Halloween is here.
Have you seen the Halloween episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete? Big Pete refuses to trick-or-treat with Little Pete because he'll be associated with Ned, a "Halloweenie," a kid who's well past childhood but continues to go nuts with celebrating Halloween.
Did I tell you my pumpkin Malachi was kidnapped? I got a ransom note on my door earlier this week that demanded a duffel bag full of candy for his return. It was a really funny note, actually, and I wrote a whimsical response about "not negotiating with terrorists" on my whiteboard. And then I got another note with a plastic bag pinned to it, which contained two chunks of pumpkin-flesh. OK, haha, they knicked my pumpkin, or maybe even used a different one. I kind of suspected that the kidnapper was someone on my floor having some holiday fun. A bunch of people, however, suspected the downstairs house, our rival Wallace House; they wanted to take some revenge. OK, whatever, the hand-off was supposed to be yesterday morning during my hume class, so I let them take care of the exchange and have some fun with it. They steal the duffel bag that was left for us... and nothing happens. I think they want to stuff it with dead fish or something and return it to the Wallace lounge. Meanwhile, my pumpkin is returned anonymously at 1:00 am last night... totally beaten up, cut, knicked, duct-taped, with "Wallace" crudely carved in the front. The people who did it weren't friendly people on my floor... they were my suitemates' friends from Wallace who'd taken to playing soccer with Malachi the last two weekends.
Halloween does indeed suck this year... in the past, October 31 has always come close to sucking, but it somehow redeems itself in the end. Not so much this year. Do you know what one of my biggest fears is? Missing Halloween. I've actually had stress dreams where I'm stuck at school and I can't seem to get home for the Big Halloween Party, and I end up missing all the fun. Or I'm supposed to go trick-or-treating, but I miss it because my costume won't zip up. Somehow I know it's tied to a segment in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, in which Sally goes berserk because she missed Halloween by sitting in the pumpkin patch with Linus waiting for a Great Pumpkin that never came. I don't know if my fear preceded that and was only confirmed by it, or if it's the place of genesis, but I can definitely relate to Sally's disappointment. After all, "tricks or treats" come only once a year.
In fact, I identify a lot with that cartoon; it's no mistake that I'm so obsessed with it. I like how Linus is so determined to believe in the Great Pumpkin, even when he's proven wrong year after year; I like how he seeks the pumpkin patch that is the "most sincere," even though nobody, probably not even Linus, has any clue as to what a sincere pumpkin patch looks like. My own October Dementia can't fall too far from Linus's. It feels like every Halloween I'm waiting for something spectacular to happen; but it's something that's intangible, something that can't be achieved even by a kick-ass party or a carved pumpkin. Most likely it's just the wonder of being a child at Halloween I'm trying to recapture, but every year I get farther and farther from that feeling. And so every year the ritual becomes more important: watch the TV specials, decorate the house, carve the pumpkin, etc. I'm waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear, and I've even dedicated all this time to picking out what I see is the most sincere pumpkin patch; but every year he doesn't come, and each November 1 there's always an ounce of disappointment in me.
I watched The Ring with a big group of people who'd never seen it before, and it was a great success. Now everyone's just around doing some pre-drinking before one of the parties start. I'm proabably just going to go to bed. I still won't drink alcohol, and that becomes more of a problem each weekend. And I can't convince myself anymore that I don't have anything against people who drink, because I do, because those are people who I won't be able to hang out with once they're inebriated. Hell, I don't even know why I'm not drinking; I can't even think of a good reason. All my decorations are looking more ostentatious by the minute; if they get torn down by the drunks during the night, oh well, so be it, Halloween'll be over by then anyway.
Have you seen the Halloween episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete? Big Pete refuses to trick-or-treat with Little Pete because he'll be associated with Ned, a "Halloweenie," a kid who's well past childhood but continues to go nuts with celebrating Halloween.
Did I tell you my pumpkin Malachi was kidnapped? I got a ransom note on my door earlier this week that demanded a duffel bag full of candy for his return. It was a really funny note, actually, and I wrote a whimsical response about "not negotiating with terrorists" on my whiteboard. And then I got another note with a plastic bag pinned to it, which contained two chunks of pumpkin-flesh. OK, haha, they knicked my pumpkin, or maybe even used a different one. I kind of suspected that the kidnapper was someone on my floor having some holiday fun. A bunch of people, however, suspected the downstairs house, our rival Wallace House; they wanted to take some revenge. OK, whatever, the hand-off was supposed to be yesterday morning during my hume class, so I let them take care of the exchange and have some fun with it. They steal the duffel bag that was left for us... and nothing happens. I think they want to stuff it with dead fish or something and return it to the Wallace lounge. Meanwhile, my pumpkin is returned anonymously at 1:00 am last night... totally beaten up, cut, knicked, duct-taped, with "Wallace" crudely carved in the front. The people who did it weren't friendly people on my floor... they were my suitemates' friends from Wallace who'd taken to playing soccer with Malachi the last two weekends.
Halloween does indeed suck this year... in the past, October 31 has always come close to sucking, but it somehow redeems itself in the end. Not so much this year. Do you know what one of my biggest fears is? Missing Halloween. I've actually had stress dreams where I'm stuck at school and I can't seem to get home for the Big Halloween Party, and I end up missing all the fun. Or I'm supposed to go trick-or-treating, but I miss it because my costume won't zip up. Somehow I know it's tied to a segment in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, in which Sally goes berserk because she missed Halloween by sitting in the pumpkin patch with Linus waiting for a Great Pumpkin that never came. I don't know if my fear preceded that and was only confirmed by it, or if it's the place of genesis, but I can definitely relate to Sally's disappointment. After all, "tricks or treats" come only once a year.
In fact, I identify a lot with that cartoon; it's no mistake that I'm so obsessed with it. I like how Linus is so determined to believe in the Great Pumpkin, even when he's proven wrong year after year; I like how he seeks the pumpkin patch that is the "most sincere," even though nobody, probably not even Linus, has any clue as to what a sincere pumpkin patch looks like. My own October Dementia can't fall too far from Linus's. It feels like every Halloween I'm waiting for something spectacular to happen; but it's something that's intangible, something that can't be achieved even by a kick-ass party or a carved pumpkin. Most likely it's just the wonder of being a child at Halloween I'm trying to recapture, but every year I get farther and farther from that feeling. And so every year the ritual becomes more important: watch the TV specials, decorate the house, carve the pumpkin, etc. I'm waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear, and I've even dedicated all this time to picking out what I see is the most sincere pumpkin patch; but every year he doesn't come, and each November 1 there's always an ounce of disappointment in me.
I watched The Ring with a big group of people who'd never seen it before, and it was a great success. Now everyone's just around doing some pre-drinking before one of the parties start. I'm proabably just going to go to bed. I still won't drink alcohol, and that becomes more of a problem each weekend. And I can't convince myself anymore that I don't have anything against people who drink, because I do, because those are people who I won't be able to hang out with once they're inebriated. Hell, I don't even know why I'm not drinking; I can't even think of a good reason. All my decorations are looking more ostentatious by the minute; if they get torn down by the drunks during the night, oh well, so be it, Halloween'll be over by then anyway.
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