Without a doubt, Halloween is my favorite holiday. I’ve always been a sucker for adventurous fashion, and Halloween is the one day when you can really let your freak flag fly.

The only problem I have with Halloween is the constant struggle to settle on only one costume. As someone who loves any excuse to dress up or pull together an interesting outfit, Halloween can be torture. It’s the one day a year when I can wear absolutely whatever I want–or be whoever I want to be–and not be judged, and I’m expected to choose only one outfit?

In high school I used to dress up the entire week of Halloween, or sometimes even the whole month of October. I love to express myself, and I figured that was the one time I could get away with it.

Now that I’m older, I’m a little less adventurous with how many costumes I pull together, but it does give me more time to dedicate to each costume.

Last year I was Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid as she turned to foam. It was inspired by runway makeup I had seen where they used small rhinestones dripping down the face like tears. I decided to mix that with a flowing white dress, a sea-foam green wig, and lots of glitter and face paint. I put fishnets over my arms and used a sponge and body paint to dab color onto my skin in a scaly pattern. I topped it off with a layer of white glitter.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the costume. Most people had no idea who I was until I told them, but the reception was pretty good after I explained the concept more. As a joke I went around saying it was, “the ultimate ‘forever alone’ costume.”

Still, it rained a lot last Halloween and it completely killed my costume and my spirits. That’s why this year I decided to try being more practical.

This year I wanted to go for something a little darker, and went dressed as Alex from Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” movie.

I started by going out and buying a simple white dress shirt and white skinny jeans from Target. I wanted something nice, but not too expensive since I probably wouldn’t wear them again. Then I got white suspenders from Hot Topic, eyeball ping-pong balls from Spirit, and fake blood and false eyelashes from Target. I already had black Dr. Martens and a bowler cap.

The only part I had to make was the cufflinks. Alex has these great bloody eyeball cufflinks that I pulled together by cutting the ping-pong balls in half, gluing them to the cuffs of the shirt, and then painting around them with fake blood.

Unfortunately, the fake blood took forever to dry and, when they were still wet the next morning, I took a hairdryer to them. It partially melted one of the eyes, but I figured it just made it extra creepy—which is never a bad thing for a costume like that.

Compared to the mermaid costume, the makeup was a piece of cake. I just got false eyelashes that looked like the ones Alex wore, turned one upside down, and glued it right under my lower lash. It felt uncomfortable at first, but by the end of the night, I had all but forgotten it.

It rained a bit and was pretty cold on Halloween night so I was grateful to have a relatively warm costume. Also, the rain wasn’t all bad as it gave me a chance to run around singing “Singing in the Rain.”

All told, I had a pretty successful Halloween, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with my costume. It wasn’t so elaborate that I stressed myself out, but it looked good and authentic, and I got tons of compliments from “A Clockwork Orange” fans!