17/08/2002 - 1:31 p.m.

Our State Fair is a Great State Fair.

I added two more diaries to my favourites. That brings the total up to twelve and I hate myself for it. I know we're given 75 something spaces, but that is far far far too many. I liked to keep it at an even ten, that's not too long to scroll through and gives a nice view. This whole twelve thing, I'm reticent. However, I couldn't bring myself to delete anyone. I'm slightly worried that they might feel cheated or wonder why I cut them off. Some of the people on my list haven't updated for ages, but if I took them off I would write them a letter of apology. "I'm really sorry, I wanted to leave you on, but you haven't updated for a while and they update all the time, so, I'll keep looking you up, but, I just have to keep it to ten diaries. I'm sorry."

Am I being a little pedantic here? I don't know. Well, the number's never going to get bigger than fifteen at least.

It's the 17th today. The fair closes tomorrow and I haven't been yet. The Iowa State Fair, that's one of the biggest things we have going for us all year. We even got a full musical devoted to us. (I can sing the State Fair song all the way through, can you?) So I'm very bothered by not having been yet. I suppose I will have to go tomorrow, but everything starts closing down then. It's not the same. Well, all the corn dogs taste the same, and the ice cream, and the pigs still smell, but it's not as though anything is getting ready to happen.

For me, the fair is about Iowa. I seriously think that it ought to go on the State Quarter (ah well, they've sent the designs and they're not bad, but, well...). The fair is all about what is happening in Iowa, and what the people are doing. We're not just a little hick state with a couple of pigs and corn fields. We're ever so much more than that and the fair is the place to be reminded of that. We're talented people who are going someplace.

Compared to a lot of things about Iowa, the fair is a very uplifting place.