I had a good
Halloween. I went
trick-or-treating, and one of my friends had a costume that scared a couple little kids. (He was
Superman, but with no head--the head was carried in his hand, and the "S" was taped on his shirt. I sewed the child-sized cape on his back.) I wore my
anime convention costume, dressed as Sae Sawanoguchi from
Maho Tsukai TAI, which is a bit like a modified
witch costume. (My friend Ammy was dressed in a matching costume, as Sae's friend Nanaka, and my friend Brendon was an X-man who kept getting mistaken for
Spider-Man.)
I've been trick-or-treating every year to date, possibly with the exception of my first Halloween, since I was only about nine months old at that point--I don't remember. I'll be twenty-four in January, so yes, I'm a bit old for this. But if you want a rant on that you'll have to find it elsewhere.
I was too tired after the trick-or-treating to do my Samhain ritual, so I took a nap and did it early this morning. I was very reluctant to clean up the mess I made afterwards, so I went to my apartment complex's renting office and talked to Leanna, the manager, about how to get my fifty-dollar credit on my rent. (I won the apartment complex's costume contest last week.) We ended up talking for a long time. I asked her if I was interrupting her work, and she was like "No, not at all, I don't really wanna work anyway," and I was like "I know what you mean, I don't feel like going home and cleaning up my apartment," and mentioned that I had a big mess from my ritual. She knew I was Pagan but she didn't know what that entailed, so she asked me, and I found out she was on a "spiritual quest" and wanted to know more.
She asked if I had any "literature," and I told her I'd go get a couple books to lend her from my apartment and would also, as a bonus, bring her a couple of the sweets I'd baked for the celebration. (One of those was my All Hallow's Eve cakes, which turned out great!) When I came back, someone else was in the office talking to her. He turned out to be George (well, I guess it was George, he was from Miami and had an accent so it might have been the Spanish spelling, but since he said "George" and not "Hore-hay" I suppose I am allowed to spell it "George"), and he happens to live one apartment away from me. He is also Pagan. That is odd, people are just turning out to be Pagan all over the place. We all talked for a while and went out to lunch together. Random invitations are fun. Incidentally, the two books I lent to Leanna were Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner and The Truth about Witchcraft Today, because Cunningham's got a very straightforward way of answering questions.
George told me two Pagan jokes:
Q: How many Gardnerians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: SHH! It's a secret!
Q: How many Alexandrians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Ask the Gardnerians!
HAHA.
I have been getting a lot of random invitations lately. Today, random lunch with Leanna and George. Yesterday, tiny Halloween get-together with one of the girls I trick-or-treated with. (We didn't stay long, but we went.) The day before, random visitation from a friend bearing donuts. The day before THAT, an acquaintance of mine, a strange Christian-tattooed punk kid that I don't know well but see all the time, he offered me a ride to the grocery store when we met on the street, and he ended up at my house afterwards. And the day before THAT, I randomly invited an online friend over to bake with me, where we met for the first time. Before that, I had a visit from my friend Mike, but that was planned in advance. I am not an extraordinarily social person, but lately, my calendar has totally been full. It is weird.
I am also pleased that several of my seasonal-based nodes have received cool points and attention. To my fellow noders: A big thank-you to all the folks who cooled and read my nodes. :) I hope some of you tried my recipes for the season, everything I baked this time was yummy! (I made pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, All Hallow's Eve cakes, and molasses-ginger animal cookies, except I cut them in fall shapes since I had no animal cookie cutters!)