💙Blue Night Owl🦉

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

as much as i love the season of spooks, the "treat" part of trick-or-treating has lost its appeal, due to the evolving nature of the human palate. here are the goodies i buy myself instead to celebrate the annual March Of The Pumpkins:

favorite "fancy" candy flavors that rarely get handed out (cherry liqueur, praline, macadamian)

international candy. go to your local international/asian/middle eastern grocery store. haunt the sweets aisle. select several bags of delicious-looking things you haven't tried before. bring home, mix in a popcorn bowl (or splash out on a plastic jack-o-lantern bucket), keep within elbow reach for all of October

candied ginger, fruit, chocolate-covered nuts, coffee beans etc

a beautiful rainbow of sherbet & gelato flavors

fussy little tea biscuits

outrageously overpriced boxed chocolate sampler

caramel apples, never forget the caramel apples (snag a grocery store kit and make them at home with 2 minutes and a microwave. my goal is to eventually do this with every commercially-available apple cultivar currently in existence. i have a ranking system)

hot chocolate. the good stuff. not powdered—chocolate shavings. stovetop not microwave. full-fat milk. homemade whipped cream. real vanilla seasoning. a touch of cayenne powder.

fun-sized booze. tiny liquor bottles of assorted whiskey, tequila, schnaps, disgustingly flavored liqueurs you would never otherwise attempt to consume

a single perfect mango. (idk, they're good? if it makes u feel better, u can carve a jack-o-lantern face before slurping it down)