Meet Justine

I was in a hurry, and it's the very first pumpkin I've carved ever, so I do think in light of that, she is ruggedly handsome.
If I hadn't forgotten my butt ugly blond wig at R & M's, I'd put on her hair for you guys to see. But she's a lady with full dental benefits at least!

The weekend was spent saying goodbye to friends leaving town and visiting a haunted house and a haunted corn maze.

3 years ago I gave witness to the American phenomena that is the "Haunted House" (which I called "horror house" and the people around thought I wanted to visit a "whore house", so apparently I do have some form of unfortunate accent working against me). 3 years ago it was a haunted archaeological dig, this year we visited a haunted school with plenty of guys running around chasing you with chain saws!

Benefits:
1. Having one person in the group who used to work at haunted houses
2. To walk first in line
3. To have a cute screamer in the gang (it pushes your own adrenaline waay up!)
4. To watch the rest of the guys try to walk first in the next event because they've realized the boost of walking fist!
5. To walk last with the British guy, who was culturally amused.

A corn maze is another American phenomena, where you enter a corn field, chopped out into a maze (the weed is as tall or even taller than you), and sometimes have a map with you as a backup. The desired mood during this expedition would probably be one from countless horror movies where people are chased through corn fields. We took the haunted maze, where you didn't need a map, because it was only one route, but with monsterific benefits!

It was cute, and with some surprises (and once again with the chain-saw chaser!). Close to the end we had a terrified 10 year old shoving past us so fast he stomped on my foot without even noticing. So I guess the corn-terrors are extra effective on certain age groups.

Oddly enough, these adventures felt really beneficial for my nerves, which sadly nowadays are of the rather French variety. This period of my life, for some reason I don't really get, I am brooding a lot, feeling nervous for some unknown catastrophe entering my life, when I don't really have any reason to worry at all. I hate periods like this, I really do.

Sunday there was Werewolf Larp gaming in a fairly moderate group. I haven't larped nor played Werewolf in years, and I must say the story was charming and there was some great playacting going on. But I had completely forgotten the up-in-yr-face and yr-mama aspect of both Ww and larp and it may be that my nerves aren't up to par with it right now, we'll see.

I feel my life needs to be small and very old ladylike for a while. I have even considered going out to find some scented candles, lavender tea and bad new-age harp music to sooth me.

Maybe I'll take up some ancient textile craft, who knows...

A wonderful thing that's happened is that a friend has given me a job project that I love. I'm re-reading Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy and developing reading comprehension and vocabulary questions for young readers.
I've also been thinking a lot about the heat Pullman's books are getting from the religious right wing, and even though I'm not putting the books above stylistic critique when it comes to this, I still think that if atheist and non-christian children are shoved with the Narnia books all the time, in all fairness teenagers can very well read The Golden compass, et al. The Narnia books are misogynistic, propagandist and all kinds of things, and yet counted as world classics for children, much much younger than the kids who manage to read Pullman's books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoy certain parts of C.S.Lewis work, but there is no doubt whatsoever that his agenda is far more obvious than Pullman's)

I'll come back to a more thorough analysis of the Dark Materials trilogy, but I get irritated when it is okay to make propaganda for christianity pretty blatantly, but when there is propaganda against the same thing it is "evil" and dangerous for the kids, even if the main message is for them to think for themselves.

I can safely say that if I was a mother I'd let my child read both Narnia and Pullman. But I might respect my child more if she understood Pullman (there is no trick to understanding Lewis really, pretty blatant christian propaganda after all).

And last but not least: Have a fabulous birthday jlsjlsjls! Not many people have ever felt like such friends without me even meeting them, and not many have your rare gift of cheering up even the saddest of cases!

ETA: You guys!! I just got an email from Naropa University, that the archivist position I'd applied for isn't filled yet (which I surely thought it would be by now), the boss asked me if I was still interested in being one of the applicants! I realize it's not a huge deal, and that every damn archivist in this part of the state is applying, but still...it's so nice when people are nice...