All in a week!

Whenever I asked people what they were doing for Halloween, they usually responded with a half grimace and a shrug of the shoulders, then "That's more of something you Americans do..."
I dragged Amir, my Iranian friend and Claudia, my German friend to a Halloween party in Soho on Friday night. To prepare them, I had to brianstorm what their costumes would be. Their first Halloween costume! Can you imagine? Think of all the Halloweens you have had in your life and how your parents or siblings put on your makeup and held your hand to trick or treat, and welcomed you back from your treacherous night gathering candy with a warm mug of apple cider. Imagine not having those memories!
Amir is more conservative and didn't want to do anything too extreme, so I made him a Jack-o-Lantern. He had worn a bright orange sweater earlier in the week and it's the first thing I thought of. You can't get much more traditional than a Jack-o-Lantern on Halloween. So we shopped London all day on Friday for a green hat and found a beanie at H&M he's worn a few times since, so it wasn't even a waste of money! Then at work I colored and cut out a face and stuck it onto his sweater using rolled up "return to sender" stickers at the front desk. I must say, I was very proud of my creation. And when I told Nacho and Eva, two Spaniards, that he was a Jack-o-Lantern, they said, "A what?"
I couldn't believe it. No one's heard of a Jack-o-Lantern. When I showed them a picture they said, "Oooooh...a pumpkin!"
Claudia decided to be festive a little early, and dressed as a reindeer.

The club in Soho was alright. It was what I would expect for a big city...three levels under the domed ceiling of an old church with hundreds of people dancing. It wasn't that I disliked it, it was just nothing special to me. And my feet hurt like hell from walking over a mile in stilettos. My favorite part of the night was walking home on the famous Oxford Street, usually packed with tourists and the fabulously wealthy in London, instead crawling with intoxicated zombies and witches. As we walked up Great Portland Street, the crowd thinned and the streets were abandoned except for two drunk girls barely clothed in their superhero costumes, clinging onto each other as they stumbled and laughed their way home. They stopped on a corner to watch a guy jamming out by himself in his 2nd floor apartment, and two silent blocks later they came whizzing around the corner on the back of a bike taxi, whining about which direction to go to get home, then made the guy pull a U-turn right next to us to go the other direction.




Earlier in the week I regressed to my pre-teen years of loving Josh Hartnett, because I actually got to meet him! We went to his show, Rain Main at the Apollo Theatre and I might have actually gasped when he came onstage. After the show I planned to stalk him (yes, it is disturbing that these thoughts actually go through my mind so bluntly) and we go to the back stage door and there were about 50 other girls! Ruth turned to me and said, "What, did you think you'd be the only one?" There were strict rules to follow, as the security guard said "You can take pictures of Josh but you cannot take pictures WITH Josh." But I pushed my way to the front when he came out and was speechless. I just stared. I don't know what short wired in my brain, but I just stared and held out my ticket for him to autograph. Every night he does this, a mile away from where I live! So... Saturday night Amir, Claudia and I went to see Burn After Reading (hilarious movie) in Covent Garden, which happened to let out RIGHT when Rain Man ended, and Apollo Theatre is merely a five-minute stroll down the road, so yes. Yes, I am obsessed. Addicted, maybe, to Josh Hartnett. We went again and stood outside the back stage door to watch him like a zoo animal. Claudia said she thinks he recognized me from the previous night because I was a lunatic again just snapping pictures of him. I would hate being famous and beautiful because of crazy people like me.