-- Saturday, October 30, 1999 -- ------------   2:41 a.m. Well, I just love a party, I tell you. Especially one where someone else has run ragged and fussed and primped and made the house safe for the rampaging hordes. The photo (left) shows our gracious host and hostess for the evening, Vicki and Don. Don has a radio show and he's done up as a radio show guy who got shot a few years ago: Alan Burke? Is that correct? I must look it up and make the appropriate adjustments. Those are bullet holes in his shirt, and I believe he's a zombie of sorts, as is his wife, the lovely vampire Vicki. Vicki and Don own and operate UFO Magazine and are much renowned and admired in the UFO community. Until this photo, I suppose.

Here are some aliens and a Man in Black. Igor is very smug and self-satisfied because he has gotten away with a minimal costume. The alien on the left is wearing my mask, which I got at the Rite Aid just this afternoon from a pile of leavings on the floor. It was that or Jar Jar Binks. The little flashlight has already come in handy. We used it on the way to the party to read the directions and then, once we finally parked the car we used it again to light the way across a field with horses nearby. I was wearing the mask and fumbling along, carrying party goodies and hostess gifts and feeling exactly as I've always felt in a Halloween mask.

Here's a guy you might recognize. He's the actor Dwight Schultz, who plays the recurring role of Lt. Barclay on various Star Trek shows. Oddly, he has a keen interest in politics when he's not acting and it was disconcerting, indeed, when he got off on a heated rant about something, whatever, who-knows-what was/is wrong with the government today. I just found it very mesmerizing to listen to a political rant from this persona. That's one of the weird things about Halloween parties for me. Are you talking to the person or the persona? The man or the mask? It's strange asking a blood-dripping vampire in the kitchen if there's anything I can do to help with the fixin's. I don't know. Maybe I'm too immature for these occasions.

This guy was more typical of the people at the party. His entire costume consisted of the alien pin on his shirt that turned color and lit up. He came with another weakly costumed guy who said he was a deranged serial killer -- they look just like anybody else, you know. He was very quiet. Well, as I said, I do love a party. I'm here, now, in my own quiet office typing away with nary a plate to wash or a garbage bag to stuff with empty things. And by the way -- I do not agree with the time switchover. To me it still seems like 3:03, and that's how my clocks will stay until I give in. Sure, sure. I'll cave eventually, but I think it is cruel and unusual to take this gentle slip-sliding into shorter days and longer nights and suddenly boom! Lop off a whole hour. I'm not ready for it, and I won't abide by it. Not just yet. Maybe tomorrow.