ice-cream-flavored insanity, served with home-made chocolate cake... mmm, yummy.

i have just witnessed some of the freakiest nonsense i have ever seen in my lifetime... so, i was at the fayetteville historical society's ice cream social and it was great... i had a death-by-chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream and got to meet a beautiful little boy with bright blonde hair, the most fantastically clear blue eyes i've ever seen, and muscular dystrophy and listen to barbershop quartets and all that wonderful stuff. the freaky bit begins here... so, earlier on in the evening, i had noticed a few young men and women dressed in 'period attire' and thought nothing of it... it's an historical society function and there are bound to be people who will think that it's fun to dress up and whatnot, right? perfectly normal... no, not normal at all. h-e-l-l-o! it is 2005. we have left the antebellum era far behind us.

i noticed a wonderfully flamboyant woman in a green and white pinstriped dress with a positively enormous white hat with magenta flowers around the brim walking around with her i'm-mad-at-the-world-and-only-own-black-clothing goth kid son trailing along behind her. the woman was actually strutting, if it is at all possible to strut in 19th century women's attire. the best part was that as she walked past me she looked down her nose at me, as if to say, 'i see someone apparently doesn't own a hoop-skirt... how sad.'

i'm sorry, but i really do enjoy living in the 21st century. i like living with air-conditioning, electricity, motor vehicles, etc. i also like dressing in contemporary clothing that doesn't wreak of moth balls and that allows me to breathe and move properly. i love jeans and t-shirts and... hmm, let's see... oh, i remember: not wearing a corset. pardon me for not actively trying to contort my internal organs... i like them just exactly as they are, thank you very much.

there were all of these people who took this whole pre civil war reenactment thing just a little too seriously. saluting the union flag and such... to each his own, i suppose, but it just creeps me out just a little bit. having a school dedicated to teaching young women how to properly courtesy, dress with a hoop-skirt, fix their hair in a manner that facilitates wearing a bonnet, churn butter, darn things, etc. is all a little bit off. i think that it's wonderful to have 'living history' and to know that there are people out there who truly believe we have a heritage worth preserving... but it's still just a teensie bit strange.

i thought that just plain crazy people were fun, but you should try the historical crazies... they're positively fantastic.