I drove home from the rescue squad in the stunning early morning light. Early Saturday, not even the joggers were out plying the roads of Northwest Washington. A light fog was held in the tunnelly spaces under the trees, and sunlight spread in wide fingers down towards the road, opening to embrace the car. It was gorgeous. I felt lousy. I hadn't run constantly the previous night, but the calls I got seemed strategically placed to minimize the amount of sleep I could get.

What a good kind of lousiness it is, driving home groggily in the early morning with a can of Coke wedged in between the seat and emergency brake, in my sweatshirt that says "Rescue" on the back, with the faint odor of latex gloves sticking to me!

Later, Susan and I drove down along the Potomac toward Mount Vernon. We parked along a parkway out there and scrambled along the river bank for a while, watching guys meditatively flick neon-green fishing lures into the water over and over again. Some time later, we saw the men gathering up their stuff in a group and realized that they had been there together. But while they were fishing, each was in his own little world.

We also saw a bald eagle, which was a pretty impressive sight in that it was the biggest damn bird I've ever seen in my life. We watched it fly around for a while, and then it perched in a tall tree for twenty minutes. It looked like a person huddled out on the branch. I honestly believe that bald eagles could attack and kill us (or small children and pets at least) if they ever figured it out.

On Sunday we drove out to Solomon's Island (which isn't an island, but whatever) to carve pumpkins with an acquaintance/proto-friend. He and his partner have a little house that sits so close to the placid Chesapeake Bay that you could literally spit a watermelon seed (in season) from their porch into the water. It looked like the house was founded in the oblivious optimism of vacation-home builders, but had apparently endured for twenty years without a single devastating storm surge.

When we arrived, we discovered that the pumpkin-carving party was a traditional get-together that's been going on for umpteen years. Everyone else had done this before, but we were the fresh blood, first-timers. Isn't it kind of strange when you realize that you've been selected to join an institution like that? It suggests that the host really thinks you might be a long-haul friend. While touring the house, we saw a wall devoted to photos of past pumpkin-carvings. They dated back to earlier fashion trends.

There was more we did not know. This was no mere party -- it was a ruthless pumpkin-carving contest with actual prizes. Everyone would vote on the winners at the end. One participant reported that he'd spent three hours on his pumpkin the previous year, creating a pumpkin-crown ornamented with little fake jewels that he'd brought along. He got second place. This year, one couple brought a whole tray of beads to adorn their creation. We felt outclassed, but charged bravely ahead with our little knives.

I designed a pumpkin with three-dimensional features, cutting out sections and then refitting them back into the holes. I searched the beach for some accessories, and crafted a dangly clamshell earring and smooth stone tongue stud for my body-mod face. I was quite enamored of the results. Susan went with a more traditional approach, but gave her pumpkin a hairpiece crafted of dried flowers that she found somewhere.

I should know better than to get involved in events that put my creative powers in direct competition with other people's. While I am relatively Type B in everyday life, a contest brings out a grisly and ferocious part of me. I wanted to make the fucking be-all and end-all pumpkin, a pumpkin that would be talked about for years to come. I wanted people to admire and acclaim my pumpkin. Deep down, I speculate this is because I am such a shy social mutant in group settings that I use the things I create (or write, like the Tales) to overcome these barriers. And because I want to be absolutely perfect at everything I do. And because I want people to worship and fear me.

Well. It came time for the voting, and we all wrote our top three choices on little scraps of paper. The hosts tallied the results and read them in ascending order. They had prepared little amusing packages of goofy toys for the winners. Susan took forth, which everyone agreed was a strong showing for a first-timer. We got all the way to number two without my body-modification pumpkin being mentioned. I felt like the new Miss America when they read the name of the second-place contested and it's not her. She knows what that means. And the first place pumpkin was... the pirate! I'd forgotten about the pirate pumpkin! My incredible 3-D pumpkin hadn't even placed. It was a crushing defeat.

I laughed about it, but I was a little perplexed at the loss. Isn't it funny that I could be in the back of an ambulance with people in dramatic need of medical attention one day, and yet lack the perspective enough to shrug off losing a pumpkin-carving contest the next day? I can't explain it either. Things just get ahold of you. Life can seem so real sometimes.

We stopped for gas on the way home, and I discovered that another group of pumpkin partiers had been there before us. They had left their pumpkin by the trash can next to the gas pumps -- a pumpkin that, I might add, had beaten my body modification pumpkin. We felt sorry for it and put it in the back seat next to our pumpkins. By the time we got home, I was feeling much cheerier. It was too late for trick-or-treaters, but we placed all three lit pumpkins proudly in the front window.

In other news, I spent some free time this weekend setting up my Go Goth!™ website, a fictitious program aimed at convincing people to abandon their everyday lives and become Goths. My original idea was to grab John and Sara and dress up in our best Goth attire and take pictures for a fake-goth site. I was hoping that I could thereby get one of us declared "Goth Babe of the Week" by one of the many sites that promote gothic beauty styles. But that seemed like pretty anemic satire. Earnest Goths have enough crap to deal with, from people who think they're all dangerous white-supremacist gun-nuts, without adding my mockery to the pile. So instead I made it a veiled poke at people's attempts to buy and put on new lifestyles, as one would a set of clothes. We're still planning a Goth expedition to flesh out the site with some Before & After pictures, showing how participants in the Go Goth!™ program have gone from miserably depressed yuppies to pleasantly depressed Goths.

I am still soliciting donations of human hair for a sculpture project. Email me for details.