I can't imagine who would send Adam all these texts. Hmm.

Well, Betty has popped another air mattress. X Betty.

Suprise is made of plush. And yes, his name is spelled "Suprise." Because that is how you say it when you talk to him.

Or how anybody ever says the word "surprise."

It is cold and rainy today. I embarked for brunch with one of my roommates and his friend Richard wearing my new soft pink beret and soft pink scarf and soft pink t-shirt in an effort to combat the weather conditions. No. After my shower will immediately change into all navy colors and dense fabrics. Maybe some snow boots.

Lola Lola Mashed Potola just walked by me. This is only worth noting because that means she was in my room and I didn't know about it.

What did I do yesterday.

Well, yesterday was Halloween actually, but I felt like we had Halloween the day before and yesterday was just brutal wasteland aftermath.

Hannah rang me up and proposed having a jaunt with various friends to Kings Dominion on Friday night. This sounded great. I like roller coasters a lot. Especially going on ones that are very intense and then acting calm about it. Makes me feel like I've really gone above and beyond. Above and beyond what I don't know. Maybe above my imagination and beyond all realm of sanity.

But lately, roller coasters have begun to turn my stomach. Just a hair. But enough for me to notice and think, "oh x. this is what adults say about roller coasters- they make them sick in ways they didn't when they were young."

Oh well. Stuff like that actually happens. Like seeing college students and wondering if they are on a field trip from middle school.

So anyway. I was excited. Then Hannah follows up with a text proposing Ashland Berry Farm instead. So I peruse the website. According to the website Hannah is throwing over plans for roller coasters and funnel cake in preference of sitting under a gazebo drinking Earl Gray and gazing at tea-lights.

I call her immediately.

She informs me about the famed haunted hayride that goes down Octobers at said Berry Farm.

I AGREE we should go.

So I issue invitations to pretty much everyone I see.

Everyone seems pretty excited. Yvonne says she will not go. She is the first person to arrive.

We begin the evening by The Droops and I having our ritual Mexican date (with the lovely addition of Anna) at El Toro Loco. We like this. It is always a game to see just how many jackets I have to bring to be able to endure dinner without coming down with gangrene.

Also a game to see how to get any single person on the waitstaff to actually bring Maggie a side of sour cream.

We are getting pretty good at both of these games.

Adam and I always find a good handful of babies in there that are nice to stare at. We both have that creepy proclivity toward chewing on fat baby cheeks.

I have decided that when Margaret and Adam have a kid, I should try to work out a kid at about the same time so that he and I can go to the baby costume store and buy 365 baby costumes. One for every day of the year. He likes it when babies are vegetables. I think this is good. A baby dressed as a zucchini. You cannot go wrong. And my baby will be things like, a scrapbook. A bag of granola. An ottoman. A dulcimer. And of course, the requisite tubby round things like a persimmon and the earth. So many costumes.

Really mad about my flat mattress.

So we eat. Then the three of them go off to "Souvenir," and I go home to try on necklaces and sing heart-wrenching love ballads from "Chess" while I wash the frying pan.

Then it is time to meet over at Hannah's.

We meet.

We go. We drive all together in a tour van. Which was fun and I probably shouldn't go into.

I love riding in the backs of trucks. Lying down and looking at the sky as you drive.

But we get there. I have no idea where we are. It is a huge forest. There is mist hovering three feet above the ground as far as you can see. And a drizzle. Just enough of one so that it takes hours to actually become damp. Perfect Halloween.

Also the entire human race.

Line for 3.5 hours. No kidding.

I squat, I tap dance, I make conversation with people I don't know. Desperate times, you know.

We go on the hayride. The hay is damp and it is dark. It is midnight by the time we get in the wagon.

We are driven out a curving dirt path and dropped off to wait in another line. We decide this is the only way the people running this outfit can get the patrons to wait in lines this long. By shipping them out into the middle of the woods and having them resume line at that time.

The line curves through the fog and mist up to a giant bonfire. Everyone gets to the bonfire and then like lemmings, gullible lemmings, all crowd around and stare into the flames.

I, however, have read lots of books and therefore trust the motives of no one and no thing, and am fully aware that this bonfire is a device to cause your eyes to become adjusted to bright light. So then, when you enter the woods, you SEE X.

And are thusly super more freaked out.

I feel very much like a wise old special agent standing in the rain silently thinking about this.

We go into the woods. I am recruited to go first by all parties involved. Well, that's not true. Matt goes first right up until the entrance to the trees. He "goes first" by executing a very sprightly "Off to see the wizard" step.

Then I go first.

Determined (for some bizarre completely uncalled for reason) to prove I am not scared, I stride briskly along. I have enveloped my entire body in a "THINGS ARE GOING TO TRY AND SCARE YOU AND YOU WILL. NOT. FLINCH." attitude. I think, "this is silly. It is ok to be startled." But then it becomes a game. See if I can NOT flinch.

I don't. There are dark black mazes where there is only space enough to crawl. Everyone is shrieking and carrying on. Most of the people in my group are actors so I realize we are spoiling all the fun of the workers there by commenting to them when they try and scare us, "Oh wow- that was really convincing. Well played."

We are so smug.

Then we get back in the van and I fall almost asleep. Then we are stopped and I pop my head up over the window and see that we have arrived at a Waffle House in somewhere I have certainly never been before.

We sat at the bar in a row. And I didn't say anything. I was a. tired, and b. absolutely in awe of the expediency with which the staff of this Waffle House fried and waffled and added and wrote. Think that level of productivity must be very satisfying.

Then we go home.

3 a.m.

SLEEP.

The next morning feel like I have just come back from sky-diving without the parachute.

We all straggle up to rehearsal clutching with white knuckles our various coffee mugs and enormous bottles of caffiene.

Rehearsal was fun. We danced. I really like the Magic Foot choreography. And the pas de deux choreography. They look great. Whenever I see pas de deux's I want to do a dance where a man picks me up in a pretty fancy lift and I point my foot. And cast down my lashes and all that hooey.

Matt Shofner and I see Katrinah in the Rite Aid. This was very exciting for the two of them. Less so for me, as I see Katrinah all the time.

We all go home to GET READY.

Adam and Anna have painted themselves and look incredible.

Margaret is a zebra and looks incredible.

I am Rainbow Brite and certainly look very colorful. Was such a fun outfit.

I pass out some candy on an awesome porch (see- I did get to sit on a porch and enjoy it) on Rosewood Ave. Very sweet children. Who, as they were not born then, find Rainbow Brite to be a rather intimidating figure.

Ellie and Jon, as usual, have an excellent party.

Excellent cast at the party.

I peeled a bullet hole off of the forehead of Chris Stewart.

Then I drove Pocahontas home.

This morning we went to Galaxy. I ordered a chocolate milk, which I housed. In two swallows.

I think, perhaps when one enjoys something this much, one should slow down and savor it. And I think that's valid. But sometimes I think, just get as much as you can as fast as you can and LOVE it.

When the exhausted waitress with her dreadlocks (which I learned today were initially grown so God would have something to grab onto when he reached down out of the sky to snatch you up- which I feel is not saying very much for these people's opinions of God's athletic skills) arrived with my platter o' pancakes, I see how thick and porky they are and bounce in my booth like an excited 2-year old. This, I notice, makes the exhausted waitress smile.

The three of us finish the Brick crossword.

We are now sitting in the den.

And I have to dry my hair and go to "Youno's." This is how my mom pronounces "Uno's."

Then.....Mad Men?

I have never done all out on Halloween like that. It was fun. I now have freckles.