Me as a “Bridge & Tunnel Girl” on Halloween 2009, a few months before Jersey Shore premiered. #CalledIt

It’s early October again, and you know what that means – Halloween is just around the corner, waiting in all of its ghoulish, sparkly and bewitching glory! Halloween can either be the greatest day ever (I mean, come on – a holiday cobbled together out of spookiness, chocolate and drag – how much better could a day get?) OR the biggest let-down you can imagine. There’s nothing quite like the low that accompanies eating a Taco Bell chalupa on 14^th Street while dressed as a chubby Sailor in an ill-fitting, jaunty hat.

That’s the thing about Halloween – as an adult, it’s all about two things: having a great party to go to and wearing the most awesome costume at that great party. It’s my personal opinion that costumes come in three kinds: terrible costumes, costumes that are amazing because they are understandable the minute you see them, and costumes you have to explain. The third kind is almost the shittiest; there’s nothing like having your introduction to people all night be something like “I’m the Wicked Witch of the East before she gets hit by the house in the tornado.” That last one is based on personal experience when I had the black witch hat, striped tights and ruby slippers, but no desire or wherewithal to fashion a house out of balsa wood or whatever it is those crafty bitches do on Pinterest. That costume sucked mostly because no one knew who I was supposed to be (in the movie credits, the character would have been ‘Witch 1’), but also because I fell down an entire flight of stairs on my ass at a packed bar while wearing it.

Enough about the past! This year, my dream of going to a huge, all-out Halloween party is coming true  – we’re talking 3,000 people here, and everyone in costume – and yet I still haven’t chosen what I’m going to wear. The fabulous dress code is as follows: “All Outer Space Personalities Welcome.” Truthfully, this theme kind of gives me flashbacks to walking single-file down a flight of warehouse stairs one Halloween in high school. (I was dressed as a Galactic Girl in pointy silver stilettos; the porch we were dancing on wasn’t up to fire code, and the party had been broken up by firemen with hatchets. Not the best Halloween on record, either). Nevertheless, this is my year and I absolutely MUST make sure that the complimentary costume I end up wearing with my hot date, B, is not only hilarious and amazing, but perfectly executed. No pressure, of course – but if you’ll excuse me, I need to look up pricing for balsa wood on the internet now.