Hi, friends! Do you have Halloween plans? Do you like Halloween? Are you ambivalent on Halloween?
Usually my neighbors and I just hang out in the street and it’s a good time. Fire pit, tables, the one neighbor who makes good mixed drinks, good times. And it’s a Friday this year so we’ll feel less concerned about being outside past 8pm!
…I didn’t really grow up with more US-ian halloween…costumes weren’t really a thing if you weren’t “the little ones” when I was one of those…but by the time I was done being able to get away with claiming that reading books all day was the gainful sort of unemployment they made you take exams to prove you weren’t bluffing about…places that used to just about stay afloat providing costumes to theatre groups were selling out & full-grown adults were queuing around blocks to get outfits for themselves…so I guess there’s some bits of that I like more & less than others…mostly I’m ambivalent the way I am about christmas…don’t feel like I have a reason to begrudge anyone that enjoys it doing the whole bit…seems like if it didn’t happen a lot of people would miss it more than I probably would
…the part that I think appealed to me the most as a kid though was the idea that…give or take…all the stories they said people believed were real back long enough ago that nobody anyone knew had been alive long enough to have known anyone who’d been alive long enough to know anyone who might have had a first-hand opinion on that you could ask questions about it…seemed…full of stuff that could do cool things people couldn’t do…but…didn’t show up any more so civilized people didn’t go about foolishly acting like any of that was real…& god had something to do with the rules changing because mostly when there was less christendom there was more witches & demons & such
…but like all the best stories about deals with eldritch forces of mysterious might & cunning & such…the achilles heel was that the side of the angels took one night a year off…& if the eldritch stuff needed anything done that they didn’t want to wait a year to have another few hours to take a crack at…they’d be abroad
…which…you know…would cause a fuss & people would lose their minds & nobody would know where to look or what the proper etiquette was…so…to spare everyone’s blushes & keep the truce intact when it reset with the sunrise…if everyone turned out dressed as assorted monsters…we could all let bygones be bygones for another year…& nobody needed to kidnap anybody’s children or be put in ovens because some bastard shafted them on a construction contract & made out enchanted gingerbread was up to code & they wound up upside down on a mortgage with people who only break your legs if they *really* like you
…that…may not be quite the way it was told to me as an impressionable child…but…I suppose such are the perils of an overactive imagination & an imperfect memory?
I loved Halloween as a kid, teenager, young adult, & father of trick or treaters but now, nah, not so much. We are lucky to get 1 or 2 trick or treaters so I have to buy candy just to be safe but it is probably all on me to eat it. My friends band is playing that night so thought about going but I hate driving that night w/ so many kids out. I’m getting old!
It’s supposed to be cold and wet tomorrow so I’m going to be lucky to get 5-10 kids (I did buy some candy just in case because I’m not heartless.)
But it’s also game 6 of the World Series.
Did you guys see how hot those thieves were? Why go for a life of crime when you could be a model!