6 Foot Dorothy

This year marked my first Halloween as an "adult," as well as my first Halloween not in the Midwest. Because I lacked a houseful of odds and ends and personal transportation to the nearest Goodwill (apparently downtown Bethesda is too classy!), I was forced to order my first mass-produced Halloween costume. Due to my roots, and an intense love of my patten red shoes, I decided to go as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

I ordered what I thought to be a happy median between "Grandma Dorothy" and "Slutty Dorothy"...but was extremely disappointed upon trying the costume on and realizing once again that I am way too tall to be wearing generic-sized costumes. (Next year, I'm thinking of Fionna...the female ogre in Shrek.) The problem was remedied with a borrowed tennis skirt, but let's just say that "6 Foot Dorothy" didn't go by unnoticed.

In fact, I wasn't the only "6 Foot Dorothy" to make an appearance in the area. The Tuesday before Halloween, Dupont Circle holds an annual drag queen high heel race. Yes, that's right, a large number of (generally gay) men dressed in Halloween drag and high heels parade up and down the street for several hours strutting their stuff before sprinting a four block strip in high heels. The other "6 Foot Dorothy" (wearing the exact same costume as mine) was joined by a few friends to portray the entire Oz cast. Other highlighted costumes entailed about 20 Sarah Palin's (this is DC friends) and a handful of Victoria's Secret Angels (with bikini's and 8 foot wings). I love how confident men in drag are, and I was secretly jealous of a few of them for having better legs than me :) A few of you might have been completely appalled had you attended High Heel Race, but I am definitely considering it my most favorite Halloween tradition.

With Halloween falling on Friday this year, planning to celebrate wasn't a walk in the park. I decided Thursday night around midnight that I was going to get ready at my co-worker Elizabeth's in Arlington, as that's where a bunch of my kickball acquaintances were gathering. This meant packing up all of the necessities for my costume and taking them to work. Not such a big task for me, as I have become accustomed to loading up my bag and shipping out of Bethesda for 24-36 hour adventures, but the planning wasn't quite as simple for everyone else.

Several of my friends had nothing planned in the way of costumes, which required us to drive to the nearest shopping center and visit a Halloween party store (NEVER a good idea on Halloween night) and Target after work (driving in rush hour traffic). As you can imagine, this took a considerable amount of time. I'm usually a very patient person (and yes, I know you've read this before if you've been following my blog throughout my internship stage), but I was extremely antsy by the time everyone was finally ready. We arrived at the party around 9pm, 2 hours after its start time. Did we still have a good time? Of course. The night just could have gotten off to a better start (and ended better for several of my friends).

All in all, it was a sucessful first Halloween away from the Midwest. While my DC friends were busy dressing up as Joe six-pack and hockey moms, I rocked the quintessential Midwestern girl costume. I love being out here, but I still haven't forgotten my roots!