newest

older
e-mail me
leave a note
homepage
Diaryland
Rings
LBFCA

D-town Bitches Invade Jackson County Fair

Cows Run for Lives

2004-08-18 12:52 a.m.

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, Leah and I took the first of three Clay Aiken trips we have planned for this month. The idea that he was playing a county fair was appealing in sort of a sick way, so we were excited to see him sing amongst the livestock and carnival rides.

We both rose kind of late, but we should have risen later. You see, our seats were assigned, so there really was no reason to arrive SIX hours early for the concert, but we're both secretly OCD about these kinds of things and would have just been uncomfortably sitting around and checking our email continuously, so we left around 12:30 PM.

The trip was mostly uneventful, except for a stop in Grass Lake, which sounds like a sludgy lake we wish we could have seen. There we stopped to pee, and pick up a cheap disposable camera.

The Jackson County Fair is no small affair. It's got carnival rides, a horse show, cows, pigs, draft horses, an all-pig revue, ice cream and a petting zoo. The petting zoo caught our interest first, and I bought a cup of feed because animals must be coaxed to like me. It was mostly goats in the pen, which are, up close, fucking freaky. Their pupils are sideways and if they don't have any horns, they look like they were built wrong(sorry God, you did a good job on us, but goats, whoa dude, back to the drawing board). So in I go, a na�ve suburbanite, with my plastic cup of feed and begin to pick and choose which creatures will receive my bounty, one pellet at a time. This, according to Leah, was my first error. One does not feed animals by holding the pellet between thumb and forefinger and letting them take it. I learned this quickly by feeling scary goat teeth on my fingers. This did work for ducks, but was even scarier. Soon, though, the goats realized that I responded to their petty threats. They began jumping up on my chest and getting in my face, demanding their pellet. I'm sure the good folks in Jackson thought I was an idiot, but shrieking seemed like a good thing at the time. After several horned beasts used my pelvic bone as a step ladder, I learned to hold the feed in the palm of my hand.

Now on to my least proud moment. There was a red-haired beast that I, in my hysteria, did not recognize. I bellowed crazily, "Oh my God, Leah, I don't know what that is!" She looked over at me and said, deadpan, "That's a baby cow, Kelly." I laughed, looking that sucker in the face, searching for any bovine features. Ok, it was a cow, but not the most typical one, ok?

Leah had better luck cornering a chicken in order to pet it. She insists that she wasn't hurting it, but I'm not so sure. You tell me:

After that, we decided to give in and ride some of the carnival rides. I didn't realize it at the time but this was the first time I had done this in at least 5 years. I detest carnival folk. And the carnival atmosphere generally, but with four hours to kill, beggars can't be choosy. We purchased our tickets and ran toward the Musik Express. Which is basically the Himalaya for all of us that grew up in the 90s. We walked forward to the dreadful carny who conveniently "forgot" to take our tickets. I bet he thought he was giving us quite the deal. Actually I'm sure he thought he was giving himself an in with us, these mysteriously normal women seeking to ride his creaky ride. On we climbed and were locked into our car. The fucker began to spin around and I felt the centrifugal force push me to the outside of the car, Leah sliding right into me. Faster and faster we went, till my knee was pushed into the safety bar. Leah kept apologizing and I just kept laughing and singing along to "My Band". After that, we rode the carousel. This could have been fun, but there weren't two horses even remotely close to one another. So I spent the excruciatingly long ride yawning and chatting with a 16 year old on the horse next to me. Then we rode the Ferris wheel, mostly so we could get a good view of the venue.

Mysterious "Tinsel Town" funhouse that we were too cheap to go into:

Leah also felt it necessary to win stuffed animals by playing carny games. She won a stuffed snake that the scuzzbucket called a Willy.

Then she took the risk and had another slime guess her weight. He was wrong and she won the much-maligned blue bear that we later named Jack Shit.

When 6:30 rolled around, we made our way toward the raceway, where Clay would be singing in an hour and a half. Leah lent me $15 to buy the coveted Clay Aiken thong, which will definitely become required concert dress code from now on. It was unclear where our seats were until we ran into CAP121 from the Clackhouse who helped us figure out that our seats were indeed 14th row center.

We sat through Cherie with our ears plugged with Willy and Jack. Her awkward attempts to get an audience who only wanted Clay revved up were irritating and made me appreciate her even less.

When our dear Clayton emerged from the spaceship that was the stage, my heart was fluttering. He killed "Where the Streets Have No Name". Frankly, the banter was what I was waiting for, though. He asked Angela and Quiana how they were and they said that their feet hurt and so the sweetheart gave them flip-flops to wear instead of tall heels. He told Angela that someone would be by to pick up her turquoise heels, but she squawked at him to come and pick them up himself. For a mere moment in time, Clay Aiken was holding a pair of high heels. I'm sure it was d�j� vu all over again for him�

Later in the show, he asked Angela if she had had her hair done. She implied that it had been necessary to do so. Clay then stated that his hairdresser was on vacation. With a long finger pointed at his head, he indicated that he merely shook his head (insert dizzying head shake) and "sprayed it".

Clay also kept with his tradition of having an amateur singer come on stage. The Jackson audience was in for quite a treat. The woman came onstage and Clay asked her where she was from. "Ypsilanti", she said.

"What?!"

"Ypsilanti"

"Gesundheit"

He then used the famous Michigan hand map to ask her where she was from. Her truthful response was, "I don't even know right now Clay!" Of course he had to comment, "That's gonna be a problem, how're you gonna get home?"

When they began singing, however, there was no laughter. Their rendition of "Without You" blew me away. It was seriously better than the K.Lo one or the Quiana one. I was involuntarily jumping up and down with excitement for her!

I must admit that boyfriend's voice was cracking up a storm. It served to endear him to me more than ever. When "Solitaire" finally arrived, I was so worked up, that when he managed to belt the key glory note, tears sprang to my eyes. My Clayton done good.

2 comments so far

Clay Crush Level: Clio in TWO DAYS!!!!

Today I Saw: A chocolate brown jacket that matched one of my co-workers...as in matched her skin. Exactly.

The Weather is: Fallish

Take my survey!