It is October and I would be remiss if I did not write something about Halloween. I used to be really into Halloween, but the older I’ve gotten, the more distanced I am. Perhaps I have unreasonable expectations, but I was never able to get into the way other people celebrated Halloween. Store bought costumes are disgusting. No one has any imagination anymore.

One year I threw a huge party at the house I was renting. We had thirty people there, in costume. Everyone entered the house through the haunted house I built in the basement. There was a scavenger hunt.

One year I spent Halloween hunched over in someone’s basement, trying not to scrape the top of my head against the rusty nails and broken lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, unable to make myself drink what they were calling beer and gin, while someone’s shitty band made it impossible to hear yourself think.

Every year Kathleen and I throw a Pumpkin Party. We go out to Indian Ladder Farms, pick pumpkins, look at the animals, and eat cider donuts and hot apple cider. Then we go home and carve the pumpkins, eat things Kathleen has baked, and drink concoctions I have … concocted. It’s usually a good time. Once we went in the rain. Once we played zombie games. We used to watch scary movies until it became impossible to pick anything that wasn’t cheesy or mind-jarringly frightening. Once everyone has carved their pumpkins up, we put them in a dark place and light them up with candles, and try to photograph them.

I’ll be honest though. The most we’ve ever had is five people, ourselves included. I’m not sure if you can really consider that a party, and I’m pretty sure the word “party” is what bugs me about the whole thing. If it wasn’t a party, if it was a get together or a shindig or a happening (yes that word has some p’s in it, that’ll do) it would be easier for me to be okay with it.

This year is our Ninth Annual Pumpkin Happening; it’ll be on Saturday, October 22nd.