Halloween falls on Monday this year, which means you’ve only got a few more days to figure out what costume to wear if you’re so inclined. Here at Washington City Paper, we’re keenly aware of the holiday’s approach—mostly because old Amanda Hess blog posts suddenly start getting lots of online traffic. But we’re also under intense pressure, as everyone is in the journalism business, to make sure our coverage is hyperlocal.

So D.C., here are our suggestions for how to dress up in a way that would let you go straight from an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting to a Halloween party. Appropriate attire for this holiday basically falls into one of two basic genres: zombie, or sexy. With that in mind, these are the top five 2011 Washington City Paper D.C. Halloween Costumes:

1. Zombie Sulaimon Brown: Sure, you might get a laugh or two by dressing up as everyone’s favorite mayoral candidate-turned-D.C. bureaucrat-turned federal witness. But unless you’re trick-or-treating at former Vince Gray advisor Lorraine Green‘s house, chances are you won’t scare anyone. Unless you become a zombie—because they’re always scary.
2. Sexy Reusable Bag: Paying five cents into the District’s coffers to get a plastic bag to carry home your candy isn’t remotely sexy. You know what is sexy? Keeping the Anacostia River clean! Dress up this weekend by wearing one of those Whole Foods bags—and nothing else.
3. Zombie Streetcar: Because it may as well already be dead.
4. Sexy Tommy Wells: To get the smart growth set breathing hard this weekend, forget bobbing for apples; if the fruit isn’t from a local orchard, chances are they won’t want to play, anyway. Instead, throw on some Playboy Bunny ears, start talking about “livable, walkable” streets, and get all your colleagues to stand by and do nothing as you get crushed in a hardball power play!
5. Sexy NIMBY Zombie: The living keep trying to open up bars, restaurants, and shops in your neighborhood. Fortunately, you’re in D.C., where the undead can veto that sort of thing simply by showing up at a meeting and growling loudly. Wave a copy of the latest D.C. Register, put on some lingerie, and scare that project into someone else’s back yard.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery/Illustration by Brooke Hatfield