Happy Halloween and shiznit like that

I'm a lamer. I can't think of much to say on this, the most hallowed of eves, because unfortunately I'm at work. Although to be fair, I probably wouldn't be able to think of anything even if I weren't. So the orginal plan for this evening, and believe me there was a plan, was to do something really wild and unusual tonight, such as watch The Shining on the DVD. But alas, my boss got sick and I graciously volunteered to swap evening shifts with her (read: saw which way the wind was blowing yesterday afternoon, and decided that if I didn't want to end up having to work an 11-hour day today I'd better offer to switch).

So pretty much all I have to offer are links tonight. But if you're reading this you probably don't have a lot else going on anyway, so I don't feel too bad for you.

• This one has been making the rounds. The yoda costume in particular makes me want to simultaneously laugh and give the poor dog a new home.

• My brother had the same clown costume made by my mother in the 70s. I guess it was the must-have clown pattern of the era.

I wish I had thought to scan some of my Halloween pictures from childhood, but who really cares anyway? It's an awful lot of work for a crappy blog no one reads (there I go, feeling sorry for myself again). However, the last link has given me an idea (you see how stream-of-consciousness this blog is? I don't even know what I'm going to say until I sit here and type it. Polished, professional writing is for pantywaists!) (And also, do you see how uncreative and unoriginal I am? All I do is steal ideas from other people.)

Oh, anyway, the idea is to make a list of all the Halloween costumes I've worn. I don't even know how many of them I'll remember but here we go.

Age 5ish?: Clown, I think. I'm pretty sure there was a clown in there somewhere. It would have been my brother's old costume that I wore.

Age 6: Cheerleader. I made my mother special order me a cheerleader costume from Sears (or possibly it was JC Penney). My early obsession with cheerleaders and cheerleading in general remains an embarrassing blight on my otherwise pro-feminist record.

Age 7: ?

Age 8: Was a freaky sort of Buckwheat-esque vampire. I really need to find the pictures for these. Wore an old wig my brother had.

Age 9: Flapper. Wore an old dress with flapper fringe my mom let me use for playing dress-up.

Age 10: Punk rocker. This was the Madonna era, in which dressing as a "punk" meant buying a can of pink glittery hair spray and wearing jelly bracelets and fishnet tights.

Age 11: ?

Age 12: I believe this was the year of Beetlejuice.

Age 13: Last year trick-or-treating; dressed as a jester, and made my mother sew the costume from scratch (with a pattern, of course).

I didn't really dress up for Halloween for the rest of teenager-dom. I resumed sporadically in the college and post-college years.

Age 19: Wednesday Adams.

Age 20: Dead prom queen. I don't know.

Age 21: Swing dancer.

Age 25: Butterfly.

Age 27: Pirate.

Last year I was going to dress up as a Canadian, but as it was 70-some-odd degrees outside I threw a mental temper tantrum and refused to celebrate such a clearly Autumnal tradition in such a clearly back-asswards non-Autumnal climate. This year I just couldn't be bothered with the whole thing in the end. Being an adult is so mind-numbingly dull. (And by the way, the high today was 75, in case you were wondering.)