Megan Simpson's Writing Portfolio

We’ve got another long one, folks, but I did bullet-points this time so I don’t have to write full/complete sentences! #EnglishMajor?

I couldn’t create a witty title for this post that wasn’t some sort of play on “Girl, Interrupted.” That sounds insane, but I kept coming back to “Halloween, Interrupted” and “All Hallow’s, Unpredicted.” I haven’t even seen the movie recently. Angelina Jolie sending out vibes to the universe again, I guess.

Tuckered out doesn’t even begin to describe my current state. I had four nights in a row of non-stop stuff: two nights of which had nothing to do with Halloween, mind you. I only had to wear two costumes. The week, for me looked something like:

Lauren’s birthday on Wednesday, Megan Kelly’s gallery showing on Thursday, the Casper company Halloween party on Friday, and the strangest Halloween mansion/club adventure with Char on Saturday.

Lauren’s birthday consisted of meeting her at work, going to see the band ‘Passion Pit,’ hanging out at a bar on Sunset, and hiking the Hollywood Hills in our going-out attire. The players were Lauren (the reluctant birthday girl), Steph, friend-from-work Amanda, and myself. The duration was 7pm – 1:30am. Alcohol was involved at Lauren’s work, the concert, and the bar. Highlights include:

• Steph and Lauren attempting to do our sorority’s “door stack” song (from recruitment) at random intervals throughout the night while I looked on in confusion because I was a Rho Gam and I had forgotten recruitment even existed outside of yelling “WALK WITH PURPOSE, LADIES” and tossing Goldfish into girls’ mouths.
• Steph and I focusing all our attention on a particular intoxicated gentleman–okay, gentleman wasn’t the right word, he was wearing a baseball cap at a concert at 10pm–fist-flailing (fist pumping, but when you’re tall, lanky, and drunk) and mouthing all of the words to every song. Steph and I don’t know Passion Pit’s music, so we looked to him as sort of a beacon of knowledge and power throughout our evening. We somehow got the honor of high-fiving him on his way out.
• Purchasing and consuming hotdogs from a street vendor that tasted like replicas of D hotdogs so I cried a little bit.
• Jay-running across busy Sunset Blvd. to get to the bar because that’s the life we’ve chosen for ourselves.
• Making a foreign gentleman put out his cigarette and look me in the eyes as I told him Stephanie was a “grown-ass woman” and would “respond to his call if she felt like it.”
• Random cute guy buying Lauren a birthday drink after Steph told him that her friend “thought he was cute. Also it’s her birthday. Do what you will with that information.”
• Hiking back up to Casper from Sunset because Stephanie is a sadist and would rather watch her friends die than get another Uber because the walk was “less than a mile” and “you two are such babies” and “I’m not MAKING you do this.”

Megan’s gallery showing consisted of meeting Charlotte outside our apartment building, Ubering to a super-trendy office space in DTLA, eating free tacos, drinking free booze, getting a free Tarot card reading, and complaining about boys. The players were Charlotte, Megan, Megan’s friends, and myself. The duration was 7:30pm – 11:30pm. Alcohol was, as mentioned, involved. Highlights include:

• The entire 40 minute Uber ride where Charlotte and I were verbally giving ourselves Oscars for trying something new and being “v New York” because of art reasons.
• That same Uber ride where Charlotte and I prayed there would be food.
• That same Uber ride where Charlotte and I prayed we wouldn’t be the only ones not wearing costumes and that we wouldn’t be quizzed on our knowledge of artists and other such things.
• The free tacos we got immediately upon arrival.
• The many dogs in costumes roaming freely around the event.
• The throwback songs the DJ played (“One Two Step,” y’all) and our ability to dance whilst seated.
• The psychic telling Charlotte that she was going to meet her man in a matter of months, and then that psychic telling me I’d already met the next guy I was going to date to which I responded, “But… I hate everyone I know.”
• Honey Liqueur Jack Daniels and Diet Coke combo.
• Watching drunk people ride the mechanical shark (yep. bulls are too mainstream, this is DTLA.)
• Reading into our Tarot card thing way too much.
• Getting hit on by a guy that I’m pretty sure is in his forties.
• ^In line for the bathroom.
• Ubering back while screaming about a particular man and his tendency to be awful: the typical Big/Little way that Charlotte and I like to end all of our nights together.

Casper’s Halloween party consisted of Stephanie getting to my apartment at 4:30, us getting wine-drunk, going to see a real psychic because we’re dumb, #PeterPanSquadGoals at the party itself, the latest dinner ever, and the three of us crashing at my apartment. The players were Lauren, Steph, Tess, and myself. The duration was 4:30pm – ??am. Alcohol was involved at my apartment, the party, and our late-night dinner. Highlights include:

• Steph making a big life-decision and, thus, helping me make one.
• Making a whim-like decision to see this psychic and have her basically read Stephanie’s life to a T (and now we know who her husband is and I’m pretty pumped to meet this dude) and then turning around and telling me that she sees me in the medical field. Mind you, this was all done while I was wearing my “Step Aside, Coffee, This is a Job for Alcohol” shirt.
• Steph having a full-on life-attack about what the psychic said, then getting a fateful text from possible-husband, then almost passing out on my living room floor.
• Then Steph pulling herself together to transform into female Captain Hook while I (the real-life female Good Luck Chuck, I’ve discovered) transformed into Tinkerbell–a costume I got when I was fourteen and trying really hard to be a grown-up, so it’s ironic that I wore it again as a twenty-two year old trying really hard to be a kid.
• Walking into the party and greeting our Trendy Wendy (Lauren) and having all of her co-workers say, “Ooooh, NOW that outfit makes sense” because we complete each other.
• Taking pictures with all of LA as our backdrop (when all we cared about was how fire our poses were).
• Watching Steph drink Jameson on the rocks and thinking, “I could do that with vodka no problem.”
• ^Being wrong.
• Eating tacos and catching up with Tess (who killed it at Medusa because fake snakes in her hair and a YouTube Halloween makeup tutorial).
• Grinding on Lauren when she was trying to have a conversation.
• Hanging out exclusively by the snack table.
• Going to dinner because Stephanie’s snapchat story is filled with me doing stupid things because of the effects of the aforementioned “I could do that with vodka no problem.”
• Somehow getting us back to my apartment and waking up with my costume still on, but my spanx and self-respect on the floor. But the girls ordered post mates and we watched 30 Rock for hours and I love them.

And lastly, our actual Halloween consisted of a four-story mansion party where we knew no one, more steep Hollywood Hills streets/driveways, an awkward waiting period at our favorite nightclub, some very interesting costumes, some table-hopping, and an early run to Taco Bell. The players were Charlotte and myself. The duration was 9pm – 12am. Alcohol was involved at the mansion and the club. Highlights include:

• Not wanting to drink because, dude, this is the fourth night in a row and I’m about 97% done.
• Dressing up in basically my undie-run attire and a robe, slapping a crown and a sleep-mas on my head, calling myself Sleeping Beauty (“take off the heels and the crown and you can crash right when you get home, Megan! This is a smart decision!”)
• The confusing Uber ride to the party at the mansion the club promoter invited us to, added onto the steepest driveway in all of Los Angeles, I’m sure.
• The ostentatiousness of this damn house. This dude had a clear garage door so you could see the expensive car inside, like 90 balconies, and I’m pretty sure I saw a samurai sword in a glass case on the wall.
• We knew no one (besides Char vaguely knowing the promoter) so we commented on the view for a full 30 minutes.
• Char took a shot with the promoter while I averted my eyes from the vodka bottle they were taking swings from. But that forced me to look at a Swedish model dressed in the tightest army girl outfit I’d ever seen and I couldn’t decide what would be worse for my self-esteem.
• Leaving the party early and waiting for the promoter and co. at the club we had a table at (so a lot of awkward dancing on an empty dance floor and trying to see celebrities in the dark).
• Having a 10-minute conversation with the bathroom attendant about her seeing Kylie Jenner at the club only to realize at the end that she meant someone dressed up as Kylie Jenner.
• Perching ourselves on the couch at the table and watching two girls dressed up as “hood rats” (hoop earrings and mouse ears… hey kids, there are new and fun ways to culturally-appropriate this year!)
• Thinking a guy with significant face paint was probably famous, working our way up to his table, being forced to talk with two guys that dressed up as “club go-ers” for Halloween, knowing the kind of pickle we’d gotten ourselves into.
• Slipping out early and forcing our Uber driver to wait while we got Taco Bell (and chanted “T-Bell! T-Bell! T-Bell!” while we waited in line).
• Going home and eating our food in our respective apartments. I rung in the new month by saying “Rabbit, Rabbit” with a mouthful of Soft Taco.

That, my friends, is Halloweekend in the real world. Chapman students: be warned. I ate probably two pieces of candy the whole weekend. And I forgot to check for needles and razor blades. This is twenty-two.

As Alice Richmond (Tina Fey’s young daughter) once said, “You know the most romantic part of the human body is the butt.”

-Megan