Blue Halloween

I first wrote and published this article October 29 of 2005, but it is that time of year again and I’m simultaneously having a lot of fun and really stressed out from being stretched so thin. We’re crazy busy, so I’ll make this brief. The “Blue Halloween” article has not been available through the Blue Blood site navigation since the redesign, and I was thinking that this is the time of year when some of you might need to hear this.

Around Xmas-time, a lot of apparently normal people get completely freaked out. They just want everything to be so so so very perfect. They tear up at the very thought of how perfect they want everything to be. They spend more money than they can really afford on things that neither they nor their friends and family really need. But- but- but it is Xmas and everything has to be so so so very perfect. If there is the slightest flaw in the ornaments or the gifts or the comfy sweater, then it is like there is no good fellowship among mankind, no peace on earth, no family love, blah blah blah.

Just try wandering through the mall around Yuletide and you will see the stress level I am talking about. I can look at that objectively and just sigh and think they need to relax and maybe get more mistletoe.

But Halloween rolls around and, ooh boy, I am singing a different carol. I just want everything to be so so so perfect. I mean, if every day is Halloween, then Halloween has to be super duper Halloween, right? Almost everyone I know is totally off the rails right now. Everyone I come across is so edgy that the slightest thing blows up into World War III.

A lot of the people I know are either doing totally nothing for Halloween this year except maybe taking their kids trick-or-treating. Or else they are trying to do twenty different things every night for the four nights around Samhain and hoping a chemical assist gets them through.

My phone keeps ringing with people who want me to play free casting agent for them. My voicemail keeps overflowing, so I’m probably getting even more calls than I know for this stuff. Who knew there were so many mainstream organizations and people who wanted to throw a spooky party and didn’t realize until the end of October that they wanted some spooky people to perform at it? Now everyone I know who does performances is either (a) booked or (b) double-booked or (c) so hard to work with that I wouldn’t recommend them to someone I like or (d) totally spazzing out that it is Halloween and they want it to be so so so perfect.

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. The one day a year I was most myself. I suppose I should pat myself on the back that I get to enjoy those aspects of myself pretty much 24/7/365 now. Maybe everyone I know should give themselves a bit of an attaboy for the very same reason.

I tell myself that serious drunks don’t go out on New Year’s. They know that is amateur night. But somehow the comfort rings hollow. I just want everything to be so so so perfect for Halloween.

The costumes, the parties, and the sweets, the pranks, the tricks, and the treats all have to be just right or there is no community, nothing is cool, all my choices have been wrong, there is no joy in Mudville, the sky is falling, blah blah blah.

I’m glad I don’t freak out in December. That would be so unimaginative, dull, and mundane. Or maybe it would be the same damn thing on a different calendar.

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Posted by Amelia G on October 28, 2007. Filed under Blue Blood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry