Given the fact that half of my closet is costumes, I could have easily recycled a past character. Yet, the past four years, culminating in the existential crisis time period known as “2020,” inspired me to pull together my art and costuming supplies to devise a new character: Ms. Information the Pseudoscientist.
I decorated my tie dyed lab coat with colorful pieces of sticky foam on which I’d written misinformation.
I had a plethora of bullshit to choose from. I approached the task like a quick write exercise, jotting down the first 12 things that came to mind. They consisted of political and pseudoscientific “alternative facts.”
In the meantime, my roommate, who had no intention of dressing up, instead made a gluten-free version of Depression Era Chocolate cake.
Something in the concoction animated. Cake batter bubbled and spewed over its tins like the oven version of the volcano experiment.
[Turns out, it WAS a chocolate cake volcano! I discovered nearly a week later that the recipe for Depression Era Chocolate cake includes vinegar. I guess spewing cake batter was something that lifted spirits back then.]
Yet, this being Halloween, I reminded her that this holiday was the perfect time to celebrate with a hot mess dessert. She spooned out the delicious baked chocolate confection, topped it haphazardly with whip cream and called it the “State of Black/White Relations in 2020.” A nightmare indeed.
Earlier in the week, I’d tacked up a black flat bed sheet on the wall to cover up my art and provide a background for a Zoom event.
I kept it up, so we could use it as a photo wall.
Our first guest arrived in time for lunch. She brought us brisket that her husband had prepared. We provided the sides, wine, and of course that chocolaty dessert.
I’m not sure if Jello shots are classified as a dessert or an edible cocktail, but I was so excited to make this batch.
I’d bought the largest oranges I could find and cut them in half. Then I used a knife to cut out most of the pulp and finally a spoon to scrape out the rest. Finally, I mixed strawberry-flavored jello with peach flavored vodka and poured it into orange peel cups.
Fortunately, the cups were in a plastic tray since that liquid jello oozed out of one of the cups. I discovered much after the fact that I should have used a handheld juicer instead of a knife, then scraped out the pulp with a spoon. All this meant was that I’d have to make shots again in the near future. Again, a less than attractive dessert on Halloween only adds to the celebration.
In the evening, another friend and her husband arrived with wine and vegan curry.
I knew her dietary restrictions and had made Thai jungle curry the night before. What a difference overnight marination makes! So, we had two vegan curries, wine, art and whatever movie HBO played in the background.
Just so happen that my friend and I were part of the same writing group, but neither one of us had been writing much.
I lifted the black sheet, so they could see the best 25 rough draft watercolors I’d done for my upcoming book.
She expressed an interest in seeing the other 131 rough draft paintings.
I handed her the vinyl envelope with the other paintings and gave her husband my iPad, so he could see the final illustrations.
Adding to the ambiance of the Halloween night, we went outside to view the Blue Moon,
which everyone took great pains to explain that the color itself hadn’t changed. Just meant that it was the second full moon within a month, which occurs about once every two and a half years, hence the expression, “once in a blue moon.”