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What’s your most memorable Halloween experience?

In my late 20s, I went to a college Halloween party dressed as a “One Night Stand”: lampshade on my head, painted cardboard nightstand around my body, drawer knobs placed inappropriately, glued-down remote, ashtray & cigarette. Later, I met a freshman dressed as a banana. I unzipped the bottom of his banana suit, dropped into proper nightstand position & gave that banana the kind of happy ending Chiquita leaves off the packaging. The next day at work, hungover, someone threw a banana peel at me.

Tell us why you would make it to the end of a horror movie.

I’d make it to the end because I don’t investigate strange noises, split up, or say “I’ll be right back.” I’ve already lived off-grid in the mountains, slept in a tent city on rocky terrain, learned to listen for trouble & discovered gravity has a personal vendetta against my tailbone. I’m suspicious, stubborn & perfectly willing to leave the haunted house even for money, cursed doll that runs faster than me & the idiot ex boyfriend checking the basement behind.

What would you do with the unlucky $13,000?

My very superstitious Jewish grandmother made 13 her lucky number & played it in lotto numbers & bets every chance she got. She kept an evil eye by the door & said “pooh-pooh-pooh” to ward off the evil eye. So $13,000 wouldn’t feel unlucky; it’d feel like Grandma finally won at the casino from beyond the grave. I’d use some for a horror-convention adventure, some to make life easier & raise a glass to the woman who taught me bad luck only wins if you let it.

Who is your real-life hero who you would want to survive a horror movie with?

Katharine “Kitty” Cochrane. We met as neighbors in cabins in the San Jacinto Mountains & later survived rough terrain, tent-city living, bad men, snow & worse judgment. She taught me survival tricks, rigs traps to warn of intruders, hears trouble before anyone else & would never leave me behind. She still lives up there in a tent all these years later. In a horror movie, she’d be shoving me uphill with one hand while swinging a machete behind us with the other. I’d trust her with my life.