Is it Halloween already?
It blows my mind that we are nearly through 2022. I still haven’t moved passed the fact that New Year’s 2020 sounds too futuristic to have already happened and here we are almost three full years from that point.
As I try and wrestle with how fast time seems to move the older I get and ignore the looming anxiety that death grows ever closer each day, I must admit I am excited that we have reached the back quarter of the year. It contains so many things I enjoy in life.
Cooler weather, well as cool as the weather can be in Florida. I long for days that I can save a few pennies by turning off the A/C and opening up all the windows to air out the stuffiness of my apartment’s humidity-filled spring and summer seasons. The final three months of the year also contain the triple threat of THE holiday season.
Christmas is only about 10 weeks away, my favorite of all the holidays. Maybe it’s because I love gingerbread, or maybe it’s because I resemble Santa Claus as my beard gets whiter and whiter and my round little belly continues to shake like a bowl full of jelly every year. I think Bill Murray best described why I love Christmas in a monologue in the holiday classic “Scrooged,” where he, as Frank Cross, says: “It’s the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we… we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be.”
We are also six weeks away from the Thanksgiving holiday. A day filled with some of the most amazing food you could ask for. How could you not love that day? Unless you’re a vegan or have a gluten allergy, then it is probably filled with lots of dishes you can’t have and a collection of relatives claiming you won’t eat the turkey and stuffing because of your support of the woke liberal agenda.
At least you can take that pent-up rage of dealing with conservative members of the family out on Black Friday shoppers. I’m kidding, don’t rage shop. It will only raise your blood pressure, cause you to have to go on meds and be constantly reminded that we are the only super power that doesn’t have socialized health care.
And we are only a couple of weeks away from Halloween, which is on a Monday this year. So not ideal but you do have all weekend when most places are holding their Halloween events. I must be honest, and I believe I have stated this in desks of Halloweens past, I’m actually not a fan of this holiday. I never really cared to dress up in costume or put make up on and go out trick-or-treating, dance the night away at a scary party or hit up the theme parks to get jumped out at by monsters, ghosts and ghouls and scream in front of a crowd of people.
I do however love what comes out to accompany the holiday, namely horror movies and candy. I know I am in the minority when it comes to this holiday, especially within the LGBTQ community, and I am sorry. Every year I try, I really do. I tell me friends I think this is the year I will go to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal or head downtown to try at one of those big bucks costume contests but alas each year it ends up the same way, me on the couch with a bowl of miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups, a bottle of wine and some scary ghost stories on Netflix.
But for those of you who bask in all that is Halloween, this is the issue for you — Watermark’s annual Halloween issue! In this year’s dive into all that is demented and delicious, we chat with a pair of scary good queens who have events coming to Central Florida and Tampa Bay — Ginger Minj, who can currently be seen on Disney+’s “Hocus Pocus 2,” and Alaska Thunderfuck.
We also chat with author Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about her first book “Helen House,” a queer ghost love story, we offer up some Halloween films for those of you who hate scary movies and more.
In A&E, we chat with international DJ Ben Bakson, as he heads to Orlando for an event, and Kal Penn, who visited UCF recently.
In news, we sit down with U.S. House District 10 democratic candidate Maxwell Alejandro Frost to talk about his historic Congressional run and we look at Scooters 4 Hooters’ return, a fundraiser for Libby’s Legacy, an organization that helps to pay for mammograms, breast health services and trips for stage IV breast cancer patients.
