Trick or Tricked-Out Sluts.

***Update: the man I referred to in the third paragraph is actually playing a piccolo and is commonly known as Piccolo Pete.***

Madison's most notorious holiday came and went, and the city is still standing. No mace, no broken windows. Just a whole lot of titties.

State Street was not quite the freakfest I was hoping for. It was more like a freak petting zoo. We walked down and back up--about 45 minutes--which is more or less what everybody does. You get drunk and go for a walk. Some 20,000 people do this. Walking the gauntlet of State Street, with all of its stadium lighting and drunk high-fiving, allows you to simulaneously do all the ogling you want and also be admired for your own costume creativity. It's really all about swapping props. For many a Madison man, however, the emphasis is on the viewing. There were plenty of guys in what could only loosely be described as costumes, who were clearly particiapting more in the voyeuristic side of the holiday.

But most people chose to embrace possibility. There was something for every fetish: the ghouls, the walking puns, the puking partyers, nurses, bo peeps, sluts of every variety, and of course, lots and lots of bouncing flesh. The closest I came to seeing actual knockers was a guy wearing fake plastic boobs and a plastic Twister sheet around his neck (get it... a titty twister?). But I did see a fleet of girls dressed as "slutty referees," a take on the "slutty noun" costume I hadn't seen before. And boy did they run with the genre. To say they were wearing skirts would be a generous way of describing red belts that happened to have some swish, hovering above entirely exposed ass cheeks. There were also four guys dressed as the Jamaican bobsled team. Respect.

And my personal favorite... the guy dressed as UW's best local street personality. I don't want to call him a homeless guy, because I don't know that he is. Nor do I feel comfortable calling him a crazy. But he's not in the same category as the street musicians on State, who look like they have well-appointed living rooms they sit in when they're not busking. He's entirely distinct. He has a big fluffy white beard and sits in front of the university bookstore, dressed in hazard orange from head to toe, playing the recorder. This wouldn't be so great, but what makes Mr. Orange a full-blown personality is that he's always accompanied by a little kokopelli, also dressed in orange, also playing the recorder. He sits with his little buddy and plays and seems mostly oblivious to the comings and goings of students. And I just like the guy, because, well... he has his own doppelganger. And that's badass. I don't know whether the guy on State Street this weekend was dressed as Mr. Orange as a joke, but I like to think it was a token of respect.

At any rate, it was my favorite sighting.

And I just like a city that goes apeshit for Halloween--and does it at the feet of the state capitol. You've gotta get behind a sanctioned festival of hedonism. Even if it's not really what the holiday is about.

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In other news, I've decided to come to terms with the things I will never be good at. This week: titling emails. It's my worst social inadequacy. I am spectacularly bad at it. I can't leave them blank. No one likes an email without a subject. It's suspect. So I consistently send off inquiries to very professional people, whom I admire and who might someday prove pivotal in my career with subjects like, "A Question," or "Hello," or "I'm a Giant Douchebag." It's hopeless. No matter what I try, the conveyed message is always, "you have new mail....... from a huge tool."

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My final thought on the weekend: I just learned that medium vs. dark roast has nothing to do with caffeine content in coffee. Huh. I guess that makes sense. I've been proceeding on unexamined assumptions, which would explain some of my recent unfortunate buzzes. Those of you who go to In the Company of Thieves on E. Johnson, the house blend is the most-caffeinated. Just so you know. I didn't.


Happy actual Halloween. Don't turn your lights out and hide. It's not nice, and you will have to scrape egg off your door.

Boo.