Happy Halloween! Well, I just had the most low-key Halloween of my life.

Sure, I went to a party on Friday and danced my socks off in full costume:

That was pretty awesome. People from my church know how to Break It Down. Also, the Best Costume award goes to my friend Lucy:

She was a giraffe!

But the rest of my weekend was spent watching the Spartans lose their first game this season in football (top picture is when we left at halftime because it was so embarrassing), followed by a night of Beetlejuice and pumpkin pie at my friend Jordan’s. Yesterday, on actual Halloween, I wore my Minnie Mouse ears to church and then was majorly sad afterward when I saw 8,000 people in costume running around Union Square. Last year I went out pretty big… but I’ve got another something something coming up that involves wearing a costume in public, so you’ll have to check back in December for that one. Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Halloween on a Saturday, does it get any better than that? Correct answer: no.

We had some major plans.

I met up with my friend Maribeth, who was a Disney princess (Cinderella) to counteract my Disney villian. It was POURING. We hailed a cab up to her friend of a friend’s apartment in Midtown West. Holllly Shiz.

The elevator opened up into his apartment and it was the nicest thing I’ve ever seen. It was ginormous and there was not one, but TWO terraces. The main one was almost as big as my entire 3-bedroom apartment. Unbelieveable. The owner, Stephen, was really cool and really nice. I hear he has some cool parties in the summer, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to be invited back.

I brought some of my peeps with me, of course.

And then Maribeth met Justin Bobby.

All of this was just a pre-party for Halloween on the Green at Tavern on the Green in Central Park, which didn’t start until 11. We made our way over there around 11:30, only to find that it was likely being shut down.

It was pure insanity. Complete management fail on the part of Tavern on the Green. There were mobs of people everywhere (this photo is probably only a sixth of the people waiting to get in) just standing. The cops were putting up barricades. We could barely escape the Park when we were trying to leave, they had put up so many fences and blocks! At one point the people started yelling, “LET US IN! LET US IN!” and I thought something was really going to go down. It sucked because we had all bought tickets ($60 apiece) and now we weren’t even going to get inside. One of the security guards tried to get us to pay him to take us to his “secret entrance” but we decided not to stick around. I wonder what ended up happening.

So we all went our separate ways and Maribeth and I decided to go down to the village. First stop: The Beauty Bar. I love this bar, it’s so funky, with old-fashioned hair dryers everywhere and an awesome dance floor in the back. You can get a manicure with your drink at certain times during the week.

And look, James Franco showed up!

It was crowd-ed but there were so many cool costumes. And once we snagged stools at the bar, it was all good. We could talk to the people standing around us and stare at the Tattooed Chicken Man working behind the bar:

We had a good time.

One of the most creative costumes I saw was a guy who came in with this giant Publisher’s Clearing check. He made part of it a dry erase board so anyone could win the ten million dollars. I also saw a Balloon Boy, some Beastie Boys from the 90′s, and you know any guy who dresses up as Edward Scissorhands automatically gets my attention. Another one who got my attention was a guy in line for pizza at The Crocodile Lounge dressed up as some sort of rockstar (I guess). I’m not sure if it was the crazy hair (wig) or the aviators, but I was like, heyyyyy. And then he caught me checking him out. Oopsies.

Yep, this guy right here:

HAHA.

We went to my favorite diner after going back to the Beauty Bar and closing it down.

I love Halloween.

Friday night. Halloween party at a friend’s apartment downtown. Since it was only the night before Halloween, I got quite a bit of attention as I made my way on the train downtown in my get up. I thought there would be more people dressed up already, but people must have been saving their costumes for the actual Halloween night. So I just looked crazy in a huge white (faux) fur jacket, out-of-control black and white hair, red gloves and red lipstick. When I stepped into a car at Atlantic Ave, an entire group of girls screamed. I’m not even kidding.

It was kind of fun, ;)

So, the party: It was on Pearl Street, in a huge place shared by 7 guys from Apostles Church. They had put cobwebs all over the apartment, put out all kinds of Halloween treats and had a DJ who was more than happy to take my requests. When one of the girls wanted MIA, “Paper Planes” but didn’t want to ask, I went ahead and got it played for her. Who’s not going to listen to Cruella De Vil, anyway?

You should also know that the most popular song of the night, the one where ALL the guys made it to the dance floor was actually Miley Cyrus, “Party in the USA.” I had no idea.

Here’s some of the treats that were on the table:

There was also pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and a giant bowl of Halloween candy. All I needed was one of those cupcakes though. Delicious.

This is the dance floor in the beginning of the night. You can see some mimes, a flamingo and a penguin. There was a girl who did the best Juno I’ve ever seen – I actually thought she was pregnant for a good five minute. One of my friends dressed as the Octomom and totally creeped me out with red lip stick all over/around her lips and a wig and all these pictures of babies in a shawl in front of her stomach. The Octomom is scary!!

My friend Lucy was Jelly Beans which was hilarious because no one knew what she was and then I saw a guy on Saturday night doing the exact same thing and called out, “You’re Jelly Beans!” as we walked by him. I think he was pretty pumped I knew what he was.

I danced A TON and got very tired and my friend Julianne (who was a painter and had paint ALL over her) and I left together and took a picture with the bull. Cause why not?

More pictures and stories will be up tomorrow from my adventures on Saturday night, when I pretended I was still 21 and stayed out until 6 a.m.! Crazy! So stay tuned for part 2. :)

I’m not vegan. I’m not even vegetarian (obviously, if you’ve ever read this blog, haha). But sometimes, vegan is the only way to go.

Muffins. I don’t have them often, they’re a treat. I have yet to get a banana muffin (they call them banana cupcakes) from The Adore with their fabulous hot chocolate (best in the city!) but I have found a blueberry muffin that I really like.

And it’s vegan.

It’s from Body and Soul, a little stand that’s at the Union Square Greenmarket on Mondays and Fridays.

It’s so good. It’s light and fluffy and delicious. I tried to have a “regular” non-vegan muffin after trying one of these and it was just too much. So heavy! So now it’s strictly vegan muffins for me – with The Adore banana cupcakes the only exception, of course.

I had a very non-vegan meal last night at Duke’s – a Sportsbar in Manhattan. I watched some of the Yankees game with some of the members of my ZogSports volleyball team. It was a good time, especially since we won our volleyball match! After that I went home and tried on my Halloween costume because I finally got all of the pieces together. I cannot WAIT to wear it out! I look crazy. Be excited…

Happy Halloween! Be safe, everyone!

Maybe I’ll post a teaser of my costume over the weekend… ;)

1. I need a new camera.

2. Have you ever been to a bar that had its own beer coozies?

3. Check out that footwear.

Saturday was my friend Meagan’s birthday at Whiskey Town in the East Village. It was packed and ridiculous. She had reserved a table (if that’s what you call it… it was more like a box) and we had fun kicking random people out and sitting/standing/dancing on the benches the entire night. I haven’t been to a crazy packed bar like that in a long time. I had just come from my alumni bar on the UWS so I was just in one of my college t-shirts, jeans and multi-colored rainboots. My friend Stephanie laughed and said she loved how I was unapologetically wearing a t-shirt at the bar on a Saturday night. Ha. It was kind of fun to be dressed down, I felt like I just wandered in off the street. Which, I sort of did.

Anyway, they had the Halloween theme going on already, too, with carved pumpkins and spiderwebs and such. We saw a couple girls in Witch hats and I got a little jealous. I love it when people wear crazy shiz. At some time during the night some kid thought it would be fun to open his umbrella inside and dance underneath it with his friends. Yeah… he got yelled at.

But it was fun:

Something else I learned is that some people like to drink picklebacks: a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice. I do love pickles, but I don’t know about this one…

Oh, and Whiskey Town has a photobooth. Next time!

We went to Ulysses’ in the Financial District on Friday night. One of our friends in Chicago just got a new J-O-B so he and his girlfriend flew out here to celebrate. We tried all different kinds of beer: wheat beer, peach beer, raspberry beer, pear beer and (tis the season for) pumpkin beer. The pear was so good, my friend bought a case online the next day. Yep, online.

I am loving that all the bars are getting ready for Halloween with all their decorations. Ulysses had spiderwebs covering the entire ceiling, which made me even MORE excited for Halloween. Just gotta get my costume together!

Before Ulysses, we grabbed dinner at Tuk Tuk in Long Island City. I ordered the grilled shrimp and it was crazy pretty, as well as delicious.

I can’t believe for all the time I’ve spent in Long Island City, that I had never been here! The food is good, it’s cheap and they have really cool lights at the bar with cars and trucks inside.

It rained all night. Look, there’s a ghost!

We took a cab. Oh, but don’t tell anyone because there were five of us passengers and the legal limit is only four. :)