A Dude's Guide. . . to everything

The Big Day Is Here

by Richard

Halloween. Let me say that one more time. Halloween. Halloween is here. Today is the day, the day of sweets and subterfuge, candy and costumes, id and invention and other paired alliteratives.

It’s the day to party and walk the streets and just plain have fun.

Oh, yeah. And the little dudes get to enjoy themselves as well.

This Halloween is going to be a little strange here at Chez Jones. Well, stranger than normal.

Not only is George of the Jungle going out on his own as he has for the last couple of years, Zippy the Monkey Boy is going to a Halloween-themed birthday party, but Speed Racer has been making plans to get together with some of his friends from school and go out with them. Which makes me just a little bit nervous.

I mean, without the youngest little dude going out on the streets, will I really have society’s implicit, tacit permission to dress up in some sort of outlandish costume and wander the streets? Well, aside from Fantasy Fest in Key West, but that’s something else entirely. Yet another question: Will I even care or will I be one of those lonely souls staggering down the midnight streets long after the last stragglers have gone home to count their candy and begin their march toward a sugar coma?

Really though, who cares? I mean, if I can dress up in a costume and get a chance to embarrass one of the little dudes at the same time, well, that sounds like a win-win to me.

So, all of you grab an empty pillow case and get out there. Take your little dude’s hand and walk the streets like a deranged Amway salesman. Have a great time right now. Who knows when your little dude might start making other plans?

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Freaky Friday: Ghostly Visions

by Richard

So, here it is, the day before the greatest holiday ever invented. Halloween. The ghouls and goblins are about to come out, but what I wanted to talk to you about is ghosts. Real ghosts. Or, really, as real as they ever are.

More precisely, I’d like to talk about common characteristics shared by people who report seeing ghosts. And, not, I’m not going to say anything about them all being soft in the head. Although that might be right, now that I think about it. I’m a bit of a skeptic, see. I want to see proof, not vague visions and halting hauntings. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Anyway.

It’s thought by two researchers, Michael Jawer and Marc Micozzi, MD, PhD, that there might be an actual physical cause of people seeing ghosts. No, not swamp gas. They believe the root cause is in the brain.

As surveys consistently show that anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of the public say they’ve had an extra-sensory experience – with nearly 25% of respondents stating they’ve actually seen or felt a ghost – anomalous perceptions are nothing to shrug off. “People have had these experiences down the ages and across all cultures,” comments Micozzi, a physician and anthropologist. “They’re quite universal. What we’ve begun to document is that there’s a certain type of person most likely to experience them.”

That kind of person, they said, is someone who is environmentally sensitive, prone to such things as pronounced or longstanding allergies, migraine headache, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, irritable bowel, even synesthesia (overlapping senses) and heightened sensitivity to light, sound, touch, and smell. Women make up three-quarters of this sensitive population but there are other markers as well: being ambidextrous, for instance, or recalling a traumatic childhood. The more we look at the people who say they’re psychic, or who have recurring anomalous experience, the more it seems there’s a mix of nature and nurture that predisposes them.”

So, basically, these dudes are saying that the paranormal isn’t really very para after all. More likely, these sorts of things are arising from the brain and the body, rather than the other side. I’m thinking they  might be right. Pretty cool, huh?

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Hello, My Sweet

by Richard

There is, of course, another reason for loving Halloween other than the fact that you get to put on a costume and act out your wildest out-of-bed fantasies in front of other folks so inclined. Admittedly, that part is pretty great, especially if you’ve got a naughty costume that goes right over the heads of the little dudes wandering the street. No, the other reason to love Halloween is the sweets. The candy. The chocolate. The melty, gooey, sweety deliciousness of it all.

As (technically) an adult, I have managed to curb my appetite for Halloween sweets somewhat, as, I imagine, have you and most other adults. After all, if we really wanted the Halloween candy that bad, we’d just go and buy it. However, the Halloween candy monkey on my back keeps telling me to avoid doing that and just revel in the fall goodies. And, for the most part, I listen.

But when I start stocking up for Halloween night, something always goes wrong. See, we live in a cul de sac somewhat off the beaten path of most of the neighborhoods around here. What I’ll do is buy enough candy to fill up a couple hundred hungry mouths. What we’ll get is maybe a couple of dozen moderately peckish mouths. It makes for a lot, and when I say a lot I mean a lot, of leftover candy. And when we’ve got leftovers, you know who has to eat it?

Yeah, me. (Notice how I put that has in the last paragraph? Makes it look like I don’t want to do it? Yeah, sneaky, right?)

Which, now that I think about it, might go a long way toward explaining why my Thanksgiving costume and Christmas costume is always too small when I need them and much too loose in the summer. Hm. Something to think about.

Something else to think about? Getting back to the gym as soon as possible.

For some reason I’ve already got that bloated feeling.

Urp. Excuse me. I’m going to go waddle around the block or something.

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