October | 2021 | delicious juice dot com

We don’t generally celebrate Halloween. Giving our religious background, we don’t feel right worshipping Satan and hahah yeah that’s not it. Honestly, in-office Halloween celebrations were the only real “celebrating” we did, and once the office went away, October 31st was just another day. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Halloween – I just didn’t have an excuse to dress up, because I had nowhere to go. For the last 6 years, my default costume has been “Sexy Technical Writer”, because I wear it so well.

My last actual attempt at a Halloween costume was in 2014, when I went to work dressed as an anachronism: Han Solo outfit, Star Trek crew badge, phaser, and Starfleet Academy class ring, Firefly’s Independents flag, a wooden stake, an ADAM syringe from Bioshock, and a dozen other nerdy bibs and bobs from assorted universes. I thought I was brilliant and hilarious, but I had to explain it a lot and any costume that requires a lengthly explanation is probably not the success you’re hoping for.

Last year for Halloween we were on Salt Spring Island. This year we have no plans that don’t involve sitting on our balcony, but for the past year or so I have been all about the overkill: let’s do something, but let’s do it BIG and COMPLICATED. Things that start out as a simple “wonder if I could do this” turn into productions, with logos and labels and quality control and databases. Forgetting simple things led to digital display boards and spreadsheets. Reorganize the spice cabinet? MAGNETS. So, when I decided I wanted to do Halloween for realz this year, shit got chaotic.

It started out kind of simple: if I got a specific wig and dress, I could call it a day and it would be a low-effort but decent costume.

Then I remembered a) we have a door, and b) the door is yellow. It, like everything else in my life, snowballed from there.

I was going for “pumpkin”, but “Lovecraftian horror” is good too

All I needed to do next was stand in front of the door:

I did a pretty good job standing, but it was missing something:

what is this, an infinity room for ANTS?!

WAIT this is Halloween – where’s the candy?!

Pumpkins are not just for Halloween, but you can’t have a Yayoi Kusama costume without at least one pumpkin:

.. or a dinosaur:

Or everything all at once:

I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to spend most of November attacking my door with a paint scraper and some Goo Gone, but I don’t care – it was worth it. I may never do another costume – this was surprisingly expensive to put together because I kept having ideas – but I did the heck out of this one and the pictures make me laugh.

Also did I mention that I BUILT A FUCKING INFINITY ~~ROOM~~ BOX?

I have an office redecoration idea but I’m gonna need a lot of mirrors

Thank you to Ed for indulging my idea and helping with the picture taking and grosser parts of the pumpkin carving process!

I wonder how long I could keep my door like this.

Happy Halloween from #halfwack!

By now, the first round of Delicious Juice Pot Balm samples have made it to their new homes. I’ve had a few bits of feedback and a request to actually purchase some, but I haven’t thought that far ahead. I did screw up, though: the last-minute addition of a new recipe – Multi Purpose Tingle Juice – had me so focused on the fun of packaging that I forgot to include the actual THC content in the printout I wrote up. It never actually crossed my mind at all, because the lip balm and salve, while potent, would require you to swim in it to get blasted – you don’t really absorb that much THC from topicals. The MPTJ, on the other hand, is a straight-up buttload (metric) of weed infused into an oil, and depending on how you use it, could get you seriously high. We eventually remembered math, and calculated the MPTJ to contain 32mg of THC per 5ml vial. I also didn’t think to count the number of sprays you get out of the vial, and I shipped out every one I had so I can’t even count squirts. I AM BAD AT DETAILS.

Except I’m actually really GOOD at details, and I’m annoyed with myself that I didn’t think of this stuff before I sent the packages out. I’m designing new labels – my original ones are great, but they’re too big for the packaging I settled on – and I will make sure to at least include the product strength in the handout.

So, Round 2! Yes, there’s gonna be a Round 2. I have an idea for a fun THC-infused kit – the working name is the Halfwack Harlot Weekender Kit, please feel free to suggest something better – that I’m working on. I’m going to make up a new batch of things later this week and I am SUPER EXCITED about all the messes I’m going to make and the potential for fun sexy times (which will lead to messes of an entirely different sort).

I also realized something about this entire thing: basically, I’m playing shop. I’m creating a product line and labels and packaging and I am having a grand old time. Actually selling this stuff? Ehhhh if it happens, it happens. If not, there will still be pot balms in cute tins with adorable labels and questionable inserts, because I still want to MAKE things but .. y’know, give it away to people. Here, try these things I made! They are silly! I made STICKERS!

It’s a weird, expensive hobby that I am not entirely certain is legal – yes, cannabis is legal in Canada, but there’s an entire .. thing around making products for bodies with controlled substances that I know nothing about, and my brain is too full of things to want to go down that rabbit hole. I want to play with weed and oil and butter and Photoshop, not do legal paperwork stuff. That’s boring. I don’t want a boring, paperwork hobby. I just want to make people high and moist.

So, the signup sheet will be open again soon. I still don’t want to take money for these things, but I might open a tip jar or something to help cover the cost of packaging and postage. I am not good at this part. I just want to make stickers and messes.