Category: Ghosts

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! As we close out the month and Horrordailies, I thought I’d revisit a few of my more memorable costumes from over the years:

Cinderella, ages 6/7. Remember those plastic masks and highly flammable polyester costumes? Yep, one of those. Mine was a lot like this one, only my crown was gold.

Raggedy Ann, age 8. Same kind of deal.

A ghost, age 9. The ol’ sheet with holes cut out for the eyes. Worst hat-head EVER. Looking back on it, I should have cut a million holes into it like Charlie Brown.

“I got a rock.”

Nowadays, Halloween is very different. Parental competition has entered the picture the way it has with everything from Little League to science fairs, so you don’t see too many kids in prefab costumes or even masks unless it’s a superhero costume that Mom sewed herself. I suppose that’s a good thing: At least you know no kid is going to go up in flames if they lean back against an old-school radiator or another kid goes near them with a sparkler.

Halloween is very different for adults these days, too. Heaven forbid a woman isn’t a “sexy” version of something–sexy nurse, sexy cop, sexy witch, sexy nun, sexy yacht captain, sexy bull’s backside.

I was a little more creative back in the day. For instance, in 1985, I went as Madonna in her Desperately Seeking Susan era: Black crop-top lace tank, black bomber jacket, black floppy bow in my hair, black leggings, a bazillion of those black rubber bracelets, and the words “Boy Toy” written across my stomach in black eyeliner.

Oops, that was kind of sexy.

Another year I went as the Clinton Health Plan: Black top and jeans, a cardboard tombstone on my chest that said “H.R. 3600, Health Security Act” (the name of the bill), one of the famous Hillary headbands, and red duct tape everywhere. I’ve since seen the light, but it was a fun costume. Some people needed an explanation, but this being Washington, D.C., many didn’t. All the people who worked on the Hill knew what I was right away. Definitely nothing sexy about that.

These days, I don’t dress up. It’s too much trouble so I just walk around with my fangs out. Maybe next year I’ll fly around as a bat.

And now, the final candy, the one you’ve all been waiting for and may or may not despise with the searing heat of 1,000 suns: Candy corn!

Come on, did you really expect anything different? Love ’em or hate ’em, they’re Halloween in candy form.

And thus concludes this year’s Horrordailies. See you in December, for Holidailies. Be good, kids!

No Home Runs Here

Ended up watching The First Omen last night. Or, I should say “watching,” because my laundry was more interesting and a far less ridiculous. The soundtrack clobbered everything. Too much old-school warbling, like a 90-year-old woman doing her best impression of a theremin, “oooooOOOOOoooooo.”

It was clownish, although not as clownish as all the heavy breathing, as though Nell Tiger Free spent half the movie running uphill with a vibrator in her underwear.

The whole thing was too much cliche, not enough suspense and build-up. I don’t know why so many people on Reddit thought it was great. Does Reddit skew young these days? I do feel that Gen Z and Alphas are more easily frightened than I was at that age, so if Reddit has passed to the younger generations, it would make sense if they found The First Omen scary.

Tonight’s flick, Late Night with the Devil was much better, although that wouldn’t have been too difficult. Great concept: A talk show host brings on a psychic, a possessed 13-year-old girl and her parapsychologist, and a skeptic. Demonic mayhem ensues. There were some good moments, but the ending jumped around a bit too much for me and the whole thing left too many questions unanswered.

However, they did mention Reggie Jackson and the Reggie candy bar, so here’s tonight’s candy, named after the famous baseball player after he hit three home runs in three swings and had five home runs in the 1977 World Series. These were pretty good, like a softer version of a basic turtle candy.

It’s not even 10:00 p.m. yet. Maybe I can still find something that will creep me out. I’m off tomorrow for Indigenous People’s Day, formerly known as Columbus Day. I keep telling everyone that if we still want to celebrate Italian heritage and Italian-Americans, October 21st would be a good day. Nothing to do with me wantind a parade on my birthday. Nope. No siree.

Pareidolia

So I tried those laundry detergent sheets yesterday, the ones that dissolve in the wash so that you don’t have to buy large plastic containers of detergent that is mostly water. They’re great, but there is one small problem: When they’re done doing their clothes-cleaning duty, they need to let go of the washer tub and go to the light.

Pareidolia is a brain phenomenon by which you see faces or patterns in things that are not really faces or patterns. Still, this gave me a start, boy howdy. Gives new meaning to the term “ghosts in the machine.”