2: Waldo

At some point during the last few weeks, I decided to be Waldo* of Where's Waldo? for Halloween. 

Then I spent the next few weeks worrying that Waldo was The Costume of Halloween 2013 and I'd be one of many Waldos at every party. 

For some reason, I have a terrible time thinking of creative things in the way of costumes. (See also: those puzzles where you are supposed to come up with words like "undertow" based on a drawing of a tow truck under something. I fail at those puzzles, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.) Most years, I am something like A Bumblebee. A Butterfly. A Boringness.

Still, I was determined to be Waldo, even if I was only one of the many. I went to a bunch of different stores to find a red and white striped shirt - seriously, why is it so difficult to find a red and white striped shirt? This should not be so hard. I finally found one at goodwill.

And then the hat. Apparently no one is making red and white striped hats this year. (The actual hat is white with a red strip around the bottom and a red pompom, but I would totally have cheated and used a red and white striped hat. Except that I couldn't find one anywhere.)

In the end, I made a trek out to a fabric store on Tuesday night, and then on Wednesday night, after I got home from fighting class, I dragged out my roommate's sewing machine and I made a Waldo hat out of fleece. I used this tutorial. It came out mostly okay, if a little lopsided, but it was fun to try to remember how to fill a bobbin and thread the machine.

Not so fun was the five and a half hours of sleep I got that night as a result. My normal not-enough-sleep crankiness goes into overdrive when the sleep I get goes under six hours. I should probably have come with a warning sign on Thursday: Approach at Your Own Risk. 

No one was maimed, though. It all turned out fine.

* There is also a female version of Waldo named Wenda, apparently, but I don't see why I can't be Waldo just because I am a woman. That is silly. I was Waldo. Girl-Waldo.