I hate this holiday. I always have. Dressing up like someone else to cover up the monster I truly am has never been an ideal time for me. And trying to hit on the slutty girls with their fishnets and minuscule mini skirts has never been my scene. I’d rather spend the night having everyone dress up to who they truly are: the misogynist, the adulterist, the studious, the conversationalist...I’d rather not hid behind the disguise.

But I love the ghouls, and the ghosts, and the stories we tell ourselves to stay up late at night, reminding each other to check behind the shower curtains at 3am because, you never know, he could be in there.

He could be, or he could not be. You may never know. But it’s always better to check.

I love this holiday for the stories, both of history and of those of today, which we create in our liquor laden haze. The face-covered costumes, the ghoulish festivities, the next morning apologies... Oh, and pumpkin everything.

The horror filled movies and hay rides and walk-through-corn-mazes we subject ourselves to, all in the name of fun, of suspense. I love it, I love every second of it. Heart racing, adrenaline running, it’s life in a sense we can no longer find without the threat of true death behind it. And that’s likely why we do it, as we feel a need for this sense of adventure, of thrill, without the everlasting and promising black blanket of the true end lurking in the shadows

And tonight I went out, dressed to the nine’s, white shirt and tie, and watched as all those fishnet girls passed me by, boys in toe behind their masquerading lies while I smoked cigarettes on the sidelines.  And I had my picture taken, and I had my face mistaken, and I couldn’t help but wonder

Isn’t it just all a lie?

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I love this holiday.