Last Friday my best friend from high school called me to invite himself down for Halloween. On Monday I called him back and told him not to come.
\Yeah, I'm not really up for it,"" I said. ""I've done the Madison Halloween thing three times, and I've never really thought it was anything all that great. You're not going to miss a thing.""
I'd planned an elaborate excuse as to why I couldn't have him over, and I'd feared that he was going to be mad. But in the end I just told the truth, and he was okay.
""That's fine,"" he said. ""I can go home and see my parents instead.""
""Yeah, that's a better idea,"" I said. ""I'd go home too if it weren't so far away.""
It's a good weekend to go home. It's a good weekend to just plain get out of town, and I know a few people who are leaving, but I'm going to stick it out. I'm excited by the prospects.
I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I'm pretty confident about what's not going to happen.
""I might just stay in,"" I told my friend. ""Or actually I'm going to be a 1967 version of Bob Dylan,"" I said, knowing he understood exactly what I was talking about.
I'd always planned on being Bob Dylan for Halloween. I'd planned on going out with some friends, who were all going to represent different eras in Dylan's career. I'd originally planned on being the 1965 Dylan, but last weekend I had a change of heart.
The '65 Dylan is sunglasses and harmonicas and cigarettes. It's the Bob Dylan of ""Like A Rolling Stone,"" and that's not who I want to be.
I want to be the mysterious Dylan who just disappeared. I want to be the Dylan who was recording blues songs on a tape recorder in a basement while the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper. Sometimes I think Sgt. Pepper is just too much'just like I think Halloween is a little too much here.
""I don't understand what goes on in Madison, but everyone in Duluth is talking about it,"" my friend said. ""I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years. It's just not a big thing here.""
""Yeah, this isn't Duluth,"" I said, and I left it at that. I don't even know exactly what I meant, but I do know my friend drove down to Madison once before and wasn't impressed. He and I are impressed by different things.
I'm not impressed by a good costume or a good party. Besides, most people have awful costumes. Most people put a lot of time into this holiday, and they end up as something boring and lacking of creativity. Or, often times they end up as something offensive. But who am I to judge? What am I doing for Halloween?
I don't know. It's all a mystery to me, and I wish I was mysterious, but I'm just apologetic.
""I'm sorry,"" I told my friend, as I hung up.
""Come on down some other time,"" I said, but I knew he wouldn't be asking to come down again. He knows he's not going to get what he wants out of me, and that's the whole idea behind Bob Dylan and 1967.
andrewmiller@students.wisc.edu
