Rabbit Rabbit

Halloween in New York City.

As if everyday here isn’t filled with enough weirdoes.

Seeing as I was on house arrest yesterday waiting for our fifth (and final) visit from the cable company, I had no idea the lengths that some people would go to around here for Halloween…but then again, I should not have been surprised. I was too distracted by the precious little pumpkins and Hermione Grangers in our neighborhood to notice the scary men in black capes wearing masks from every horror movie I’ve never seen.

We headed down to West 4th in the Village for the Halloween Parade after the girls got home from work last night. My only previous experience with parades was the Homecoming parade that my hometown would host in our downtown square when I was younger. My friend RW and I were even the mascots our junior year (it was cool- I promise) and we rode in the back of a convertible, waving to everyone while in our costumes and inching down Louisiana Street.

Anyways, I did not have the correct mental image of what this was going to be like. I should have known when KR, AV and I stepped off the subway and onto the busy platform only to wait for ten minutes before reaching the surface that I did not know what we were getting ourselves into. We reached the top and the madness ensued. KR’s phone was plastered to her ear as we started weaving through Bleecker Street to attempt to find RM, and AV and I gripped each other for dear life as we continued walking further into the crowds.

We finally found RM, still in his suit and tie from his job training, and we settled into an outdoor patio table at a Mexican restaurant so that we could view the mayhem from a safe distance. There were two conclusions drawn during our dinner:

1. Since Slutty ______ is always a popular choice for Halloween, it would only be fitting that since Jerry Seinfeld’s new Bee Movie just came out that girls would walk around dressed as Slutty Bumblebees. A Slutty Ladybug sidekick, or a cast of Slutty Disney Characters most often accompanied them.
2. An alarming number of men in New York dress up as women on Halloween. I’m talking heels (primarily boots, a few dared to wear pumps), dresses, panty hose, make-up, dresses, purses… the whole nine yards. Except I doubted that any of these guys watch football.

So after watching the spectacle that is Halloween in the Village from the safe haven of our table and my jeans and turtleneck- we ventured out again into the abyss of crazies. We made our way to Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes, since all the other kids were getting candy, and waited in a surprisingly short line for our favorite vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Magnolia is always an experience, because there is usually a considerable line to wait in (even late at night), there is an army of workers who look like they should be employed at an old record store rather than piping frosting, and there is always what we have affectionately come to know as a “Cupcake Bouncer”. He’s a guy who stands at the door (often in an apron) and keeps the peace among the people in line, and maintains the number of people passing in and out of the bakery. All that’s really missing is a VIP list and a velvet rope. We harassed him for allowing someone to breeze right in before us, and he explained that the guy “knew someone” inside. We should all be so lucky.

Returning back to the subway station with our little white boxes, a girl who was probably drunk asked us why we were holding white boxes. We explained and she looked at us as if it were the strangest thing she had seen all night. People dressed as themselves holding cupcakes- how avant-garde.

We had to wait in line to get back onto the subway, which was alarming. Once we were underground, we realized that half of the staircase was barricaded for the people coming in, and the other for people leaving. When the train would come in, they would get everyone off who wanted that stop, and they would corral them over to one side and let everyone else get on. The train arrived while we were with the rest of the cattle trying to get through the turnstiles, and suddenly it was every man for himself. As if New York isn’t one big game of Survival of the Fittest anyway. Out of the corner of my eye I saw RM and KR fleeing for a subway car three doors down, and AV and I darted into the first open door we could find.

I found an open seat next to a man who kept falling asleep leaning on me between stops, and then would wake up in a panic when the train halted and would frantically ask which stop we had reached.

I went to visit MK in Murray Hill this morning, and helped her prepare for the presentation she had this afternoon… and by “prepare” I mean I CHI-curled her hair and listened to her read through her note cards. I spent most of the day there in my Nike shorts; drinking coffee, reading, writing this thing, using her laundry facilities. I was distracted by the fact that I had purposely worn clothes to exercise in, and I put it off as long as possible, but inevitably pushed the button for the fifth floor and spent 25 miserable minutes on the treadmill.

We got to spend one last night hanging out with MK at her place tonight- doing our usual Thursday night routine of eating Libretto’s pizza and watching The Office. MK’s mom is in town, and we got to hear about her week working in New Jersey. The rest of their family was getting in town tonight as well, so we left and came home just in time to hit Broadway when all of the plays got out and every senior citizen from Central Park West refused to wait for the next bus.

Timing is, after all, everything.

“Ever notice that ‘what the hell’ is always the right decision?”
- Unknown Hollywood scriptwriter