I suppose are still some Christmas carolers out there in the world, and people do have neighborhood barbecues for the summer holidays, but Halloween is the only holiday in which visiting our neighbors is the fundamental rite. It's fitting that we should be afraid. And that we feel the need to wear masks.

Halloween sneaked up on me this year. My officemate and I dressed as each other yesterday, a plan that we hatched last All Saint's Day. If I had remembered the plan before the day before Halloween I might have been able to grow a goatee in time for the holiday, which would have made the costume complete.

Though Halloween was my favorite holiday growing up, I haven't been as festive on the occasion these last few years. I live on the top floor of a duplex, and my front door is on the side of the house, so I don't tend to get too many trick-or-treaters these days. I haven't gone out for Halloween in several years because the block party here in Madison has invited tear gas and rubber bullets for the last several years. This Halloween it was just too cold. But these days I think of Halloween being the day that my grandma died. Or maybe it was the day before; I can't be sure--to steal a line of Camus'. I think of her last words--"The zoo isn't too crowded today" and her long bout with dementia. I think about how fitting it is that this is the time when we honor saints and souls and the dead who always dear but never departed.

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