September 20: Our Creepy Cocoon Is Complete


We did it. Every pumpkin in its place. Every witch it its niche. Every skeleton on its…Peloton? We are officially decorated. Inside our house, we our surrounded by an orange electric glow and pressed in all sides by monsters, [Madonna voice] and it feels…like…home.

We’re even decorated outside. The giant purple ghoul towers above the yard, large black spiders hide in our bushes. The porch is ready for trick-or-treaters. Wait. That last line makes me suddenly sad. I’m imagining my early Halloween decorations out there wondering why trick-or-treaters aren’t coming tonight. And then wondering why they’re not coming the next night. And the next. Was it something they did? Are they not ghoulish enough decorations? Will they not get to fulfill their entire purpose for existence, the thing they waited all year in the dusty attic and the musty basement to do? Geez. That’s Toy Story-level disturbing. I’ll…have a talk with them later.


But the exterior decorating turned out to be a little awkwardly timed for Lindsey, as she had a get-together tonight at the neighbor’s house. I decorated, ran back inside to my creepy little cocoon, and threw on the last episode of the surprise third season of MTV’s Scream. She decorated, walked across the street, and had to answer publicly for thrusting the neighborhood prematurely (to them) into Halloween.

I’ll get Lindsey to take some of her trademark amazing photos of the inside decorations at some point (my indoor shots of the decorations are aaaawwwwful), but until then these shots from my phone of the outside should illustrate what my world looks like right now.


And even though nothing can beat Halloween decorating in late September, I got close when I received some of my contributor copies of Twelve Nights at Rotter House in the mail today. So I have the real thing in my hands now after about two years from word one. And I can’t wait for the real thing to get into yours.