They come in all shapes and sizes: princes and princesses; ghouls, goblins, and ghosts; witches, wizards, and warlocks. They arrive in droves, wave after wave washing over laws and up stoops, doorbells buzzing frantically in sugar-coated want. They appear in pairs, trios, alone or with an entourage. They’re hawkishly watched by shadowy figures hovering close like a bodyguard or distantly on the sidewalk like evil overlords.

For the few twilight hours when costumed children rule the streets, as teens and youthful adults preen and primp in preparation for the coming nightfall, and as adults carefully dole out treats, smiling and praising all comers, Halloween follows its perfect little script. But outside those hours strange things happen.

I often feel privileged to work with kids, especially at schools. Halloween, though, is a strange and careful balance of organized madness. At one elementary school, the principal disallowed costumes during class time, but allowed them for late day parties, meaning all prep must be possible on site. At a middle school, costumes are a free-for-all, but masks and fake weapons are simply not allowed. Why these rules and regulations are in place seem cut and dry: respect, attention, and learning still take precedence in school, and the weeklong sugar high hangover can be equally detrimental.

There’s something different about these everyday interactions in costume from the rote and blasé joy of Halloween; despite the costumes and the excitement, the candy and treats, the parties and carousal, things are surprisingly normal. Kids don’t stay in character as they answer questions in class; they don’t leap from their seats, capes flapping and rush out the door to serve justice; nor do they feast on the brains of their deskmates as tests are being taken. Indeed, there’s an even stranger sense of normalcy that hovers over the day’s events, the seeps from between the seams of masks and cloaks an prevents Halloween from truly taking over a day in the same way that other holidays sometimes can.

School children are not the only ones with a template to follow. Teens rage against the machine, fighting their own urge to dress up, childlike and giddy, and their need to be seen as too old for such youthful pageantry  The older kids stock up on drinks and food, dancing and playing deep into the night, their costumes commentary on the world around them. College students clad themselves cleverly, scantily, and dive into excuses for excess. Twenty-somethings search packed rooms full of inebriated cat-eared cohorts and leggy schoolgirls. Adults sit patiently by the door, hoping to be amused and entertained by the wandering crowds, or carefully prep cocktails and treats that can be enjoyed in merriment.

For whatever Halloween was intended to be, from the bright, gaudy wonderful Dia de los Muertos, to the stylized and chic modern All Hallow’s Eve, it provides an opportunity often squandered by those caught in the currents of time. I’ve long since grown past trick or treating, and this year I’ve finally reached the point where the raging costume parties of early adulthood have lost their sheen. But I will never grow beyond the costumes.

Everyone, from the youngest child to the oldest geriatric, should dress to the nines. There’s no need to gorge on sweets, to party until the cows come home (unless of course they already arrived and are partying right alongside, in which case there’s no need to party until they go home), or to claim maturity as an excuse for not participating. Simply put, Halloween should be the world’s opportunity to embrace their inner kid.

It seems as though adults feel like there isn’t a place for them in Halloween. Certainly, the high-profile celebrity costume parties are one response, and trick or treating with one’s kids is another, but adults are often treated like hangers-on to an expression of youth. Some parents go so far as to dress in joint costumes with their kids: I heard of one mother daughter duo where the mom dressed as a trick or treating princess and the kid dressed rather simply as a chaperoning parent. It’s a brilliant flip to the normal roles, but it’s also a surprisingly clear commentary on an adults place on Halloween.

A few of my friends talk about freaking the norms and the art of making Joes who seem a bit too everyday uncomfortable. The intent, first and foremost, is personal pleasure, but they defend this hedonism with arguments that the stiffness of rehearsed roles is one foisted on all of us by those who fall into them. The beauty of Halloween is that normality is an afterthought. If only for a moment, Halloween can prove that the doldrums of everyday existence need not be.

Certainly, there’s a certain oddity in going through everyday motions in strange attire, but Halloween provides us an opportunity to remember that what we see usually isn’t what we get. It’s a chance to creatively explore our inner psyche and our outer wardrobe. It grants us an opportunity to play in every interaction without guile or insult, and yet it doesn’t precipitate a need to do so. Work can still get done, lives still kept safe, and a touch of youthfulness can be instilled into every waking moment.

This year, my costume was a meager one cobbled together from the remnants of my closet. It was far from clever or impressive, often going unnoticed throughout the day. Most of the time, I even forgot that I was dressed at all differently.

And yet, the few times where my costume rose to the forefront of my mind, there was a subtle tingle of joy. That is what I want for everyone; that is a change that Halloween can bring.

You find a wallet. In it are IDs, few credit cards, and a small wad of cash. Instantly, you’re torn. On the one hand, turning it in is the right thing to do. On the other, that money would feel really good in your pocket. The context of your life–whether your rich or poor; a one percenter, a ninety-nine percenter or a forty-seven percenter; a child or an adult; sick or healthy–doesn’t matter. The owner’s life doesn’t matter either. In that instant, no matter the context, those two options rest at the polar extremes of your options. What do you do?

—

Yesterday was perhaps the last warm, sunny, Indian Summer day of the year, the forecast calling for cold, rain, and snow over the next few. It was a bittersweet joy that my roommate and I collected our things and wound our way Westward to the South Boulder Rec Center for a couple rounds of disc golf.

The two of us, as well as several other friends, have been making regular pilgrimages to wide open fields beside Fairview High School, flying our slender discs in relaxed and friendly competition. My roommate calls it exercise. I call it a good excuse for social time outside. After a mediocre first round, I decided I would turn it into a work out, punishing myself with push ups for every errant toss; and there were many errant tosses. With each forceful thrust away from the ground, my weary arms grew more tired, which in turn meant more poor throws and more push ups.

By the time we finished our second round, I glistened lightly with sweat and heat, my shoulders ached in the best possible way, and I felt hazily happy in the late autumn warmth. It was the perfect farewell to the summer, a soft embrace and a pleasant adieu.

I biked off to work, peddling furiously to arrive on time, my moment of bliss now past. Within a few blocks, I noticed my front tire was riding low, and upon further inspection I spotted a goathead nestled between the treads. The thorn itself was plugging the hole, keeping air from slipping too quickly from the tire. It was a happy happenstance, but given the timing, my early morning spent languishing in blissful ignorance, and my sorry lack of a patch kit, I had no choice but to stop and pick up a spare. Luckily, my favorite bike shop wasn’t far out of my way.

When I pulled up and ducked in, I swung my pack around and dug in looking for my wallet. As you can probably guess, my hand found a beautifully empty spot where the worn leather should’ve been. “Sorry,” I quickly stammered to the proprietor upon this revelation. I racked my brain, trying to remember if I had packed my wallet into my bag at all, or left it out in my room. I had no need for it playing disc golf or at work, so I figured I had simply set it safely aside.  ”I must’ve left my wallet at home. Thanks anyway,” I offered.

With that, I slipped back on my bike and rolled off toward work. The tire held well enough that my mind was able to wander and flit about. I considered other options: calling a friend for a ride home, asking a coworker, perhaps borrowing a pump from the school to refill just enough to get me home. Either way, it wasn’t the end of the world.

Unfortunately, none of the solutions work out: my coworkers lacked vehicles with the ability to transport my bike; my friends with vehicles were not available then; and the school lacked an accessible pump with the right valve. The tire, however, still held enough air to ride, so I leapt aboard once more a began to coast downhill homeward. Stupidly, I took a turn at high velocity and felt my front tire flex and shoot out from beneath the rim. I came crashing down, my right hand taking the brunt of the impact, my right should and hip, and my toes collecting the rest. I felt slightly battered, but more embarrassed as a pair of onlookers came to my aid. What bleeding I had wasn’t visible until I was home and had time to take stock of hidden injuries, so I brushed myself off, offered my thanks and rode slowly and carefully the rest of the way.

After cleaning my wounds and patching my tire, I began to search for my wallet. Slowly, my stomach began to sink, dropping into the depths of despair as nothing turned up. I was rescued from my overthinking by my evening plans, but in the back of my mind, the whereabouts of my wallet began to niggle and writhe, snapping me back soberly every time they jumped to the front of my thought.

I returned home shortly after eleven and began my search anew, but nothing. At that point, I felt resigned to the loss and held out hope that some good samaritan had found my wallet somewhere on the course and turned it in. I crawled into bed and attempted to sleep, but none would come. At two in the morning, I pulled myself from bed and decided to distract myself with reading and games. At five, my email beeped at me. My bank had overdrafted on charges.

Suddenly, my hopes were thrown out the window, my fears a reality, and my peace of mind gone.

They say I’m a victim of identity theft. It’s an odd title to hold. I’ve been blessed to avoid victimization most of my life, and this mild form of identity theft hardly seems worthy of the nomenclature. The charges, to Famous Footwear and a boutique in Boulder, imply the culprits are young and likely high school students. There are good odds that they were caught on camera at these locations, and combined with a yearbook, or even Facebook’s facial recognition software, there’s a good chance they can be tracked down. I seek only restitution and a return of my lost items.

The process after-the-fact is obtuse and riddled with potholes. Call credit card companies and cancel accounts, call bank and request new card, contact credit reports, file police report, contact the FTC, obtain a new social security card, a new driver’s license, new cards. Lost are my old student ID, my half-dozen incomplete punch cards, my cash. But what hurts the most is that I’ve been cleaned out. I’m not a man of means, my net worth at any given time lucky to be close to four digits, and now, in the lull between seasons when money is most scarce, this hurts.

And so, returning to the hypothetical, trying my best to empathize with the thieves, consider their state of mind, and allay my anger and betrayal with understanding, I’m left wondering what I would do. I know what I have done in the past and what I would do now, but how did I make those decisions? Would there ever be a situation in which I’d swing to the extreme? Is there a rational argument for any choice that holds water above morality?

There’s no right answer. There is at least one silver lining, however: I finally get a new driver’s license picture. Take that identity thieves!

The web is atwitter with the sound of politics this morning, and while I’m loathe to add my voice to flood of information, let me assure you that I will not be spending any time discussing the candidates or their campaigns. Instead, I want to draw attention to failure of the media in providing any real coverage during the debate.

The fact is that debates are not truly interesting to watch. Unless, of course, you’re one of the people who prefers to watch with the sound muted to get a sense of victory through optics without being mired by the words spewing forth from the candidates, cause, you know, visuals matter. It’s pretty apparent that the visual distracts from what’s being said and encourages candidates to care more about image than message. No one wants an uncharismatic leader, but it’s relatively absurd to weigh the visual equally or more heavily than the policies.

That being said, in this era of big screen TVs and multiple media I see no reason the debates shouldn’t feature real-time information side-by-side with the candidates. Say they follow ESPN’s Sportscenter format, the ticker along the bottom could summarize talking points and recap the numerous off-topic asides each candidate uses to obfuscate the question. The left-hand side-bar can be used to keep the question visible and at the forefront of the audience’s attention, as well as providing space for real-time fact checking. And while I would love that, I’m sure not everyone would be interested in more information.

Perhaps MTV could use the screen space to broadcast rules for the Presidential Debate Drinking Game, or real-time twitter updates from celebrities. News channels could post fact-checking that backs their candidate of choice (after all, the candidates cite misleading statistics in their favor). Nickelodeon could have cartoons right alongside so that families could watch together and the kids won’t be bored.

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what’s there. Instead of having our attention divided between the screen and whatever mobile device we’re using to personalize our coverage, TV stations should already be providing us extra information, and information that is tailored to our needs rather than our desires. I may not want to hear about how my candidate of choice just straight up lied, or how he or she is now saying the opposite of what they said last week, but these are things we need to hear and see and know right then and then.

If we can’t, don’t or won’t do any fact-checking for ourselves, we need the media to be doing it for us.

If you’re interested in fact-checking, here’s a live fact-check of last night’s debate, and here are two good articles after the fact.

My fingertips blush deep velvet, imbued with an inky essence that seeps into the dark depths of my wrinkled skin. There’s a sunset painted across my cuticles, plums fade into indigo, stretching upward into the aching heavens that are my hands.

It seems for eons that I’ve plucked, pruned, cleaved and cut, pitted, peeled, skinned, and crushed the tiny balls so elegantly looped and dangling from vines twined about themselves. Gone is the picturesque reverie, that urban ideal of country life, so often offered as a distant dirt-filled retirement. These unrealistic dreams have been replaced with loathing, a fear that pure physical labor can be quantified in such minimal produce. Three days of toil result in the proper preparation of a mere 20 lbs of amethyst-hued mash at a cost of aching joints, raw flesh, and a shivering timbre that echoes through me.

Only in the moments of respite, as the music held taught to my head fades and my twisted spine relaxes upright once more, do I notice the worn drip of fatigue settle. The toil itself is mindless, allowing my thoughts to bounce and flit exploring well-worn territory that seems novel in my ignorance. The rhythm of the work wraps around me like a warm blanket, shirking the cold damp that engulfs my icy tentacles as I pop and cull our recently plucked crop. It’s a saving grace, a means of ignorance and avoidance that only work can bring. Yet in those times between, it’s the work itself I desire to leave behind.

My father regularly exclaims his wonder at the entire thing, that these spindly twigs, hard, cold, and brittle, could burst verdantly forth as the wintery whites fade. As buds spring anew, so does his awe, flush and full until all that is left are skeletal sprigs once more. Logically, I understand his amazement, but I don’t feel the same visceral pull. The world functions, the mysteries of life not truly mysterious but merely unknown and awaiting understanding.

“Such is the way,” I tell him, but my koanical words slip past unnoticed.

My mother is much more grounded, her dreams not of the natural order, the emeralds and ambers, the ruddy browns and vibrant violets, but rather the myriad products possible. Her excitement is tempered by the weight and mass of grapes flooding every available crevice of the kitchen, overflowing from the fridge into every container we can find. For every filling and jam, salsa and juice, there is the question of time, toil and territory. The cost of the process perhaps greater than the result.

I feel her burden and alleviate what I can, cooking and peeling, investigating options. It’s but a small dent in the slowly fermenting crop that overwhelms us. Her face softens as she thinks about days lost to errant efforts.

“Such is the way,” I tell her. She nods knowingly, and continues on the path we’re following.

—

I glower, well aware that my emotions are pushed forward, my willpower tested as the fast ticks by slowly. It’s been years since I practiced, the letters foreign and slow to form into sounds in my head. The meanings are lost, the gist vaguely familiar, and an eerie sense of out-of-place wonder remains in the murky web of thought dangling just out of reach in the corners of my mind. A little food, or a blackened jolt of liquid energy, might sweep them away, but my stubborn resolve can hardly be placated.

The wafting scent of grape pie fills the air, tempting and taunting me. Just beneath the sugar-coated surface, though, is the rich saccharine tartness that hangs throughout the arched vineyard in our backyard. The aroma elicits images of childhood jars emblazoned with Tom & Jerry and the Welch’s logo, thick with concordian conserve. It rests heavy, permeating pores and seeping into every nook and cranny of my nose.

The first day, I was amused by the tang. I wore it as a perfume unbidden, the vine-shaped clerks spritzing me in a guerrilla campaign as I passed. The second day, it became less of a fragrance. I became one with it, the occasional whiff a reminder that I’d become coopted by nature and possessed by the vine, my self lost within the tangled veins pulsating with fruit. By the third day, the aroma hung on me like a stench, scrubbed beneath suds like MacBethian spots, linked to my very being invisibly and hanging upon me like a disease.

There’s naught to do but wait and assist, my work interrupted in preparation for guests. In many ways, what little work I do is antithetical to my purpose, clutter once sorter returns to the nooks so recently cleared in an effort to hide the turmoil in which we’re living. It’s at once a glowing show of respect for our guests and a damning proof of shame for ourselves. Combined with the purple putrescence that mires the house and my tangible aching desire, I can only swallow the well of unreasonable rage pooling inside the emptiness within.

I can feel the seven stages of grief passing by with each minute. I reach acceptance only an hour or two before our guests arrive. They filter in, the grape pie melding in the air with rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, and pepper, an aromatic mural of the meal the come. I rub my fingers habitually, though their color is natural and their scent of soaps and cleanliness. The meal flows past, words spewing out from all directions as we gab between gulps, vacuuming up the fare in front. Finally, as food dwindles and our stomachs distend in pure placation, the pie appears, its crumbly crust sagging around the violet clumps of our now syrupy harvest.

As I fill my gut with the fruits of our labor, my body goes to war. The aroma, now left days behind, is flowing through me, but the flavor so softly sates my desire, so amply punctuates the hours of patience, I’m left to scarf rather than linger. It slides down my gullet unopposed, the repugnant memories slipping away, replaced by a titillating zing mixed with mild awe. The sour notes of labor that so recently stretched toward eternity in the corridors of my mind compress like an accordion squeezing harmonious value from every spent hour.

In the moment, the work seems worth it. With each bite, the grape harvest tastes ever sweeter.

My friend Gina, with whom I traveled in India, runs a slick music blog. This month is Guest Month, and for the next five days, I’ll be filling in, starting with two Boston bands I’ve been listening to for ages. Gina’s got a great ear and tries to stay up on some of the best new stuff. She’s introduced me to many bands and has been one of my go-to music sources since leaving Radio 1190, quitting my music sales job, and having to rely on word of mouth from friends to find new stuff.

If you’re like me and rarely have time to go find new music, picking out a few good music blogs is key to finding joy in dissonance and resonance. Definitely go back and check out Boulder-local Paper Bird and Colorado-native Elephant Revival (posted last week by guest blogger Josh), Ladyhawke and Ladytron (posted by guest blogger and traveling companion Emilie), Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr (posted by guest blogger Dan Kuester), and many of the other sweet songs she’s linked.