Halloween Movies

Tonight I decided the best way to spend my Halloween evening would be to watch a couple horror movies. I’m tired from the week and didn’t feel like doing much of anything, so…movie night!

I watched Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye, which is the first horror genre movie I remember watching. I remember the last story of the trilogy freaking me out, just from the scene where the little goblin grabs hold of Drew Barrymore’s nose – the detail of the little hand has always been just creepy to me.

Then I watch a movie I’d never seen before – Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes. It’s not so much a horror movie as a mystery, but it was awesome. It was made in 1938, and they just don’t make movies like that anymore. I was glued to the couch through the whole thing – I took one break about fifteen minutes from the end to go have a smoke, the thought of an intermission hadn’t occurred to me before then.

I found myself taking note of how the plot of the movie unfolded. In the beginning, each of the characters are separate, seeming like they’d all have different story lines. But as the film progressed, the story lines moved closer and closer to one another until finally in the end it was just one story.

I don’t know if I just don’t notice these things in modern stories, if they’re more cleverly mapped out so it’s less noticeable to the audience, or if today’s fiction is just crappier in general. I’ll have to find something similar to read, and see how it compares. My guess is that there is so much fiction out there now, that stories saturate the market and quality has gone down. I think I may go on a binge of movies and books from the thirties and forties!

Different (Fiction Friday)

As I lay down to try for sleep my mind immediately began racing. Not very conducive to sleep, I know. But how could I not think about the last time I’d fallen asleep?

It had been two days ago that I went to bed as usual, after having a perfectly normal day. But for some reason, when I drifted off to sleep, something odd happened to my brain.

It traveled. My brain, or my soul, or whatever you want to call it, traveled. And not just to the convenience store down the street. It traveled to, as near as I can tell, an entirely different world. A different dimension, perhaps, but different is the key word here.

As I fell asleep, I felt the spinning and thrust of rapid movement, then several moments later, it stopped. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the familiar shadow on the wall that the streetlights outside my apartment make. Instead I found myself…somewhere else.

It was a bustling street with loud music coming from several establishments. It was closed off to vehicles, or…maybe there just weren’t any. People freely walked in the street between the two columns of shops and restaurants.

I stood up from the bench where I was sitting, and took a few steps toward the middle of the street to look around and take in my surroundings. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a typical business district in a quaint, New England town. I’d seen dozens of streets just like this. But the people….

The people were…I guess there’s no other way to put it but bluntly, they were all blue. Not fake Halloween face paint blue, but tinged with blue, just like the blue of your own veins that you see under your skin. And everything else was blue, too. The bricks that made the buildings, the pavement of the street, the bench I had just gotten up from. It was all blue.

I looked down at myself, lifted my right hand up and into my field of vision. I was still myself, still pinkish colored, my sweatshirt still green. I looked down at my shoes and pants, still brown and tan.

A wave of fear flowed through me as I looked up, returned my gaze to the other people in my surroundings. They’d noticed me, and how different I was, and several were coming toward me….

My cat is spoiled.

The Queen herself!

So the other night when I fell asleep on the couch I was wearing a sweater my Mom had made for me. It’s a big fluffy sweater that’s very warm and cozy. It’s actually too big, but I love curling up in it because it’s so big…it’s like wrapping up in a big fluffy blanket. It’s very warm. I mentioned that, right? VERY warm? I must have gotten hot during my nap, because the sweater ended up on the floor next to the couch. And the cat ended up on the sweater.

She has always loved this particular sweater. Any time she finds it somewhere that she can steal it to lay on, she claims it for herself. It usually lives on the back of my computer chair, and she’ll often climb up there and sleep as I’m working or playing. She is not an overly cuddly cat, so it says something about how much she likes this sweater that she’ll actually curl up on my chest under my chin occasionally if I’m wearing it (Yes, I’m slightly offended that she has no interest in cuddling with me, only my sweater!).

I left the sweater on the floor for a couple days (have I ever mentioned housecleaning is not my forte?) and she happily spent all her napping time on it…and her sleeping time…and her dozing time…and her just plain lazy time (she is a cat, after all). Finally last night I decided I wanted my sweater back, it was cold out and I was headed out on the back porch for a smoke.

After I detached her from it, picked it up and put it on, she sat there looking up at me with the most pitiful, mournful expression on her little kitty face. Then the look turned to the most pissed off, irritated, “I-want-to-claw-your-eyes-out” look that I’ve ever seen on a cat’s face.

So what did I do? I went and asked my Mom if she had any yarn left over from making the sweater. She did – almost two skeins. So I started crocheting the yarn into a square, only to find out that my largest hook wasn’t quite large enough for the bulky weight yarn. So I ran out to WalMart at 7:30 at night to buy a jumbo crochet hook so I can make my spoiled damned cat her very own blanket out of the same yarn!

I’m currently halfway through, and actually having a lot of fun – I’ve never crocheted with bulky yarn before, and it works up incredibly fast and is very easy to work with. I’m just hoping Her Highness approves of her new bedding…I’m half expecting her to turn her nose up at it and go find my sweater.

Dreams

I always find it fascinating when I remember details of my dreams. It makes me wonder about how the brain works when I’m sleeping, and why some dreams I remember vividly, some I remember generally, and others not at all (I’m a firm believer in the fact that we dream constantly and just don’t remember a lot of them).

Last night I dreamt that the owner of my company came into our office and presented each of us with a check that was a two-year loyalty bonus. The checks were computer printed, and still had edges on them that would normally be torn off after going through a printer.

I didn’t see or hear how much anyone else received, but my check was for $4,387.83 (yes, I actually remember the number from the dream, it was that vivid). I remember my breath catching in my throat when I saw the amount, and thinking how I’d never had that much money at one time in my entire life.

The next part of the dream I remember is showing the check to Bob, and telling him that we should put a thousand of it into the savings account, and then asking him what he thought we should do with the rest. His response was “it’s your money, it’s up to you, sweetie.”

I don’t remember anything else in the dream, but while I was taking my shower this morning I was thinking about how I could get a really nice Mac with that money!

It only took a few seconds to realize that I didn’t really have the money, and my hopes of buying myself a new Mac were dashed. Ah well…it’s fun to dream!

Naps on the couch…

I just woke up from a nap on the couch. That’s the nice way of putting it. What actually happens is I watch television and my body comes to a screeching halt and I crash into the depths of sleep. Now I’ve slept for two hours and just woken up when I should be going to bed. It’s such a bad habit I’ve gotten into.

You blockhead!

I fell asleep while watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” I love catching classic shows from my childhood like that. I still watch Christmas specials every year. It’s nice to take a little time and remember when life was so simple.

I think my brain is still asleep right now. I’m having trouble coming up with anything at all to write about. Usually by this point in my blogging I’ve come up with a tangent and I’m fully involved in expressing it. Tonight, however, I just want to go to bed. Guess I’ll go back to basics and describe my day….

I went to my mechanic this morning and had my car inspected and snow tires put on. Then to work by 10am, where there was essentially nothing to do (typical Tuesday). A 1pm I had to attend a customer service seminar that my company was hosting. The man giving it was a very good speaker, he was funny and kept his audience engaged. But in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t very applicable to my job. Of course customer service is something you encounter when in any kind of professional interaction, I understand that. But, for the amount of interaction I have with people it wasn’t really necessary for me to be trained in skills that I already have to begin with. I’d guess at least 90% of what he suggested we do on a regular basis were things that I do already, automatically. Not a very good use of 3 hours of my day, but it was at least entertaining. I returned to work after the seminar, for a whopping 45 minutes before it was time to go home. I got a little cleaning done when I got home, crossed a few chores off my to-do list, and then hit the couch. And here I am.

Life decisions and stuff.

Things are lookin' up...

So I made a decision today that I’m not going to continue my education in graphic design.

These past few weeks were a good test for me. I’ve been doing design work for my color theory class, and I’ve been writing. I’ve been paying attention to, at the end of the day, which I want to do more. The winner, consistently and by landslides, has been writing. I’ve really had very little interest in my art class since I started writing again, and the only thing keeping me from skipping out on the rest of the class is the fact that I put money and energy toward it, and in the grand scheme of things it will be of benefit to me in my day job (which I have no delusions of being able to quit any time soon). That and I have that weird compulsion that I have to get good grades.

So now the conundrum sets in. How do I want to pursue writing? Do I want to go back to school and get a MA in writing? Do I want to find a local writer’s workshop? An online workshop? Do I want to set goals for myself to submit work to publishers? (*gasp* holy crap that would be unthinkable!)

The short answer to all those questions is…yes. I want to do it all. The realistic answer? I don’t know. And in the end, it really doesn’t matter. I’m writing again. I’m loving it. I have a pretty long journey ahead of me before my skills get honed again – it is kind of like riding a bike, but there’s no real flow going on yet. I need to get that back before I’ll start churning out anything really worthy of being read.

So now what? I write. That’s all I need to know right now. The hows and whats and whens and wheres can all come later. For now I just write. Ahhh. Beautiful.

Forgetful

I forgot. Completely and totally, no thought whatsoever in my brain. I forgot to write today. I think the weekends are going to prove much more challenging in this year-long adventure than the weekdays. It seems a little odd to me that the days I have all the time in the world are the days I’m forgetting or procrastinating the most. It does speak to my lack of discipline though. I’m proud of myself for having made it this far – it’s been over two weeks already and I’ve posted every day. But as of yet, it’s not habit, it’s not an integral part of my life. Yet.

I am, however, looking at the world through the eyes of a writer already. I’m finding myself looking at my surroundings in terms of what would be interesting to write about. I’m noticing the day to day things that happen, and thinking about whether or not it would be something worthy of writing about. I’m really trying to make these posts more interesting, and the only way to do that is to notice the interesting things around me. To spark that creative fire in my brain.

Unfortunately today I’m not feeling very sparked. I’m struggling to get this to the word count mark, and my mind is now drawing a blank…I have nothing really more to write about. So now we get into the stream of consciousness writing that is true freewriting, because I’m sitting here writing down every thought that’s going in my head without stopping. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Whoops…

I almost completely forgot to write today! I thought of it earlier, and was busy so I put it off. Now it’s 11:35, I’m exhausted and I need to blurt out 250 words before I can go to sleep. Guess that’ll teach me to put it off! Not that I had anything in particular to write about, I was just going to sit down and do it, but I didn’t. Oh well.

So I actually had a really good, really busy day, despite not writing until now and not doing any homework like I was supposed to. I cleaned the kitchen (which was in desperate need) all morning while helping my dad install a new screen door for us. I ran some errands that needed done, which included going to walmart in the pouring rain while everyone else in town was in there. I baked two batches of cookies, and played Uno with Bob and the kiddo.

Hmm…now that I see it there in text, its really not that much that I did! Cleaning the kitchen did take three hours though, so that in and of itself would be enough for a Saturday!

My cookies came out pretty good. I made chocolate chip and chocolate peanut butter chip.

Mmmmm....cookies....

It was raining and humid when I made them, and I forgot to add a little extra flour because of that, so they are kind of gooey, and they never really set up too well, but they still taste yummy. I ate too many, of course, which is always the problem when I bake. They’re too damned good not to eat though!

Untitled (Fiction Friday)

It was that quiet time of the morning where nothing much is stirring, save for a couple birds just waking up. I stood on the back porch, leaning against the railing. The autumn leaves filled the yard and forest with vivid bursts of colors, and a thick fog seemed to wrap everything in a crisp, damp embrace. I gazed across the lawn into the forest beyond, the smoke from my cigarette wafting up into my vision.

A subtle movement caught my eye. It was at the edge of the forest, just behind one of the first trees, half hidden, but defined against the darkness of the trees. A figure stood there, leaning against a tree, the fog swirling slightly as it settled around her. Dressed in white flowing fabric, she appeared to be looking directly at me.

The shock of seeing someone where there wasn’t supposed to be anyone sent electric waves through my body, and I began trembling. My feet felt rooted to the floorboards of the porch. I could neither flee back in the house nor move closer to confirm that what I was seeing was real.

She took a step forward away from the tree then, stirring the fog around her again. Her right arm lifted from her side, her hand, palm-side up, moved through the fog toward her face and then in a repeated beckoning motion. I could just make out a soft smile on her lips, the whole of her face taking on a soft, warm expression.

My jaw dropped as if to speak, though nothing came out. My feet uprooted themselves from the porch floor. I felt a strong urge to go to her, and at the same time, to flee. As I watched her waving me to her, pulling myself in two directions, the fog seemed to thicken in the woods, enveloping her entirely. A new wave of shock flowed through me as I noticed her fading into the fog, fading away until she herself became the fog.

Buddha of the Bench

photo courtesy of THEfunkyman via creative commons license on Flickr.

I often stop at a small convenience store/gas station on my way to work to get breakfast and a drink for the morning. Outside of this store is a bench where people often sit to have a smoke, scratch lottery tickets or whatever else people do while sitting on a bench.

This morning I stopped, and on the bench was an older man, he looked to be in his 60s. He was kind of scruffy, a little dirty, had his bicycle next to where he sat, loaded with bags of who-knows-what. He sat there smoking a cigarette and slightly swaying back and forth as if his world wasn’t quite as still as ours.

I went inside, made my purchase as usual and came back out, passing the man again. As I walked by he looked up at me, and said in a slightly slurred, boisterous voice “Try to have fun today! It makes the day go by!”

I couldn’t help but smile. By the time I got across the parking lot to my car, I was laughing. I realize that I tend to go about my daily business with a rather glum expression on my face. It’s not that I’m sad or anything, I guess I just get focused on what I’m doing and where I’m going. I guess he saw this serious expression and decided to cheer me up. The best part is that even though I’m sure he wasn’t trying to be philosophical, he was completely and totally correct in his statement. If you make whatever you are doing fun in whatever way you can, it will become a pleasant task and your day will indeed fly by!