This one is not specifically related to epilepsy or to running. It is still about something very important. Something that comes around every year and brings to each person joy, terror, and/or resigned annoyance: Halloween!

Halloween is my favourite holiday. Christmas is lovely and all and I really love “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. I’m sure there are other holidays but I can’t really think of any that have any significance to me. Halloween, on the other hand, is the best. Straight up, hands down, the best. The entire month of October is fabulous. This October we even had a Friday the 13^th!

For the month of October, I refuse to watch any movies or shows that aren’t horror-related. I’ve been binge-watching “The Walking Dead”. I prefer classic horror movies to newer ones, although there is a spot in my heart for cheesy shock-gore one-liners likes “Army of Darkness”. My favourite horror movie of all is “Nightmare on Elm Street”. I think it’s terrifying, because not only is Freddy Krueger a serial killer, he’s a serial killer in their dreams. There’s no escaping that. The girl stays awake for 7 days by drinking coffee and taking caffeine pills. I drink like 8 coffees a day and I can’t stay awake past 9:00 pm. I’d be toast. I’d be the one killed off in the opening credits.

I start my Halloween costume in September. In all honesty, I start thinking about it in November, but to avoid overly irritating my husband I wait a little while beyond that before getting started. The poor fellow not only has to listen to me plan it, change my mind, plan something new, go back to the first idea, order specific items online or hunt items down, he occasionally has to actually make props for me. By occasionally, I mean every year. He does an amazing job.

This year, I also asked one of my friends build a piece for me. She created a fin for me to wear on my head, based on my vague description and from movie stills. She did a fantastic job. My mind was completely blown. I’m completely in love with it, and if I ever get a chance to meet the actor who plays the character, I’ll beg him to sign it.

A few years ago I had a super easy costume, and I suppose this relates a little to epilepsy. In January of 2015, I had a seizure in a parking lot and knocked out a few teeth. It was a long process to get them all repaired (I only finished it earlier this year). So for Halloween 2015, I was still wearing a “flipper”, a fake tooth on a plate that could be flipped into my mouth and that I didn’t wear while sleeping or running. That Halloween, I went as a cowboy. It was an easy costume: jeans, checkered shirt, boots, hat. I also wore a huge mustache (think like from the movie “Tombstone”). I didn’t wear my flipper. So I was a cowboy with a mustache and a missing tooth. It was fantastic. I will never be able to wear that costume again because it will never be as awesome as when I actually had a missing tooth.

On the other hand, those fake teeth that I have permanently now are causing some problems. The character that I am going as has a few metal and chipped teeth. Most adhesives for teeth are thermoplastic, so they can’t go on crowns, veneers, over fillings, etc. This is most of my front teeth. I tried adhering tin foil to my teeth with eyelash glue. It didn’t work on the implant, but it did on the natural tooth. The problem was it would also pop off fairly easily and I really don’t fancy swallowing tin foil. I picked up some black-out tooth polish and some silver glittery lipstick at the costume store before going to my dentist earlier this week. I explained the dilemma. My dentist confirmed that I could use the black-out polish on my real teeth and the crowns, but not the one with the filling material. I practiced a couple of days ago, and found that applying the lipstick directly to my teeth looked better that using the black-out polish. Yes, I’m putting lipstick in my mouth. It stayed on my teeth better than it usually does on my lips. It’s all in the name of Halloween.

While totally unrelated to epilepsy or running, I decided to include this as a blog post this week. Halloween is amazing. Halloween is fun. Halloween is an opportunity to dress up, whether you want to be cinematically accurate, terrifying, naughty, funny, beautiful, outrageous, shocking, or adorable (or a combination thereof). It’s a chance to be creative and try new techniques. We can set aside, in the process of decorating, sewing, gluing, painting and welding, the things that are out of our control. Halloween can be embraced in all its scary and creative glory by everyone.

To faux-quote Freddy Krueger (if Freddy Krueger was a motivational speaker and not a terrifying horror movie villain): Don’t chase people in their dreams and forget to chase your own.