All the boys want me.

For my candy, mostly.

But really.

This is the first time I've sat home and given out candy, I think. My roommate is largely disinterested, but I like carving pumpkins, and in order to carve pumpkins and put them out where they can be seen, I have to give out candy.

NOT giving out candy, but putting out pumpkins, is just a huge tease.

Anyway, I don't see anyone else on the block with pumpkins out.

Stupid people. Pumpkins are the best part of Halloween!

At least, they are now that I'm older and more *ahem* mature.

That being said, there is a small pile of candy wrappers next to my computer (Coffee Crisp and Reeses Pieces), and an empty glass that once held hot buttered rum.

My cheeks are all flushed and pink.

My old boss, Brenna, told me I should try speed dating. Caitlin, my other old boss, told me I should try speed dating.

I'm feeling old and burnt out on love.

But sometimes I feel like I should try speed dating.

I don't know if it would be any good, but it couldn't hurt, could it?

Could it?

I want to run from Canada, head east, east, east.

I have always believed that there is a place in which every person is the perfect image of beauty, and I believe that for myself, as well.

My guesses are Italy and Lebanon, mostly because old Italian men and old Lebanese men hit on me.

HA! I just got a mini Darth Vader at the door! Awesome!

I'm almost out of candy. I was giving out two pieces for a while there.

I think I should probably blow out the pumpkin candles and go downstairs. It's after 9pm, and what're kids doing out after 9pm anyway?

Who knows.

A little part of me hopes some rowdy teenages smash my pumpkins, because I don't know what else to do with them.

My mother used to roast our old pumpkins and turn them into pie for Christmas.

That's a nice idea, too.

My hot buttered rum is now cold buttered rum. All the heat is in my cheeks.

I miss G.

Shutup. I know I said I'd never speak of him again, but I'm drunk and sad and I miss him.

I was laying awake in bed the other night, unable to sleep, and I was thinking of my carousel of loves.

All of them, different backgrounds, different skin colours, different eyes and mouths and shoulders and feet.

When I can't sleep, I imagine I am being held gently but firmly by a comforting someone. Loren used to do that for me: let me rest my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest, and he would stroke the hair at my temple until I went to sleep, which was always quickly.

When I was in college, and I couldn't sleep, I pretended Loren was at my side again, and suddenly, I could sleep.

When Loren became a heartache, I resorted to an imagined man, one I had wrote into one of my many stories, until another real man came to take his place.

And now when I lay awake in bed, I try to imagine my made-up man, with red hair and grey eyes, lean face, and so many burn scars, but he will not come. Instead it is every man I have ever loved, flickering past like a television with bad reception.

And I realize: every man I have ever dated has exactly the same hands.

Broad palms, strong fingers, slightly knobbly knuckles, calluses like sandpaper.

They flicker against my face, pale white, Dutch yellow, Metis red, chocolate black, and I can't get them to settle.

I try and fix that imagined hand in place -- freckled, bronzed, callused, lean -- but I can't get it to stick.

Goddamn it.

I don't think any more kids are coming to my place. I need to go to bed. I am tired and sad all over again.

But hey, I still have two more mini Coffee Crisps.

Hooray!

Life's little, simple pleasures...

.

~Rosie.

Before&After