Is This Thing On?

When you can't see your own eyeballs it's tough to tell if they're on straight.  This Halloween I was a slow starter, as in the day of Halloween I finally decided that I should make a costume, so Scott did some excellent fabric store scouting and found the perfect cheap fabric and we went to town making ourselves into the Yip Yip's from Sesame Street.   I'm not sure if I liked them before, but watching this again had me cracking up.  I think people either have fond memories or really disliked these characters, but a good majority remembered them at least vaguely.  Scott and I lined up to join the Village Halloween Parade.  They only let a few people through at once so the street starts getting more and more packed with people plus their costumes that may or may not include horns, antennae, halos, backpacks, or spikes, all of which can be dangerous to precariously glued on eyeballs.  It gets worse when a tightly packed crowd of Wild Things, bees and beasts find themselves in the midst of a downpour unable to move.  Some umbrellas come out which can be good or bad depending on your precise location.  Large umbrellas can cover a lot of crowd, but if you're the unfortunate soul at the edge of an umbrella you become a drain pipe for all the cold water that isn't reaching everyone else.  Discomfort aside, everyone was in good spirits and at least the rain made it cooler under those costumes, since after days of 50 degree weather it was suddenly 70 out.  We had a good time prancing along calling out "yip yip yip" and brrrring!  Everyone seemed to remember different parts of different skits, which we happily reenacted.  At certain points we had large swaths of people saying yip yip yip along with us.  A few people thought we were pink and green Elmos, close but not quite.  Or some people forgot what we said and shouted "beep beep beep."  When we'd finally had enough we got onto the train with our costumes half off and inquiring minds wanted to know what the heck we were.  As hot and soaking as we were, we shoved our heads back inside and did our Yip Yip bit, to the approval of the Entire Subway Car.  Many people were excited to see us and told us we were their favorite costumes of the night.   I will miss New York Halloween.

From 10_31_09_Halloween

From 10_31_09_Halloween

Last Halloween

There was a period in time where I was too busy to keep up with the blog and I didn't even post pictures from Halloween. So here they are. We had a Pride, Greed, Wrath, Sloth and Lust.

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade

Any adventurous people who like Halloween should definitely come visit me in New York at the end of October next year. I will show you a good time. Marching in the Village Halloween parade is an experience not to be missed. I tried to convince many friends here that they should join me, but they all either watch from the sidelines or pass altogether. When you're watching from the side, you really don't get to see everything, and you're so crammed in with other people that the only costume you'll probably see is the tip of some Wizard's hat. Of course there are the stiltwalkers and the amazing animatronic statues that tower over everyone's head, you'll see all twelve of those. But you won't see and experience the thousands of costumed people walking in the parade, and get people to clap for you, scream at the sight of you, cheer you on, laugh at you all while you have actual elbow room. Last night I headed down to Scott's lab and we got dressed and walked over to the start of the parade. That is the worst part, where you are standing in a large crowd of people who suddenly take up more room than they usually do, due to extra appendages and props. But once the cops let you out of the starting gate, it's smooth sailing. You can walk at your own pace and choose which band or musical float you want to walk by and dance with. You get to see everyone's costume, and everyone gets to see you. I had many small children tell me that I won, that I was the best costume they saw that night, which was a pretty great accomplishment considering the creativity that was on display. Of course, for all I know they could have said that to ten people that night, but I still felt proud. Two separate girls called me "cute" which I thought was a funny way to describe my costume, and many people did double takes as we walked by. A mime and a headless person, in love. That's an interesting plot line. Anyway, enjoy the pictures for now, and make plans to visit next year!

Good Will

So I donated my scarf to Good Will today. I suppose it was a bartering situation, because I came out with a trench coat. I was talking on the phone to Sarah while I shopped and I went into the dressing room to try on some skirts over my clothes and took off my coat and scarf to do so. Luckily I decided to try something else on later, and when I did I saw a strangely familiar coat hanging on the rack to be restocked. I felt like a thief as a grabbed the coat off the wrack and looked around me as I slipped my arms back into the sleeves. I checked the pockets for good measure, there was the reassuring jingle of the many discarded pennies that I pick up walking to and from the train. I looked around for my scarf, which is really more of a shawl. My dad bought it for me last time he was in town. It was our China town purchase. No green patterned scarf was in the area. I can only assume that some thrifty shopper knew a quality scarf when they saw one and bought it. Either that or someone returned it to the scarf section, but I have absolutely no idea where that may have been. So I walked to the line with my purchase in hand. I'd decided to splurge for my Halloween costume and get the $20.00 trench coat. Everything turned out for the best though because the person at the register rang it up for $11.99. Hopefully they get some of my discount back when they sell my unwittingly donated scarf. I've been working on a theme. For the moment my theme is sleeping in public. Or maybe just sleeping on the train. Argh, I can't seem to access Picasa right now. Sometimes my computer thinks it needs to save me from too many things. Well I can't post photos. I know there are some duplicates in there, but I can't get into it to delete them. I'll try to ammend this post when I get a chance.

Ok Here are the Pictures..
I'm proud of the last one.

Photo Class

Sometimes I get so distracted taking pictures that I have no time to share them. So I've had my first and second photography classes since my last post. They went pretty well. I wasn't thrilled with the pictures I took Saturday, but they weren't too badly critiqued by the instructor tonight. I'm learning more about how to really use my camera which is good, and now that it's back all fixed and functional it's great! On Saturday it was raining and we walked around Bryant Park, which is a very pretty park for being so small. Holding the umbrella and shooting was a fun trick, and I really need to get a filter so my lens is protected from raindrops etc. I feel like I've been going non-stop lately. Saturday after class Scott and I met up with Sky and Anna for dinner and then they dressed up to go out to a party that I had to skip since I worked WonderWeen on Sunday. WonderWeen is our annual Halloween party for the little ones. We have crafts, face painting, goody bags and movies for the little ones. I just love seeing their costumes. Soo adorable. Phew, well I've been carrying my camera more and Wednesday is the Halloween parade, but that's always a tough shoot since it's dark and there are a lot of people moving. I'm definitely enjoying my class though and I really hope to improve by the end. I also have to come up with a "project" for my class. He wants us to come up with a body of work that we can have as a result of the class, so I need a theme of some sort. I've been tossing around ideas like decay, sunglasses, glasses, maybe even just choosing a color. Any suggestions?
Trivia for the day: The first Jack-O-Lantern was carved out of a turnip. They say it was givin to some guy named Jack with a burning coal in it when he was tossed out of hell for playing too many tricks. Happy Halloween everyone!