I Don’t Love A Parade

So I went to the Halloween parade last night. I arrived at about 6:30. The people were only about two deep at that point, so I actually had a chance of seeing the costumes!

The parade started late, which afforded me plenty of time to eavesdrop on the awkward attempts of a born-and-raised 50-something New Yorker trying to speak French to some tourists.

The parade was ok. They definitely front-load it so that all of the awesome stuff is at the beginning. There were giant creepy puppets and zombie bands and it all felt very Halloween-esque. The problem is that the parade stops every so often – there’d be a lull of about five minutes where there would be nothing. And because anyone is allowed to walk in the parade, there is disorder and, well, a lot of lame costumes.

I watched for about an hour and a half and then gave up. I decided that I’d seen enough and that there was not a chance that my photos would come out good no matter how long I waited and no matter how many different flash settings I tried.

I did manage to see D and R, whose picture I took but, of course, none of them really came out because I was too far away. D was very cute and ran over to me and kissed me through the crowd.

After the parade I headed up 7th to meet up with D and R and S, who left the parade early in order to either go back to D’s and hang out or grab some food. I voted “Food!” because “I think we should be out on Halloween and not sitting inside – we need to see costumes!” By the time I met them I was starving to death and irritable. It was about 9:00 (and if you factor in Daylight Savings, it was 10:00!) and nobody could make a decision. We decided to head down Hudson to hopefully avoid crowds, but apparently there are only meat-restaurants on Hudson. We walked down Spring – everywhere was crowded or expensive or meat, so ultimately opted to just grab a slice of pizza and eat it at D’s. By this point it was 10:00 and I had a raging headache and didn’t want to talk to anyone ever again, so I didn’t have much fun.

Which is fine, because I’d anticipated having no fun because how can you have fun if you’re not wearing a costume on Halloween? And, for all intents and purposes, I spent Halloween alone because I watched the parade by myself. It’s not the same when you have to tell people about the awesome costumes you saw. It’s better to be like “Dude, that guy in the spoon costume was the best ever!”

Yeah. Slightly annoyed with myself for not coming up with a good costume. I’m annoyed that I didn’t come up with a costume at all. At around 5:00 last night everyone was punchy because it was a holiday and felt like Friday. R put green lab tape around his forehead and said “Look, I’m Olivia Newton John!” I then put red lab tape on my palms and said “Look, I’m stigmata!” and everyone thought it was funny and thought I should walk in the parade, but it just felt too easy. And plus, I’d rather do it really gory. Although I guess the tape was fairly cute.

Next year. Next year I will have an awesome and clever costume and will have so very much fun on Halloween. No more holiday disappointments! No. Never.

Tomorrow I will put up some of my really blurry photos from the parade, but until then, here you go:


Most Nostalgically Awesome Costume: Four guys dressed up as contestants on Super Sloppy Double Dare

Most Popular Costume: Rainbow Brite / George Bush

Most Fun Costume: PacMan and the Ghosts Running Around

Most Provocative Costume: Two Popes Making Out

Hottest Costume: Mostly Naked Man With Beautiful Body Roller-Blading

Most Accurate Costume: Edward Scissorhands

Favorite Costume: The Gates!

Best Celebrity Sighting: Interior Design Guy from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” at a bar we didn’t go to because it was too crowded