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.

Part

Last night we closed one of the coolest shows I have ever been part of--a p sweet collab between comedy and opera. I was so fortunate to be cast in such a unique process. New work development, bits, singing, tiny green German hats--these are a few of my favorite things.

Also, what a cast. Also, we were treated with such care--from free opera tickets to the wardrobe guy getting new inserts for my character shoes, I felt cherished? (Gross.) I ate a bunch of fancy cheese and two cookies in my gold sequin dress at the closing party. Walking to the train, I felt relieved in that way that ending anything makes one feel relief and a tinge of sadness, as ending anything makes one feel a tinge of sadness.

For some reason I couldn't shake this feeling of falling back in time to the prop loft of my high school. I was up there putting away stuff from the spring play my freshman year. The boys I idolized for being so hilarious would clomp up the stairs and try to rile me up by flashing their boxers or imitating my squeaky voice. I would have stayed in that final day of strike forever if I could have. "I am part of this thing," I thought, about a cruddy stage-version interpretation of a campy movie. And I could practically feel my insides glow, even sitting in the dust, even alone.