In honor of Halloween, I’m going to dredge up one of my favorite stories from my past. It’s a story I’ve told many times, and have written many times. But I love it, so if you’re heard it before, that’s just too damn bad.

The summer before I turned 16, my parents bought an old Queen Anne farmhouse, surrounded by cornfields, on the edge of my little hometown. It was a beautiful old house, but with its secrets and ghosts. My grandmother grew up a few blocks away. The first time she ever saw a firetruck, it was putting out a fire at the house my parents eventually purchased. She was five; it was 1920. Crawling through the attic, we could still see the charred footprint of that fire.

Behind the house stood a delapidated chicken house with rotting wooden pallets for flooring. While tearing out the pallets, my father found a buried white dress, tattered and worn from years of being under a thin layer of dirt.

“That probably belonged to the farmer’s daughter,” my mom pondered. “Definitely. It belonged to his beloved only daughter, and was to be worn on her wedding day. Oh it was going to be beautiful. But then, his daughter sullied herself with the hoodlum boy up the road. And she would never be able to wear her beautiful white dress. So distraught were her parents that they buried her alive in the chicken coop in the dress.” She shot me a stern look, “Remember that story when you start dating. Got it?”
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Suck.

On.

It.

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Ugh.

I fucking hate feeling like this.

I feel like I give a lot to others. And I’d like to think I don’t expect anything in return.

But really, I do. And that makes me feel sick.

I’m just so tired of feeling like I’m constantly putting myself out there, constantly denying myself because other people need me, only to feel unappreciated and like shit if I even slightly screw up, say the wrong thing, or God forbid, demand something for myself.

I’m sick to death of trying to express my love to people who are incapable of doing the same. Because it’s hard. It might make them feel vulnerable.

Damn right it’s hard. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t feel this way. And hell yes it makes one feel vulnerable. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t feel this way.

For Halloween this year? I’m going as a martyr. Seems to suit the mood.

I’m reminded that, fundamentally, I’m just not very good at interacting with the other humans.

Workers placed the keystone in the top of the Gateway Arch on October 28, 1965.

Happy Archiversary, St. Louis. Now, shuffle.
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I’ve never been a romantic. Really, all that mushy crap makes my skin crawl. I think it was a cruel trick of the universe that I gave birth to my daughter the day after Valentine’s Day. Not sure why the universe wants her to suffer for my distaste of all things cutesy-utesy, but whoever said life’s fair, right?

Lately, though, I’m mush. I’m jello. Moreso than I was when I was in the first throes of my relationship with B. (or any other relationship, for that matter). Why?

Because one of my friends is teetering on the verge of that big romantic abyss.
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Candy corn-colored felt will turn the plate of a too-hot iron into candy corn-colors.

In addition, melted candy corn-colored felt? Almost as sticky as real melted candy corn.

I have a plan. Clara “Tricks” Jane didn’t dress up for Halloween last year, because 1) she was only eight months old and couldn’t be bothered to tell us what she wanted to be, and 2) I was too busy having panic attacks to decide for her.

Things are much better this year. I’ve got it all planned out and we’re going to have the best Halloween ever. Wanna see the plan? Of course you do.

Sept. 13th: Successfully sew a bunch of 4″ quilt squares into a shape roughly resembling a twin-sized quilt. Get all full of myself, convinced I know how to sew and buy this pattern:

Besides, I’ve got six weeks until Halloween, ample time to learn the intricacies of seamstressing.
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This is the last post regarding my birthday, I promise. I tried to find a way to work “post-coital” into “post-birthday”, but it just didn’t work. Besides, I think I’ve used the phrase “post-coital” three times already today, and if you’re not a sex therapist there’s probably a limit on how many times one can use that phrase in a day without getting beaten. At least, there should be.

Before the party, as before most gatherings, I threw together a little iTunes playlist for the night, consisting of over nine hours of music. I thought that was a bit excessive when I tossed it together, but by the time the slumber party portion of the evening began, we’d made a full musical loop. Now, I can’t stop listening to it. Not like there’s anything new on it; it’s all stuff that was already in my library. I’m just really digging it. Likewise, I’m digging the little mix I gave out for party favors.*

And in final party news, apparently I have really good-looking friends. For the past two days I’ve been inundated with emails peppered with, “Oh, she’s so cute!” “Oh my God, he’s hot!” Who knew? We’re like Studio 5-fricking-4 over here. Apparently I even had some rockin’ hair going on by the end of the night. You know, once it was molded into place because I kept spilling apple martini on my hand, then running it through my hair.

I have never felt more like Paris Hilton in my entire life.
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33 1/3 record albums.

The “33″ on the bottles of my beloved Rolling Rock.

Likewise 1933 was the year Prohibition ended.

33 degrees – one degree above freezing. Cold enough to make me happy. Warm enough to prevent me from busting my ass on the sidewalk.

33 miles from my current house to this one, which I would love to call home by the time I turn 34.
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