Oct

30

Heartache

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I don’t actually watch TV here at school unless it’s on my computer. So I’ve never really gotten into Dancing With the Stars, but this season I’ve been watching a few clips posted to YouTube the day after the show airs. My favorites right off the bat were Sabrina and Mark, because they were not only wicked good dancers, they have great chemistry and look like they’re having a blast. I’ve been looking forward to seeing the clips of their dances every week.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when I found out they were eliminated tonight. I think everyone, myself included, thought they were safe, since they’ve been receiving record-breakingly early high scores.

When I first read the news, I fell to the ground and wailed. And then I clawed at my computer screen and yelled, “Why? WHY?!” Then Bradley suggested that maybe we should take an extra Bye-Bye tonight in order to soothe our rattled nerves.

The drive gave me some time to think. I decided that I’ll get through this. I’ll be ok. Because explaining to people that I’m depressed about the results of a reality show I don’t even watch would be extremely awkward.

Oct

29

Pulling out of a Tailspin

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Corn Maze managed to end on a pretty awesome note. Saturday was our last scary day and I wasn’t expect much improved attendance from Friday, when we had about 275 people come through. In the first ten minutes of Saturday night, though, we had over 100 people arrive. A little over 500 ended up going through that night.

We also, miraculously, had enough scarers to make it a decent maze.

I meant to get a picture of my makeup, but I forgot. It’s pretty creepy, so perhaps it’s better that I didn’t. I covered my entire face in white makeup and then put black under/around my eyes and cheekbones. I had fake blood stream down my face from the corners of my eyes, my nostrils, the corners of my mouth and a fake cut on my forehead. I do basically the same thing every year and combine it with all black clothes and wear a black hood. I think it makes for a creepy image when you see it in the moonlight of the maze.

I followed people around, popped around the corner at people, screamed at a few and snuck up on others. My favorite scare of the night was when a group of girls was walking down a long path, complaining about the corn maze was going to be a rip off (because $3 is apparently too much to spend on walking through a big, creepy, difficult maze). I was standing on a perpendicular path where they couldn’t see me and popped out and screamed right as they passed me, causing them to jump back and fall into the corn.

A couple girls who were probably high-school age or a little younger decided to follow me around with their mom. I let them follow me for a long time and just ignored them (usually if someone’s following us, we lose them by ducking into the corn since they’re not allowed to go past the rope). We went around and around, until I got us to a long dead end where the moon was behind us, which let me check their shadows to see exactly how closely they were following me.

Luckily, they were right behind me, so as I started around a corner, I pivoted to turn around and scream at them, which scared them and they decided not to follow me anymore.

I’ll write more tomorrow. Right now I’ve got a paper for Health due tomorrow and a test in Statistics.

Oct

25

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I think I’m getting better! Or worse, I don’t know…it’s hard to tell. Yesterday my sinuses ached and made me sneeze every 10 minutes, and I started to feel like I had to sneeze about 5 minutes before the actual occurrence.

Today, though? I woke up and my sinuses felt fine and dandy! Unfortunately it’s apparently moving into my lungs, because I have a wicked deep cough. But that makes sense, right? The disease will move from sore throat to sinuses to lungs before disappearing a day later. Right? Right?!

Tonight was the first night of Corn Maze, which was kind of a disappointment. We’ve got a big, complicated maze. That means we’ve got lots of opportunities to scare people, but it also means we need a lot of workers. Hardly any of the people who said they’d be there tonight actually showed up. We didn’t get very many people coming through, either. The fact that it’s homecoming week is really screwing us up.

Sorry this post is so complainy. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll come back with a positive report!

Oct

23

Uh Oh…

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I think I may have mentioned something called “Corn Maze” that I’ve been working on lately. Unfortunately, it’s not the only thing going on in my life. I’ve got papers to write, peers’ papers to edit, readings to read for discussions, statistics homework to light on fire, etc.

Obviously, this is the best possible time for disease to set in. I’ve got nothing else to do but lie on the floor and weep at the fact that my angry throat, swollen and sore, is trying to make more room for itself by burning my sinuses out via fever.

The ray of sunlight in all this is that my new camera lens and adapter came. It’s very cool and very tiny! I love it.

Oct

22

Ugh: A Rant.

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I’ve found that sometimes being a ferret owner is like trying to herd around a couple deaf, dumb and blind kids with significant rage issues. Challenging yet rewarding, y’know?

However, I really had no concept of the word “challenging” until I recently tried to do some work for my sorority.

We’re having something called Corn Maze. I may have mentioned it. It’s been consuming my life lately. We decided that, since it’s homecoming and all, we’d like a little extra security around the farm. We decide to inquire about hiring an off-duty police officer to hang out with us. I’m charged with collecting information and setting up the whole thing.

I called the police department and got their rates. We voted on it and I called them back to set it up. The officer to whom I talked asked me to give a call to campus police, since it’s technically their jurisdiction. He said the two departments got along well and he didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

I gave the campus police a call, and the person to whom I needed to speak was out of the office for a few days. When he got back to his office, he gave me a call back. He was a nice guy, and I explained our situation to him. He said that they would be stretched thin thanks to homecoming, so they didn’t have anyone they could send out.

“Well,” I said, “I did talk to the town police, and they said they would be able to do it, they just wanted me to check with you first.” He said he’d check with the chief, who wasn’t in the office.

The weekend passed and he called me back today and told me that they couldn’t send any of their officers out and that the chief wouldn’t approve us hiring the town police because of numerous reasons, including the fact that they wouldn’t have control over the area if the other department was there. He said if we had trouble, we could call 911 and they’d dispatch someone.

Did you catch that?

No only are they not sending one of their own out, they’re not allowing us to hire anyone else.
If anything happens, we’ll have to call 911 in hopes that campus police isn’t busy somewhere else with homecoming and then wait for them to show up instead of being able to have someone on the property to help us immediately.

The good news is that I don’t think security will be a huge issue. The farm manager is going to be out there, along with faculty members for the whole time we’re having the maze. Campus police will drive through periodically, too.

We’re PO’ed, though. Obviously, we’re concerned enough about security to be willing to spend money on extra precautions. You’d think they could put their bureaucratic BS aside for long enough to consider the safety of the maze workers and the people coming to the maze.

Oct

22

Music!

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In lieu of an actual post, I’m just going to give you a link to a band you should check out.

I don’t usually recommend music since everyone has such varying tastes. But Paper Route has a pretty cool sound, and, uh, I don’t have any other post prepared for my blog.

In particular, of the songs posted on their page, I like “Carousel.”

Lil & Jake will recognize some of the members as people with whom they went to college.

Tomorrow (technically later today): Back to our regularly scheduled program!

Oct

20

The New Tawny Kitaen

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Today Mauler asked me to do some shots for his portfolio. When I asked why he was preparing a portfolio, he let me know that he was hoping to get some work as a car model. Specifically, he wanted to work trade shows because he’d heard there were buffets.

I wanted to ask him how exactly he planned to break into the modeling industry, but I hate to be a dream crusher, so I didn’t bring it up.

Have I ever explained what happened to Mauler? I don’t think I have, so I’ll give a brief run-down:

During the fall of my sophomore year of college, Mauler went missing one day. Mom called to tell me the news, so I made up some Lost Dog posters and planned to go home. I figured someone had found him and was keeping him since he’s such a lovey-dovey dog.

Mom called me later to tell me that Mauler had been found. Someone had put a trap (like a bear trap sans teeth) in a field by our house, and Mauler had gotten his head stuck in it. He’d been stuck in it for almost 48 hours and was rushed to the vet’s office after he was found. She asked the vet if he thought Mauler had about a 30% chance of living, and the vet said, “I don’t like to give percentages, but I think that’s high.”

Upon finding this out, I started crying and didn’t stop for approximately 12 hours. All during the drive home, and the evening, and the next morning when Marissa and I went to visit him. He was all swollen, with a few huge grooves taken out of his neck, but he was happy to see us and crawled into our laps for some love.

To make a long story short, he’s made an amazing recovery. He lived in our bathroom for a while where he got hydrotherapy and Mom rubbed some goop onto his large, gaping wounds every day. He’s got scars on his nose, behind his head and on his throat and he carries his head tilted to one side.

It’s a miracle he’s alive, but, unfortunately, I don’t think his scars really make him model material.

Mauler thinks he can make up for the scars and the tilted head by being sultry. Please direct your attention to his face.

More specifically, his tongue.

I tried to steer him away from the sultry idea for obvious reasons.

“Maybe just try to look slightly intense,” I suggested.

“Oh, nix that. Just relax. Chill. Be natural!” I prompted.

Well, it’s a start.

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