It is said that February is the cruelest month, but I always reach my saddest point in November. That’s when things are at their bleakest – the days are dim and dark, the trees are bare, and there’s not (usually) snow to lighten the surface of the world. At least in February there is some light at the end of the tunnel. In November, we’ve only just ducked into the darkness – any light is a long way off.

There are comforts though, in the midst of that cold November Rain. Cozy turkey dinners, the arrival of Thanksgiving, and the beginning of the proper holiday season. A few more sunny days, brisk and biting though they may be. This year, I will focus on those comforts, on the warmth and cheer that we can bring to each other – because it’s always a choice. We will weather the winter together, you and I, like we have always done. In the dozen or so years this website has been in existence, it’s provided some sustaining connection, some cradled and protected nook of community, whether seen or known, and on cold dark mornings it has been a source of safety, a way to feel a little less alone.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I sort of sense you there, in the black, anonymous night (and more than a few non-anonymous folks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in the flesh) and I am thankful that you have come by for a visit. Your presence has been noted, and appreciated, and has made a difference in my life. Try as I might to convince myself otherwise, we do not live in a vacuum. Our interactions, and everything we put out into the world – whether here or on the street or to the most fleeting stranger – make a difference. It matters.

It’s said that All Hallows’ Eve is one of the nights when the veil between the worlds is thin – and whether you believe in such things or not, those roaming spirits probably believe in you, or at least acknowledge your existence, considering that it used to be their own. Even the air feels different on Halloween, autumn-crisp and bright. ~ Erin Morgenstern

It began with a trek across the street to one of our favorite neighbors, the traditional first stop in our Halloween trick-or-treating adventure. Each year they took the time to turn lollipops into ghosts – each Charms Blowpop or Dums sucker was wrapped in a tissue, then dotted with two black eyes and strangled with a ribbon. In the summer, they had a magnificent rose garden, which I’d visit on my own. As the first stop on Halloween, it was always the most memorable, before the houses began to bleed into one another, and darkness blunted the sharpness of my memory back then. Our Mom would talk with the neighbors for a bit while we got antsy and eagerly made motions to continue on our candy-toting way.

We walked up Pershing Road, not yet minding whatever get-up we had got-up in – plastic masks or blinding hoods be damned. Shuffling along from house to house, it was less about the candy for me and more about the fun. Peering into the lives of other people in our neighborhood, if only for the briefest of looks and portals, satisfied my voyeuristic nature, while the drama of walking along fall roads as evening descended appealed to my soap-opera-like yearning for measured danger.

The candy was a nice bonus, but there were years when I took a few pieces, hid it away in a desk drawer, and forgot about it for months on end. For that one night, my brother and I were bandits in the night, as my Mom or Dad walked a little ways behind us, and that mattered to me more than a sackful of sugar.

“I think if human beings had genuine courage, they’d wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn’t life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don’t they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you’d meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to – like talking to dogs. ” ~ Douglas Coupland

When you dress in relatively outrageous attire on a regular basis, a day like Halloween is like a breather. It’s a bit of a relief to see everyone else finally put as much care and concern into making an impression as I try to do on a daily basis. For that reason, I usually sit Halloween out – or if I do go to a party or event, I tend to be considerably subtle about it. (A hooded cape is the most you’ll usually get out of me.)

For those who want a bit more, here’s a sampling of what I wear throughout the year. These are various get-ups for holiday cards, grocery shopping, work, and the day-to-day hum-drum existence of a casual blogger. This is why I’ll be in sweats and a t-shirt today.

PS – Don’t even think about ringing my doorbell.

Here’s a warning I really did not need:

“Please do not FEED or otherwise attempt to rescue my CHILD.”

Is this the most disturbing thing you’ve seen today? I’d rather a real child was in danger than see this atrocity. I will not sleep well tonight, or ever. Previously, only bunnies gave me pause. Now I have to reassess my view on clowns. Thanks Obama.

Burning leaves carried on the wind, the smell of smoke both a warning and a comfort. The dry words of Henry James, a most-dissatisfied writer by many accounts, were recalled to my mind. ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and its haunting mind-fuck of a tale somehow became part of the day. A brittle walk into November, over a carpet of dry moss and dead leaves, not usually a thing of dread, suddenly turned darker. That gray light of mid-fall, muffled and dim and sad enough to suck the joy out of the brightest countenances (of which mine is certainly not one) descended as the day advanced.

Shadows deepened and the birds grew quieter. The bustling of the chipmunks and squirrels died away, the fear of the nocturnal hunters had set them into hiding.

Goblins appeared in the gnarled trunks of trees that had seen more years than I had. Exposed roots, like the knuckles of ghouls, grasped the ground and sought something more – escape or surer-footing perhaps. The forest casts a strange spell in the fall.

A stand of ferns had turned a ghostly pale yellow. They would fade and fade until they disappeared completely. In the woods, in the fall, that sort of thing happened. They went missing. One day a toadstool was resplendent in speckled salmon, the next it was gone. Torn from its foothold by some hungry marauder or felled by a hard frost, it was impossible to tell – it simply ceased to be where it once was. Holding onto a space in the forest, no matter how small, is tenuous stuff. Even the most ferocious raptor can be pierced by a bullet. That cuts both ways, though, and the forest takes back hunters and wanderers- the trespassers and the lost – with equal recklessness.

A fallen apple, like fallen grace, stilled in momentary beauty, would soon rot, and all the world around it would crumble too. The winter loomed ahead.

For many years, fall was the season of doomed romances for me. They blossomed, mostly in my head, from the simplest and smallest of gestures, then grew – fed by desperation, an insatiable need for love, and a desire for companionship – before erupting in raging flame, burning those closest to me, singeing those in furthest proximity. Like the season itself, their beginnings were beautiful and kind, cozy and warm, but they soon turned cold and bare, empty and barren, as hollow and destitute as a faded, rotten jack-o-lantern.

When I was very young, long before I knew the heartbreaks that would unfold for me, I used to walk in the forest in the fall. The smell of leaves – still fresh, not quite wet with decay or rot – was invigorating, the crunch of them, enmeshed with coppery-hued pine needles, a happy accompaniment to a solitary journey. Dappled sunlight, brilliantly illuminating the flaming tree leaves still held aloft, lent the woods a lighter feeling than the dim green of deep summer.

That false lightness, however, is deceptive. When the fall day turns, sooner than it does in summer, the forest changes. It happens quicker than you expect, too, falling with sudden grace, but not quickly enough for you to notice right away. It’s a more insidious way of lowering the shades – not enough to eradicate the light, not until it’s too late.

This is when the ghosts of Hester Prynne and the Headless Horseman come to my mind. The breaking of a twig, the rustling of leaves, and any change in the wind signals danger. Fall adds the impending weight of winter to any load, no matter how far off it may be.

When next we recap things, it will be November. If that’s not enough to set a chill into your time-stopping hearts, I don’t know what is. Where did the days go? Where did the time fly? Where was I in the last five days? Let’s re-examine what went on here.

It was a week of Hunk requests, and Roman Reigns reigned as the week’s first Hunk of the Day.

Some of us celebrated Andy’s birthday (I gave him the gift of time – in an hourglass).

The Liberal Party swept through Canada, riding on the sexy coat-tails of newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Everyone keeps saying that he is the sexiest PM, but I have ask: what exactly is the competition? I mean, can anyone name one other sexy PM?

Sex. Just Sex. (Ok, and Erotica.)

Requested Hunks like Tyler Posey make me feel old.

Knee-deep into fall, the turn has been made. The past is in the past.

Austin Armacost had his second crowning as Hunk of the Day.

Never one to let another guy get all the ass-glory, David Beckham put his best bottom forward.

But when it comes to banging butts, the edge has got to go to Kayne Lawton. Sorry David.

Hotel primping.

I’ve already declared this The Year of the Soup.

Soup it up, baby. We have a long road ahead, and we need all the inner-warmth we can find.

Another request for a Hunk was honored in the appearance of Teddy Sears as Hunk of the Day.

Coming up this week is a quick recap of our latest Ogunquit jaunt, and a few other surprises for the Halloween season… until then, one more shot of Kayne Lawton.