the league of reluctant adults

Why do we associate Samhain/Halloween with fire? With orange and black? Our ancestors didn't worship fire, but there's no denying the incredible importance of it. Fire was life; it was heat and light. Without it there was only darkness. So it makes sense that fire would be a very important part of all celebrations, particularly the two most important one. Beltaine, May 1st, and Samhain, Nov. 1st (note: The feasts were celebrated on the eves of these dates, thus giving us April 30 and October 31). As I mentioned in my previous post, these dates were considered the points where the wheel of the year turned; from spring to summer, and from fall to winter. On these nights danger lived; when time turns it creates a thinning of the veil (there's a reason why midnight is called "the witching hour"), and through tha veil all sorts of things can slip. Is it possible that the reason those festivals were celebrated with bonfires was in an attempt to use light to drive away t...

My Halloween Guest Blog, or How I Got The Crap Scared Out of Me By An Inkblot Never ever trust your college friends around Halloween. Just expect those lovely people you bonded with during freshman orientation screw with you at some point during the last week of October. When asked to guest blog on a scary experience, I immediately thought of the many, many horrible things my college friends and I did to each other in the name of spooky fun. Like my girlfriends taking yours truly, the haunted house weenie, to a "haunted dorm experience" and telling me the actors weren't allowed to touch me. When a zombie reached out from under the bed and grabbed my ankle, I punched some poor guy dressed as Freddy Krueger in the stomach and ran out the emergency exit. Or take my friend, Scott, who went into his sleeping roommate's bedroom after they watched the Blair Witch Project, stood in the corner a la Russell Parr, and whimpered until said roommate woke up screaming in terror. ...

The following are lines from the poem The Flyting of Mongomerie and Polwart, by Scottish poet Alexander Mongtomerie; written c. 1580, it is an account of Samhain Eve's Wild Hunt (Samhain is one of two nights a year--the other being Beltaine [May 1]--when the veil between the world thins, and the Fae roar through the dark sky looking for trouble.) I have modernized the language somewhat. At the hind-end of harvest, on Hallowe'en, When our "good neighbors" ride if I think right Some mounted on ragweed and some on a bean, All tripping in troupes from the twilight; Some saddles on a she-ape arrayed in green, Some riding on hempstalks rising on high, The King of Faerie with his court and the Elf-Queen With many an eldritch incubus was riding that night. .

Once upon a time, in junior high, just after I'd finally finished growing out my huge early 90's mall bangs, I watched the movie "Coneheads" for the first time. And OMG, did I love it. I was instantly obsessed, quoting lines from the movie constantly, the whole bit. The only thing cooler to my 14 year old self was "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". So, when Halloween came around that year, it was a hard choice. Conehead? Or victim of the Rabbit of Caerbannog? I had a friend whose dad used to be a taxidermist and had access to a pretty lifelike looking bunny, but I decided the pink eyes freaked me the hell out and would probably freak the rest of the eighth grade out as well, so I'd better stick with the Conehead if I hoped to preserve my moderately cool status. And that's how I ended up dressed as a giant penis. Of course, in my relative innocence, I had no idea I looked like a giant penis until I got to school and the giggles started. No, I proudly ...

Do you like going to haunted houses? Because I don't! I'm not talking about a spooky rustic tour to a supposedly haunted locale. I'm talking about the kind of haunted house that you're supposed to go to for the purpose of being scared for Halloween. Usually its in a converted community center or legion hall, some such place. I hate them. Why? First, I'm not a pussy. Yes, I like figure skating and Days of our Lives and musicals, but I'm no pussy. I'm not afraid I'm going to wet myself when people jump out at me. But I don't like the type of peeps that tend to work at them. I find peoples day to day activities horrifying enough which is why I have elements of horror in my writing and characters anyway... I don't need to amp that up with the unpredictability of local funsters jumping out at me, fighting to get a scare out of me for my ten minute tour through a spook house. I'm more likely to punch them or knee jerk defend myself than ta...

So the cat peed on Tax Deduction the Elder's Halloween costume. Yeah, that's pretty much the whole story right there. (Yes, I was supermom and I saved the costume and didn't even kill the cat, although that last was a close one. This is a costume that can't be washed -- in fact, it specifically says on the label in all caps DO NOT WASH, DO NOT DRY CLEAN. So I soaked it in a sinkful of soapy water and I scrubbed it, and then I rinsed it and rinsed it and rinsed it, then wrung it out and draped it out to dry. Today it's dry and it smells fine. Which is good, because we bought the damn thing a month ago, and if we first had to get a new Halloween costume the day before the holiday, no one would have been happy.) Sigh.

What Happens on Halloween as told to me by my almost-four-year-old daughter Faery (this is her codename): Mommy, Halloween is scary. Because the aliens always come to earth, and they come into my room and go into my closet. And they steal my underpants. Me: Oh, is that what they do? Faery: Yes. They go into the closet and they take my underpants to space ! Me: Well, we'll have to keep watch then, won't we? Faery: Yes. Because I want to keep my underpants. .