Onward, October

September 30, 2012 — One thing that I’ve never forgiven my parents for was the month of my birth. I started life in the bland month of April. Tulips, bunnies, sun dresses (I guess, resurrected gods is kind of cool in theory). Seems like a petty gripe on my part, but you should know that two out of my three brothers were born in October. That should’ve been my month, not the guy who came before me and the guy who came after.

Still, despite that, October is my month. Yours too, I think, if you’ve stuck with me this far into the OTIS Halloween Season Blog.

And tomorrow is October 1.

In some ways, that doesn’t mean anything. You, me, and every retailer worth its aisle space have been celebrating the season for weeks. But in other ways, it means everything. The advent of October relegates September to mere preseason. From here on out, the ranks of those who celebrate Fall and Halloween will swell like record-chasing pumpkins in the field. Television joins the costume party with entire schedules full of Halloween specials, movies, and commercials. Haunted houses everywhere go into full scare. The foliage ignites like forests full of fuses.

But there’s a downside to October 1.

In September, the season seems like it’ll stretch forever. October 31 is a mythical date on September 12, like the second coming of Christ or the day after the last day on the Mayan calendar. Now, even though our own calendar numbers start over at 1 and ascend, from here on out it’s a countdown to the glories of Halloween…as well as the sorrow as it departs for another year, leaving Fall to become more conventional. When pumpkins stop being jack-o-lanterns and start being pies. When everything switches to extended foreplay for the Christmas season.

So it’s time to double down on Halloween. On Fall. Because, in this month that saw the deaths of Edgar Allan Poe, Harry Houdini, and Vincent Price, we will also see the death of the season.

But some births, too (besides my brothers).

Tomorrow The New York Grimpendium finally streets after I’ve been talking about it for far too long. I only have left a small handful of photo essays based on the book to post in the coming week or two…but those few I’ve saved because they’re some of my favorites and I thought they’d look better date-stamped with a 10.

And, of course, even when I run out of Grimpendium posts, I’ll continue with my daily Halloween blog. In fact, pretty much all my stress today isn’t whether the book will do well. It’s whether I’ll miss my so-far perfect record of posting every day since September 12. Right now, that’s 19 posts in a row, but that shaky Jenga tower could fall disastrously any day as I still need content for 31 more.

Stick around, and we’ll see what happens.

In conclusion, 31 days sounds like a lot of time. It also sounds like precious little. Either way it’s going to be a good time.

If you doubt that, here’s a skeleton cooking breakfast in my kitchen.