How neat is this picture? That’s my brother Adrian attempting to make me the Victor Ortiz to his Floyd Mayweather.

I wanted another chance to wear my costume and celebrate Halloween. After work on Monday, I went for a short run and wore an orange tutu. I ran down whatever street in my neighborhood that seemed to have the most trick-or-treaters or nicely decorated homes. My favorite Halloween display featured a scary yard transformed filled with GOP presidential candidates in Emerald City, well Iowa City. All the candidates’ faces were taped over scarecrows and the door had a sign urging kids to knock for handouts.

They even had a cute tea party set-up. I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters at my apartment, but did see lots of kids out in the neighborhood and many homeowners decorated their homes or played Halloween music.

Later, Sean and I had tacos and drove over to West Hollywood. I wanted a chance to wear my costume again and also wanted to finally check out the Halloween madness in West Hollywood. It’s so close and I’ve never gone because the crowds and parking hassle intimidate me. Now that I’ve checked it out, it’s out of my system. It’s just way too crowded. I’m fine with large crowds at concerts or marches. At least in marches the crowd is moving in one direction and I always feel like I have an out. There were several moments on Santa Monica Boulevard where I felt trapped and could barely move. I’m fine with just checking out photos on the LA blogs. As for parking, that was easy only because we were willing to park in Beverly Hills and walks the rest of the way (about a mile). We stuck around for an hour before going home and watching Monday night TV.

At least I did see some impressive costumes. The best was the two women doing a tableau of The Two Fridas. They got all the details down in their costumes. I can’t imagine they did much walking. I’ve seen plenty of Frida Kahlo costumes, but never seen anyone go through such effort to really bring one of her self portraits to life.

I also liked the woman dressed up as La Virgen de Guadalupe.

As for Día de los Muertos, I skipped out on those events and honored my loved ones who have passed with a simple prayer. That feels more meaningful to me than dressing up, painting my face and buying lots of sugar-skull printed stuff at one of the many festivals in LA.