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Another e-mail from BookCrossing. I wish I could bring myself to care. It sounded like a neat idea when I first heard of it — I mean, I want to be part of collaborative projects, even if it’s something as simple as sharing mix-tapes (which I never get an opportunity to do) — but nothing seems to have come of this particular one. I just ended up losing a couple of books I now wish I had held onto. If anyone picked them up, they didn’t log on to let me know or share a review. I’m not exactly tempted to part with other books just so the same thing can happen again.

Here it is then, the Friday Five:

1. What is your favorite scary movie? Probably “The Exorcist“, although I still maintain that “The Blair Witch Project” is the single most frightening experience I’ve had at the theater.

2. What is your favorite Halloween treat? The only candy I think of as specific to Halloween is candy corn. I’m okay with candy corn, but it’s by no means whatsoever a favorite.

3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume. My best Halloween costume was probably the Ghostbusters costume I wore in third, fourth, or possibly fifth grade (I don’t remember exactly). I won a best costume award at my Cub Scout Halloween party. I haven’t dressed up in years, though, not since I was a freshman in college and had a Halloween party to attend. I keep thinking I will again, but I never really have anywhere to go on Halloween, so I usually just give it a miss. The last time I did anything on Halloween, I wasn’t in costume, and yet people thought I was Al from Tool Time. I could have done without that, frankly.

4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events? Sure, why not? I haven’t been in one for years, though. When I was a kid, we used to spend a lot of time building haunted houses in my friend Peter’s basement. Looking back, this consisted largely of turning off all the lights, putting obstacles in our visitors’ way, and jumping out to make scary noises when they least expected it. It was dumb, but we had fun.

5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year? Probably not. It’s six days from now, I have nowhere to go, and I haven’t bought a costume. Besides, it looks like they’re predicting rain.

Last week’s Friday Five has left me thinking quite a lot about television lately: why I watch it, why maybe I shouldn’t, how my life might be different if I excised it from my schedule completely. When Sharon wrote, “I like my life better without tv in it. I like my head better, too,” I had to wonder if maybe she wasn’t onto something there. Sure, I like television, or at least a few particular shows, but why do I like them, and what am I getting out of the process?

I was reminded of something Caterina Fake wrote on the subject almost a year ago and my own response to it at the time. I was tempted to post that response here, until I realized with genuine shock that I already had.