Halloween in New York

This year, like every other year, I didn't make plans for Halloween. I figured I'd maintain the distance I kept from the real world and just watch it from the comfort of my apartment. The first knock on my door, though, wasn't a trick-or-treater: it was Emma and Charlotte, who weren't quite as content with staying inside. Though it came as news to me, apparently Having Nothing To Do On Halloween is a humiliating predicament for Brooklyners, and after a few minutes of frantic texting suddenly the three of us had a party to attend.

Emma and Charlotte disappeared for ten minutes and came back wearing wigs, revealing dresses, and dramatic makeup. I'm pretty sure these were Halloween costumes, though it was also what single New York females wore to the grocery store. I had no clue what they were supposed to be, but I figured if I asked they'd laugh and say, "Oh Roman, you are so out of touch."

So, let's go with Internationally-Renowned TikTokers.

Halloween has changed dramatically since I was a kid. Back then, you had a reason for your costume, and since we were young and dumb it was usually just a stupid joke. Every neighborhood would have a Cereal Killer, a Taco Belle, and a Black-Eyed Pea. These days, though, it doesn't matter how you're dressed but only that you're hot. Highlight your boobs and your ass and nobody says a word. Nobody ever says,

"Excuse me, but since they lived millions of years apart, slutty cave women couldn't have worn dinosaur-skin bras."

Or "If Little Red Riding Hood had actually worn something like that, her grandmother would have dropped dead years ago."

Or, "Judging by the toga, I'm guessing you're a Trojan woman. Did the war start because you used up all the hair spray?"

Or, "Oh, I see. You're a Sexy Scarecrow. Because enormous tits make birds go, 'AIEEEEE!'"

Or, "Sorry to nitpick, but even Sexy Football Players restrict the padding to the general shoulder area."

Or, "If Tinkerbelle's boobs had been pushed up that far, she'd never have gotten through the window."

Or, "Why would a Sexy Bee have such enormous cleavage? Do they want to pollinate flowers, or Charlie Sheen?"

When I was a kid, Halloween was fun. Now, it's a kitschy excuse to get laid, and as long as you look sexy nobody really cares if you're Ruth Bader Ginsburg or a Slutty Manatee.

Emma and Charlotte gave substantially less thought to my costume. Charlotte grabbed a few wigs she had lying around and slapped them one at a time on my head. I don't know what she was looking for, but her final decision was a wild, straggly blonde mop. Although it went against everything I stood for, she clearly didn't give a damn if the carpet matched the drapes.

Never in my life had I worn a wig, and I knew absolutely nothing about them. I couldn't imagine why she had this one, unless she spent part of her day breaking in wild horses on the Scottish moors. I assumed with styling she'd magically transform it into something attractive, but instead she just tousled the front of it and pronounced it done.

For my clothes, she rummaged through her closet and then tossed me a Led Zeppelin t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. "Be careful with that," she warned.

"I didn't know you liked Led Zeppelin," I said.

"Never heard of them," she replied. "I paid four hundred bucks for it at a vintage shop."

I put the shirt on. I'd never had the nerve to wear a sleeveless t-shirt in public, but Charlotte was the stylist and I was the mannequin so I didn't complain. I also didn't know who I was supposed to be: I gave off major notes of grungy, dissolute, and creepy with undertones of kinky sex and weed. Aging porn star? Bisexual surf instructor? The answer to "What would Sean Penn's character in Fast Times at Ridgement High look like all grown up"? Emma agreed that I looked good and then we hit the road.

Before we even got to the subway, it was obvious something had changed. I'd always been ignored when I ventured out of doors, and I'd assumed that was true for everybody. New Yorkers were famously cold, and too self-absorbed to care about anyone except themselves. Now, suddenly, everybody was looking. They were interested in me. I was getting double takes.

One of the heads that turned was a stocky bearish type with a beard."Hey," he said, flashing dark green eyes. "How are you doing tonight?"

Had he confused me with somebody else? I wondered. Was his Cousin Sid a traveling carnival worker? Had his Uncle Mark grown up in an abandoned condom factory?

"Uh, I'm doing good, I guess. Just on my way to a party."

"Cool. Yup, it's Halloween." Something clicked in his head and once again he looked me up and down. "That's a costume? It's a costume! Ah, that's cool. Have a great night!"

Emma and Charlotte and I exchanged confused looks and headed for the subway again. This was literally the first time in New York that a stranger had spontaneously talked to me. Well, I'd never been outside for Halloween, I thought, so maybe it was always like this.

The L train was crowded, with maybe half the riders in costume. The three of us temporarily went our separate ways, with Emma finding a seat and Charlotte and I leaning in opposite doorways. Standing next to me was a DILF in t-shirt and sweatpants. I'd have noticed him even if he didn't keep looking my way.

"Hey," he finally said the next time I looked over. "What's goin' on?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing," I said. "Getting ready for a fun night out."

"You're looking pretty casual. You looking for somewhere to go?"

This sounded like an invitation from an actual living male so I immediately carpet-bombed our previous plans. "Well," I said, "I had been thinking about going to a Halloween party."

"No costume?" he asked. The look I gave him must have run through a few different emotions: maybe confusion, followed by curiosity, then disbelief, and finally incredulity. "Ah, man! You fooled me. Okay, I'll leave you alone, but you really are looking great." The doors opened for 1st Avenue, and with a thumbs-up he was gone.

I closed my eyes after he left and tried to make sense of it. Did New Yorkers really think people looked like this? And, worse, did they like it better than my regular look?

It didn't seem possible. I checked out my reflection in the window. It was clear: I was the guy who sold photos of his feet online to put his girlfriend through tattoo school. My fall-back occupation was a cardboard sign that read, "Why lie? I need a beer." When God raptured everybody back up to heaven, I'd be behind the door smoking weed.

I was a totally new person, low maintenance and low expectation. The guy who ignored the rat race and listened to the beat of his own drum. But strip away all the judgements and I looked relaxed. In control. Possibly ... fun.

Thinking about it this way, my newfound popularity actually made sense, especially if opposites attract. Everybody in New York was fighting for a job, or a healthy relationship, or even just recognition, so it made sense that they were turned on by a dude who'd dropped out entirely. Who didn't give a fuck. Who wasn't fighting. Who was just happy to have a beer and a couch to sleep on.

I'd taken particular note of these guys through the years because they always mystified me. Worse, they made me jealous. Because I'd followed the rules and floundered, while they'd blazed their own trails and ended up happier than me. I'd remained largely single while they always seemed to have somebody by their side.

My parents impressed upon me what's required of a modern male: good grooming, good manners, clean clothes. I'd spent a big chunk of time and money trying to maintain those goals, and didn't even notice they'd aged as badly as a Fear Factor VHS. Nobody wanted that junk any more. Maybe it was predictable, maybe it was boring, maybe now that the earth had like seventeen years left nobody worried about retirement plans.

We reached the Sixth Avenue stop where Charlotte, Emma, and I reunited. I quickly got them up to speed. "So, all my life I've tried to stay interesting and look good, and all my life I've been completely ignored. Tonight, though, two men have already hit on me, because I look like I have a head full of Nordic Death Metal under a disheveled rat's nest for hair."

"Excuse me?" Charlotte snapped.

Emma shrugged. "I was going to tell you," she confessed. "Maybe this is something you should explore in the future. You really do look hot."

I didn't want to argue so I ignored her implication that "hot" was a new look for me. Besides, even before the words were out of my mouth I was already starting to reject this new theory. New Yorkers also had a modicum of common sense. Was I seriously thinking that the real me, at least faintly stylish with a competent haircut and borderline hunky in shirts with sleeves, was less desirable than an unemployed stoner whose t-shirt screamed, "Get a load of these guns!"?

Impossible. Absolutely not.

My parents also told me that crossing your arms in front of your chest was terrible body language, so it's exactly how I stood when we finally got to the club. I was fed up enough for one night, so I stood there in the dark, totally closed off, with a "stay back" scowl on my face. Despite all that, a middle-aged woman in a tight, sparkly dress was homing in on me like a heat-seeking missile from half a room away. She wasn't intimidated. She didn't care. She eyed me like a tiger spotting a bowl of tuna salad. "Yo, baby," she purred. "How's about you and me get some parts bumpin' on the dance fl-- "

"It's a Halloween costume," I snapped.

"Oh," she said. "I'm very sorry to bother you, sir."

I'm not making friends here in South Africa. I walked by a mini-golf course and was snapping photos when an employee approached.

ME: "So when you get a hole in one, does Jesus clap his hands?"

EMPLOYEE:

ME:

EMPLOYEE: "They're SCARECROWS."

I am learning German while my friend Peter is learning English. I complain to him about long, ridiculously-specific words like “nebelfeucht” (“damp as fog”) and “kreidebleich” (“pale as chalk”).

I’m going to Munich on Thursday and sent him a note. He replied, “Why are you ‘looking forward’ to seeing me? What does looking have to do with your visit? Why are you looking anywhere at all?”

He has a point. He also said he’d get some bratwurst and kartoffelsalat so things are looking up.

Welcome to Hour 127 of Prince Philip’s funeral. Just like Hour 126, the female commentator will say “The duchess of Sussex can’t be here because she’s patiently awaiting the joyful arrival of Baby Sussex” thirty times, the male commentator will say “William and Harry are actually speaking to each other, which is the miracle we’ve all tuned in to see” twenty times, and your husband will say, for the four thousandth time, “Well, now it’s REALLY almost over.”

I love the German people for a lot of reasons: they're practical, logical, and exceedingly helpful. They never hesitate to give strangers helpful advice. If you walked around with a shoe untied, for example, several thousand Germans would point this out to you. And that's before you left your house.

One thing I don't love, though, is German bread. It's solid and hard and heavy and healthy. You can get it dense or denser, from forty different wholesome grains, with or without dried seeds on top.

Which is great -- if the first item on your To Do list is "Scrub my colon until it's shiny and pink."

The bread I like, though, is a rough and primal thing. It's hand-kneaded and hand-shaped and baked in a wood-fired oven. It's pretty much the opposite of German bread, so I was ecstatic when I finally found some in Germany. I actually smelled it before I saw it, in a bakery in Braunschweig, where the fire scented the air for miles around. In the window were huge, misshapen, crusty loaves, and inside the fragrance was pretty much the opposite of toast and closer to incineration.

This stuff wasn't served with a smear of marmalade. It was eaten around a campfire while dinosaurs watched.

On the counter, one mammoth slab had been cut in half. While the crust was scorched and solid, the inside was all fluffiness and air, with barely enough substance to support butter.

"One of those, please," I said. And I smiled all the way home.

I couldn't wait to tear it apart, but first I had to make plans. Should I slice it up, or just pull off chunks and stuff them into my mouth? Should I eat it plain or make a prehistoric sandwich? Would a wedge of cheese be too much? Would a slice of prosciutto be enough? Before I'd come up with a real strategy, my husband jumped in to help.

"That is too much bread," he declared. "There is no way we can eat that much bread. We must do something with it or it will go to waste." He was quiet for a second as his German brain weighed the possibilities. "Here is what we will do. We will freeze some, we will make croutons with some, and we will crumble some into bread crumbs."

It made sense to me, so I didn't complain. Besides, I love German practicality, and would never be so rude as to turn down their help. Ten minutes later, though, when I decided I'd start with a slab smothered in unsalted butter, I returned to the kitchen.

I looked for the bread. And looked. And looked. "Honey," I called shakily, "do we have any bread?"

There was a pause for a second, and then "No" was all he said.

My German teacher had a very strange idea: that people who have zero experience with the German language will be able to differentiate between right and wrong by the way it sounds.

"'I like you,'" the teacher said. "'I' is nominative. What about 'you'?"

"Dative," I replied. "Ich mag dir."

"Not accusative? 'Ich mag DICH'? Which sounds better to you?"

Which sounds better? That seemed like the wrong road to take. You could propose marriage in German and it'd still sound like you were thinking about hitting somebody with a brick. I didn't say it but I definitely thought it: "Lady, if we cared about what sounded better, you'd be teaching us French right now."

I'm an easy-going guy, relaxed and carefree, with just a few weird things that piss me off. Cheap toilet paper is one. I mean, who thinks, "Wow, we can save a dollar if we wipe our asses with sandpaper for a year!"? Then there's old, dried-out rubber bands that immediately snap when you try to stretch them. I actually came up with a pretty good solution for those, but if I don't have time to put on sunscreen, I'm not moisturizing rubber bands.

Recently, though, something else triggered me. Of course it didn't end well.

A few months ago I found myself frequenting an online chat group where everybody else was a straight, suburban housewife. Though they were pretty much my opposite, I stuck around for two main reasons: they appreciated everything I posted, and reading about their lives made me feel better about my own.

They complained about their jobs, their families, their cars, their dogs, and just about everything else. They also posted uncomplicated, unpretentious recipes, like one for Beefy Sausage Stew.

The title sounded tempting so I skimmed the recipe before I checked out the comments. Had anybody actually cooked it? I wondered. Was it actually good?

"Wow — it’s really beefy!“ Sarah wrote. "Beefier than Russell Crowe!“ Nancy added. "How the heck did it get so beefy?“ Francine asked.

These comments confused me a little. I mean, they sounded positive, but they didn't actually answer the question. They didn't use words like tasty, delicious, or finger-licking good. They didn't say they loved it, but just acknowledged the main ingredient. If I served steak at a dinner party I’d be flattered if somebody said it was juicy. I’d be thrilled if someone said it was tender. I wouldn't exactly be ecstatic, though, if someone said it was meaty. “Well, you know,” I’d probably reply, “that could be because it’s MEAT.”

See, there's a difference between an observation and a compliment. "Those sure are PANTS!" isn't a rave about your wardrobe. If somebody said to me, "Wow -- on top of your head! Could that really be ... HAIR?" I wouldn't send a thank-you note to Supercuts. Those are observations, and I'm not even sure they're complimentary. If you spend three hours getting ready for a party and the first reaction you get is, "Look out, world -- here comes BRONZER!!!" I'm pretty sure you did something wrong.

Before I know it, then, I’ve added my own comment about the Beefy Sausage Stew. "I think a quick glance over the list of ingredients should answer your questions,” I wrote. “Or did you miss the two pounds of beef?“

Nobody replied to my comment, and it didn’t get a single like. The next day, though, somebody posted a recipe for Creamy Pumpkin Soup.

I knew I should have avoided the comments, but I couldn’t help myself. "Wow — it’s really creamy!“ Sarah wrote. "Creamier than Leonardo di Caprio!“ Nancy added. "How the heck did it get so creamy?“ Francine asked.

This time I may have conveyed some impatience.

"I gotta tell you, ladies, it ain't exactly a miracle. Nobody’s materializing loaves and fishes here. You don't have to be the Son of God to make a creamy soup using roast pumpkin and -- would you look at that? -- EIGHT AND A HALF CUPS OF CREAM. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can make Creamy Dog Collars & Shoe Insoles with that amount of cream.“

It felt good to vent and nobody replied so I just assumed they ignored me again. The next day, though, somebody posted a recipe for Chunky Pepper Salad. I don’t know if they were purposely winding me up, but the comments were almost exactly the same. "Wow — it’s really chunky!“ Sarah wrote. "Chunkier than Jack Black!“ Nancy added. "How the heck do they get it so chunky?“ Francine asked.

This time my fingers flew over the keyboard. There was no way I could stop myself, and this time I was absolutely furious. "You know what?“ I replied. "I needed every encyclopedia I could find and forty-seven hours alone in a laboratory but I finally figured it out. All of the ingredients in this recipe are — hold onto your hats, rocket scientists — cut into CHUNKS. No joke. Not fucking kidding you. The peppers, the onions, every single one of the vegetables is CUT INTO GODDAMN CHUNKS. I tell ya, when the lightbulb finally went off over my head, it was like Madame Curie seeing her fucking hands glow in the dark.

"Needless to say, this revelation has made an amazing impact on my life. I'm almost too ashamed to admit it, but I've been -- hold onto your chairs -- chiffonading all of my adult life. Whether I'm making meatballs or moussaka, chopping up tomatoes or potatoes, everything gets cut into long, thin strips. And for what? NOT ONE FUCKING TIME did someone taste my cooking and say, 'Whoa, Roman! If I look up "chunky" in the dictionary, I know I'm gonna see a picture of that.'

"I can't express how much this has bothered me. Every night since my wedding my husband has said, 'Sweetie, thank you for cooking for me. Dinner is tasty, but — and I say this with the utmost respect — what is up with all the GODDAMN CHIFFONADES? They’re disgusting. They freak me out. When you’re making dinner do you think, “Is there some way I can get this cucumber to look like pubic hair?”’ I was too humiliated to discuss it with my pastor, so I just had to live with it. FINALLY, though, with your giant Sherlock Holmes brains, I think it's history now. I don't think it's an overestimation to say you've saved my marriage.

"So Sarah, Nancy, and Francine, I am forever in your debt. Now when somebody posts a recipe with half a pound of cheese in it and Sarah says, 'Wow — that’s cheesy!‘ and Nancy says, 'Cheesier than Nicolas Cage!‘ and Francine asks, 'How do they get it so cheesy?‘ I will happily join in with something like, 'Every bite has cheesy goodness!!!‘ instead of 'HOLY GOD, PLEASE LET ME PUSH THESE WOMEN INTO A LAKE!!!‘“

Anyway, I’m pretty sure somebody read that comment, because the next day when I tried to log in I got a message saying I was blocked. I couldn’t post anything, I couldn’t read anything, and I couldn't even message anybody to ask why. My life flashed before my eyes. Sarah, Nancy, Francine: they were my girls. What was I going to do without them? And what was today’s recipe going to be like: saltier than a pirate? Spicier than Rita Moreno? Easier than a truck-stop whore?

I spent an hour or so trying to sneak in through various methods before accepting that it was fruitless. How did it get so fruitless? Francine might ask, though this time around I couldn't reply, "BECAUSE THERE'S NO FUCKING FRUIT IN IT, YOU STUPID COW!"

I closed my laptop. It didn't matter. Like the rest of the internet, the site was a total waste of time. I had a great life, exciting adventures, and a wonderful husband, so why did I care about shallow internet bullshit? Besides, it was almost lunchtime. On another website I found a recipe for something called Hearty Chicken Fricasee and I resolved to make it, once I had a heart.