me since I hit puberty, so I’ve more or less given up on the holiday. 

A couple years back I made an exception, because the stars had aligned such that I had a party to go to and no school/work/rehearsal obligations that night. I figured I’d know most everyone at the party, and since they were largely college theater types, figured I could get away with a silly, unsexy, and esoteric costume, so I went as Little Edie. I’m going to go ahead and brag about how good this costume was, because it was damn flawless. 

When I arrived at the party, I realized that I knew maybe three people there and that there were already not one, but two sexy fairies present. I had made a huge mistake. 

The two most common guesses I received about my costume were:

“Are you supposed to be a babushka?”

And the infinitely more offensive:

“Are you supposed to be an Orthodox Jew?”

Yeah. I know. I KNOW.

After I had tried to explain who Little Edie Bouvier-Beale was for the thousandth time, only to be met with the thousandth awkward smile and the word “Oh,” I threw in the towel. I took off the head scarf and put my short shorts on outside my pantyhose. So at this point I was wearing a brown turtleneck, tiny shorts, and a faux fur coat. And you know what? Nobody (NOBODY) asked what I was supposed to be (which, to me, says fucking everything about why Halloween is kind of garbage).

But it doesn’t end there. With my semi-attractiveness restored, I set about salvaging my night. I met a cute guy, and we chatted and flirted, and things were going pretty well. We both had separate places to go, but he added me on Facebook and we talked about tentative plans for future hangouts.

I came home hours later feeling pretty good about myself. Against all odds, I’d had a good Halloween. My roommates were downstairs watching Night of the Living Dead, and I went up to my room to change. I hopped on the computer to accept said cute guy’s friend request, and lo and behold, when I saw his profile, he was listed as In a Relationship, and not only that, with [redacted lady whose name I can’t remember anyway, actually I can’t remember the guy’s name either, come to think of it, but that’s beside the point]. 

I went back downstairs with a stormcloud over my head and caught the end of Night of the Living Dead. Do you know how that movie ends? Let me tell you. It ends with one survivor, the guy who has managed to withstand and obliterate the zombie horde, outliving all his compatriots. And then he gets shot by the rescue party. 

And did I over-identify with that ending and make it all about me? You’re damn right I did. Happy Halloween, chumps.

  1. mootpoint said: Your Little Edie story reminds of my 2006 Lily Allen costume - NO ONE got it, and half the people at the party I went to didn’t even know who she was.
  2. bennettmadison said: REALLY REALLY WISH I STILL HAD PICTURES OF MY LITTLE EDIE COSTUME FROM 2002. The art of losing things preserved only on defunct social networks isn’t hard to master. RIP Friendster
  3. rrainking said: Ugh.
  4. tessastrain posted this