Farmer Zombie Joe at the Annual Hoe-Down

Whew, I'm tired. And, I admit, a slight bit hungover this morning. Last night I celebrated Halloween with some friends across the river and had a little too much fun. I was a zombie this year and actually pretty happy with how the costume turned out (the pics are on a friend's camera, but I'll try to post them soon)... The past couple of years I've had some pretty elaborate and good costumes--I'm sure my friends out there will remember Ghostbuster Stantz with working proton pack (shot silly string instead of proton ray) and Tammy Faye Baker, Lee Press On nails and eyelashes galore...

This year we had a public event at work and I just couldn't come up with a costume idea. All my Halloween chutzpah was gone. I was seriously stressing over it as I'm aught to do. I finally settled on a zombie and in fact, this was probably the first time I've ever been an actual "scary" character... well, Tammy Faye was a frightening figure ablaze in fuschia horror, but you know what I mean. Anyhow, Zombie Farmer turned out to be a lot of fun. Creative use of green eyeshadow and copious amounts of white face paint and I was ready to rock and roll on the cheap.

The party I went to was a lot of fun. I only a knew a couple of the people from my old job at NARA, so at first the party was small talk ("where do you work/live/etc"), but after I became the virgin sacrifice to the Karaoke gods ("we belong to the night, we belong to the thunder, we belong...") everyone threw aside the niceties and began the karaoke battle. I ended up staying until 2:30 and probably sang during most of the songs. I really really really like karaoke. I mean, really really like it. Like, wish-I-had-my-own-machine-so-when-I-was-bored-at-home-I-could-throw-Karaoke parties-by-myself really like it.

I don't have too much snark to share, sadly... I know I promised more, but not much has happened to me lately* and I'm in just a generally good mood. I know, shocker. The party was a run-of-the-mill party, some fun costumes, boozing, so no need to recount:
and then I said to Joe the "don't ask don't tell" sailor, "blah" and he said, "blah" and then one of the Princess Leia's brought me a drink and said, "blah"... Riveting huh?

Actually, there was this one girl who kinda weirded me out. She took the karaoke a little too seriously. She was totally the kind of girl who when she saw on the invite there would be karaoke, got all excited and thought, "oh, a chance to show off my voice!" She kept "real singing" and moving the mike to and fro based on her voice volume. She had a major "serious face" problem and at one point, during a moving group sing of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" attempted to conduct us. Seriously, she was keeping the beat for us! Moving her serious little hands up and down to keep time for us less professional singers. For karaoke!!!! WTF? The girl probably took some voice lessons and sang in a college choir group and has it in her head that she can actually "sing." Dude, I took voice lessons and was in choir, but it's karaoke!!!! KARAOKE!!! In a person's house! At a halloween party!!! While people are dressed up as Princess Leia and Zombies!!! And the kicker? She wasn't even in a costume... Hmmm, maybe that was her costume! Professional Karaoke Singer, like in that bad Gwenyth Paltrow movie where Huey Lewis is her Dad and which spawned that awful song that was on the radio for forever (Groovin' Together or whatever)... Now I get it! Hahahaha!

Best. Costume. Ever.



*This didn't really "happen" to me, which is good as you'll see, but I was on the northbound train at the Bethesda Metro when this awful tragedy occured. We heard this scream and then my train shut off for about 10 minutes before finally going forward. All the lights were off so I couldn't really tell what was happening, but there were all these noises and people freaking out. So creepy. And very upsetting that it seems more people in DC were concerned with their commutes than the fact that a woman died. Typical DC attitude. I keep forgetting that the guy sitting next to me on the train is responsible for making the world go round all by himself. Silly me.