Halloween Cinderella

I almost didn't go out for Halloween last night.

We studied until 8 PM. Spitfire had been craving fried chicken for days, so we piled up in Asian Jesus's car and headed over to Raisin' Kanes on St. Charles. As we consumed our greased piles of soul food, the conversation somehow led to the topic that had left me fuming mad at him almost two weeks ago.

He'd already given me his spiel. Now his roommate Asian Jesus was trying to articulate why he hated hook-up culture. Spitfire and I listened, patiently, commenting and objecting here and there.

Spitfire and I are older than the boys. Only by one year in my case, and three years in hers. I understood their arguments, for I choose not to participate in the hook-up culture either.

I think you're the type to put your eggs in as few baskets as possible. But you'll put a lot of eggs in.

That's how a friend described me, and in many ways, it is true.

So, I agreed with Asian Jesus when he talked about his tendency to treat relationships with such seriousness and intensity, that the idea of casual engagement of heart and body for one night with no strings attached was impossible for him. But once again, I still felt a hollow apathy about hook-up culture -- in that, I really don't care if other people choose to hook-up. As long as people don't try to force me into their culture, I'm willing to accept theirs.

I tried explaining this to my mother a week ago, and her words were eerily echoed by Asian Jesus last night. Do people who engage in hook-up culture treat their relationships more lightly than others like me, him, and Asian Jesus who choose not to? What will happen if you end up dating someone who's been part of that culture?

Perhaps I am naive and obstinate, but I want to believe that whoever I choose to date will like me enough that his loyalty to me will speak for itself, regardless of how he may have behaved when he was single. Perhaps I don't feel that the ability to separate the emotional and the physical is mutually exclusive from the ability to be faithful.

But what do I know? I have been single all my life. I watch people around me make mistakes and learn from them. But it's been an objective, detached education.

After dinner, I went back to my house. Both my roommates were gone for the night. It was only 9 PM, and I'd been planning to stay-in and study, but suddenly I was overcome with an acute feeling of being very very lame.

I didn't have a fairy godmother. I barely even did my make-up, since I was worried about getting to the club before my classmates dispersed. I put on my blonde wig, tucked it under a bear-eared beanie, paired a varsity jacket with a band tee, and drove to Downtown in my rental Ford Charger. Afraid of the traffic around Frenchmen, I parked my car by the hospital and walked for half an hour to my destination.

It was a chilly night -- the coldest I've experienced since moving here. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked briskly down the glitzy Canal Street. The marquee lights from Saenger Theater reminded me of that other fateful October night in New York City, except this time I was alone and thrilled by this feeling of absolute freedom.

There's something to be said about experiencing Halloween in downtown New Orleans sober. Canal and Decatur were packed with costumed partygoers, dolled up and decked out in an eccentric mix of outfits. My newfound blondness and dramatic change in appearance gave me a heightened sense of confidence amidst the momentary blips of terror. Two boys followed me momentarily, calling out and asking why I was walking so fast. At another point, someone purposely reached out to hit me on the shoulder as I walked down the sidewalks of Decatur. I didn't cuss out at them, but the very idea that I could and totally get away with it felt liberating.

In the dark haze and smoke of the club, the packed bodies pressed all around me made me feel feverish. I took off my varsity jacket and wandered through the crowd. The reactions from my friends at the club amused me to no end. I would tap them on the shoulder, and their faces would contort in guarded bewilderment until a flash of recognition would light across their eyes. "SOPHELIA!! HOLY SHIT, YOUR HAIR! I TOTALLY DIDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU!"

I was there for maybe three hours. It felt shorter than that. It was fun, but as I came home and peeled off my guise, I came to realize something. There's an immeasurable thrill in stepping into another skin for one night and feeling the freedom to act unlike yourself. But I would have been just as happy hanging out with Spitfire, Asian Jesus, and him for the rest of the night, discussing our philosophies over soul food and sweet tea, in my boyishly short black hair and school sweatshirt, in my own skin.