Halloween

Jakub Różalski

Waddya know — it’s Halloween. I used to love this day as a kid though I only remember a couple of the costumes wore.

One year, when my older sister and I were very small, the prep school where my father taught had a party for faculty and families. Our parents dressed us as themselves. I was my mother and my sister was Daddy. I find this pretty amusing now that I’ve spent so much time in therapy, analyzing and evicting the noisy, unkind ghosts, demons and shrewish wraiths that spent way too much time whispering in my ears. Those fuckers all had my mother’s voice.

Another year, when I was past trick or treating age, I dressed as a sparkly fairy. I was probably 12 — you don’t get to trick or treat after you start wearing a bra. Unfortunately, no one had explained the rules to me beforehand. I still felt like a kid. I WAS still a kid! I just didn't look so much like one anymore. NOT MY FAULT!  

The only time I’ve dressed up since then, wasn’t for Halloween — it was for Rocky Horror. I was always Magenta or a reasonable facsimile.

When we (Jen, Oni. The Amazing Bob, Erin, and I plus, roughly, 1,000 cats) first moved down here to Valhalla from Cambridge, our new neighborhood really went all out on home and yard decorations. It wasn’t just for Halloween either. There were incredible displays on EVERY single big and little holiday. Over the years, that’s faded. I wonder why. I suppose part of it is that we’ve all gotten older. Children have moved out, younger families haven’t necessarily moved in and maybe the new parents don’t have the same home bedazzling fever.  //shrugs// We don’t holiday up the outside of Valhalla (apart from a few tastefully placed pumpkins and other attractive gourds) and we didn’t even do that this year. 

Avi Steinberg

By the way, you absolutely, totally need a Halloween fish fact. You knew that though, right?

There are at least two ocean ghost fish species. One is the Australian ghost shark which isn’t exactly a shark but they are related, like cousins. There are actually 38 species, known so far, of ghost sharks with the newest one discovered off the coast of Southern California. They live along the seafloor and reproduce by laying eggs. Ghost fish laying eggs — cool, huh?  

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.
~ Stephen King 

'Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet 

Back to bedazzled homes though, Jen was on Beacon Hill yesterday and THEY totally had it all going on! Here’s some of the fun.