HALLOWEEN IN THE CASTRO

From a letter to a friend:

I didn't have a costume, (being broke and having only the contents of my suitcases) but the party was a "Grey Gardens" theme, which is a documentary film about a couple of the more insane relatives of Jackie O. So I did what anyone would do in similar circumstances--I wore velvet and ostrich feathers.

I guess the sick part about this is that "the contents of my suitcases" obviously included velvet and ostrich feathers.

Teased my hair as much as I could, but it refused to be teased, so I put on long false eyelashed, red glittery Hedwig lips, and eventually walked to Flower's house in the Castro, where the party was being held.

When I got there, Flower, dressed as Edie, told me my hair needed more teasing. I explained my difficulties, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in a chair with my hair being teased and then covered in glitter like some sort of strange cranial nebula. It looked fantastic. A black mask arrived, and the look was completed. I got hit on an awful lot throughout the rest of the evening, so I'm pretty sure people thought I was a man.

Well, except for the men in the Mission who thought I was a roundish woman with lots of makeup, which is even better.

Anyway, Flower's house is basically in the Castro. She made a nine-flavored wedding cake, brought out a keg and lots of other beverages, and loads of people showed up. Eventually, she locked up all of the house except the front room and just opened the front doors, and so random people from the streets wandered in and out all evening.

We walked the block or so down to the really crushed part of the Castro, saw costumes from the fabulous to the unfortunate, danced to street drummers, and eventually wandered back to Flower's house.

At one moment when we were walking through the streets, I saw a woman dressed as a pooh bear with a tiny pooh bear stuck to her head, and I turned and said to Andy, "Look, a Pooh with a conjoined twin," and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than she turned to me excitedly and said, "Thank you! You got it! You got it!" It was kind of funny. A second later, Stephen walked up to me and said, "Look! A Pooh with a conjoined twin fetus!"

My favorite costumes of the evening were, of course, the incredible drag queens, Michael W. dressed as a Grey Garden, and Flower dressed as Edie.

I wandered home fairly early, being a single woman walking through the streets at night and all, and washed the goo and glitter out of my hair. Amazingly, (although I'm sure there's still some glitter in there), it immediately returned to its normal straight and shiny condition.

Halloween is by far the most important holiday of the year in San Francisco.

Incidentally, the topic of Burning Man came up on a bunch of different occasions with a bunch of different people. I think I might have to go next year.

I've been invited to two different parties tonight, so feel like I should go to the one I was invited to first, which is again within walking distance.

Explain to me again why I'm moving away from here...?