Coming to our house tonight: The Evening of Halloween Festiveness.  That's right. We'll be carving pumpkins and putting up decorations.  I'm going to swallow hard, don an orange t-shirt, and totally rock the enthusiasm.

This'll be a bit of a hardship because you know I don't like carving pumpkins, right?

And I don't like Halloween decorations, and I don't like costumes.  I also don't like candy corn because it makes me feel sick.

This is all part of my well-documented aversion to fun.

Sometimes I wish I loved things like Halloween and St. Patrick's Day and fireworks and Easter Egg hunts - in short, things that other people think are fun.

But you know what I think is fun?  Putting on sweat pants, cuddling on the couch, and reading aloud.  Also getting a latte and talking a walk.  I think talking about books is fun.  Seeing new places is fun.  Looking at art is fun.  Even going to movies is fun.  Studying commas with sixth graders is super fun. I'm the funnest person in basically the whole world.

Halloween is fun for most people, but as you might remember, I hate fun. At my school, you get to wear costumes. I wore a t-shirt that I wrote on with a permanent marker. It says, "Grammar Police" and "Special Pronoun Force." Also other stuff like, "Your apostrophe won't make it plural," and "Ask me about who and whom!"

This was the second year in a row I've worn it, which I think makes it a classic.

"What are you?" the kids asked as they arrived from recess.

"The grammar police," I said, to minimal reaction. "This is as fun as I get."

They looked a little sad for me. After all, their costumes were super fun. Especially the blow-up t-rex and sumo wrestler. "Can you two deflate?" I asked. I hated to wreck their vibe, but the t-rex couldn't really see out of his costume. Also, the whirring of the electric motors required to keep the both of them puffed up was loud.

"Sure," they said.

And then, about ten minutes into my lesson, my boss showed up to do an impromptu observation. On Halloween. After recess. With the t-rex and sumo wrestler, the gorilla suit, a bunch of football players, and a Thor.

"Can I take my costume off?" the gorilla asked while I was giving directions. "I'm getting really sweaty."

"Yes," I said. "But, wait. Do you have clothes on underneath?"

He did, but it's always good to check.

Everyone knows that I hate fun. Dan was the first to name this trait, but once he did, I felt kind of free. I knew in my heart that I've pretty much always hated fun, and frankly, it felt good to finally be myself.

Group ice breakers?

Teams-building courses with colleagues?

Easter egg hunts and rolls?

Pumpkin carving?

Even happy hour if there are too many people there, and it's too loud?

I don't really like any of these things.  I'll do them out of politeness or professionalism, but I definitely won't enjoy them. Even if I'm laughing and looking like I'm having a good time, I'm probably not. I simply refuse to enjoy things that are fun.

So, it should be clear then, that I also hate Halloween in general, and costumes in particular. Some of my super cute students, though, have been asking about my costume for Monday.

"Oh," I told them, wrinkling my nose. "I'm not dressing up." They stared at me, maybe thinking I was kidding. "I don't like fun," I continued. They blinked.

"But I have an idea for you!" one of them said, adorably hopeful.

"Tell me," I acquiesced.

"You should be the grammar police!"

Now that IS an idea. "I'll keep it in mind," I told the sixers, raising my index finger for emphasis. And sure enough? I think I might actually dress up this year. I need a white t-shirt and a Sharpie, on which I'll write snarky messages like, "An apostrophe won't make your family's name plural, I promise." I also need a police cap (Walgreens?!) and a red felt-tip correcting pen.

Easy peasy AND super not fun. Can you think of a bigger buzz kill than someone who corrects you're your grammar? This is the perfect costume for me.

Mac also hates things.

Three more things I hate from the This American Life blogging challenge.

Dan’s in Charlotte. North Carolina.

You know where that is, right?

Deep in the heart of NASCAR country.

Because we’ve all gone down Redneck Lane, we’re really hoping that he’ll locate a red #8 helmet to go with the Dale Earnhardt, Jr. jumpsuit Shef will be wearing for Halloween.

You know what? I’m not proud, but I’m not hiding it either.

It's Halloween at school.  Tweens in costume throwing candy at one another in the hallways.  Whoooo!

Yesterday was likely to be the more productive day.  Yesterday, I was super excited to teach my first hour class about the components of sustainable development.  "We're going to do one of my favorite things," I told the class.

"You're going to teach us about grammar again?" asked a smiler in the front row.

"No!" I said.  "But I like grammar almost as much."

Well, that title is a little misleading. It's still me. (Hi!!) But I planned to type up this story that Shef wrote last night:

I weint to a frm and bobd for applers.
I weint baek and the hoem was a tornado.
I had to goin the basmint.

God, I love that kid.

I've been having a little trouble blogging lately, and it's partly because, as I've previously mentioned, my life is insane; and also partly because I'm afraid to write the funny kid stories from work (For example: Me: Cara, are you dressing up for Halloween? Cara: Yes, I'm going to be an Indian. Me: Do you think your costume is culturally appropriate? Cara: Well, I'm doing the fringe and everything.)

The problem is I'm on Facebook and the link to this blog is on Facebook and I'm friends with some former students now.

Probably I should just take the link off of Facebook and keep writing. That sounds like a good idea.

Got a call from the Assistant to the Head of School at home tonight. And guess what? It's my day to be observed by the Head of School tomorrow. She'll be watching a lesson primarily about run-on sentences.

On Halloween.

With seventh graders.

Immediately after lunch.

I texted some colleagues about this situation. One suggested I wear an inappropriate costume to accentuate the experience. Maybe a spandex Wonder Woman number. Another suggested I dress as Captain Behavior Management.

Here's my plan: I'm going to remind Shef not to pop into my class on his way to lunch. He likes to do that. Sometimes he does a little Gangnam style.

This idea is ripped from the headlines. Or rather, I'm ripping the beginning straight from my friend Carrie's Facebook feed.

A woman starts getting random packages delivered by Amazon. The first is bat window clings, like for Halloween but it's winter. Next is a mini cauldron. After that comes some Borax laundry booster. There might be other little things -- a book of horoscopes,  a Magic 8 ball, a slender copy of Macbeth. 

The woman hasn't ordered these things, nor are there any gift notes inside the packages. It starts to creep her out, especially since she was in a boating accident the previous summer. The accident seemed at the time like just bad luck, but now, months later, little suspicious fragments come back to her that she can't explain. The guy at the marina, for example, said some stuff before the accident that might mean that someone had a special interest in this woman. The reporter who covered it seemed to have an agenda.

The woman starts chatting with an Amazon customer service rep who says to ignore the stuff.

But when more ominous things start arriving--a switchblade, ammunition for a BB gun, butterfly bandages--she starts to investigate what really happened that day on the lake.

When I was a ninth grader, we had a crazy huge snow storm that stranded me at my friend Buffy's house for two days. It started on Halloween night, and the snow just kept on coming, all the way up to 28 inches. The stir-craziness at Buffy's peaked when her dad took her grandmother's tiny dog (Grandma was also snowed in with the family), and chucked it straight out the back door. The little white dog plummeted out of sight and barked from beneath the snow blanket until older-brother Charlie rescued it, which he did pretty hastily, as I recall.

The newspeople say we might top out at 20 inches of snow today, which is the next biggest snowfall after that 1991 extravaganza.

The combination of the snow and the Sadie's chaperoning last night (40 forgotten IDs, 3 too-small shirts, 2 missing straps, and a breathalizer blown for the po-lice!) made me extremely sleepy, so I napped with Mac for 2 hours. Dan took a picture of us when we woke up. It's just kind of a snoozy day around here.