Last night I dressed up for Halloween for the first time ever, for no particular reason at all.

Well, I had a reason, technically. I was manning a fundraising booth for USP Productions and they wanted everyone at the booth to dress up, by virtue of it being Productions, i.e. a theatre group. But that wasn't really a reason - most people had a cowboy hat or a long cape and that was it. I didn't have any friends to dress up with either; I don't have a lot of friends in the residential college, and those I do aren't the type to even show up at events like these, let alone wear a costume to them. I wasn't even intending to attend the themed dinner at all - the idea just made me uncomfortable, though people told me I should go and show off.

I didn't have expectations to meet, friends to match, best-dressed awards to win. But I still did it. Put everything on, sat at the booth for a few hours, took a few pictures with those who asked, and left. Felt faintly idiotic at how far over the top I'd gone, even. Went back to my room. Took everything off. Nothing but a few Instagram selfies for myself. Counted the money we'd made that night and fretted about losing a few coins.

So why did I do it?

I've been wearing makeup for slightly less than a year, on and off, and I still don't know what my deal with it is. Do I just want to look pretty? Maybe. For a few weeks in February, I put on makeup for work every day because I knew it made me look better. More mature, even, which was good for a kid journalist. But every time I sat down and slathered BB cream and eyeliner for half an hour in the mornings, I hated myself every night trying to get it off. It didn't take me long to stop altogether. I just didn't see the point.

No, whenever I put on makeup, it's got to be drastic. It's got to be for something really special, and it's got to be special itself. Perfecting a five-minute routine that does nothing but hide pimples and make my eyes look a little bigger (and give me pimples, too) doesn't make any sense to me. Ok, sometimes it does, but I never end up doing it. I'd rather spend an hour doing something completely insane. Preferably, completely amazing. Sometimes, completely ridiculous. But always completely different.

Maybe it's that I want to be unrecognisable. No, that doesn't really explain things. But I do get tired of my own face. That's why I act, I suppose, and why I write. Even in those things I have a reputation for being a little out there. I mean, my ideal typecast is scream queen.

Or maybe that's all it is. Being out there. That's probably it. I like being ridiculous. I want to be ridiculous. I'm almost cripplingly tentative about most things in life, but when I do a thing I want it to be a big, ridiculous, amazing thing. It's very satisfying, and also very, very fun. A bold line above the eye is like the thumping beat of an EDM track, like kicking down a door.

I've got a flair for the dramatic, I guess. A flair for extremes and beauty and bold flourishes. I hope it doesn't eat me alive one day.