Out with the boys for Halloween

An hour ago, I was in a dive taqueria on Halsted with Diego, Uncle Betty, and Colette. For some reason, they'd turned down an invitation to dine with monshu and me and had ended up half-starved, so I agreed to come along and watch them eat burritos prior to sharing a cab home. We had taken seats in the window in order to watch the dregs and drags of the Halloween Parade saunter past. At one point, about eight young men costumed as luchadores came by and began menacing us. Diego and UB responded by reaching into their pockets to pull out their own lucha libre masks (borrowed at the last minute from on of UB's coworkers) and put them on. The boys were totally thrilled and much excited mugging ensued.

It's been a couple years since I've made it down to Halsted for Halloween, and last time I did Uncle Betty and Diego were along, too. This time I tried to put together an even larger expedition, but it crumbled at the last minute: The Evanstonian couple I met at JP's cancelled at the last minute, another man I met there waved at me from across the street and then got dragged away to another bar by his entourage, Nuphy got tired of waiting for us to get back from dinner and went off the the Unlucky Horseshow, and I don't know what became of my Ugandan friend.

But the Scoutmaster was there, and Colette introduced us to a really nice guy who apparently lives barely a block from us. I chatted up a guy from my old neighbourhood who announced the fact that he was straight right off and then babbled on contentedly about how happy he is to be single and retired. Waiting for the parade to start, we asked about the tartan of a kilted South Sider; he turned out to be a drummer from the Stock Yard Kilty Band and invited us to their annual ball three weeks from now. A bit later, I got a very friendly welcome from a Marilyn who was convinced she knew me from somewhere. (mikiedoggie, while you're in NOLA, see if you can't find my doppelgänger. He's a photographer--or so these people keep telling me.) And not too long after, we posed for pictures with the stockiest, hairiest, most tattooed Goldilocks on seven continents.

monshu was disappointed by the costumes, but I found a lot to admire--from a stunning Queen of Hearts to a whimsical troupe of Wild Things to an absolutely perfect three-foot Marvin the Martian (and the total FILF chaperoning him). The parade was the usual clusterfuck--doubling back on itself, leaving ridiculously long gaps (at one point the guy with the sign for the "Couples" contingent passed by with no other paraders within twenty metres and someone next to me said to his friend, "You have to explain that one to me"), and failing to present any kind of recognisable end. My back was killing me within half-an-hour of standing on the sidewalk, I couldn't get service in the bar (once I could finally get into the bar), and it was damp and cold the whole time. It was awesome.