This year, I learned a very valuable lesson in putting together a costume for Halloween parties: Be comfortable. On Friday evening, I headed out with a bunch of friends to a costume party dressed up as Michael Moore. I had a giant pillow and a towel wrapped around me; I had glasses and a baseball hat complete with brown felt coming out of it to simulate disheveled hair.

NOT ONE person could tell who I was dressed up as. A friend described me as a "Japanese umpire", so I pretty much deemed the costume a failure. On top of that, the pillow fat suit was incredibly uncomfortable. Since my clothes were made to fit someone with my undernourished frame, the "fat" was nearly bursting at the seams to get out. While eating at a Thai restaurant with my friends, I could barely breathe, let alone ingest some pahd see-ew. And trying to make my way through a crowd of half-drunk party-goers was a nightmare.

The next evening, however, I went to another costume party dressed up in an obscure get-up as the surrealist painter Rene Magritte. Of course, this isn't so much a costume as it was my wardrobe while working at an architecture firm a couple of years back. Add one authentic bowler hat, and you have a very comfortable, though unrecognizable, costume for a Halloween party. Most people seemed to think I was Charlie Chaplin, so I just went with that. The point, if I have a point, is to dress up comfortably for the occasion, since having to manage and breathe inside your pillow fat while trying to hold a conversation with several people isn't at all worth the trouble for a not-so-clever joke.

I had a great time at the second party. Not only because I was so much more comfortable in that suit, but I went with pleasant company, and that helps quite a bit.

not just a wrist...

My friend Tung Chow just put up a portfolio website featuring his wonderful paintings and sketches. He's looking for work right now, so somebody hire this guy! He's great to hang with and he can paint like a madman!