My first Halloween in San Francisco – the year I spiked my hair to look like Mary, from “Something About Mary” – began in the Castro. Q and I and a bunch of friends headed there before going to other parties, and I remember being blown away as I looked up Castro Street – towards Market – at the sea of people. There were literally tens of thousands of people crammed into this three-block area, and the costumes were out-of-this-world. (It took me 10 minutes – and a half-bottle of hair gel – to get my hair to stand straight up that night; some of the people I saw probably spent 10 months getting together their elaborate costumes.) People were dancing, drinking, shedding clothes and acting generally nuts – and stopping by the festivities quickly became part of our Halloween tradition.

Eight years later, our Halloween had quite a different flair. It was our first holiday in the new neighborhood, and we found ourselves surrounded not by large groups of drag queens draped in feathers (a common site in the Castro) but by oodles and oodles of children. We had been warned that our street was famous for its Halloween celebration and that kids from all over the city would descend upon us – but we had no idea how big the celebration actually was until we saw it firsthand. There were kids EVERYWHERE, and our 1000 pieces of candy ran out in less than an hour. Our neighbors said they hope to rope us into decorating our house next year (Harry Potter is the prevailing theme), and they might just be able to. What’s even more fun to think about, though, is the fact that Sesame will be here – and we’ll have an even better excuse to shun the Castro and join the party on Wawona Street. I’m already thinking she’ll look cute as a bumblebee…

-M

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 2:53 pm and is filed under 01.Pre-arrival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.