How to Grow-up in the middle of nowhere surviving chronic comma abuse...

Well, I was going to head up this post with pics from my Homecoming/Halloween weekend, but as of yet, no one has sent me any. So instead, here is a scary picture of my friend, currently starring in a touring production of Dracula.

I don't mean to blame. What I am really saying is this: I need a digital camera.

About my second Homecoming: My first year back, I was very weirded out by the transformation from student to alum. I was also convinced, by my own behavior and that of my former classmates, that nothing changed. People still behaved the exact same way. No one learned from their past actions or mistakes. We were all content to go back to campus and behave just as we had when we'd all lived there, five short months earlier.

Luckily, an extra year has helped fixed that.

It seems that we still go back looking to drink a lot and party. A few of us go back looking to hook up with young undergrads, which is behavior I cannot get behind. But for the most part...we're growing. Fewer of us are repeating our mistakes from the past. He won't drink and drive. She won't sleep with the man who broke her heart again and again. We've learned a thing or two, since leaving our institute of learning. And that's a good thing.

Also, the most oft uttered phrase by alums back on campus is: "When I went to school here, BLANK was so much better/cooler/bigger/sexier/more fun, etc." And that amuses me.

And we lost our Homecoming game, which sucks. And someone stole my beautiful velvety witch's cape, just purchased on Friday afternoon, which meant I had to be a business casual witch when the trick or treaters came around on Monday night.

Having trick or treaters was awesome. My roommate and I grew up five minutes away from each other, in the middle of nowhere. As he put it: "We used to show up at each other's houses...and that was it for trick or treaters". So we were thrilled at the hordes of lady bugs and princesses and cowboys and superheroes that knocked on our door.

Kids are weird. They'll squirm on their toes, looking at you with big eyes, too timid to say the required 'trick or treat'...until you hold that candy towards them and then- BOOM- all shyness is gone and they are grabby little things. It was great! We weren't so crazy about the teenagers who came around in their sweats...but we figured it was okay to pay a candy tax to keep them from keying our cars or setting fires in our trash cans or whatever mischief suburban teenagers get up to. In the country, the hoodlums used to smash mailboxes. In my- real- neighborhood that I live in now, we don't have mailboxes, just a slot in the door. This is very puzzling to me. How do people send their mail out?

In other news, I finished my first short story for grad class, which can only be a good thing. And, though it generally it takes me a few months to like anything I've written, I am assured it is decent. I am not sure who is more insecure, actors or writers, and sadly, I am both. But my friend told me: "You are a short-story writing queen. You've made this story your bitch--it does what you ask of it, and says 'thank you' for the priviledge." That sounds pretty good to me.

I've also entered the infamous NaNoWriMo, which sounds like an Anime Convention, but is actually a marathon for writers. Participants are supposed to write a 50,000 word novel in one month (the month of November), paying little attention to quality and simply focusing on quantity. It is an exercise to get all of us perfectionist writers to actually finish something for once, dammit! I'm a big fan.

And I'll end this eternal blog with a priceless quote from my little sister about her own writing skills: "I am terribly sorry if I butchered the English language. I like run-ons, and sentence fragments. I have also been told that I abuse the comma."