Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

It seems kind of silly to post it here, since there's a full album of it over on Facebook. Anymore, posting stuff there reaches a wider audience, but I still can't put near the amount of commentary there that I'd like. Because of that, you get the redundancy. But last night was Halloween, and because there's been so much sickness going around this year, we were saying small prayers all week that we would be able to make it through to Halloween without getting sick. In all seriousness, I'd rather be sick on Christmas than on Halloween, because you sure as shootin' don't get to dress like this on Christmas!

We had what is rapidly becoming our annual Halloween bash last night which was well attended and fun all around. As you can see, we all dressed the part as well. Anna is Coraline, Heidi is a Scrabble tile (which was an idea that I sarcastically suggested when she was trying to figure out what her costume should be, only to have her pick it up and run with it) and I am an Alien chestburster victim. Here's a close-up - I am prouder than hell of how it turned out.

The costume overall was easier than you'd think to rig up - I had the plush chestburster already (which was originally blogged about during Nerdery Week) and the bloody shirt was an ink-stained T-shirt that I cut a hole in the center of. I wore a red fleece shirt underneath it, pushed the chestburster through the hole in the shirt and wrapped the tail around my body. A bit uncomfortable, but not bad. The blood on the shirt is spray blood from the Halloween Bootique here in town and the blood on my face is lipstick.

As good as my costume was, it will not top my good friend Jeff who once again proved that it's not Halloween if he's not in a dress.

Jeff is my hero if for no other reason than he is so completely fearless in his actions. He, as I have said before, leads the "fuck you" charge against traditional masculinity and all its traps and preconceived notions of what being a man means. I am nowhere near as brave as he is, but I will always cheer him on and draw inspiration from it.

There was a lot of candy and food and good conversation. It's always that way with this crowd. It included people like my parents who have known me since birth and Jeff who I have known for 20+ years, as well as bringing in new faces like Jan and Sarah and their 4 kids who we met this year. And while the transitive property of friendship is sometimes a bit dicey, it always seems to work with us - and I'll just be thankful for that.

So today has been a bit more subdued. We went to the NaNoWriMo write-in at Smokey Row in Des Moines. Well, actually Heidi and Anna were the only ones writing, but I finally finished The Worst Hard Time so at least I can say I accomplished something. What I really should have done today is spend time in the yard raking leaves, which I'm not sure I would have had the energy for even if we'd have been at home.

The demise of October and switch to November is always a little hard for me. I'm not really sure why - it's purely arbitrary and really shouldn't matter much. I guess it's because to me, it feels like fall is over the instant October ends and November begins. It may as well start snowing, although actually forget I said that because of the aforementioned yard full of leaves. We stopped at Petsmart in Ankeny on the way home and they are full-on Christmas already so I can only imagine what less niche-y stores are like.

So here's to November, let's see what it does. Mostly I'm ready to kiss 2009 goodbye. There have been a few good things (the trip, Heidi's book sales) but mostly, it's kind of sucked. There's two months left to redeem it.