Apparently, this month is in addition to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), it is also National Blog Post Writing Month (NaBloPoMo). This is where you will write a blog post daily for the month of November.

I haven’t actually ever participated in NaNoWriMo, but I do have several books I’ve started on. I do need to get around to finishing them as they might be of interest to someone. In any event, I think I will try my hand at writing for 30 days straight here and my first thoughts are about Halloween. Yes I am off a day, but oh well, I can do 29 posts in November.

I’m not one to not try to have some fun. Usually I have to do this by myself because my “friends” are “too busy” to do anything with me. Or more to the point, they have no interest in most things I want to do and therefore won’t. So I end up going about things on my own. If I didn’t, I would never leave my house and would eventually become a shut in.

This Thursday, I took yet another step in my year of doing things out of the ordinary. I went to a Halloween party at Untitled. It was the Halloween edition of Unbridled. If you haven’t been to Unbridled, it is a Thursday night show at Untitled that features all types of performances. There is burlesque dancing, pole dancing, fire dancers, and is just a fantastic time.

The space is also super fun. It is styled to look like what you imagine an underground place from the prohibition era would look like. In any event, I had to go because I was going to see my friend who pole dances. And before you start thinking the stereotypical stripper stuff, it is NOT that at all. Not even close.

I haven’t seen her perform for a few months nor had I seen her due to both of us having jam-packed schedules. Since Halloween this year was on a Thursday night, I knew it would be difficult for people to attend the show with me. So instead, I went by myself. It was a costume event and sadly, I didn’t wear one.

Not because I didn’t want to because I actually did. No, the no costume was due to not having time to find one that would work for me.  I had a couple of good ideas, but I’ll have to put those in practice next year if I choose to go out on Halloween and dress up.

As luck would have it, I managed to actually have a good time. Then again, it was an easy thing to do given the crowd and performances to watch. For things like this, I am not really one to go to them by myself. It is so much easier to do it when you have someone you know you can talk to. Actually socializing with strangers is just . . . not my thing.

But, I really had to go to this show because I wanted to see my friend perform and I hadn’t really been out in months due to being in training mode for the marathon. Now that I am not training, it is actually time for me to “go enjoy life.” Going outside the box and doing things that normally would be scary (attending a costume party by myself with no one to talk to) is something I needed to do. Be uncomfortable so that I can grow.

Anyway, my friend’s performance was just outstanding. It was just really beautiful and it makes me incredibly envious that I do not yet have the core strength that she does to perform the moves that she did. One day I will get there, but for now, seeing her perform really inspires me to keep working at that type of strength.

After all, having a strong core (which contrary to popular opinion is not at all strictly about working crunches to get flat abs) will make me a much stronger and faster runner. A goal I am striving toward every day. And more part of me doing stuff that is just not me per se. Who knows, maybe by the end of the year I will really go “crazy” and do something completely unexpected.