No candy this year...



I'm going to watch the parade go by. I haven't done so since 1997, so I think it's time. After that, I'm hightailing it over to the nearest theater and watching "Alien" on the big screen. Dan O'Bannon's "monster in the basement" formula really works in space. Halloween on a Friday? When's the last time that happened. I'm always running around watching the next moment ahead of me, so I don't remember a lot of Halloweens. The last few good ones were always at 1738, my childhood home.



I distinctly remember 1981 with Jessica Manzione, a classmate that my mother disliked, inexplicably. My mother disliked all of my friends, now that I think of it. I went to Jessica's apartment, trick or treated and spent the night over there. We had to be separated because we were laughing so hard. Her gray cat, Pixie, kept attacking the zipper on Jess's sleeping bag and this was hysterical to us. She lived on the second floor of that huge building near Cropsey Park. I last saw her when I took my SAT's in November 1988 in a futile attempt to best my rather embarrassing score of 900. Since there was no money, 900 seemed enough for a community college, but I felt the Kaplan-ette kids' sting. Their expensive classes ensured they'd hit 1100 or above. One girl got 1140 and felt like a failure. She went to St. John's on a sports scholarship, too. Name escapes me, but the bad perm on her head will stay with me forever. The hit song in 1981 was "He's So Shy" by the Pointer Sisters. To this day, I hear this song and smell autumn leaves and Snickers bars.



I won't be around for candy if I stay in the city this year, but I'll see all the lunacy. I don't plan on drinking, but maybe a cup of apple cider. Sad, all the kids will pound on my door at 4 pm. I'm sure the knocking will scare my cats.



Then we roll into November, another month that feels like a truck hitting me. This will mark the 8th year that I probably won't have turkey. I might have had turkey at Robert's house in 2001, but I remember Rose's apple pie and lasagna more than the bird. 1995 was the last great Thanksgiving. After that, if I didn't organize it? It didn't happen. Now, there's work before and after that Thursday, so I don't know. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. Let that be my epitaph. Maybe I'll find a $12 special at a diner and have a nice waitress wait on me. I'll leave her a nice, fat tip. I deserve gravy and gobbles.