My love affair with Halloween stretches back much farther than I can remember, to the days when I would come home on a crisp October night and divide up a pillowsack full of goodies with my costumed comrades.

... and though the sweets were good, the costumes were really what gave Halloween it's lasting appeal.

This weekend, I can say with certainty, that I saw more amazing costumes than I've ever seen before. I only went to a few, smallish, Halloween parties, but as my roomate said, "Everyone who dressed up really brought their A-game."

He was right.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the best:

The Apocalypse - Dressed from head to toe in hillbilly finery: jeans, suspenders, boots, straw hat and a thistle dangling from his lower lip. On his shirt was written "Jeb Bush 2008." He kept telling people to ask him what his costume was, to which he would reply, "I'm the apocalypse."

CampusRec Workout Bike - Worn by a guy who works in the weight room, this costume included a fully grey sweatsuit with a bike seat taped to his crotch, a diagnostic panel taped to his chest (heart rate, time, etc), and handlebars on his hands. He completed the outfit with aviator sunglasses and a stocking hat that had a small notice taped to it, "30 minutes at a time, everybody gets a turn."

He reasoned that this was the best costume out there, "Because who gets more ass than a workout bike at the rec center?"

Mia & Vincent - From Pulp Fiction. Alone, each costume would have been good, but together they were stellar.

A Glory Hole - Urban Dictionary defines a glory hole as "A hole located in a partition in which one's penis is inserted, thus separating the participants and ensuring anonymity throughout the act of copulation or fellatio." This guy had an immitation bathroom wall (complete with obscene writing) hung over his frontside, with a small hole near his crotch, through which a sculpted, acrylic-painted penis (that he had made) poked out.

The Pope - Not John Paul, but Benedict. A costume that was flawlessly complete. So much so that as the guy began to get more and more hammered, I began to feel more and more uneasy. I mean, it's not every day you see the pope dancing to rap music with a beer in one hand and a "sexy secretary" in the other.

After I approached him, knelt and kissed his ring, he reached into a plastic sack, blessed me, and handed me an orange sweatband that read "I'm a member of God's team."

He-Man - There were two He-Men, both dressed exactly as the cartoon was drawn. What's funny, as my roomate noticed, is that you don't really realize how homo-erotic He-Man's outfit is until it's being worn by a real human being. The two He-Men spent much of the night dueling with large, scary swords.

Battlecat - If having two He-Men weren't enough, Battlecat decided to join the fun.

Three Times One Minus One - The musically challenged duo from the sketch comedy "Mr. Show with Bob & David" made an appearance. One of them was complete with fake dreadlocks, ridiculous facial hair, a cane, a top hat and dark sunglasses. The other actually cut his hair into a mullet in order to play the part.

Poop Sandwich - Pretty simple. This girl wore a brown costume, with dark makeup, and sandwiched herself between two pieces of styrafoam.

Sudoku and Crossword Puzzles - Simple, yet effective. This couple had the sudoku and crossword puzzles from Friday's Daily Nebraskan hung around their respective necks on big sheets of cardboard. I filled out a bit of the sudoku puzzle. Great entertainment.

Robot - JJ's robot costume was one of the most creative that I've seen, though it was also borderline frightening. Perhaps it was the way that he was drinking beer from a straw that protruded from behind his mask that gave me the chills. It may also have been the way that he was jerkily walking around. In either case, his costume was stellar.

Postmodernism - I'm not going to really try to describe this, but I will tell you that it included a pool floaty.

Guy Being Eaten By a Bear - Nate had a bear (the stuffed animal kind) attached to the back of a white shirt, and blood was pouring out everywhere.

Cereal Killer - This has been done, but I still liked it. Box of cereal for the t-shirt, with a knife sticking directly into it.

Thor - What else could have been expected from a guy like Dan P?

The Tooth Fairy - The giant tooth that she was carrying around is really what sold me on this costume.

A Chicken - Simple, yet effective. Great makeup.

Hunchback Prostitute - I think that's what she was. Picture your standard street hooker: leopard print jacket, miniskirt and boots. Now add a GIANT hump beneath her jacket. Comedic gold.

Kanye West - Really a pretty lame costume, but gave me a great laugh. This guy was dressed completely normal except for a white shirt which read "George Bush hates black people."

Paint Huffing Bunny - One of the stranger costumes. Nick was wearing paint spattered clothes and a tattered, pink bunny hat (with ears). It seems stupid, but seeing it in person was really like seeing a dirty, pitiful, strung out rabbit. Sort of freaky.

Those are the one's I remember, but there were dozens more. Scores of sexy secretaries, slutty referees, cheerleaders and even Elvis. There were also a lot of great costumes that I didn't get a chance to identify.

As for me? Well, my roomates, Stef and I all went as Corporate Pirates. Business suits in tatters combined with swords, pistols, eyepatches and bandanas. We were the marriage of business and piracy, and we traveled in a band of five, looting and pillaging as we went.

This weekend was truly one for the ages. I wish Halloween was every day of the year.

I'm going to memorize 40 new words a week, for the next 7 months, in order to prepare for the GRE.

That should be about 1000 new words by the time the test rolls around. Though I might pick up the pace a bit once Summer is here.

Today's word of the day... mercurial.

The weekend is coming, and if my roomate's behavior last night was any indicator, then it's going to be a rough one.

(Rough = good)

I think I've made it to the crest of the semester, and now am on the downslide.

I'm headed for another 4.0.

College is actually really easy once you figure out how to do it.

I wish that somehow there would be a pot of coffee brewing next to my bed every morning before I wake up.

Oh well, a bit unrealistic. But most of my dreams are unrealistic.

That's what makes them great.

Life is good.

Keep me warm.

Another soccer loss, again in penalty kicks.

Oh well. At least I scored twice.

So here's what next semester looks like for me:

7352   NEWS498   Sports Writing         GAGE S

4101   MATH203   CONTEMPORARY MATH      STAFF

3798   JAPN302   ADV CONVER & COMP II   ASATO N

4971   NEWS303   ADVANCED EDITING       SASS G

And on that note, I really feel like I'm starting to get a lot of my future mapped out. I'll share a bit of it with you here, if you promise to keep it a secret: 1) head back to Japan in Fall of 2006 for one year 2) enroll at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California for a master's degree in interpretation and translation 3) debt!

But then again, who knows?

Anyone want to proofread/beautify my resume? It's in pretty good shape, but a second opinion would be nice.

Oh, and I need someone to take some hot photos of me. Any photographers in the house?

In just another semester and a half, I'll be done.

It's weird sitting back, turning that word over and over in my head: "Graduate. I'm going to graduate."

"Graduate college."

By summer of 2006, my undergraduate career will come to an end and I will exchange a 25$ fee for two pieces of paper, a news-editorial diploma and an international studies diploma.

That's something to think about, right?

When he was my age, my father was on his own, had already been at work fulltime for 5 years, and had bought a motorcycle and a lavender colored Pontiac GTO with 395 horsepower (That light shade of purple was called "Irish Mist," and it still makes me laugh to imagine my dad behind the wheel of a car with purple paint).

As for my mom, she had finished her undergrad, and was already out teaching fourth grade in a little town called Malcom, where she had grown up.

Grown up.

Grow up.

I guess the point is, this is the age when kids like me start to do that growing up thing.

I mean, that's what I've been told.

But I still feel very much like a kid.

It makes you wonder when that day is actually going to come, that day that you actually have the transition to "adult." Does it just happen one morning before work when you are brushing your teeth and look up into a foggy mirror, and upon seeing your reflection exclaim, "Holy shit! I'm a grown-up now!"

When I was in high-school, I often would imagine the the future as a dark blob sort of looming off in the distance of my mind. I would try hard to wrap my mind around the years and to guess what I would be doing. I saw the year 2000 move by slowly in my head, blurry, and I would dream about what kind of life I would be living. I would make up fanciful stories about myself and the things I would have accomplished by then...

Though it never became clear, and always managed to remain dark, even when it loomed just on the horizon, and even when I passed into it.

I remember getting to the year 2001, and thinking to myself that I really wasn't that much older, despite how I had imagined it as a high school student, when it seemed like graduating would magically lift me to that place called adulthood.

Not that I really wanted to go to that place.

But it had always just seemed like that dark, blurry future full of unknowns contained a grown-up version of me, living a life like everyone else.

Then when I got there I realized, wait, I'm not an adult. I'm still a kid. I'm still me. I'm still dreaming crazy dreams about flying planes over the clouds into the great unknown.

As everyone else is getting married, growing up and graduating, I still feel rooted to the ground as a kid.

I'm going to graduate, yes, and I'm looking ahead to the future just like I did in high school: I see the large black blurry numbers of 2007 and 2008 and beyond, and I imagine things about myself. I look at the idea of turning 30 the same way that I looked at turning 20 when I was back in junior high; by then I'll be an adult! Right? I'll be settled down and have things figured out and live that life that everyone lives.

But I think--no, I know--that that kind of life isn't going to attach itself to me. I don't think I will settle, and I don't think I'll grow up. I'll probably be writing the same tired crap on the Internet, opining about who knows what. Perhaps I'll be living in a strange city, or perhaps I'll be in Lincoln.

But I can't know now.

Some people tear themselves up about the future. Believe me, I'm in the College of Journalism. I know. I see it every day. People who've been planning their entire life since age 15. They go to the right school and talk to the right professors, get the right internships, make the right contacts, and soon they will be graduating and headed off to the right city to get the right job.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But I'm not too worried about my future.

If the past year has taught me anything it is to expect the unexpected, and know that pretty much everything is fleeting. Your life can change as swiftly as the wind.

How could I have anticipated last December and meeting Sara, for example?

And our breakup?

That, too.

What about Japan?

What about anything?

Did any of it even happen?

Life is, despite what we may all see as monotony, a capricious beast, and I'd have it no other way.

Get me out of here. Please god somebody

Listening to songs about love really makes me realize how different my life has become.

A few days ago I stumbled across the greatest mixtape since DJ Andy Smith's "The Document." It's called "Never Scared" by Hollertronix and is basically a mashup of 80's new wave, Southern crunk, and reggae.

I highly recommend you download this now and do some dancin'!

And it's dark in my office.

And I love it.

Yes it sure is.

For about the tenth time this morning I'm starting to type, and hopefully this won't end up deleted, like the prior ten entries have.

It's really just unbelievable... the facade, that we as human beings put up to cover our weaknesses. It's so delicate and fragile, and mine just came tumbling down last night right in front of me. Two months of "getting over it" have come to mean absolutely nothing, except that I'm lying to myself.

I really tricked myself, too.

I actually thought I had dealt with things! I actually thought I was ready to move on and become that better, stronger person that everyone says you become after you get dropped. "You don't need her! You'll find someone who cares about you and treats you with respect! It happens to everyone, you'll get over it."

And you just keep telling yourself that stuff over and over again.

And then you have a few good days in a row, and they turn into good weeks, and you think that pain is gone, and that you've dealt.

I mean, I even thought I ready to find someone else!

What the hell was wrong with me.

I'm not ready for ANYTHING.

It's all a big lie, and it makes my heart hurt...

...and she wishes there was something she could do.

...and I don't know what to do.

She's still the same girl I fell in love with in December. I can still be honest with her and look her in the eyes and bare my soul and just drop off into a dream.

It absolutely kills me that I'm not a part of her life.

But I can't be, not in this capacity, at least.

Everytime I see her part of me dies. I'm so completely lost right now.

I went home and hugged the life out of my pillow and I curled up on my bed and I was a big-fucking-baby.

And then she called, and I just sort of sat there leaking tears onto my rug for the duration of our conversation.

I slept the sleep of a lonely little kid, a pathetic thing, like a man who has just had part of his body amputated. And I tossed and turned and had horrible nightmares about her living her life, and doing just fine without me.

I'm still in love with you.

I haven't been able to stop staring at this for the past 32 hours, at least.

The first time I saw this girl was about two weeks ago, and it was just her face in an animated gif. But now that someone has gone and put the rotating images to Eric Prydz's "Call on Me," I can't tear my eyelids from it. It's soothing and creepy as hell at the same time.

And speaking of Eric Prydz, if you haven't seen the video, I highly recommend that you take a quick look (A slight caveat, if you aren't into bouncy, happy, dumb-sounding repetitive stuff, or if you are one of those stuck up music people who hates fun, then just skip it).

I was given a compliment this weekend (is that how we say it? "Given" a compliment...? anyway), and whether or not it's true I'm unsure, but it interested me: she said that the thing she loves most about me is that I'm not opinionated at all.

As to the degree of my ambivalence, I don't know.

Maybe on the surface.

Maybe all the time?

Could this mean that I'm slowly getting older, more apathetic, and disinterested in the circumstances surrounding my life? At times, yeah, I feel like that's right, like I've lost a lot of the creative fire that defined me as a junior high and high school student. My thought process is now something along the lines of "What's there to get so excited about?"

This is a bad, bad thing, I'm told.

When I think about the future, I see the darkness and the flashing lights, and I hear the adrenaline infused pop music and I'm in the middle of it moving in slow motion with the thousands of people who have touched my life at some point; and it just never, ever ends, the driving bassline continually vibrating on and on and on...

And nothing means anything, and I'm OK with that.

...

I had a lot of flashbacks this weekend, and they still just snatch the breath right out of my lungs. It's amazing what a few moments of a song can do to bring back a lifetime worth of memories.

How real I keep it, 'cause it's the best secret...

...

I realized today that my coffee mug at work, a mug I randomly picked out of the cupboard and have been using for weeks, happens to be from a restaurant in the hometown of my friend Spencer.

"Harrison. Top Town in Nebraska. Elevation 4374."

The restaurant is called "Sioux Sundries," founded in 1971, and they sell a 2 pound hamburger called "The Coffee Burger."

Lately, life has been looking good for all the people surrounding me. This is a positive thing, especially considering that winter is coming soon, and as Megan always used to say, "Winter is for lovers."

But, alas, the high today in mid October is apparently 81 degrees.

I'm not complaining. Just saying.

We lost again in intramural soccer last night, after another penalty shootout.

Thing was, we had to play a man down against a team that had about 7 subs, plus a cheering section of about 10 people. We still tied them in regulation, and I got a sweet tying goal.

But, we ended up losing.

And the worst part is, the team was a bunch of douchebags. They were called "The Hurricanes" and they would chant "Superdome" before kickoff. What the fuck?

Man. Aside from like, a few things, I am absolutely in love with my life right now, and everyone in it.

Especially mornings. I love mornings and being awake EARLY every day.

I love black coffee.

I love blankets and fuzzy pink Winnie the Pooh slippers.

...and warm clothes fresh out of the dryer.

I love parties and margaritas and Mexican food and standing around drunk outside the bars.

I love all the Japanese people I've met this year in Lincoln.

I love all the PEOPLE I've met this year, in Lincoln.

I love the copydesk, and teasing, and going on dates.

I love Husker football games and tailgating and being drunk at 11:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

I love my baby cactus.

I love my roomate Ben and his current war with mice: "Eviction notice!"

I love answering random phone calls from a Japanese girl in England during the middle of my Geography lab.

I love David Banner's new video, Play.

I love consistently getting the highest grade in the class on my meteorology tests.

I love trail mix.

I love my bicycle, in all of its squeaky glory.

I love penalty shootouts in intramural soccer (And I love scoring tons of GOALS in intramural soccer, too).

I love my African American Lit. professor, Dr. Dreher.

I love other seniors who sit in the back row of geography lecture and share in some of my favorite activities: namely, doing the DN crossword, studying for other classes, and bitching about the professor.

I love smiles and waves in the weight room.

I love soup. Any kind of soup. I love it.

I love cottage bread.

I love the copy desk at the DN, so much that I'm mentioning it again, here, and I'm naming names: Jen, Tina, Metta, Liz, Whitney.

I love Ogawa sensei so much that she almost deserves a "double-love."

I love facebook.

I love bumping into Irma, even though it hasn't happened in a while. I think I've started bumping into Nidhi more often, now.

I love that Stef and I both clean our rooms before we go out on Friday night.

I love grocery shopping with my mom.

I love that I don't even have to ask my mom to bake chocolate chip cookies for my roomates and I.

I love that my mom won't stop buying furniture for my house, even though I have absolutely nowhere to put it.

I love not seeing my roomate, Dana, for weeks at a time, then just sitting and talking to her for an hour when we finally happen to be in the same place--and awake--for a change.

I love that the three Dana's in my life (my sister, my roomate, my co-worker) all have the same middle name: Christine.

I love that Robin Washut loves Three Six Mafia.

I love that Cessa will say absolutely anything, from telling people she has AIDS, to wishing that sorority girls get raped.

I love getting random MySpace messages that say, "Hey. You're that dreadhead kid I always see downtown riding his bike!"

I love talking with Tabitha about BOYS.

I love almost everything that Billy DeFrain writes.

I love free cookies at Chi Omega after the football games.

I love that my bank is next door to my job.

I love the timid Senshu exchange students I met who are too afraid to speak English to me when I bump into them on campus.

I love that Justin can do pullups using ONLY his middle fingers.

I love Rob Hunter's attitude toward everything.

I love falling asleep on couches, whether it's at the DN or my living room.

I love my front porch.

I love random encounters with old friends.

I love the info desk.

I love french toast flavored bagels with fat free cream cheese.

In fact, I love almost any food. Homemade vegetarian chili is up there near the top, though.

I love the time that Dr. Dreher said, while describing a movie, "Oh it just has this wonderful rape scene!"

I love Dr. Dreher's George Bush impersonation.

I love Hummus Wraps.

I love a good shower before the Friday night begins.

I love that Halloween is coming.

I probably love you.

...

I'm going to stop this list before it gets too much longer. I'm feeling so good I could probably keep this going for pages and pages.

My inner thigh hurts like hell.

It's always the day after the soccer game that I notice just how cramped I am. Ouch.

But on the bright side I scored my third goal of the season.

Then again, we did end up losing during a shootout, our second shootout loss this year.

Leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I have a feeling this weekend is going to be spectacular.

I had a french toast flavored bagel.

It was delicious.

Went and got to thinking about her again.

I don't think anyone will ever understand how much I cared, and still care for that girl.

I'd do anything for her.

I often sit out on my front porch in a pair of boxers and silver basketball shorts, shirtless, watching life creep by at the corner of 11th and A streets. There are blacks and whites and brown skinned men from places I probably can't imagine, and I'm reading a nutrition science book, watching them mull about in front a sad but proud Iraqi grocery store; a tiny outpost--against what I'm not sure--from where their sing song voices come floating out the door and through the air like horses bobbing up and down on a carousel, sounding much to me like my English might have sounded to a passerby in Tokyo: foreign, exotic, tantalizing.

I sit on that porch and in my mind I romanticize their tiny community, so tightly knit and so far from home. Men greet each other with a kiss on the cheek and a word or two I can't comprehend. They work hard and they have faces that reflect that hardness, with sharp lines and deep, dark valleys.

It makes me feel lost in my own country, as if I have nothing that I belong to concretely, no anchor to weigh me down as waves beat against my body.

My eyes have been hurting a lot lately.

When I look up or down or left or right, it causes this itty-bitty pain somewhere near the surface of my temple. Always on the left side. I think it must mean something.

Something about my direction not being focused.

After this weekend I've come to feel dirty, like I need a shower for my soul.

It's something I can't do for myself. I need someone to do it for me, someone pure to come and cleanse me and make me whole again, someone to weigh me down.

After this weekend, I realized that I'm ready for it--for her.

I've also realized that I am in no way whatsoever ready, for her.

I'm prepared to move on but I'm not ready to let go.

As this year has progressed, I've watched myself turn into a lot of things I never thought I would, or should be, and I'm no longer sure what's right for me.

I wonder when I'll be able to take this picture down from my cubicle.