day 20: spicy

Children with masks and painted faces and glittery wings, one right after the other. Pounding on the window with tiny fists, tugging on the door, pillow cases and backpacks and cute little pumpkin baskets. We always buy too much candy, so I give out handfuls of Twix bars, peanut butter cups, M&Ms. I love listening to their unpunctuated speech (periods let people know when it's okay to breathe!), like pulling a thin thread of gum from your lips.

Earlier this week Resa and I shopped for costumes together. She's having a party tonight, with movies and Dance Dance Revolution, pizza and candy and potato chips sprawled out on the kitchen counter. For a few seconds we were geishas, looked in the mirror, crumpled up the shiny material. We saw Di and James at Target. James is a freshman, an honorary upperclassman, and he has a Trogdor sweatshirt. He's my little egg roll.

Resa ended up buying a Chinese dress like Chun-Li's (from Street Fighter - she has thighs that could crack walnuts), satin and embroidery. She wrote in her diary that she's dressing up as an oriental woman. My English teacher told us, exasperated, "People are Asian! Only food and carpet is oriental." She married a man from China and wore a red wedding gown.

Matt was disappointed the blood didn't steam when it touched the snow, and Di told me to make faces at the trick-or-treaters for her. I touched her boob at a film festival last week that was preluded by ice cream and spicy chicken wings. It was cold that night.