[The video shows the inside of the Welcome Center decked out in all of its handmade, cute-not-scary Halloween glory. There are plastic cauldrons full of candy and apple cider--non-alcoholic, thank you--simmering on the stove. Penny, in front of the camera, is dressed up as a belly dancer. Not exactly weather appropriate, but that's why she's ( Read more... )

It's one of the most basic of all nightmares: Darkness. Complete, stifling darkness that presses in on all sides, immobilizes, and cuts off all sound. Try to move, to talk, to breathe. It won't help.

The darkness is abruptly shattered by headlights. It all happens at once. A sickening crunch, the scream of metal against metal, a wailing ( Read more... )

Have things been crazy or what?  I mean, aside from people leaving in flocks--would you call a group of people a flock, or is there a real word for that?--and floods and Gilligan-ing it out on the beach, there's the mess with--well, you know.  Everything happens, and everything includes curses, vampires, dealing with friends leaving, and making ( Read more... )

[Penny has not been to the Welcome Center today.  In fact, she hasn't left the sofa at home since this morning when she made a booze run.  She hasn't even bothered to get out of her pajamas and robe (no, not even when she left the house earlier).  There's a drink in her hand and a number of odd bottles--all empty--in view.  The flowers Chris gave ( Read more... )

And a late welcome back to school to everyone!  I hope your summers were amazing and that you're ready for the new semester!

I'm Penny--forget what all of the official enrollment papers say and let's get off on equal footing--and I'm so excited to be teaching two sections of an introductory level art class at TCU!  This is my second year teaching ( Read more... )

 [This is a rather unusual curse for Penny, who woke up dressed in what appears to be a very nice version of her last Halloween costume and a desire to smite, heal, quest, and loot.  All sorts of words she's never used or heard keep tumbling out of her mouth--did she really tell that guy she was a level eighty priest? what does that even mean?--and ( Read more... )

I like what's going on today with the love, but it's kind of rude to fight about who to pair up, isn't it?  Fighting about love?  What we really need to do is discuss our points of view calmly and come to some kind of an agreement.  See?  Nice, friendly democracy.  There could be voting.

But the voting would just be for us.  We can't hook people ( Read more... )

I've been thinking a lot about the Welcome Center since Emma--Miss Woodhouse, sorry--made some suggestions about it.  Some of her ideas were really strange, but it's so great that she's excited about making things better around here.  I don't think I've ever met anyone with that kind of enthusiasm.

[pause]  But the Center.  Right.  I was wondering ( Read more... )

Okay. So for most of the day? Everything electronic I went near either stopped working, fizzled out, or exploded (except the network thing, but I think it's probably magic or something). Things exploding... this is becoming a theme ( Read more... )

Sometimes it's hard to keep hoping that every story will eventually have a happy ending. There are a lot of things in the world that I want to forget about--hungry babies, people who are sick but too poor to buy medicine, whole families that get evicted from their homes, kids who are killed before they even finish high school, animal cruelty, ( Read more... )