When I was in elementary school, I used to complain about stomach aches all the time to get out of math class.¹ And when I say all the time, I mean all the time. The school nurse knew me. She could even recognize my footsteps and my knock. Anyway, being an extremely patient and sympathetic woman (perhaps she didn’t like math either), she always let me stay. I would hop up onto the spare cot with a Where’s Waldo book and spend the next half hour searching through the pages.

So after stumbling across downtown Silver Spring with a vicious zombie horde,² I found myself seated next to undead Waldo for a special screening of Shaun of the Dead! It was like a dream (nightmare?) come true!³ Here he is at the bar before the walk:⁴

The great thing that I discovered about Halloween in the city (versus good ol’ Fredericksburg) is that festivities go on for at least a week preceding the actual day! This meant that after the zombie walk on October 24th, I still had a whole week of events to look forward to! Highlights included a screening of Nosferatu at AFI with a live orchestra providing the soundtrack, trick-or-treating as Charlie Chaplin, and a Halloween in Paris party at Bistro Napoleon, where I spotted one of my favorite costumed pairs of all time:

Fantastic, right? Happy Halloween, and don’t forget to mail me your leftover candy!

1. What can I say? Math gives me a stomach ache ;)
2. Yes, I dressed as a zombie too, complete with slashed throat and blood-smeared face.
3. I think I alarmed him with my enthusiasm.
4. If you love Waldo as much as I do, you’ll be thrilled to know that the DC Defenestrators staged live-action Waldo searches in the city recently. The fun never ends!

The first sign that something was afoot came from (unsurprisingly) Facebook, and amused me much more than it probably should have. I glanced at the ‘groups’ page only to find these two randomly placed side-by-side:

Next up was the appearance of an obnoxiously large McCain banner hanging down the side of someone’s balcony in the UMW apartments, facing William Street. (According to university policy, it’s also a fire hazard. This hasn’t stopped them.) The night before Obama visited campus, someone painted “McCain” on the construction wall across from Ball Circle, where the rally was to be held. Or at least, he tried to, but left out the second “c”, so the lettering read “McAin”. It was soon painted over, though whether it was corrected by an Obama supporter or a spelling enthusiast will probably remain a mystery.

Enmeshed in a lengthy group project (which resulted in the mashup in my previous post) and with no intention of attending the rally, I briefly emerged from my apartment on Saturday afternoon. I was greeted by a line stretching all the way down William Street, around the corner, and along Sunken Road. Curious to see how far it went, I grabbed my camera and started following the line down Sunken.

The line curved around to the left, vanishing into the distance.

Selling t-shirts...

A family waiting in line.

McCain supporters walking down the line.

So at this point, I was practically in the center of campus, because I’d followed the line to its end behind Monroe Hall. I continued along campus walk to see how many people were already in Ball Circle, and ended up standing in a flowerbed taking photos of the crowds.

My (disappointing) view from atop the flowerbed.

"Gosh, Janet, I'm so glad that we have these fancy cameras and can use them as an excuse to get a clear view of everything. Imagine if we had to take photos from atop a flowerbed, through tent canopies and annoying tall people." "Haha! Oh, George. You do say the funniest things."

Impatient crowds.

Still waiting...

Best view in the house.

It was just at this point that the weather got sick of waiting, and dumped buckets of rain on us. I rushed my camera back to a friend’s dorm, and kept waiting. Obama arrived eventually (after a bizarre sermon, a campaign recruiting speech, and several loops of the same irritating playlist), and delighted the crowds with his ability to create elaborate, weather-appropriate metaphors. I saw his arm at one point (between the media tents and the tall guy in front of me) and his whole torso on the screen of a TV in one of the media vans. (Professor Anand Rao, who was lucky enough to snag a spot in the second row, has some amazing shots of Obama on his flickr page here.)

I dragged myself, soggy and exhausted, back to my apartment, where I discussed the rally with my housemates, also soggy and exhausted. Since Saturday, the rally has been covered in various publications, and my new favorite pastime is spotting friends in the AP photos. Campus is still recovering from the 26,000 people who invaded over the weekend, and Ball Circle will likely need reseeding. And I may never break the habit of glancing up at the roof of Ball Hall to check for Secret Service guys.