it's the great pumpkin, blog readers

Perhaps you've seen me mention it here a time or 38 that I'm not a crafty person. Glitter, in my opinion, is the dry skin that flakes off Satan's ass, and before you say "Really?" let me just remind you of this - Hell's hot, thus it's dry, and dry skin flakes. It's simple science, friends.

The idea of making things that I then don't know what to do with, which is my definition of crafting, makes me panic. I love my 8 year old son's drawings, but after awhile, honestly, I want them off the fridge, OK? Of course, my kid knows this about me and like a vulture circling a steaming pile of roadkill, he likes to swoop in and pick at me to make something with him until I eventually relent. Naturally, the holidays are a perfect time for this instinct to kick in because the season's ripe with fun things to make and do (or so I hear). Sometimes this results in an art project that's nothing short of museum quality, like these kick ass haunted graham cracker houses we made two years ago.

Then there are times like today.

Feeling inspired, my son came to me after school and asked if he could make something that was, and I quote, "fun for Halloween!" When I think of making something fun, I think of either brownies or love, but I'm missing most of the stuff needed for either of those, so I unleashed him upon some small pumpkins I'd picked last week. Alas, as he pondered his canvas, we soon realized I was missing a lot of things that could have made it (even more) beautiful. Check it out:

Pretty abstract, huh? Shortly after we finished, the neighbor kid stopped by. "You know what you could have done? You could have painted your pumpkins black, taken a drill, drilled eight holes around the top of them, shoved black pipe cleaners into the holes, glued googly eyes on them and made them into spiders! That's what we did last week when I volunteered at the youth shelter downtown!" this miniature Martha Stewart suggested.

"Dude," I replied while gathering up all the dry markers we discovered while trying to find any that worked well enough (just two!) for my kid to scribble on his pumpkin. "Paint. Pffft! It's a miracle I even had tape. Just cool your jets, show off."

It was a good idea, though. I'll have to plan better for next year. Until then, in the spirit of show offs, I'm showing you my kid's pumpkin. Totally crafty, that one.

take two

Mad Men?
Holy hell!

Walking Dead?
Bring it!

Dead Set?
Amuse bouche.

Zombie lover?
Without question.

Bigfoot fear?
Solidly intact.

Halloween candy?
100 Grand.

Sister Wives?
Totally courted!

Russell Brand?
Would shag!

Christmas merchandise?
Killing me.

Quarter raise?
Big whoop.

Sixteen years?
Tough lately.

(really tough)

Intense headaches?
Scarily frequent.

Birthday coming?
Whoopee.

(two syllables)

(it's allowed)

(rule bender)

Streaming Netflix?
Ass growing.

The Wire?
Enjoyable when?

Cookie baking?
Must stop.

Hershey's Kisses?
Intervention necessary

Ranch dressing?
Godly nectar.

Achtung Baby?
Commuting soundtrack

Book choices?
Uninspired lately

Flossing daily?
No lying!

Missing friend?
Anniversary approaches.

Overall mood?
Sad, defeated.

End blog?
Been pondering.

Anything else?
Not now.

Your turn!

(pretty please?)

well you're a real tough cookie...

So I've been in a bit of a funk lately, which I suppose is a very 1950s way of saying I think it's time to concede that I'm depressed.

Ragingly, put on a happy face and pretend I'm not, "Me? Oh, I'm good, thanks for asking," depressed.

Hooray!

Yep.

You don't know this, of course, because I don't talk about it here, and when I hint at it, as I sometimes do, it's just that. A hint. An ingredient in the mix you can't really be sure is in there, but you kind of pick up the subtle nuance of something different when it hits you right there on the back notes of the funny, and if I told you it's been hanging around for a long, long, long time, you might be surprised. Maybe not. I'm not good at guessing things. Suffice to say, this sadness and resignation and disappointment has been a shadow I can't seem to shake for more than half the life of this blog, but instead of telling you about that (out of sadness and resignation and disappointment and what's this? Oh, yes, fear), I tell you about my lust for Joe Jonas (so very solid) and taste in bad music (um, I buy Jonas Brothers cd's, friends).

And in the case of this post, I give it to you this way.

So I'm depressed. Without question. Some people try to combat depression in a variety of ways. Maybe working out. Perhaps meditating. How about writing? Me? I decide to bake! Last week, I holed up in my kitchen and was a muffin-making, cookie-baking, issues-ignoring fiend. If my doorbell had rang and I'd opened it to find Hansel and Gretel standing outside, I'd have not been the least bit surprised.

When I finished, I decided it was time to sample my work. Solely for quality control purposes. And because chocolate chip cookies are my nemesis ("You'll never defeat me, cookies!" laughed her thighs, though it was hard to tell if that sound was a laugh or a desperate cry for help because the way they rubbed together had a tendency to muffle her authority). When I lunged for the rack of still warm from the oven treats, I was stopped in my tracks at the site of this:

Do you see it? Do you? No, that's not the face of Jesus in my cookie, but rather that of a grumpy old man!

(Some of you may wonder if there's a difference between the two possibilities, and, well, I'm no Bible expert, but yeah, I think there is. Your results may vary.)

Seriously, take a closer look! Do you see it now? No? OK, let me present a more in-depth analysis put together by a crack team of investigators equipped with both time on their hands and the latest in photo editing software:

That (when you click on it to enlarge it so as to read the witty bon mots because, look at that, I adore tiny point sizes!) appears to be irrefutable evidence that my cookie, much like myself, has a bad attitude and could perhaps benefit from a prescription for an MAO inhibitor. It could also be confused with the look my mother would have given me had she been here and seen me about to gorge myself on super chunk cookies, but that's another issue I've secretly been dealing with for years, too, and I shall not burden you with it today.

I confess to hesitating a bit before eating this particular cookie, and perhaps praying to the deliciously gooey melted chocolate contained within, but then I remembered how much I love cookies and how much I needed an outlet, however temporary, to squelch my feelings, and this (and three of its nondescript counterparts)(OK, six, MOTHER!)(hush now)(it was spread out throughout the late afternoon)(if by late afternoon, you accept that it was 15 minutes)(it was more like five)(like you haven't) seemed to do the trick.

So, long story short, I'm depressed and, when it comes to these kinds of things, that's just how the cookie grumbles.

this deserves a title, but it's late & I've used fewer words than this the last four days

I watch him scurry down the block in the late afternoon sun and try to decode his fluttery hops and line-defying skips to determine which of two goals he’s hoping to accomplish - secretly outrun his lengthening shadow, or keep ahead of his father, who has a tendency to move at a slower pace at all times except when he’s walking 10 paces ahead of me, an invisible crown bouncing atop his head.

He pauses to thrust his left arm in the air like Judd Nelson striding triumphantly across the football field at the end of The Breakfast Club, and for a second, I can’t tell the difference between the neon orange exoskeleton that is his cast-clad appendage and the sun gleaming between the changing leaves. His boisterous greetings to neighbors are so loud; his personality even more so, it makes me wonder if the camouflage pants and military green shirt he’s wearing feels inclined to give up the fight. It must be difficult to blend into the surroundings when you’re constantly peeking outside safe cover.

If that isn’t enough ammunition to get him noticed, surely the humongous purple and yellow wig, procured at the previous evening's homecoming game through a series of hypnotizing blinks of his big brown eyes and a chorus of repeated pleases, has to be. The synthetic cloud orbits his tiny head like a halo of dandelion fluff blowing in the day's breeze, falling over those same big brown eyes with each fluttery hop and line-defying skip. It's a bold fashion statement that compels the neighbor three houses down to pause from his chores to chuckle and smile broadly at my boy.

Mercy, child. I surrender.

The sight of him running carefree through the neighborhood with his bright orange arm and Crayola coif made me happy, but an equally large part of me was jealous. I don't know at what age some of us let self-consciousness slip in to take over our spirit, but I dread knowing it could be any time now for my young boy. And me? I feel like I buried my brightly colored wig, whatever it might have been, some time ago, then forgot to mark the spot so I could go back and find it one day. More often than not today, I feel like I purposely mute my colors. Keep my head down. Don't dare run through the streets. It's been black here lately. So very, very black. But there's a boy without any cares in a purple and yellow wig who makes me want to try and brighten things up.

Or at least wave a white flag.