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Faire’s Fair

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It’s a good thing when you can say, “Not that Renaissance Faire—the other Renaissance Faire I went to this year.” This happens to me in 2026, and it will likely never happen again. I’m half-a-century old, and I deserve to do things that are going to put stress on my bad ankle, aching knees and uneasy digestive system. I’m not sure the last one will be helped with a massive turkey leg, but it doesn’t matter because they look too much like bludgeons to eat.

For this quest, I come equipped with shoes that can handle mud, a sketchbook, a pencil, two erasers, and Owlman.

The pictures don’t turn out like I hope. Either the background is too blurry …

… or Owlman is blurry.

We did make a touristy stop, though.

Once we get inside, I am constantly on the move, and I can’t stop long enough to draw. This isn’t a complaint. If my eyes are on the page, I’d miss the spectacle.

Stephen and his wife, Meredith, are the ones who bring me here. We’ve been friends for decades, and I’ve seen countless Renaissance Faires with them. They always dress for the occasion, in a tacky blend of medieval finery with anachronistic accents. Prior to 2018, my ex-wife was also there, but she lacked the whimsy it took to appreciate Steve’s cloak, which I look forward to every year. Mere has thrown on her own cloak, and I can’t remember if I’ve seen it before. Maybe next year, I’ll get a cloak.

With them is their delightfully weird friend Chris, fully committed to a peasant dress. The skirt has pockets, and she wears a fanny pack, on her fanny, and covers it with a scarf, pretending it’s a bustle.

I adore Chris. She is such a fascinating person, with her career sliding along the unlikely spectrum of amateur geologist to physician’s assistant. Her stories involve blood, guts, amorous patients, and rocks. She likes Doctor Who and even nerdier stuff. I’ve always gotten the impression she never thinks much about me (not in a bad way, just that I’m unremarkable). As we walk through the vast planes of cars, she sticks to my side, and we don’t run out of things to talk about. I may have a little crush.

Our first stop is the tunic store. From the outside, it appears small. Mere and Chris are trapped inside for an eternity. Steve hangs out with me, and we discuss historical writing. Specifically, he wants to make a “99 Problems” joke in one of his stories, but it takes place in 1991, and that song doesn’t come out until 1992. (This is not, technically, accurate.)

We also discuss HEMA (Historical European Martial Artists), which Steve practices. I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, but I dig his enthusiasm when he nerds out. We agree that a double-bladed sword is pretty stupid and will get you killed if you aren’t Ray Park.

The reason Chris and Mere take such a long time is because they are trying clothes on. Chris wears her peasant dress in a paper bag and a tunic over the rest of her because it breaths better than her previous outfit. Even better, it also has pockets. Unfortunately, she can no longer camouflage her fanny pack.

The chaos calls to me, and I peel away. I must see everything, and I know that Steve, Mere, and, Chris, are slow shoppers who never buy anything. My patience will fade long before we make it to the third vendor.

I skip the pottery places because the last thing I need is another mug, the artists because the last thing I need is something else to put on the wall, and the armorers because the last thing I need is a sword, wooden or will-probably-kill-someone-steel, mostly because there’s no space to swing anything in my apartment.

That’s not to say I don’t shop. I spend my coin on the Ring That Won’t Come Off, the Box of Holding My Pens, the Pin That Is Really Neat, and the Books with the Autographs.

This is when everything breaks down. I must return to the rendezvous point, near the front gate. This will be plenty of time. I’ll likely have to wait and people-watch for about fifteen minutes. But first, I pick up an Italian ice from the only vendor who speaks like she’s in a Renaissance Faire speak. In Colorado, everyone spoke fluent Huzzah.

When we had arrived at the Faire, I didn’t think to grab a map. This was a huge mistake. I actually believe I can navigate via landmark, but no signs are familiar to me.  Given my porous memory, this is no surprise to anyone but me. When I do recognize vendors, it’s because I just passed them a few minute ago. The meeting time arrives, and I’m trapped in this tesseract. If I panic right now, no one will blame me. However, I simply give up and take the next available bench, parking my swag and messenger bag.

I want to draw or at least take pictures, but if I do, I’ll miss the parade of swords, blousy shirts, leather armor, the pointy ears, the leather armor, the metal armor, the cardboard armor, the time travelers, the Pumpkin Lady, the Mothwoman, Doctor Doom, the Guy with Pirate Tights and Boots and a Hawaiian Shirt, a Knight Who Says Ni, the Waldo No One Can Find, lots of Drunk Dudes, and the Guy Wearing Twenty Pounds and a Crucified Kermit the Frog on his Back.

Almost immediately after I text to tell them I’m lost, Steve, Mere, and Chris find me, one left turn away from the rendezvous point. They are in good spirits.  The party has grown by four—a small family and Benny, a class act whose company I’ve always enjoyed.

When the wanderlust claims me again, we’ve learned our lesson from last time. Mere gives me her map, and Steve finds exactly what I’m looking for. When I arrive at my destination, my expectations are low. I’ve attempted to procure the services of a specific kind of vendor, but the earliest they could fit me in is 5:30, and I predict I won’t be conscious at that point.

This time, however, I’m ushered inside, along with a slice of cake earmarked for my tarot card reader. Her name is Casey. She asks me how my day has been going, and I respond that you can’t be sad at a Renaissance Faire. She notes that there are many children who have had happier days. I point out this is a symptom of too much fun.  She tells me she has a pacemaker that recalibrates itself every five minutes, meaning she loses the ability to talk for a few seconds. This does nothing to affect the reading.

I used to be married to a tarot-card reader, and I try to visit one every time I have a chance. Everyone has their own style for laying out the cards. In my experience, the more traditional the spread, the weaker the reading will be, not counting Zack from the Bazar, who has a unique layout but is bad at this. Zack is a treasure.

Casey is the most chaotic reader I’ve ever had. She tells me her talents come from channeling, and she asks me if I believe. I lie. Casey shuffles the deck violently until certain cards fall out, which she lays out in front of me. Eventually, the table is covered, and she interprets.

Casey is a good reader. She knows exactly who I am by just a few minutes of small talk. She can see depression, addiction, tedium, exploration, and a new relationship in my future. This is only the beginning. The cards are very thorough.

Satisfied, I go searching for the group and find instead a fish filet on a croissant. I note they put everything on croissants here, including ice cream, just like they did in the fourteenth century. I smother the fish in tartar sauce and enjoy the show. It’s after lunch, and inebriation has spread through the crowd. No one is sad at the Renaissance Faire, though some are very, very drunk. I could have stayed there without my friends, watching until the sun went down.

My friends, now numbering nine, text to tell me they’re looking for me at the psychic’s. I savor my fish-on-a-croissant and find my way back. We’re tired now and all shopped out, so we just hang out in the middle of the path and trade conversation partners.

That’s when the most incredible thing happens. Steve, Mere, and me are blessed with a story and a lesson from someone who may have been fae.

We don’t last much longer. Everyone goes their own ways. The couple, one of whom is named Jessie, leave together, the family of three leaves together, Chris leaves with Benny, and I go with Steve and Mere. I feel like a child who is having so much fun, but I hold it together. Goofy smiles on our faces, we take the long journey home.

A Fistful of Trouble

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I have gone to yet another Renaissance Faire this year, and I plan on blogging about the whole thing. There is one experience, however, that was so otherworldly, I have a hard time believing it’s real, even though there were witnesses.

The Faire is a haze of laughing with friends, meeting exciting new people, spending money on trinkets to go into my owl cabinet, and eating authentic fourteenth-century food like fudge. Over the morning and afternoon, I repeatedly wander off by myself. Frankly, nobody should have let me wander off after the first time, when they had to send a search party.

The second time they track me down, we are all exhausted, and we’ve seen all the pewter, leather, and pottery we can handle. Instead of further exploring, we stand in the middle of the path and split off into circles of three and gab. I’m talking to Stephen and Meredith, a married couple I’ve known for over twenty years, my ride to the distant lands of Maryland.

I’ve been hypervigilant to my surroundings. Most people are dressed up, at least a little half-assed, but I reach a point where all I see are corsets and steins. That’s how I don’t spot the umbrella until Steve points it out. Ringed around it are streamers that come down to the ground, and it bears a sign that says, “I Will Tell You a Story.” We can vaguely make out the shape of someone inside wearing a skirt.

Steve watches the umbrella drift past. The thing you have to know about Steve is that he’s a nerd. Goofy and unapologetically awkward, he’s also charming and extremely curious. He gets caught up in the gravity wells of mystery, and this draws him in like a black hole. He informs us he’s going to check it out, and he invites his equally nerdy wife. They both insist I join them. The umbrella isn’t especially large, so fitting us takes some doing. In the end, anyone who looks will see the streamers and my massive ass.

Inside is a peasant woman, with a sand-brown dress, dark-chocolate-colored corset, and white apron, blouse, and bonnet. Her skin is pale like a fairy’s and her eyes are bright and wise.

Once we’re settled, she tells us the tale of the wise man, the only man in the world who was troubled by nothing. Three lords, the weight of the world on their shoulders, sought the man out and found him on the top of a distant mountain. They said, “Master, how is it you live without troubles?” He gave them each a stone.

The mysterious woman holds out a pouch and asks us to take one and put it in our palm. They are marbled pieces of amethyst, the size of a dime, smoothed and heart shaped.

Pictured: Symbolism

She instructs us to curl our fingers around them and turn our fists upside down. “Now open your hand,” she says.

I can’t. I literally cannot. Neither can Steve or Meredith. She has to coax us. I defy both my body and my mind to open up and let it go. I nearly gasp. I’d feel the same way if she had asked me to throw all my sketchbooks into a bonfire. It hits the ground, and I’m thinking, “What have I done?”

The ethereal woman asks, “Was that hard?”

We all agree it was very hard. Judging by the fact that my stone hits the ground last, it’s hardest for me.

At her command, we pick them off the still-drying mud and straw, squeezing them even tighter. “Let these become the place where you put your troubles.” She floats away, leaving us unmoved, in shock.

After a moment, I say, “That was fucking amazing.”

“Yeah, that was awesome,” Steve says, excited.

I don’t let on how hard it was to drop my stone.

The woman never asks us for money or even a tip. She’s someone who goes to the Renaissance Faire with an umbrella, encouraging people to fight their instincts and let their troubles fall and be soaked up by the earth. Who the hell is she?

By the time we call it quits and go home, I’ve completely forgotten her.  It’s not until I’m talking to my closest living friend, who has the same kindness and patience as the woman with the umbrella, that it comes to mind. And now I can’t think about anything else.

A Tale of Two Kitties

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This weekend, I had the pleasure of cat-sitting for Henry. During the five years Nicole and I lived together, we shared cats. Ever since I rescued him from the mean streets of Doha, Henry has been such a willful and energetic creature, wound tighter a White House press conference. Nicole fell in love with him instantly, and they’ve had a codependent relationship ever since.

True love or not, Nicole had things to do, and she often needed him mellow, you know, like a normal cat. She leash-trained him and took him for spins around the neighborhood. Eager to give her time to study, I often plugged into a podcast and let him guide me on long walks. He was always excited and curious, as a cat should be, and witnessing it never got old.

If you’ve been following me, you know that my attempts to duplicate this Zen with Oscar have resulted in terrifying disasters, including throwing myself into four lanes of traffic or diving into bamboo topiary. The opportunity to go walking with Henry, two old buds just chillin’, was too cool to pass up. Saturday morning, I hooked him up to his new harness, the one he couldn’t slip out of, and away we went.

Taking a cat on a walk is an exercise in patience. If you’re used to dogs, you know that they like to stop and sniff. Cats like to sniff, eat some grass, sniff some more, trot over to the next patch, lie down, and dart away. You have to be ready for every eventuality, so there is no relaxing or zoning out. This time, he did this in front of an elementary school, where a children’s birthday party was going on, and Henry wasn’t visible from their angle.

I’m going on a list.

Suddenly, he moved with purpose across the street. I saw what caught his eye. It was another cat. I let him lead me to it because he was curious, and the yodeling sounds he made were pretty funny. It’s not like they were going to get into a fight. They were a safe distance away from each other, and I had the leash wrapped firmly around my arm.

The other cat was not on a leash.

I dove into the melee and yanked Henry away, holding him either until he calmed down or he tore my arms to shreds. He opted for the latter.

Naturally, I dropped the little fuzzsaw, and he immediately slipped out of his harness. If he got away in this neighborhood, I was either never going to find him again, or he was losing an eye to the other cat. I sprinted across the street and literally tackled him, screaming, at the top of my lungs, “Fuck!”

Right in front of the party.

The kids weren’t interested. Green Lantern and Daredevil say the F-word these days, so they’d heard it all before. The parents, on the other hand, stopped sipping their wine in plastic cups and glared at me. I’m definitely on a list.

I was going to hang onto Henry, whatever happened. The look on his face was crazed, unlike anything I’d seen before. I knew he would go back to normal (i.e. begging me for treats) if I could get him home, but I couldn’t carry him.  Incredibly, I got him back into the harness, which he should stay in. It shouldn’t be a problem anymore because the other cat was—

On the opposite side of the sidewalk, pointing his fingers at us, then at his own eyes, and back at us.

I needed to get Henry back to Nicole’s place before I bled out, but I couldn’t drag him. What I did was pick him up by his armpits and sprint half a block until my out-of-shape lungs stopped working. The other cat was still there, yelling parting threats.

I made it another half-block, and another. Back on Nicole’s street, I put him down on the sidewalk, and he loped home. Still skittish, he calmed down when I gave him one of those puree packets, until he plopped down and went to sleep. Just another day for Henry. The memories of that ordeal chill me to this very day.

Sunny Days I Thought Would Never End

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I’m sitting here in the Brookland Arts Walk and Farmer’s Market in the summer heat. Crying and trying not to fall into disgusting sobs.

I had a rough night, and I overate some pizza, which was supposed to make me feel better, but made me sick because I’m fifty.

As my ex-wife always said, sleep is the great reset button. The next morning, I finished the movie I couldn’t finish last night, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and petting Oscar.

It was a rough start, but I rode the Metro a stop to Brookland. I spent the early morning in a coffee shop, eating second breakfast and sipping a London Fog, watching to-go coffees passed out to neighbors in various stages of wakefulness.

I’m in the business of people-watching. And doodling them. I came to the Arts Walk to show my cool picture to Mina, the cool printmaker, and pick up a couple of things to tide me over for the weekend.

I found a bench to settle down with my pupusa (a doughy pancake stuffed, in my case, with spinach, cheese, and chicken) and pineapple smoothie while a blues performer played.

A couple of people had caught my attention, so I finished third breakfast and broke out my sketchbook. That’s when the musician broke out James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.” It was the third time he sang, “And I always thought I’d see you again,” that it hit me violently.

Here I go, twenty minutes later, and here come the sobs. I tipped the singer twenty bucks on Venmo for, “Making me cry.”

I have so much to tell you, Shane. I have so much to show you. But you’re not here anymore.

Lady in Lavender 

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I haven’t danced around other people since I was mocked for doing so. Prior to that, I didn’t really think much about it, especially when it came to the dances of the high-school variety. Rather than even try to find a date, I spent all my time crying that I couldn’t find a date. There were a few exceptions.  

There was only one person I wanted to take to senior Prom. She wasn’t one of my crushes (who I was “in love” with), but rather a friend I had gotten very close to. I don’t know why I never fell for her. She was beautiful, she had a sexy voice and accent, and she was fascinated by me. We had a spot where we retreated twice a week and were completely open with each other. I would have shown her the time of her life, but she was taken.  

Instead of finding someone just good enough, I spent Prom night with Shane, at a pizza parlor, playing Samurai Showdown 2 for hours. I have sincerely never regretted this. 

I have been to zero proms and one Spring Fling that took place in an alternate universe where everything was made of fun. We occupied our own corner of the floor and danced with a tenacity that’s difficult to describe. We found out that the DJ wouldn’t play “Tequila,” because it promoted alcohol, but had no problem with spinning “Insane in the Membrane.” 

I have been to three Homecomings. One went so horribly wrong, I was grounded for two weeks, and my dad hit me. (To be clear, my dad never hit me. He raged, but he never laid a hand on me, except that once, and I deserved it.) 

The other was years after I graduated. This was almost as much fun as Spring Fling. My date and I were friends who barely knew each other. We just clicked. We weren’t romantic, just flirty. I was popular because I was the only male on the dance floor. While the boys mocked me, their girlfriends surrounded me. There were some slow dances, both with my date and her friends.  

It’s the third one that really sticks with me. As usual, I was too timid to ask anyone to the dance, so I wasn’t planning to go. Boone (as Severa was known back then), was in love with this one girl. She really wanted to go with him, but her cousin was in town. He volunteered me.  

I was expecting her to lack at least one of the following: Looks, brains, or sense of humor. Yes, I was shallow, but if a beautiful woman bored me, I’d wander off without looking back. We drove out of town to pick them up, and his date answered the door. She was attractive—she wasn’t stunning, but I could easily get used to that smile. She invited us in, and Boone was ambushed with flashes. The thing about Boone was that he hated to be photographed, even if it was her date’s family, and he was trying to make a good impression.  

Patiently, I waited for her good-enough cousin to show up. What I wasn’t expecting was an ethereal being. Her dress was Lavender, and her sandy-blonde hair was swept up, leaving a few strands to dangle precisely. Her eyes were a striking glacier blue, her nose was delicate, her skin glowed, and she was smiling at me, like she hit the jackpot. She held an elbow out, and I didn’t get it, so she took mine and led me on a night of pure magic.  

Who was this woman? Because she was a woman. She was eighteen, and we were only sixteen. Unlike most girls, she paid more attention to me than Boone, though she was a pro at playing the whole pack. We danced like the floor was electrified, except when it was slow, when I held onto her waist and couldn’t believe what was happening to me. 

There are two moments that endure the fog of thirty-five years. The first was a slow dance to “Lady in Red” by Chris DeBurgh, which was the kind of moment I’d hoped for since I started noticing girls.  

The second was pure art. The four of us were taking a much-needed break. When my date turned out to be a Dave Barry fan, I promised her I’d find the postcard I’d received from him, which I never left home without. (It read, “Dear Jeremiah, You are clearly a deranged person. This is a good thing. Dave.”)  

While we were chatting, she swept up a handful of glitter into her white-gloved hand and blew it on her cousin. It was a perfect moment. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life, and it has since only been topped once. 

When the dance was over, we laughed some more at Kristy’s until my curfew assaulted us. I couldn’t get her out of my head or her address out of him, Whenever I asked, he got really cagey about it. It turned out he was actually in love with my date the whole time, so he was cock-blocking me.  

This guy, who loved Nirvana, Ministry, and Megadeth, bought Chris DeBurgh’s album and listened to that one song over and over again, picturing the glitter and her cranberry lips catching the light bouncing off the disco ball. In the wisdom that comes with age, I have come to realize this was the best thing that could have happened. I never got the chance to ruin everything. 

As a result, I lived like Cinderella for a night. Instead of being an awkward, rude, self-absorbed little twerp, I was charming, good-looking, and a great dancer. I danced with the princess at the ball, but the clock struck midnight. Our carriage turned into a beaten-up pickup. I was just a nerd in his speech-and-debate suit, and my princess walked away forever. No shoe made of a weird material was going to bring her back.  

I can’t remember her name. 

Owlman v. the Burbs

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You might know from reading my posts that I’ve been on vacation over Thanksgiving, and I got the suburbs of New York from the suburban side. Joining me on my trip was Owlman.

We mostly chilled out.

Pictured: Chilling out:

There were foes to be taken down.

Oh, my gourd!

Look at this mess!

“Let’s get out of here, chum.”

He’s even putting together a band.

A one-man band.

Our host is an accomplished photographer, and he won awards for his Lego Star Wars portraits.

Owlman got to know the studio mannequin:

How many times to I have to tell you, Owlman, you can’t touch the equipment!

But all good things must come to an end, and I left for home today, refreshed and relaxed.

The Revenge of the Tryptophan

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Thanksgiving, while my hosts were occupied, their five-year-old daughter found me, first thing when she got out of bed.

It had to do with the watercolors I had given her and her eight-year-old brother the day before, to the soundtrack of Spaceballs. He wasn’t as moved, but she taught herself how to use them because she was smart enough. Remember, she’s five. She doesn’t understand most of the words that come out of my mouth, and she has the grace, precision, and attention-span of a concussed monkey on mushrooms. She wasn’t afraid to ask for help, though.

Meanwhile, I was painting a self-portrait for my new sketchbook. She found this fascinating, not as fascinating as what she was working on, but fascinating indeed. She handed me the sheet of watercolor paper and told me to draw a picture to paint. I told her I would, first thing in the morning, and Her Majesty deemed this acceptable.

When I asked, she told me she wanted a portrait of herself and her Chihuahua, Wendy, who looks like she just drank two Red Bulls and swallowed 100 milligrams of Adderall. Before everybody else awoke, I sketched away while Owlman gave me some pointers.

She was delighted by my work, and I took a photo of it before it was defaced.

She was so excited, she scrambled all over her house to show Mommy and Daddy. Daddy was working, and Mommy was not feeling great, but they both appreciated my staggering genius.

As I prepared myself to talk her through the process, she disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a deck of Uno, a game she loved. She instructed me on the intricacies of the game, but I’m don’t think some the rules were regulation. When I won best out of three, she didn’t like Uno anymore. Next, she showed me a game called Sleeping Queens, and I’m pretty sure she cheated.

Next, she wanted to paint my picture. I critiqued and encouraged her, but she was horrified by the smear of blue paint she put there. I suggested it might be a magical portal. She added in her reaction, and maybe there should be a tree in the background, and told me she was going to write this down, followed shortly by, “Jeremiah, I can’t write. I’m five.”

I asked her what her what her favorite color was. “My favorite color is gold with sparkles. My favorite color is pink. My favorite color is purple and orange, and blue. But it has to be a dark blue.” Luckily, I have a pink pen (and I’m confident in my masculinity).

I watched as she used her delicate brushstrokes to enhance my inspired lines. (Delicate brushwork below).

She had planned on composing an intricate background, but after finishing the tree, she took me outside to play on her tree swing in her pajamas, and then hide-and-seek.

This one was challenging for me because here aren’t a lot of places for a man my size to hide. I told her this and pointed out that it took her six seconds to count to ten. Graciously, would count to thirty from then on, and she also gave me tips for places to hide, such as Rock Taco in the distance.

Rock Taco is what you might expect if you’re thinking about a rock taco. Getting on all fours, she soiled her pajamas. To hide, I would have to lay down on the mud and the decayed leaves. She took me on a sweep of the perimeter of her two-acre backyard, twice, her armed with a tree-branch sword to keep the thorns at bay.

She had explained that we would take another circuit, which I sighed and accepted. Instead, she asked me to help her gather acorns for the squirrels, then she wanted to show me her favorite climbing tree. My knees and back ached watching her perform her best tricks. “This is the easy one. It’s really hard.” Finally, we came back inside, and I went to talk to my family for the holiday, only my mic wasn’t working. When that was over, I laid down on the bed and woke up an hour later. Downstairs, she waited for me because she made me a bracelet.

Actually, she made it before I came. I love wearing bracelets, so I am honored to be wearing one of her fine pieces. We beaded for a while, but the string we were working with was too thick for most of them. Usually, that kind of frustration would make me flip the coffee table—her too—but we held it together. I think neither of us wanted to embarrass ourselves in front of the other.

After that, guests started filtering in. The group were all related to the hostess, and the whole time, I had no idea who was related to whom. This morning, I had it explained to me. The hostess’s brother was here, as was his wife and twenty-year-old attitude problem. Also there was their mother, and her sister-in-law’s mother, who was spry, charming, and witty. I thought she was my dad’s age, but she’s ninety-three!

To help out, I took the overwhelmed little girl upstairs, where she could enjoy some well-deserved screen time. The rest of the evening was spent discussing non-alcoholic beer, which I enjoyed for the first time (note: I did not say “consumed for the first time”), New Mexico, the intrusion of algorithms into our lives, Teslas and Cybertrucks, and politics. The latter was delightful because all of us agreed, as in everyone at the table had the same views.

As the weight of the off-Broadway-style food took hold, and the other guests left, desperate to get home before they lapsed into comas left.

The girl was too tired to sleep, but a soft pillow fixed that. Mommy and Daddy, who both had a tough day, settled in for the night. As for me, I barely got into my pajamas.

Jer-Z Nights

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I got this wild hair and started fantasizing about turning my New York-adjacent adventures into an animated series, populated by some of the people who made it so memorable.

[Names withheld to protect the innocent. It helps that my likenesses are rubbish.]

Character sheets: Drunken Philosophers edition.

Character sheets: Loved and Lost edition.

Character sheets: Found Families edition

Character sheets: Brothers

Weirdos in Disguise

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Christmas, you get presents. Thanksgiving, you get to indulge yourself. Halloween is that day when you get to be someone else, and that made it my favorite. I’ve been Optimus Prime, John “Hannibal” Smith from the A-Team, and a Ghostbuster named Murphy.

The coolest Halloween experience I ever had was generic Jedi for my seventh Halloween. (“Bow, or whatever, to the adequate might of Jedi Master Temu!”) On the other side of the barrier that separated the older kids was a generic Sith, carrying a red lightsaber to match my yellow one. He came over, and we talked over the fence for a long time. about Star Wars, we talked about what the fifth grade was like, and he wanted to get a better look at my lightsaber. After recess, I never saw him again, but I looked everywhere.

Years later, I wore the world’s worst Halloween costume and drank vodka in lieu of eating something and went to a rock concert and drank a lot of beer and had another jack and coke and said something to That Moby so bad it got me thrown out of the bar and soaked my friend’s couch with vomit.

Once upon a time, when I was much thinner, I’d shave my mustache, throw on a green T-shirt and go as Norville Rogers, with the nom de guerre of Shaggy. I pulled off an amazing Crow, thanks to the incredible makeup skills of my friend M.

Last year, I enjoyed the holiday with M in Colorado, walking the neighborhood and scoping out the decorations.

I’ve been doing it solo so far this year.

For pagans like Kate, Halloween, or Samhain (pronounced SOW-win; don’t say it like it’s spelled or a witch will laugh at you), is the most sacred day of the year. It’s Christmas and Easter rolled up into one, with all the celebration and feasts and prayers. It’s when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and you can commune with those that have gone before. It is here I lost the true meaning of Halloween (candy and costumes).

I had a very, very nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more, say no more Halloween night in the East Village while the parade went by. On my own, I liked to stop in the neighborhood for a drink and watch Bleeker Street lit up with people having a good time.

Two years ago, I was recruited for the Pumpkin Task Force at work. We wanted to kill at the First Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest, so I said, sure, I’ll help. There were five of us. I bring this up because 20 percent of the group did all the work. I designed the pumpkin:

It was based on the mascot for the American Society of Hematology, Red.

I went to the art store that knows me by name and bought acrylic pens (on the company card). And I said, “You guys do the rest.” My boss offered to carve the pumpkin if someone would draw the face based on my design, but no one did. To say I was disappointed would understate it.

Imagine my surprise when someone asked if I was helping with his year’s contest, closing in two hours. I said no, not after last time. Later, I came across the pumpkin, and someone had written “CARVED” in large letters on it. I hauled it over to the break room and attempted to hose the Sharpie off. I had brought my art markers with me, so I applied them to the pumpkin, using my old design.

It was then that Sera, a work acquaintance, swept in with tubes of acrylic paint, and I was able to work in style. She used to paint, with oils, but she moved into a smaller apartment and can’t fit her easel. While I applied cadmium red to the face, she made hands out of paper plates.

We took it to contest, where it was clear we were not going to win.

Sera and I agreed that we would be more prepared next year.

The party was loud, as parties tended to be. There was an open bar, and I had a doctor’s appointment, so I didn’t stick around.

I was there long enough to puzzle over the group of people who all knew each other, dressed in yellow shirts and overalls. but this Every one of them was wearing glasses, but that’s not that weird. It was weird that they had all had nametags. At first, I thought they were the caterers, but they were all wearing different types of yellow tops.

The only nametag I paid attention to was the cute blonde, named “Lou.” I thought Lou was the best name for a pixie woman, but I also had to remember was that this was a costume. She probably didn’t even need glasses.

Someone dressed like Wednesday, someone dressed like Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation. There was an axolotl. There was a woman riding “a goose,” “no, an ostrich,” “maybe a swan,” “that is an ostrich,” “that is definitely a goose,” “hey, what’s that you’re riding? I told you it was an ostrich.”

I went to the work party to see me win fifth place, and they announced that the pumpkins were going to be judged in twenty-four by a panel of the building superintendent’s Instagram contacts. So I left.

Then it hit me. They were Minions. They were fucking Minions.

Underworld Figures

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I’ve been writing a bonkers novel called Subterraneaus Obscura about the mysterious world underneath Washington, D.C. (which has nothing to do with politics). It’s about three adventurers wearing suits who journey their way through ratweillers, the Mongolian death worm, organic server farms, Gnome Town, etc. They are:

Ember—thrill-seeker. They discovered the underground and keeps recruiting people to explore it with them. They’re optimistic and friendly, and they can’t hold their berry beet smoothies.

Juliette—career criminal. After committing the crime of the century, she is swept up in Ember’s wake when she is almost hit by a Metro train. She’s pretty relaxed, considering.

Mazel—charmed ad absurdum. Cursed with supernaturally good luck, Mazel is on the run from her father, the wealthiest man in the world. Her good fortune gets glitchy underground, so she follows Ember to see if it will run out.