Halloween at 37

The morning could be a little slow since my first meeting was set for 10:30. I did the Midnights Taylor Swift workout and sent a long email to my play cast and crew. The show opens in two weeks, and my producer hat is quite heavy. For the previous two weeks my writer hat has been heaviest, but I got cherished feedback from Roff on Tuesday and then more cherished feedback from Gos on Wednesday. Their interpretations of the piece have calmed many of my worries. I am very close to saying what I mean, I think. I have just one thing to sort out still, and I have three good options, or so I think. We will get to "find it" in rehearsals, which would be a scary thing to believe, if it didn't usually work out so very well.

The aforementioned meeting was as a brightly lit diner, with two theatre producers. I really believe in them. Twelfth (or so) time is the charm. They're the most promising partners who have approached me by far. The secret, I think, is one has the business brains and speaks the business language. The other is simplyScrappy. I believe she could make a paper box a hit. She has done it so many times. She says, in no uncertain terms, "Once you tell me we can do this, I will make it happen." I dunk my sweet potato biscuit in strawberry jelly and nod enthusiastically.

I become incredibly overwhelmed on the drive home. This has been happening since January because I live in a country descending into fascism. The political upheaval we are living through is terrifying and confusing on a daily, if not hourly, basis. I will not stop thinking or speaking about this, although it all makes me uncomfortable. Of course I am uncomfortable--we are in grave danger.

Eventually Puhg walks down to the carport where I've been sitting for a while, answering emails. We switch keys. He takes the car for errands and I sing "Better Than Revenge" in the kitchen with a wooden spoon. I write Congress. I write emails to my new theatre agents and the other production's producer, filling them all in. I start on my new commercial for a company I am currently boycotting. I think about how my boss told me, "Our goal is for girls to feel like they need every single product." I wonder how I can subvert that message, with the teeny tiny power I have. I met an older activist several months ago, at a protest. The back of his jacket said, "words are spells." I think about that phrase a lot these days.

I eat a bagged salad. At four I've got to get to my knoll. I bring individual bags of cookies to the guys I see there. I sit under the shade of a sharp tree listening to Lily Allen. I outline two essays I have outlined several times before. One I have been trying to get right for at least eight months.

I listen to a YouTube lecture about shame while having a little mouse snack of cashews and apples before getting dressed up. My pink sparkle two piece is so cute and magically comfortable. Puhg sweetly drives me to the theater for my friend's weird music show. I have no idea who will be there and I am boldly showing up as Gay Taylor Swift. I get a seltzer and wobble in, quickly running into one of my favorite people dressed as Britney Spears. She's talking to a comedian I worked with this summer, but it was on Zoom, so this is a first meeting. He's dressed like Cruella and later sings "Drops of Jupiter."

I have one of the best nights I've had in a very long time. The acts were truly talented and funny and most importantly I danced and sang a LOT. I have learned, when it comes to live music, I go harder than most, and unfortunately I cannot help that. I know I am either a concert hero or villain, depending on if you are sitting right behind or next to me. There was Alanis, Sum 41, Beyonce, Powerline, Carrie Underwood, Fountains of Wayne and I was nestled in with so many old friends--the guy I watch Survivor with and the gal I see at coffee shops and my old director from Chicago and the animator who made my deck and the short story writer dressed as a nun and the actor from that play I dramaturged. My friend the bassist says she is excited to introduce me to her new boyfriend. We shake hands and I realize he played a main character in my old favorite TV show. He is dressed as Nic Cage.

I head to the sidewalk for air and stand in a circle of whoever is there. The shy comedian who lives on my block and her boyfriend, dressed as Colin Mocherie and Ryan Stiles--what a choice. It's so soothing, to be in a circle of improviser types. We ask each other how fast the billionaires plan to kill us. A girl walks to her Uber and shouts behind to me, "I love your dancing!" But she also laughs like, you nutjob! I call a car and invite my neighbors back with me. We chatter on the ride, the Dodgers may win the World Series.

I get excited tromping up the stairs to our apartment. Puhg, for the sixth year in a row, outdoes himself on his homemade haunted house. (Mind you, we went to Six Flags Thursday also!) Candles, rituals, notes, dummies, ghosts. The whole thing culminated in me running into the closet to hide. I stood there nervously for several minutes before Puhg began breathing loudly, revealing he'd been in there the entire time. And then he was wearing a horrid mask. I am very lucky, this I know.

I ordered Taco Bell nachos and a bean burrito, sat on the balcony waiting for it until 1 AM. I went down in my sandals and a puffer coat to grab it from the driver, so he didn't have to navigate parking and getting buzzed in and the elevator. I could tell he was pleased to see me. I ate my feast on the sofa, while watching Love on the Spectrum. The girl who loves dolls gets her first kiss.

And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?

Why I Love Haunted Houses

A couple years ago someone asked me. They added, "because you're so positive" which confirmed to me they were not listening when I spoke. He guessed before I responded something like, "Oh, it's empowering to think about yourself as dead? Like you're immortal?" And Trev interrupted (we were all in a greenroom), "No, no, it's the opposite. You walk out and remember you're alive. There might be death, but you, you're alive."

It's also interactive theatre. I mean, sure, caps off to Sleep No More, but haunted houses have been doing it for ages. It's art that changes with us who changes because of it.

I remember my first when I was in 5th grade. It was in a church basement on Halloween night. I went back to it a few years later. It wasn't as scary, and that was okay. I walked through alone and everyone worried about me. I was 13 or so. My mom drove me and sat outside with cocoa. I did my homework in line. I walk through alone now too because Puhg doesn't want to go in most houses. People working the event don't worry anymore, but the people in front of and behind me do, I can tell. They're there with big groups of friends or their sig o, and I'm just wearing a pumpkin sweatshirt refreshing my email.

I'm so impressed with certain mazes that sometimes I clap. I did during the Us maze, for example. When a room so perfectly matched the climactic film scene, complete with bloody footprints. And then there was that chilling animatronic PLUS a surprise real actor. I have been less enthusiastic with my cheering at a nationally-renowned theatre.

I have three more haunted attractions booked for fall, which began yesterday.

Halloween Heart

Being scared is my favorite thing. I revel in the spooky season: movies whenever I can squeeze them in, horror blogs to fall asleep, I sat in a lawn chair in my apartment foyer to pass out candy over the weekend. This Halloween itself was a pretty standard day. I went to the gym, I tutored at the writing center,  I had dinner and graded papers, I coached a rehearsal 8-9:30. And then when I came home the hall lights were out. The apartment was pitch black, but sheets hung everywhere. It was ghostly, the billows from white rectangles. Silence. I slowly walked through one corridor to find another. I called throughout my home for Puhg. Eventually I paused in the bedroom and he leapt from behind a door. I was scared, but not as a scared as when I realized he was wearing a frightening mask. I laughed, he laughed, he took off the mask, then he bared vampire fangs and I yelped again. Then he was gone. I couldn't see where he ran beyond the haunted house-ness. He popped out of no fewer than four hiding spots--once emerging from the ground walking like a crab after grabbing my ankles. This is my dream come true.

Six Flags Great America Fright Fest

Front of park blared the Halloween synth. A lake of blood in front of the carousel. I was happily overwhelmed. Pumpkins and cobwebs, skeletons and boarded up hot dog stands. We started on The Raging Bull, which near whipped my pigtails out. Next the Giant Drop. After our show Saturday, Dal reminded me about the girl who's feet got cut off on that ride several years ago. I had never been on Goliath before, and I hurt my throat screaming on the first drop. It was such a vertical plummet I was sure the track broke. Puhg didn't want to do V2 but later said it was his favorite. I remember waiting in that yellow line when I was in 8th grade. I felt suddenly hungry, so we went to the cobalt blue "Jack's Snacks" for pretzels. Then Batman, which made us both dizzy. I got a bag of pink cotton candy. The children in line for The Whizzer all looked at me scarfing it with jealousy. It was not as smooth as I remember. I wanted to see the hypnotist. It was such a shimsham "show," but Puhg and I like a middle age woman in a Tweety shirt who took pretending to smell something gross very seriously. Puhg took a car nap. I rode Superman. It broke down twice while I waited, but then I flew right at sunset. The sky was a dazzling purple. I am impatient at theme parks. I was meeting up with Puhg for dinner. It took him twenty minutes to get to me and I could barely stand it. I decided to have a funnel cake fudge sundae. I said, "That hit the spot," when I was done eating and Puhg explained that was very funny. I still don't get why. Something about excess, but I really truly don't understand. I used my (extra $15) fastpass to zoom through five haunted houses alone. I also tried The Joker and didn't particularly enjoy being flipped and hurtled, but did appreciate being so disoriented I couldn't tell where the beauty of the sky and the electric bulbs began. The best part of the haunted house was when two guys lunged at me from two different corners of a room and knocked heads. They cursed and whispered, "You okay bro?" and then attempted to get back into character and scare me. I particularly liked the house that told the story of a little ghost girl who killed all humans who enter her home. I nearly tripped over a bloody mattress when half a carcass reached for my ankles. Closing time was nine. In the last half hour I decided I wanted to see everything from up high again. No one was at Giant Drop. When it opened the wait was two hours. I had to walk through snakes and snakes of line fence and arrived in my own private row. I faced out of the park, the north suburbs of my city. I could make out all the typical words on buildings. Auto-Zone and Burger King. The technician kept us up there for a while. Maybe even thirty seconds or so just waiting to fall. I unintentionally screamed when the bottom gave out. "Do you want to go again?" the girl on the mic asked. I think there were four or five of us. I called out to Puhg waiting on a nearby bench. I tried several name variations, but he couldn't hear me. I wanted to wave from the top. Suddenly I felt so alone. There are things no one else will share with you. There just are. Has it always been this way? Did cavemen experience stuff and have a guttural need to have someone else see? At the top it was silent. I fell the 200 feet.

Andrew to the Ninth Power

Halloween was the first day it snowed in Chicago and I saw Andrew McMahon for the 9th time in concert. It was, like always, a sturdy, clean set. Some SoCo, some new record, sending us off with the Jack's of pulling friends through. The Vic buzzed. A scarecrow next to me, a deer wandering near the bar, Severus Snape in the back row. Andrew himself was in full astronaut garb. He crowdsurfed his helmet. A Pikachu riffed guitar. The openers ran onto the stage in skin-tight Power Rangers 'tumes.

It was Bisque's first Andrew concert. He arrived right before doors opened toting cups of cocoa for my waiting-in-line fingers. Little stories about the commuting back to Echo Park. Mentions of the recovery, a few old tracks from People and Things, almost forgotten. Of course, "Astronaut"--thanks to attire.

The final finale was "Synesthesia." Our star crouched down to the front rows (where we were) and serenaded us. "So I never made a gold record," he sang. It was true when he recorded that song, but since his 2005 single went gold. I pointed to him and said, "But you do have a gold record!" He nodded and mouthed, "I do!" He joked with the hecklers, jumped off the piano, ended his show early enough for us to wait in coat-check, make the windy walk home, and watch Amityville Horror until we fell asleep. You're a good man, Andrew Mc.

The stars are out tonight,

One million fires burning.

The Last Chicago Weekend

Every tree screams orange and the couples are OUT on the Lake path. I'm running. Frisbees fly, boats wade happily. "The last weekend," everything sings. My credit card is in my sports bra for the spinach I will pick up on my way home. The streets are packed in daytime ways--strollers and pedal pushers, candy corn icicle lights, the pop-up farmers market. I chose a patch of kale and a sweet potato for Bisque. A gust of wind takes the tiny yellows by surprise and they gust into the sky like confetti. Windows open. Fire and maple. I buy one signed copy of Lena Dunham's book, digest one ghost sugar cookie, trot the square with my sister the birthday girl. Today we sat in the woody loft with her laptop and laughed the afternoon away trying to compartmentalizations our relationship and selves as if we had been comissioned to. My theatre company opened its show. My new friend Marble hugged me greedily, my new team won the Sunday night jam in the land of Poe birds. It is time to be, but we know it's change. We move forward. We crinkle up and turn brown in the gutter.

Waiting Outside

My mom hates all things frightening. When I was growing up sometimes I could sense her confusion  as she walked past me curled up watching Lady in White for the twelfth time or examining a dead possum with just a touch too much enthusiasm. But it's who I was, and my mom shrugged it off like, "I dunno maybe she'll grow out of or into being a weirdo. Yolo?"

I love haunted houses. Like. So much. So so so much. Why aren't they open all year? I'll never understand. I have this really clear memory of being in middle school, reading about a haunted house in the newspaper one day. For some reason the attraction was closing that night or something, and I was el bummed of course. No one was free, it was a school night, etc. etc. But my mom was just super caj and all, "I'll take you." And she did! We donned jeans and headed to this dinky but creepy haunted house in a series of trailers. My mom sat at a picnic table with some paperwork, and I did my social studies homework in line until it was time to go in. I walked through alone, soaking up every drop of blood, every creep with a mask. I came out, and my mom was drinking hot chocolate. She had one for me too. She asked how it was. I told her my favorite parts, but I left out the things that would churn her stomach.

This is a thing I will never forget.

Birthday cupcakes for the Alices. Plus! A ghoul-friend! Mine was chocolate covered marshmallow.

Ghoul's Night

(LIGHTS UP on FIVE GIRLS--RO, SHELLS, ALICE, KALE, AND PAKE in a CAR, en route to an abandoned motel in Phoenix.)

RO: You guys, I'm looking up skin walkers right now on Wikipedia.
SHELLS: How is that scary?
ALICE: ...because Wikipedia is hAuNtEd! OoOoO!
PAKE: Wicked-pedia.
       (KALE laughs.)
RO: Well, that wasn't scary. I'm redoing my Google search.
ALICE:...You mean...hAuNtEd Google? (Beat.) Boo-gle!
       (KALE laugh.)
RO: ...Is Ya-ghoul good? I can't tell.
SHELLS: No.
ALICE: Hey, guys, what's a ghost's favorite board game?
        (Beat.)
PAKE: Scattergories?
KALE: Boo-gle? As in Boggle?
ALICE: (Bitter someone got her Boggle joke.) Ouija Board, idiots!
PAKE: I dunno. I thought mine was pretty good.
ALICE: What's haunted about Scattergories?
PAKE: I dunno! It's just a fun-ass game!

(GIRLS drive off into the distance. FADE TO BLACK.)

Día de los Muertos

When Steve Jobs died, I didn't care. I bless his mind that bore me this MacBook, my black iPod named Troy, products for my father to sell many rainbow-striped apples ago. But, Steve Jobs was just a guy.

Today I read the eulogy his sister gave. It was very good. But, you know, she's a famous novelist. Get a great writer to deliver anyone's eulogy and he will sound saintly. Despite my cynicism, this choked me up:

"Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed."

The man was creative and driven literally until the day he expired. And what did he have to gain at that point? That's magic. That's tragic. That's life, or, I guess, death.

It's Halloween weekend and spirits of my youth, of college haunt me. I try to focus on this Bakhtin essay on carnivale--well-timed--but I just eat all the orange creme Oreos. I just open my heart a little more. I make another list, and another, and I wish that burning leaves weren't bad for the environment, and I wish my body were still small enough to snake through them raked.

My grandmother passed away five point five years ago. When the paperwork was dug out, someone noticed a doodle in the corner. It was a cartoon apparition that said, in Gramps' handwriting, "Boo! I'm a ghost. Boo." He saw it, chuckled. Things didn't go as he had guessed they would.

Stayed Up

When I come home from parties, there's no one to greet me.
I climb up the stairs, I strip to underwear, I brush my teeth for longer than might be necessary. It feels so good.
I get to sleep however I want in my bed big enough for two. Sometimes I put my head at the feet. I can journal at night--or not. I can blog. I can hum exactly one verse of "How to Save a Life" that has been stupidly stuck in my head.

I have no backrubs to give, no decompressions to share. I leave the small pile of clothes on the floor. I sleep immediately when I want to, no pawing or jabbering half-awake.

And I would have stayed up with you all night
had I known how to save a life.

October 31st, 2002 (Are We Havin' Fun Yet?)

It's fall. No, the colors aren't here in the desert, but the feel is. Genuinely. It's cool at night. I bike, and the wind carries me the faintest traces of burning, of cinnamon. I'm wearing flannel right now. I fell asleep in a puddle of candy corn last night.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite Halloweens. As a freshman in high school, October was a transition. I was getting close with friends from theatre and speech, but my middle school clique still caroused in the hallway during Honors Block breaks. For the holiday, a group of us--all factioned off into cultures of the musical, marching band, track, and underage drinking--came together to visit one of the best haunted houses in Chicago.

After our various practices/rehearsals, we piled into the grey Lumina, and my dad drove us downtown to an abandoned prison turned spooky. We all read our biology textbooks feverishly and wiggled in our seats singing Nickelback. (It was a different time.) We screamed our lungs out in the house and fell asleep on the ride home.


Middle school friends: Peppermint, Fran, SMG, Me. I know that at least Peppermint was part of October 31st, 2002.

Or Life Is Yours To Miss

There's only now. There's only this.

Yesterday I asked Chelle what she thought the purpose of life was. She said she thought it was to have no regrets. I think that's a pretty darn good answer. It covers all the bases really: treating yourself right, living life to the fullest, being respectful, etc.

I don't consider myself regretful. In fact, someone just asked me what my biggest regret was last week, and I came up dry. But, I suppose I do have mini-regrets (if you will). Teeny little guys, so today was "no regret day." It was pretty easy. I worked hard, I ate well, I was frugal, I was friendly.

And then I got hit with a doozy. I was in Dramaturgy. We had just watched Mouchkine's 1789. And then we had an hour and a half long discussion of theatrical heirarchy, which made me both giddy and disgusted. I literally sat up at one point and asked myself, "How did I get to the place where I consider this the best way to live?"

Literally everything in my whole day revolved around that class, that discussion--that discussion that mattered very much...on an itsy-bitsy level. I went to work at 8:30 to afford the Jamba Juice I would buy at 4:30 to power myself through the heavy class. I TA'd for a class at noon to earn my scholarship to afford the dramaturgy class. I spent the afternoon reading for class...Just about the only thing I did for myself was go to the gym...which I kind of did to align myself with peace before powering through the day.

My whole world is focused on this artistic theory...and part of me sometimes really does just want to scream, "WHY ARE WE ALL TALKING ABOUT THIS? WHO REALLY CARES!? WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE RELATIVELY SOON!" So...that.

But, honestly, no regrets about that. Because whether you're in a playwriting seminar or a practicing dentist, you ARE going to die. So...you know. Who can say if it's not a waste of time/energy to do anything? Who can say it's right to do anything?

I've been mentioning here how I've been killing myself with work, comedy, and being social? Well. I declared an "I'm being cheap, eating healthy, getting sleep, and not being social" week. It's going pretty well. Especially today--the day of no regrets. And then my front door rang a ton of times and we found this on the front porch:





Yup. A pumpkin full of candy with a note reading, "Dear Alice, Be social."

ME: You know what?
ME: I think Russel Stover has a bad rap.
ME: It's not horrible.
POOKIE: hahahahahaha
POOKIE: it is
POOKIE: plastic chocolate
ME: Then why am I enjoying it so much?
POOKIE: there is no polite answer to that question

So...one regret after all. Maybe eating my weight in jack-o-lantern chocolate right before bed wasn't the best.

Forget regret. Or life is yours to miss.

Not A Peep

Currently running on three hours of sleep. Yesterday I didn't even have that much to do, but I jumped from one social thing to another, landing me leaving karaoke at 1 AM. Then had to bike three miles home. Then, was so tired I was trying to convince myself to just stay up and finish my work. Decided to eat the Halloween Peep Clara left on my desk. Thought it would be a good idea to take real-time photos of me eating said candy. I just kept clicking my Photobooth button until the Peep was no mo'.

I honestly thought I was creating ground-braking art.
















I got a bad idea again. I got a Halloween head.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love fall. I love sweets. I love the macabre and the scary. I love pumpkins. I am sad to see it go.

Today was a great day. Kay and I cooked up some egg sandwiches, the weather was perfect for an afternoon run, I audited the improv class I will soon be teaching, my sister cooked a killer zucchini pasta, and the Giants won. (One more game baby!) Not so Halloweenie though. I mean, we're doing haunted houses next weekend, and I did enjoy a fab party at Cocoa's last night. Still. No mini candies, no tiny costumes. No school-sanctioned orange cupcakes.

There are very very VERY few times I consider having children. It's definitely not the time and generally not my interest. But today...I wouldn't have minded toting some kiddos around. Maybe I could have rented some.


middle school camping trip 2009

Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be.
The future's not ours to see. Que sera sera.

EDIT: After thinking about kids on Halloween for about five more seconds, I was re-horrified by the memories of children screaming, crying, and tantruming ... Nevermind my Halloween was perfect.

Scariest Prank Ever Pulled on Alice

Part I

Saw an incredible play last night. It is called The Pillowman, and Lord, has it stuck with me. I think it will forever. I guess most things do though. Maybe every day forever. I won't talk about it. I did that enough last night. But, I WILL say there is an overarching theme about children who get mutilated. Children in general. There are many themes deepen than children, but on the surface there is a lot about kiddos. It was pretty effed up.

Part II

I come back into my room late. Halloween night. I see a cloth on my bed. Oh that's weird. What is that? My bed is made. What is that lump? I pull back the covers to find a small lifeless child. I start breathing heavily. I realize soon that it is one of the very creepy life-size paper mache child puppets from a theatre production a few years ago. I throw it in my laundry basket in the closet with a little shriek and slam the door. I call three people who might be to blame. They swear they didn't do it. I realize I need shorts from my closet. I take deep sighs and open the door. As I reach up I scream--

because there is a face looking at me from the top of my closet.
Look closer...

Imagine that staring you in the face when you're already scared out of your mind. I screamed and screamed and screamed--probably waking up my whole hall. I called Rex--the last person I could think of doing this to me. He said what I knew which was, "Alice, I was with you all day and all night." I am baffled. Whoever did this got me good. Rex came over. Once someone else was here, it was okay to laugh. I took these pictures, and Rex took the dolls away.

All On One Run

Running along the canal behind Char's house I saw several things worth note:

1. a sign on a bridge that said "NO STOPPING OR STANDING ON BRIDGE" with spray paint over it reading "fuck you Ottawa I'll stand where I want!!!"
2. two guys smoking pot underneath the bridge where I had happened to stop to tie my shoe
3. a swastica on a telephone pole

More importantly I started feeling nostalgic for Japan. The weather is getting to be how it was there around Halloween. And I've been listening to "Halloweenhead" a lot lately...and I remember eating some jack-o-lantern themed Koala Yummies at a Circle K with Bradley and...

Well it's just unfair, really. I was nostalgic for fall in the US when I was there, but now all I can remember is what it felt like in Nihon.

Head full of tricks and treats, it leads me through the nighttime streets