Jack's Dead

I've never seen a pumpkin collapse like that in my life. He melted. How can something like this happen? I've put him outside in hopes that the chill out there will plump him up, but he's gone from scary to rather toothless.

In other news, it's dark and cold in the morning and I no longer have any interest in getting up before sunrise. I'm also unclear how to work my central heat. This is a problem. I've had to set my clock alarm to the Jesus station because no one else is as loud and nothing drives me from a warm, soft bed like shrill cries for salvation.* This is also a problem because I have fleeting thoughts throughout the morning that are absolutely the result of listening to that radio station before being fully awake. Notions like the Tribulation Trail, which, from what I can gather, is a Halloween thing for the real Christians. And by "Halloween thing" I really mean "a stroll through the book of Revelation."

*Sidebar: I read two Elizabeth Gaskell stories last night--teaching them for a class. She's a gothic short story writer (also wrote North and South--the english one), and they were absolutely scary. I had forgotten how truly frightening Frankenstein and other Gothic works can really be. I cannot wait to scare my kids today. This relates to the Jesus station because Lois the Witch is set among the Puritans and they hang her. Good stuff for Halloween.