2001-10-30 | 6:54 p.m.

corduroy licorice liked to explore every avenue...and boy, were his feet tired.

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halloween is a holiday i kinda abandoned for a decade, but now i'm back!

as a child, i was a fan of halloween for sure. mon dieu, the candy! the lambada of food groups. all mine. mine! in colorful, crisp wrappers and so neatly bite-sized. my costumes were pretty lame. my mom just got me strap-on plastic masks and then wrapped me in my warm coat. i remember the steamy feeling of my breath on the inside of the masks and walking up to 40-watt, yellow-lit doorways, so anxious for the goodies awaiting on the other side of the door.

my favorite costume in high school was a surgeon's greens and mask. no one knew who i was! suddenly the local dork became a mysterious figure! then for about 5 years, i was a flapper. i've always dug the style of the 1920s and my hair was bob-style to match. once i found a vintage-looking dress that worked, it was hassle-free halloweens 'r' us.

then came the halloween that i got into it. ironically enough, my flapper dress served me once more...but this time i dolled myself up as evita peron. i made a fake hair bun and got a 40's hat with netting, black gloves and a "vote for perot" pin that i altered to say "vota por peron." even though i had to explain who i was to people ("you know, like the madonna movie."), the creative execution gave me bloodlust for even more haunting get-ups.

the next year i was mary catherine gallagher from saturday night live. i got the catholic school girl uniform, a black, flippy wig, knee socks and gawd-awful glasses. this time people knew who i was and plaintively asked me to "do that finger thing." i happily obliged, along with the customary "that's bad, that's bad." one guy, evidently intoxicated by my parochial garb, asked me to run away to vegas to get married. i won "best costume" that year (superstar!), but wasn't around when the prizes were announced. because of that, a guy dressed like mimi from the drew carey show got it by default. beotch.

the following year, i was ginger from gilligan's island. it took me forever to find a white gown like she wore. the fun part was getting my hair teased out in a huge buoffant do. my hair stylist had a blast turning my hair into cotton candy. for once a halloween that didn't require an itchy wig. the only problem was that people didn't get who i was. i should have spelled out s.s. minnow down the side of my dress to make it crystal clear.

last year i was britney spears. a friend of mine dressed as christina aguilera and we played the rivalry thing up for party guffaws. i have to tell you, i loved being britney. in preparation for the role, i studied her "hit me baby one more time" video and emulated her outfit down to the pink puffy hair thingees. that night as i stood at a crosswalk, some girls in a car at the intersection yelled, "are you britney spears?" so i did the arm-up-then-back-down-to-waist-wrap-to-butt-slap dance move to answer in the affirmative.

this year i'll be nicole kidman's character from moulin rouge. i'm a little chicken about wearing the get-up to work, but i didn't have any parties to go to this year. thus, work will be my stage. we're talking top hat, reddish wig, sequins, elbow-length gloves, fishnets and sparkling "diamond" earrings. it's gonna purrrr, baby, purrr.

happy halloween to y'all!

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