day 1 – et c’est parti!

Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus.  Let the nablopomo games begin!

(Before I rock your world with my first post, thank you all so much for the fun & frivolous suggestions; they will especially come in handy around day 20 when I’m crawling on my hands and knees, starving for words.)

I suppose it’s only appropriate that I start nablopomo with a post-Halloween post, which incidentally means dipping into my suggestion box on day 1 … this does not fare well.

Michelle asks:  “What did you do on the most special day of the year…Halloween?”

Well, I wish I had a killer Halloween story to tell you but the truth is, after I got home from work last night, I felt as if a zombie had taken a chunk out of me, chewed me up and spit me out.  I’d been invited to a party but the oomph just wasn’t there.  I often find the elusive oomph hidden in a soy latte, in a square of chocolate or behind the dragon that guards my fears ever so fiercely.  But last night, it was nowhere to be found.  Un fantôme.  I even checked under the bed but all I found there were a few dust bunnies, probably breeding, as rabbits are known to do.  I digress.  All that to say that no, a Halloween party, I did not attend.

That is not to imply, however, that I didn’t participate in Halloween festivities.  Au contraire.  Before heading to work yesterday morning, I suddenly decided that I must get dressed up.  It was Halloween after all, one of my favorite days of the year, so I had to do something, anything, even if that meant creeping in the dark alley at dawn to gather crispy colorful leaves off the ground, sticking said leaves in my hair with a couple of plastic spiders, applying glitter on my eyelids and donning a pair of black and white striped tights with two colorful flowing skirts.  Voilà.

In the span of 5 minutes, I transformed myself into a Fall fairy of sorts.  That, or a brothel fairy who’d been rompin’ in a bed of leaves all night.  The point is, I got dressed up and just so you know, it’s not like I work in a kindergarten or coffee shop where it is generally accepted, nay, encouraged to wear costumes (the world would be a better place if every employer supported this kind of frivolous behavior).

I work for an auditing firm, people.  We don’t even have casual Fridays, so if jeans are frowned upon, I wasn’t sure how they would look upon brothel fairies.  Still, off I went, down the street, on the 51 bus, in the subway, up our fancy elevator and into the office. And like a good fairy, I came bearing candies for all.  Rockets candy, because they were my favorite as a kid. Sure, they now shock my jaws and lock them shut.  Sure they stimulate my saliva glands into pumping out enough spit to put out a small fire.  Sure they make me feel ill, but once a year – why not?

I don’t know if it was the crack candy or l’eau de autumn leaves in my hair or the magic dust that I sprinkled in their coffee, but the outfit was appreciated by all and I may have even convinced a few people, without a single word, to get dressed up for Halloween next year.  This brothel fairy’s mission had been accomplished.

It was a beautiful 12 degrees when I left the office and I sauntered home with my camera.  Walked around for 2 hours and by the time pumpkins started glowing on porches in side streets, I had one thing on the mind…. FOOD.  So I took one token pumpkin photo, stopped at the fish market, picked up some trout, cooked a pot of quinoa, whipped up an arugula salad and did F-all for the rest of the night.

But I’m proud to say that through it all, I kept with the Halloween theme.  I drank a couple glasses of 7 deadly Zins, ate enough garlic to disintegrate a vampire with a single breath and may have even fought a few demons in my sleep.  What did you do for Halloween?