Thanks to the exigencies of soccer tournaments, I've been up since 4:45 and have already driven back and forth to Dover-Foxcroft for the first time today. Later I go back again to play a gig at a sports bar's Halloween party, which is one of the last places I would ever have expected to find myself in this world. I have never been all that good at Halloween, the physical demands of playing the violin constrains what kind of costume I could manage anyway (i.e., no banana suits or Nixon masks), so I've decided to limit myself to rhinestone cat ears. Let the rest of the band go as hippies. I will impersonate their pet.

[Isn't there a better word than impersonate to describe dressing up like an animal? Incatenate sounds like a cross between indoctrinate and potentate (which, come to think of it, more or less sums up regular cat behavior).]

Despite my own costume-wearing anxiety, I admire people who are actually good at dressing up, and I like to aid and abet them. For next weekend's high school masquerade ball, Paul and his girlfriend plan to go as Big Bang Theory's Sheldon and Amy. I think this is very funny, especially since Paul kind of looks like Sheldon anyway. And shopping for Amy's sweater-and-skirt set at the Goodwill would be very entertaining. That would be a pleasant outing to take with a daughter, if I had one. As it is, I will be limited to helping Paul part his hair correctly, don the appropriate T-shirt/long-sleeve shirt combination, and bone up on his Star Trek trivia knowledge.