Halloween's approaching. I don't know about you, but I'm getting stressed over it. You see, it's been 5 years since I lived in a house on Halloween (having been overseas for 2 years and in an apartment for the other two).

We live in a popular "kids" neighborhood, and have been told that there will be over 100 callers on Friday night. That's a lot more than we had back in my Minnesota years. Now if all of the kids were chaperoned by parents I'd be fine. But it's those teens that concern me. Around here, they appear a little rambunctious.

I've never been comfortable around groups of kids; a strange admission for a former teacher. But that explains why the word former is there. It also explains, in part, why I never married and am childless.

This isn't new. I didn't like being around lots of kids even when I was a kid. No, I wasn't one of those kids who thinks he's a grownup and usurps an adult conversation at a get-together. They annoy me. No, I would find a friend and go off and play. Or be by myself.

My life would have been much easier were I different. In college, we would have raucous dorm parties and the only way to handle the chaos and cacaphony was to get inebriated to the hilt. Even then, I'd often go to my dorm room and listen to music with headphones, waiting for the roudiness to stop.

People often consider me snobbish, antisocial and/or unpredictable, since I tend to dissapear from gatherings. If I can get someone interesting onto a semi-private conversation I'm OK. But that's not common when one is as peripatetic as I. I'm the new guy. People don't often approach me since my body language says no. Now, if I'm with a large group of runners or collegues that's not the case. Many would be surprised to read this. But that's how it has always been.

It really hurts your career as a composer, musician, or aspiring anything if you have social phobia, and it really decimated my career. I've tried every med in the book and all courses of therapy, but I have to accept that I am the way I am.

Maybe it's an "artists temperment," but I wasn't an artist at six years of age. Other kids scared me in 1966 and they do in 2008. By the way, I still feel like a kid myself. So we'll stock up on bulk candy and I'll face the noise and chaos of the kids of today.

Wish me luck.