So I went to Montana: Part Hat

I had a dream yesterday that I ran into my friend Zach at something resembling a Con and was trying to convince him to watch some of the reviewers I follow. I chose what I think was an NC episode at random to convince him, only it turned out to be a boring episode (what is this blasphemy, subconscious?), so instead I looked for one that I knew was good: the Alone in the Dark triple-crossover review. Which then turned out to have been removed from all three sites for some unspecified copyright reasons.

That was a very distressing dream, and as soon as I woke up I tweeted Linkara about it. I then felt like a huge dork for doing so, but eh, I'm used to feeling like a dork in some measure.

Speaking of which, I may have figured out a new opening for the first chapter of MASQ, which also incorporates the dream imagery I wanted to use but couldn't work in before. This means nothing to anyone else, I realize, but it's a good thing for me and I felt like mentioning it, and it's my blog. So there.

Also, Gmail needs to get over its goddamn failed scripts, because it keeps dragging my browser to a standstill for ten minutes just to finally tell me that HEY A THING'S NOT WORKING. Well then STOP TRYING TO RUN IT. GODDAMNIT GMAIL YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS INCOMPETENT.

Grr. Anyway. More Montana stuff under the cut, though I doubt anyone cares anymore.

The Tour (Finally) and HAT

I am always stupid proud when I manage to navigate myself somewhere new successfully, and getting to Rocky Mountain College by 9 AM Friday was no different. The day began with a heavy fog and a respectable chill, so that I actually resorted to wrapping my scarf around my head and putting my hat over that just to keep warm enough.

Despite bringing along my backpack and little notebook, I didn't really plan on taking notes at the tour, but when the words 'Cadaver Lab' came up in the opening, I grabbed the notebook and started jotting. Later I sent a copy of RMC's virtues off to my FFnet friend, in the interest of possibly enticing her to join me when she gets into the college range. (There are tentative diabolical schemes that mostly revolve around us both being huge Holmes nerds.) Unfortunately, I asked, and the aforementioned cadaver lab is only open to Bio majors taking certain classes, so they probably wouldn't take kindly to a random English major hanging around with a hunting crop, but the fact that it exists at all amuses me.

Most of the tour consisted of talking about stuff that I already sort of knew about the school. I did learn a few things, though, like apparently Rocky Mountain predates the state of Montana, and it was originally built by its first students -- with much of the original architecture having been preserved. The big thing that really stood out about the tour, and the only thing that made me worry about my choice of school, was when we hit the 'mock classroom' and met the Literature teacher.

He seemed alright at first. He wasn't entirely prepared, was very blasé about it... and then he started talking about how the standard campus was set up to block out the real world so as to 'disabuse us of what we learned in high school.' Okay, sure. But he wrapped up by talking about zombies. Which should have been cool... but he showed us a brief clip of someone playing a zombie game (I have no idea which one), where they were in a mall and smacking something vaguely ball-like at zombies with a baseball bat.

The professor then proceeded to say that zombies were 'always found in malls' (or malls were always a location in zombie stuff, or somesuch broad generalization), made their condition into a metaphor for mindless consumerism/greed, equated that mindless consumerism to selfishness, and essentially called that the human condition, whereas the trait of The Hero was to overcome that base selfishness/greed/sheepleness (he listed Beowulf among the examples, I don't recall what others). He then went on to illustrate how baseball is the only sport that, rather than being based in military strategy, was a metaphor for the classical Hero's Journey.

The whole thing was basically an amazing line of shallow anti-establishment We-Are-All-Jesus-In-Purgatory bullshit and I wanted so badly to argue with him. I predict many debates with this teacher.

On the other hand, RMC itself still looked pretty awesome, especially their outdoor and activities program, and even if some of the professors are suffering some recto-cranial inversion, the environment was very friendly and fun.

I left with a generally good feeling about the school and a generally hungry feeling in my tummy, since it had been several hours since the brief continental breakfast at my hotel. The only place near the school was 'The Granary', reputed to be good but a little on the expensive side, so I hemmed and hawed about possibly going there, in between silly thoughts about 'Holmies' and the possibilities of a Sherlock Holmes club on campus. Because, yes, I am that much of a nerd. Eventually I started walking back, making up my mind to hit The Granary unless the bus showed up first -- which it did.

I'd intended to head back downtown (which I was at least a teeny bit familiar with) and get something to eat there, but after consulting my map, I realized I'd taken the bus going the wrong way, and was headed toward Rimrock Mall instead. I decided to heck with it and figured I'd get something to eat at a restaurant or food court over there.

I was amused by the unintentional irony with the whole anti-consumerist spiel, too. This may have had more than a little to do with my buying a couple sets of earrings from Claire's and a hat from Icing after I'd grabbed lunch, although it helped that I found a hat that happened to match the sweater I'd be wearing the next day.

By this point it was nice and warm. While I'd started out that morning with a long-sleeved shirt, dual-layered elbow-length gloves, tights under my jeans, and my leather jacket, by the time I left the Mall I'd stripped down to my purple undershirt and was regretting not hitting the bathroom to remove the tights or at least change into a skirt. The weather out there's damn near Minnesotan.

Back at the hotel, I spent awhile squeeing over the new hat, since it turned out to match the sweater perfectly. ZOMG PERFECT HAT. Squeeee~.

After napping for another three hours, I wandered out to the nearby Perkins for some surprisingly tasty steak and eggs. I didn't expect the big chain to be as amenable to my 'as rare as you can make it' request, but the steak showed up quite rare indeed. I finished off with a slice of lemon meringue pie, although I peeled off the meringue (I've never been fond of meringue, ever since I first mistook it for whipped cream and was sorely disappointed) and ignored the crust. I just wanted my lemony filling.

I made sure to pack everything up and then curled up to watch more reviews until I fell asleep. Unfortunately I made the mistake of watching the Projector review of Sinister, which showed just enough to send my rather sensitive pareidolia into overdrive, so I didn't end up sleeping for several more hours. Stupid oversensitive pareidolia, trying to pull meaning out of random information.

Somewhere in there I realized that I'd lost one of the nose-pads to my glasses. I'd noticed a minor irritation in that area but hadn't thought much of it until I saw the lack of pad in the mirror. Never did find it.