Purim Costume Retrospective

It is the Jewish holiday of Purim. For more about Purim, read here. Purim and its related insanity when celebrated at school can be totally exhausting but generally speaking I love the tradition of switching everything around for a day and becoming someone you're not. For this reason I have over the years developed my own practice of wearing a costume to school that might be a significant departure from the usual wardrobe and personality of Ms. Kotleba, not only because it is fun but also--I'm not embarrassed to admit--for the shock value. Nice, sweet Ms. Kotleba is wearing an ice-blue floor-length strapless fairy princess ballgown and chandelier earrings with four-inch Lucite heels? Yes, yes she is, ladies and gentlemen.

My outfits have definitely improved over the years. I offer you here a chronology, in brief because I need to layer on another coat of black nail polish before I go to bed:

2002:
I was a doctor.

2003:
I was also a doctor--boring.

2004:
I was a fairy princess whose outfit included a floor-length gown, shawl, wand, tiara, glitter wings and four-inch heels. This required wearing a strapless bra to school for seven hours and while I looked fabulous I was miserable.

2005:
At school I was a very comfy Old MacDonald. At the synagogue for the reading of the Megillah, I was Miss America complete with sash and two dozen red carnations in a presentation bouquet (very nice touch courtesy of Jody at the House of Flowers).

2006:
I was an Austin Powers go-go dancer complete with blacklight-activated minidress, neon green wig and matching knee-high boots. There are a lot of embarrassing things I did that year but the fact that I wore the exact same sweaty, nasty, fabulous outfit both to the Matisyahu concert at Ruby Skye the night the holiday began and the next morning to school (different tights as a nod to hygiene but that was it) was not one of them. It was perhaps my greatest Purim so far...

2007:
Thanks to Revital's costume generosity I was a geisha including blue silk kimono, white face paint, black eyeliner, blood red lipstick, red satin sandals and a fan all of which I wore to Trader Joe's when dashing out from the Purim carnival in the middle of the day to buy my lunch.

2008:
That is for me to know and you to find out, until I post the pictures tomorrow of course!