All Hallow's Eve and Beer Pong

Yesterday night was my first proper American party, and a Halloween party at that. If there's one main difference between Halloween Stateside and back home, it's that here it's sexier. The raison d'etre of most girls' costumes seems to be as slutty as possible. There was a flight attendant (with "Mile High Captain" badge), a nurse, and a couple of very scantily-clad witches. There were some pretty lame costumes as well, particularly among the menfolk. One chap came as "a member of the russian mafia", just dressed all in black. Another fellow just had a T-shirt on bearing the slogan:

"THIS IS MY COSTUME. NOW GIVE ME THE DAMN CANDY."

It was a proper American party as well, with people drinking "lite", tasteless beer our of cardboard cups, "jello shots" (vodka jelly to you and me) and jock-ish drinking games. The main one was Beer Pong. This involved setting up a "rack" of half full beakers of beer at either end of a long table, arranged in a triangle like a rack of pool balls. The combatants would then take it in turns to try and toss a ping pong ball from one end of the table into one of their opponents' mugs of beer. If you got one, your opponent had to drink that cup, and you got another go. Needless to say, as the cups get fewer and the player gets drunker, the game becomes harder and harder. Lots of fun - I wasn't bad at it either.

I went as a giant. I can't claim this idea for my own - I copied it off something a London friend did a couple of years ago. I bought an old shirt from a charity shop, and sewed little toy knights onto it as if they were climbing all over it. I then blotched it with red paint to make it a bit more halloween-y, as if the little bastards were trying to stab me. People generally didn't get it at first, but once I'd explained in detail it was generally appreciated. I must have been the only one who did anything home-made, I think - everyone else had bought their costume wholesale from one of the numerous Halloween shops around here, which will presumably morph into Christmas shops in a couple of weeks.

Here's a farily poo photo taken with my phone of my work of art:


And here's a "detail shot" of one of the little blighters climbing on my shoulder:


There wasn't a great deal in the way of potential romantic action (the reader can probably detect a thread running through my various posts!). There were two really very attractive Jewish sisters, one of whom I chatted to for a while and (another theme) was digging the accent. No joy though - she passed out soon after talking to me, which thinking about it may not be a particularly good sign... A journalist from New Hampshire seemed very interested, but she would be touching my leg one minute, and talking about her boyfriend the next. Talk about confusing...

So I've now followed up with 3 of the girls I met speed dating, and I can see potential friendships evolving - they all seem to still be friendly after a few hours in my company anyway. I didn't post about the "date" I had with one of them on Thursday, but there's not an awful lot to tell. I use quotes because although we put each other down as friends on the speed dating site, it was just the two of us having drinks and chatting for a few hours, and it had something of a date atmosphere around it. Really pleasant evening though, and hopefully I'll see her again.

It's been cold, windy and rainy today. Proper New England weather settling in, I fear. Combine that with a hangover (I only got home from the party at 4 this morning) and I've only left the house to get the bare essentials - fruit juice, takeout pizza and cigarettes. Tomorrow I shall do something more constructive.