Halloween this year was unexpectedly awesome. Jackson has officially transitioned from cute and/or superhero costumes to spooky ones, and though we thought he'd achieved this milestone last year, we too-late discovered that 2009's skeleton zombie costume actually frightened him so much that he gave himself nightmares by wearing it. However, 2010's pulsating, bloody Scream mask was by all accounts a spectacular success, both socially and psychologically. I also feel like I've achieved some sort of participatory/underinvolvement milestone as I was too busy helping him accessorize (and Jack was too busy taping up leaking fake-blood tubes) to even have thought about taking pictures. I drove Jackson over to a neighborhood where a ton of his school friends live and watched them all run around shrieking and having the time of their lives while I followed at a discreet distance.

For many years I have been sort of anti-Halloween-for-grownups, mostly because I am old and grew up in a neighborhood where grownups maybe wore a weird mask to answer the door (my mom liked to make hers out of paper grocery sacks). Also, most elementary-school-age girls I knew wore somewhat scary costumes (witch, gypsy, scarecrow, monster), as opposed to using the event as an excuse to wear pink from head to toe, or dressing like tiny hookers.

However, because I work with the public, I decided to dress up this year. I was mildly surprised that I was alone among my coworkers, and that my wig made several preschoolers cut a wide berth around me as they paraded through the building, but otherwise my Evil Marge Simpson costume was a success. And of course I have no pictures of it, except for the one I just took in the bathroom mirror before throwing the wig in the trash:

Happy Halloween!