early birds

I always start thinking about Halloween in January. Always.  It stems from traumatic Halloweens as a little kid where I had crappy costumes and my best friend, whose mom is a stitch wizard, had unbelievable ones.  We'd go trick or treating and she would be dressed as something incredible like Garfield or an oboe (very realistic! with keys and holes and everything!) and I would be wearing my mom's gardening clothes with a pillow stuffed down my shirt and charcoal smeared on my face.  Terrible costumes I also had: a dead lady, a pair of pants, a baby (lame!), and  Juan Valdez.  The pair of pants ended up looking as if I was dressed as a giant piece of turd.  

Most years since then I start thinking about Halloween very early in the year.   I get these really clever ideas for costumes way early, and by the time Halloween rolls around I have plum forgotten what those funny/interesting/timely costume ideas were.  I need to start writing them down.  As it is already September, and therefore not insane to be thinking about Halloween, here are a few ideas:

1) Idea: a Chinese gymnast.  Execution: Chinese looking warmup suit (because I ain't wearing no leotard out in public), hair in pig tails, blacked out front teeth so it looks like I've lost my baby teeth, gold medal around neck.

2) Idea: Corporate Robot.  Execution: Business suit, aluminum foil buttons and gears sticking out of my back, walk like a robot, talk like a robot, carry a sensible yet stylish purse/laptop case filled with screws and nails and random scraps of metal.  Pretend to secretly eat the metal.  Look sheepish as if embarrassed to be caught eating metal and therefore found out to be a robot.  Disclosure: this idea was ripped off from a friend of a friend who apparently (i wasn't there, but heard legends) wore a suit with an ape mask and ape hands and carried a briefcase filled with bananas.  He would drop the briefcase during the party and spill his bananas everywhere and then scoop them up quickly as if humiliated.  

3) Idea: Not a costume but a pumpkin idea.  It's a Jackie O'Lantern.  Has this been done before? I'm sure it has.  I don't have the artistic chops to pull off a Jackie O'Lantern but perhaps I can enlist some help from someone with the necessary fine motor skills.