11.03.2003

Three things I heard S say on Halloween:

“I brought my bomb in from the garage so it’ll dry faster.”

“Alfredo showed me to the Russian pharaoh.”

“Well, I guess it’s just you and me, a bomb, and a bottle of wine.”


He masqueraded as a bomb-throwing Bolshevik, complete with a styrofoam ball he painted black, a hammer and sickle lapel pin on his big coat, wool cap, and his “Stalinist Corruption of Communism” book (bound in red linen, of course, and well-worn) sticking out of his coat pocket. The Russian guy, dressed as an Egyptian pharaoh, who attends all the bellydancing functions, told S, “Comrade, you are very well preserved.”

I went as a “vamp”ire, dressed in slinky black and white grease paint on my face, bloody fang marks on my neck, hair wild and very big. It took me half an hour to get all the paint off my face later that night, and it took two days for my hair to get back to normal...


JJ & Tebone treated us to the Halloween event, and we all shared a bottle of wine. She was a little Indian girl like Pocahontas in buckskins and moccasins and he was the Man in Pink Pajamas with a Red Fez, and after seeing R perform they decided to walk and talk. I am sure it was a cold walk home but sometimes that’s a good way to see things in perspective, and I am sure they made quite the couple, walking down dark streets, him with his fez and her with hawk feathers.


S & I stayed for a short while longer, finishing the second bottle of wine, visiting with friends, which included a Gay Hairdresser and The Man in Black. We got back home around midnight, and lounged around reading almost all the next day to the great delight of both kitties, and both doggies.



Saturday night was the Hawkins House Halloween Party. The Hawkins House is one of the coolest most happenin’ houses in Eugene. It’s where the first Oregon Country Fair took place. S & I didn't dress up, but half the mad press of bodies in the steamy house had big hats, antennas, funny masks, ugly glasses, or wings, robes, crowns. Punk Rock Girl was awesome, as was Mr. Squid.

When we first arrived there were some young men on the porch, talking a little too loud about beer and hand-rolled cigs. They followed us into the kitchen, which had not yet reached critical mass. S opened our bottle of wine and served us in juice glasses, and I turned in time to see one of the boys trying to open a beer bottle with the backside of the corkscrew, trying to push up under the edge.
I said, "Turn it around."

He froze like a deer in headlights.

So I took the corkscrew away from him, grabbed the neck of the bottle still in his hands, and with a quick twist I pried the cap off the bottle.

"Uhhh, yeah."

I set the corkscrew on the counter. He didn't look at me.

"Uh, I just turned 21."

I almost said, "Don't be telling people that." Instead I pointed at the corkscrew & said, "Useful tool. Learn how to use it."

"Uhhh, yeah, I usually use my pocket knife." He still didn't look at me, and he blushed.

At which point I turned and walked away, found S with my wine, and enjoyed the conversation he had engaged with the Black Beetle and the Mad Hatter in the corner where the Brazilian band was setting up their instruments and equipment.

Later I saw Mr. 21 on the front porch with a friend, and as soon as he saw me he leaned towards his friend's ear and whispered in the voice of someone unaccustomed to drinking and parties, a fraction too loud, "That's HER." And then made eye contact with me, so I winked and enjoyed the deer in the headlights look a little too much. S told me I was awful.

I may be, but I like knowing I can twitterpate men ten years younger than me. I got flirted with four times that night. Four, including one androgynous girl in a pink wig who asked me for my phone number. I'm not complaining too much; twice S was right next to me. I even got told what a great costume I had, and since I was in my regular clothes I just smiled and nodded and put my arm around my good man's big shoulders, very thankful he was there with me.

It was fun, especially dancing with S in the room where the band played. He danced. Getting S to dance is sometimes harder than pulling teeth, but he danced. We were crushed by the number of people wiggling shaking stomping sweating twisting and turning, so we ended up pressed together swaying and clapping. The band was great. There was so much steam on the windows it was running in rivulets down the glass.

We made our way to the coat corner, unearthed our big heavy wool coats, and pushed through the human tide to the door, and then out front, where we could see through the big window all the dancing and soft-focused hazy motion of drunk people in a steamy room. We met mutual friends out there in the brisk dark damp night, and S and a man from Devon, England exchanged sheep jokes and looked up at the dark shadows of the trees.

And since we were both sober and happy and it was about three in the morning, we decided to head for home.



Sunday we had a quiet day, walked the dogs for a few miles along the river path and looked at all the bright fall colors in the drizzly cold 40 degree mist. It rained and then snowed later. We made a fire, ate beef stew with chipotle peppers, mushrooms, carrots and nopales, drank wine, and ate most of the leftover Halloween candy. We didn't talk much and that's okay.

The weekend spoke for itself.