Ah, Halloween. It's one of America's favorite holidays. The kids get to dress up, the adults get to give them free candy, and cable networks get to run Jason marathons.

I never got into the true spirit of it all, though. My mother is scared of horror movies, to the point where she used to get upset when I'd watch Mystery Science Theater 3000, so I missed out on those as a child. The church always said Halloween was an evil pagan holiday. I was in a hurry to grow up for some reason. On top of everything else, the disgruntled crazy old man in the house on the corner was putting razorblades in apples. It's a rough combination.

Princess Sherry lives for Halloween. She loves to get dressed up and scare anyone and everyone. If she were in high school today, I imagine she might be one of the gothic kids, dressed in black, spiking her weirdly colored hair, and frightening the hell out of people just for kicks. I wish I had that. I wish I got more excited about Halloween, but I'm not sure I ever will.

To their credit, my parents did let me dress up every year. The costumes were always homemade and they always, always had to go with me when I went trick or treating (ugh), but I did get to go and I'd come home with loads and loads of chocolate. That was the good part. I remember being a California raisin, a lumberjack, the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz (that was an especially good year because Crash was Dorothy, Dumb was the lion, and Dumber was the scarecrow. It was a quality ensemble.), and the grim reaper. I'm sure there are a few I'm forgetting, but those are the highlights. But once I got to eighth grade, I stopped dressing up, opting instead to stay home and pass out candy. I was "too old" to dress up, at least according to the teachers at school.

But I did miss out on the movies. I haven't seen any Freddy or Jason movies. I missed the entire Scream franchise. I've never seen Psycho or The Exorcist. You can imagine, then, that I didn't think Scary Movie was all that funny. I saw the made-for-TV version of Carrie last year and I watched I Know What You Did Last Summer on cable a few weeks ago, but on the whole I'm deprived. Never seen the Blair Witch saga, either. (Of course, Halloween isn't the only category of films I haven't seen. I'm seriously silver screen deprived, but that's a whole project for another entry.)

The church insisted that Halloween was a day for devil worship and witchcraft, which is a crock, like many of the church's official positions. The church didn't care that it was a pagan holiday (like Christmas, maybe?); they just knew it was a threat to their doctrine, so they quickly organized fall festivals and Reformation celebrations (November 1 is the anniversary of the day Martin Luther tacked the 95 Theses to the door of the Roman Catholic church, sometimes called Reformation Day. It is also All Saints Day. And if I remember high school Spanish correctly, the Day of the Dead is also kicking around here somewhere.). The original idea behind the ancient Celtic tradition that evolved into Halloween was that the souls of the dead could visit the living for one day each year if they so chose. I'm not exactly sure how this evolved into dressing up as Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson and collecting bite size Baby Ruths, but whatever.

I got invited to a few Halloween parties, sure. The only one I went to was for College University's English Honors program. I did not dress up. I wish I had some cool friends to get dressed up with. We could go clubbing in our themed outfits (the only thing I came up with this year was Mark and Roger from Rent; try selling that in the Bible belt, even to the other faggots) and have tons of fun getting drunk and eating Snickers by the handful. But life isn't always what everyone on TV says it should be.

Strangely (if predictably), most of my holidays end in front of the TV. Parties aren't really my thing. I do well in small groups or one on one, but I feel vulnerable at parties. What if Ugly Sweater Guy corners me? I never know anyone and I'm terrible about meeting people. Excuses, I know. Usually I watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show by myself with the leftover door candy. This year, the school was doing the show live, so I went to see that before coming home and perusing Sarah's Famous Ghost Monologues. I do believe in ghosts, and Sarah's particularly articulate ghost stories hit the spot last night. That was the extent of my festive participation, though, other than watching the themed SNL marathon on Comedy Central. No bobbing for apples, no fishnet stockings, no jack o'lanterns. Just me, doing my own thing, like at Thanksgiving; when the girls are cooking in the kitchen and the boys are talking football, I'm off on my own watching The American President.

I believe in the spirit of Halloween, sure. Where we go when we die is an ages-old debate, but I don't think it's unreasonable that some people might want to hang around for a little while before moving on to whatever happens after this.

Maybe it's the general trend of laziness, like those teenagers I never wanted to be who didn't even bother to dress up and yet expected free candy (the Valentine's Day principle applies; buy it the next day on your own, punks) or the people who think dressing as a slut is a clever costume (it's one thing to dress up as Xtina's vagina, because you're making fun of something specific, like with Michael Jackson. But the girl that went as a lesbian? That's uncalled for.).

Maybe I've spent too many years doing it wrong to ever be able to enjoy the holiday as it was meant to be enjoyed. I'd hate to think that I'll be on my own in the supernatural department for the rest of my life, but I don't know what I believe, exactly, and I don't know that dressing up as Al Gore is going to make me feel any better about that. I suppose it's nice to be someone else one day a year, but I'm having enough trouble just being myself the other 364. There's always next year, though, right? Anyway, Happy Halloween.

Someone got here by searching for: MARISKA HARGITAY's hair And: college years look back Reading: TN's Famous Ghost Monologues. Listening to: Goo Goo Dolls. Watching: Season two of Sex and the City is calling my name, but I may go see Rocky Horror again tonight. Eating: McDonald's. That stupid Monopoly game is back again.