Post Dinner

Last night’s dinner was fun, right? It’s nice to step back and try to see HRF through the eyes of outsiders, and remember that we are noble. And honestly, it’s nice to socialize with HRF staff. You guys are great. Many of us today may regret how excessively we participated and celebrated last night (we advocated just the right amount), but it was fun.

Next Friday is Halloween, which I sometimes call my favorite holiday. Actually Halloween is a great opening day for holidays season – between now and Jan 2, we have plenty of rituals to keep things interesting, to keep winter from being depressing, and to remind us to call our parents. It is all so much better than February ever is. So, er, Halloween. I am going to suggest – perhaps controversially – that you dress up, and eat candy, and that we all generally acknowledge that this is just the most fun holiday, that it’s not hard to let down our guard and see the world with a child-like sense of wonder, to acknowledge and enact what is good and generous and warm-spirited about humanity. So, costumes? I’m gonna, if I can think of what I’d like to be for a day. This was totally the best part of elementary school. It will make a nice way to say good-bye to our friends Michael and Betsy: Say “I’ll miss you” in costume. I am also going to carve at least a pumpkin or two in the next week: expressing yourself in pumpkin-carving is a great opportunity, and the seeds are delicious to eat. I should note that while Obam-o-lanterns and the like are acceptable, dressing up as a candidate, or Joe the Plumber, is lame.

Autumn Songs: More Tusk, I promised you, so how about the song called Tusk from the album called Tusk. That’s plenty of Tusk. (N.B.: Do not confuse Tusk with the word “tush.”) What’s fun to note about this song is that Lindsey Buckingham indeed arranged for the USC Marching Band to play in it, which makes it sound big and frantic and crazy, and marvelously fun. I wish I was there.