Well, here I sit, nervously awaiting poll closures across the country.

At the risk of sounding naive, isn't it sort of incredible that we expect votes to be tallied so quickly in something as important as the presidential election? I mean, as soon as the polls close, they start announcing projected winners left and right. How can votes possible be counted and verified so quickly? You'd think that we'd all vote, the polls would close, we hang out for a day or two while the counties make sure they've got their facts straight, and then we'd all line up to see who's going to play the leading role of Stella and Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire when Mr. Sidwell posts the final cuts on the wall next to the cafeteria. Am I right?

I tried watching some of the election coverage, but since we only have the basic channels - and Faux News has the best reception - I figured I come into the office and write for a bit to pass the slow march of time this evening.

First, let's start with a few educational pictures:



I like to call this: Shampoo.




And now, I give you: Shampoo for DOGS.

So, what else is new? Oh, that's right - Halloween! Before the season is forgotten, I suppose I should recap the occasion.

To start, I have to say - I love holidays. Love them, love them, love them, and every commercial distortion of them - especially the entire holiday season that we're in now. For some reason, I was born loving Fall above any other time. I love it when the air gets colder. I love it when the leaves change and eventually lose their leaves. (Or so I like to imagine - around here, you can tell it's Fall when your face stops melting when you walk outside.) I love the obnoxious displays of jack-o-lantern purses and hats and bowls and plates and candy, the rows of cheap costumes. I love kids dressed up in Halloween costumes. I love the way that Thanksgiving and Christmas seem so far away on October 15 and so insanely close on November 1. I especially love it that Target.com already has Christmas stuff on their home page.

The funny thing about growing up is that, suddenly, holidays and birthdays and occasions aren't automatically magical anymore. If you want them to be magical, you have to work at it. I decided that this year that I'm going to work at it. I'm going to intentionally observe the holidays, even if it means just stopping to watch the kids at Target pick out their costumes rather than curse them for running over my foot with a cart taller than their heads.

Step one: Two weekends ago, Brad and Andreia and Shiloh and I went to The Nightmare Factory, a haunted house just South of Austin. It was my brilliant idea, and I was so excited (read: scared) on the drive there. In the car, we talked about things that are creepy, and Andreia told us how the song "Huckleberry Hound" totally freaks her out. Apparently, one time she told a friend about this phobia, and he would randomly sing Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin' Clementine... in a slow, low, Psycho-bathroom-scene voice when she least expected it, which I thought was hysterical.

When we pulled into the parking area, we were met with long lines of giggly pre-teenagers, leading me to believe that the "Nightmare" Factory would be more of a "Only Scary If The Movie Scream Freaked You Out" Factory. We waited in line behind a pack of thirteen-year-old girls who were planning multiple trips through the haunted house. You see, the Nightmare Factory is set up as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thriller, with forks in the maze where you choose which direction you'll take through the house. For that reason, the bossy 17-year-old doorkeeper told us that we needed to choose a leader. At this point, I looked at Brad. He looked back at me and said, "If I get scared, will you hold me?" (Guess who got appointed leader?) Then he leaned over Andreia's shoulder and sang, "Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin' Clementine..." in a low, slow, Psycho-bathroom-scene voice. Awesome.

I walked into the house thinking, you know - no big deal. I can totally handle this. As soon as we turned the first corner and the first monster ran at me, I screamed like schoolgirl. In fact, I screamed at everything - the dark, the wall, the directional arrows, the two teenage girls who passed us (both screaming hysterically also), the Headless Horseman in the fog, the abandoned nursery with the creepy clown doll that came to life, the empty apartment with the freaky drug-addict-boogie-man who came out of the closet. Damn. I'll say it again. Damn. That was scary. Because of the whole Choose-Your-Own-Adventure aspect, there were moments when I thought I was leading us in circles and HOLY FRACK WE ARE NEVER GETTING OUT OF HERE. There were moments when Brad tried to get in front of me to take over for me, the "fearless leader", and apparently I shoved him back behind me while I screamed. (I might have a problem with this.) There were moments when I questioned why the hell I thought it would be fun to go a haunted house in the first place. When we finally burst out of the exit door into the chilly October night, I so TOTALLY wanted to go back in. Nightmare Factory. ROCK.

My second attempt at seasonal festivities was carving a pumpkin. I bought one at a pumpkin sale at a local church (much better than one from the grocery store, you know) and spent one evening drawing and carving and pulling out nasty strands of pumpkin goo and basting it with a vinegar solution that was supposed to make it last longer. Three days later, here's what the jack-o-lantern looked like:



The saddest Jack-o-crap ever.
Yes, that's mold, and a caved-in heart.
Gross.

Halloween weekend itself was a total bust. On Saturday, I volunteered at WurstFest, a German sausage festival in New Braunfels. (When I told my sister Sarah that I volunteered at a sausage festival, she burst out laughing.) I worked in the merch booth for the New Braunfels Museum of Art and Music. I'd been fighting off a cold all week, and as soon as I left the festival grounds, it kicked in full-force. Perhaps it was the wurst-o-rama (5 different kinds of sausage, all on one stick!) or the funnel cake that did it, I'm not sure, but I spent all day Sunday and Monday miserably fighting with my immune system. No crazy all-night Halloween party for me.

I think I'm getting old. Have I mentioned that lately?

Well, I think I've successfully avoided the Electoral College anxiety for the last hour and half. It's time to succumb to Peter Jennings and the incessant repetition of Political Science 101 ("Repeat after me, viewers: The word of the day is 'elect-o-ral coll-ege'. Does anyone know what that means?" "It means you're drunk, Peter!" "No, it means I was drunk YEST-erday.")

I leave you with this, an honest man on the corner of Ben White and Congress Avenue on Friday afternoon:



Don't we all, Sir.

Lucy loves you |