Halloween Recap!

As you know by now, Halloween is my favorite holiday and I take the choice and creation of my costume very seriously! Last year, I won 1st place in the Halloween Costume Contest at local club called T.T. and the Bear's - so this year I had to return to try to reclaim my crown.

 

If you have known me at any point since I was a teenager, you probably know that I am obsessed with the television show "Twin Peaks," created by David Lynch and Mark Frost back in 1990.  So obsessed in fact, that I once took a Greyhound bus 54 hours straight from Chicago to Snoqualmie, WA where it was filmed.  I stayed in Snoqualmie for a week, seeing all the sites I could from the show and subsequent film Fire Walk With Me.  Some sites, like where the "Welcome to Twin Peaks" sign was in the television show (but not actually there in reality, obviously), took a whole day to walk to from town.  Then at night I would walk through the woods with a flashlight, carrying a boom box playing the "Twin Peaks" soundtrack, and scaring the bejeezus out of myself.  It doesn't get much dorkier than this people!

If you haven't seen the show, first of all, you should! But for those of you who haven't seen it, it revolves around the murder of a small town homecoming queen named Laura Palmer.  In the pilot, her dead body is found washed up on the shore of a lake (naked and wrapped in plastic).  So while the main plot of the show is "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" and in many ways she is the main character, she is never actually on the show except in the occasional flashback.  This helps add to the mystery of her character and intriguing circumstances surrounding her death.

I have always identified with Laura Palmer for some reason, and since this year it was the 20th anniversary of the show, I decided it was time to finally be her!

(Above: Yours truly as bad girl Laura Palmer.  I think I look prettier than the Mona Lisa herself here, if I do say so myself!) 

It wasn't easy, let me tell you.  But I think I pulled it off.  It took me about two full days to get everything together to make the "dress," custom purse and shoes.

(Above: Customized purse and boots made entirely out of clear plastic and white duct tape.  Perhaps not historically accurate to the "real" Laura Palmer, but inspired by her fabulous dead body!)

(Above: Getting in the Halloween spirit with a little tap dance halfway through the costume creation process - October 29, 2010.)

Last Saturday, it was time to go to the club where one year before I had won 1st place for my rendition of Stephen King's Carrie.  But as I was walking around on the way there, people kept stopping me and asking me if I was Lady Gaga! It was then that I realized that if you didn't know who Laura Palmer was -- that I did actually look kind of like Lady Gaga! Oh no! Things were not looking good for me in my pursuit to win the costume contest, unless everyone there really likes Lady Gaga!

After I arrived, I did a little constricted dancing, and then the DJ announced that there was only 10 minutes left before the contest began.  I was at least going to give it a shot (I had to show off all my hard work!), but didn't want to get my hopes up about winning.  Laura Palmer is a pretty obscure costume.  In comparison to last year, practically everyone knows who Carrie is -- and no one wants Carrie to lose... because who knows what could happen to those in attendance if she did!

I got in line for the bathroom, and while I was waiting there, out walked a girl dressed as another character from "Twin Peaks," Audrey Horne! I couldn't believe it! We just paused and looked at each other and were like, "AWESOME!!!" She told me that her boyfriend was there and that he was dressed as yet another character from "Twin Peaks" too... Special Agent Dale Cooper! I was psyched! I immediately suggested that we all enter the contest as a group, because we would be unstoppable! They were more than happy to oblige me.

(Above: Meet F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper and Miss Audrey Horne.  Them + me = the Twin Peaks trifecta - a brilliant strategy to win the costume contest!) 

When the contest started we all met together on stage.  There were anywhere from 30-40 people entered, so the stage was packed.  Each person had to walk up to the emcee and say into the microphone what their costume was, then wait to hear how loud the applause was for them.  When our newly formed posse went up, the crowd went wild! More people must have known about "Twin Peaks" than I thought! One by one, the contestants with the least applause were asked to leave the stage, and then the cycle began again.  It was goodbye to all the clowns first (people don't like them), then the kind of nerdy stuff like avatars and robots, then to the sexy Raggedy Ann doll, sexy cigarette girl, sexy transit card (?!), etc.  This went on for quite some time, until the only ones left standing were us and a girl dressed as Tippi Hedren from The Birds.  The applause for Tippi finally beat us out, so she won 1st place and we came in 2nd.  We even won $60 and a beautiful little trophy that Audrey and Cooper were nice enough to let me keep.  The funny thing is that Tippi's outfit is a pre-packaged costume that I have seen at a bunch of stores and even on friends of mine! Oh well.  All and all another Halloween to remember, and I kept my costume crown (kind of)!