Famous People #53: Time is a flat circle
Kaitlyn: As you know, because you’ve known us for a long time, and you never forget anything about us, we are big Halloween people at Famous People. We love a prompt and we love to be scared (except Lizzie, who hates to be scared). And even though I moved out of Stephanie’s apartment over a month ago, I have been letting myself in about once a week to eat a sandwich on the enormous new sectional, I have deliberately left many of my belongings scattered about in various drawers, and we co-hosted our fourth Halloween party in her backyard last week, business as usual. Everyone asked me where the bathroom was, just as if it were still my bathroom!
The theme was the 5th anniversary of 2014, because what is more terrifying than being five years older than you were five years ago? As party favors, there were dozens of copies of the Tyler, the Creator tweet “GET OFF MY FUCKING PHONE. YOU COULDNT COME UP WITH AN ACTUAL MARKETING IDEA? FUCK @U2 I DONT WANT YOU. FUCK BONO. I DIDNT ASK FOR YOU IM MAD.” As decorations, there were two pumpkins (Beyoncé and Slenderman), and, after a long conversation, a couple photos of the Hot Felon.
Lizzie: I actually like to be scared, I’m just very dramatic about it (another thing I like) and I’m convinced that every jump scare foisted upon me is taking years off my life (haven’t decided yet if that’s good or bad).
What do you do when a dear friend tells you that the theme of her annual Halloween party is “2014”? You Google “2014” and end up on the Wikipedia page where you’re reminded that 2014 was the year of ebola and the Malaysia Airlines flight. So then you Google “pop culture 2014” cause you need something that has a little less to do with death, even though it’s Halloween, and you find a roundup on Newsweek.com or whatever.
Then you consider going as a “consciously uncoupled” Gwenyth Paltrow, but do you really want to buy another wig? Eventually you settle on “Shia Labeouf with a bag on his head on the red carpet” cause it’ll be pretty easy to find a bag and Shia is even more of an icon than Gwenyth to some.
Matt went as Rust Cohle from True Detective because he’ll take any chance he can get to wear a wig.
Kaitlyn: As always, some people became so invested in the theme that it made me love them more, and some people didn’t become invested at all and it made me love them a little less — no offense, and just kidding (kind of!).
I was a Tumblr meme I’m tired of explaining. James was something from “Too Many Cooks,” haha remember that? Katie was Cara Delevingne’s eyebrows and Stephanie was the Ice Bucket Challenge — she had blue gemstones in her hair and blue glitter all over her shirt and a bucket full of blue cellophane stuff, exceptional. Loren wore pants she bought in 2014, I’ll let you form your own opinion of that costume. Lizzie became enraged when I received a text from a late-comer saying she was on her way, dressed as Shia LaBeouf in a paper bag. I think she said something like “Don’t let her in,” but it was hard to tell, being that she growled it far below her normal register, and it sounded like the noise was coming not out of the mouth on her face but up from hell below.
Lizzie: When you find your Halloween costume by clicking the highest ranked SEO play for “pop culture 2014,” you run the risk of running into someone else wearing your costume. I knew this was a possibility going into it, but deep down I didn’t really expect it to happen, because I still think of myself as exceptionally unique in all circumstances. I don’t think I ever actually saw the second Shia at the party, but that could’ve been because my bag was impeding my peripheral vision.
Kaitlyn: The great tragedy of the night was that Russell came as Macklemore, but specifically as Macklemore apologizing for winning Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy, and this wasn’t clear to anyone because the tweet he pinned to his jacket fell off before he arrived. The scariest moment of the night was when Jake and Lori showed up dressed as Desi and Marnie from Girls, which was very funny but also made me nervous—don’t get divorced you guys!!!
Lizzie: The worst part about any costume party is that you’ll inevitably run into a few people who will have entirely stumped you with their costume choice. And when this happens, you really only have two options: 1) Ask, “And what’re you supposed to be? Hmm??” like that elderly neighbor who once mistook your Fred Durst costume for a baseball player just because you were wearing a red Yankees cap, or 2) completely ignore their costume altogether. This is even worse if their costume mostly consists of “clothes,” because you can’t even Google any distinguishing factors later. It’s also possible they’re not even wearing a costume at all, but rather just “clothes,” in which case explicitly asking them about their costume will force them to explain, “No, actually not a costume, just my outfit tonight.”
Everyone was drunk on dressing up like someone else or themselves, dirt cups, and the weird alcoholic kombucha that I brought that definitely violated a last-minute party rule of “No anachronisms!” As the first half of the party wound down, a group of us moved inside for more candy, better lighting, and a tour of the new couch.
Kaitlyn: My parents subscribe to this newsletter, I think, so I will not explain exactly what put me in this state, but just as the party was hitting its second wave, I lurched off of the sectional—which Tamar calls her Michelin Man, it really is so huge and plush and beautiful, like a California king marshmallow, like a shipping crate full of cotton candy but as a couch—and announced that I was going to take a nap. I went into my bedroom and shut the door and went to sleep. Of course, it was not my bedroom anymore, it was Tamar’s bedroom, but I was confused and scared and following my instincts, like a horse in a war movie that wanders hundreds of miles back to its house and lets itself into the barn without talking to anyone. Before Tamar moved in, I worried and worried, and I told her “This room is cursed. I have done two grisly breakups in this room. I had mono in this room. I read Infinite Jest in this room as a bit that only I found funny.” Nobody should have that horrible energy dripping on them while they sleep! But she just put the bed on the opposite wall. She flipped it. You can see way more of the yard from that angle, and it’s not the same room at all—totally disturbing and a huge relief.
Anyway, I woke up next to Tamar at 6:30 in the morning, coat still on, and snuck out, feeling like a greasy little ghost haunting my old life... Very spooky!
Lizzie: When I woke up the next morning, I realized I had lost my paper bag sometime over the course of the night. Another relic from the year 2014, in the trash somewhere.
PARTY REVIEW METRICS:
Did anyone bring a dog?
Kaitlyn: No. I can’t recall any major dog events in 2014, so I’m not sure they would have been allowed in. When we have the 5th anniversary of 2019 party in 2024, guests will be welcome to dress their pets up as “AMERICAN HERO.”
Did we hear any good secrets?
Lizzie: Honestly, from inside the bag it was hard to hear what most people were saying at all.
Did anyone get engaged?
Kaitlyn: Well, nobody came as the baby doll from American Sniper, which sucks because I would have married them for sure.
Did anyone get famous?
Lizzie: When you’re dressed up like a famous person on Halloween, you’re already about as famous as a cover band.
PARTY SCORE:
Kaitlyn: Absolutely terrifying! Celebrating the passage of time is a demented idea and we’re never doing it again.
Lizzie: At least not until 2024.