Scaredy Cat

Requisite first paragraph in which I talk about how I'm a terrible blogger, etc.

So, this weekend is Halloween! I like to enjoy this holiday on the lighter side. No haunted houses or super scary movies - I'm just too chicken! I always think that I'll enjoy watching a scary movie, and I usually do during the actual watching, but then afterward when I'm laying awake in my bed listening to all the sounds that could potentially be ax murderers and masked psychopaths, I really wish I hadn't. I used to enjoy watching them more I think as a teenager, when I'd be piled in a friend's room at a sleepover with a bunch of other friends. Somehow that makes it less scary, even though it seems like "girls at a slumber party" is a pretty classic scene from horror movies...

Sometimes I watch scary movies but mute the worst scenes. The music is 80% of the scare, don't you think? The best example of this is The Shining. It is probably the scariest movie that I own and actually watch from time to time. The book is better in terms of a story, but the movie is so artistically scary, both visually and musically, that it is hard to beat. Those screeching strings as he goes slowly mad? Shudder!

In the end, I prefer thrillers or slightly creepy movies as opposed to the downright terrifying ones. I've still never seen some of the "big" horror films: The Ring, Paranormal Activity, or even the classics like The Exorcist, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.

I am way more likely to read and enjoy a horror novel (see: my Stephen King shelf) than see a horror film. But even there I have my scaredy cat limits. I couldn't finish The Exorcist. And I can remember laying in my room, finishing reading The Amityville Horror, and then getting up and taking the book downstairs because I didn't want it in the same room with me while I slept!

So what about you? Scary movies and books, yay or nay? Why or why not? Which one scared you the most?

Happy Halloween!

A Little Shaken Up

I usually like to keep this blog more upbeat, but every once in a while something happens that I just need to talk about... Today while I was driving to work I almost hit a man with my car, and it scared me horribly.

I was driving on a major road, and coming up to a large intersection (Nolensville and Old Hickory, for you Nashvillians). I moved to get into the right turn lane, which was wide open. The other two lanes in my direction were backed up waiting at the red light. I was zipping past them, totally within my boundaries, when from between two of the stopped cars darts a guy hustling across the street. He appeared and was almost instantly in my lane. I slammed on my brakes and screamed as my car screeched to a halt. This man literally had to jump out of my way and was so close my car must have brushed him; one step further and I would without a doubt have hit him, injured him, maybe even killed him.

I was shaking and crying so I pulled over after a few minutes to try and collect myself. I do NOT understand why someone would try to cross 6 lanes of traffic just a few yards from a busy intersection and not use the crosswalk! And he didn't even pause, didn't even look to see if there were cars coming down my lane. Even though if I had hit him I wouldn't have been at fault, realizing that I was so close to potentially seriously injuring or ending someone's life was terrifying. My mind was racing with the thought of what could have happened. What if I had glanced down to dig something out of my purse or change my CD? What is he had been jogging just a little faster? What if I had left my house 30 seconds earlier? What if what if what if...

But how good is our God, to place his hands in our lives, in the daily workings of our existence? To exist beyond and above our linear notions of time and our ideas about chance and fortitude. God is not playing a game of "what if." I believe that despite the seemingly incongruous ideas of His omniscience and our free will, God's plans are without flaw. I almost hit a man with my car today. Maybe I almost hit him so that the car behind me wouldn't actually hit him. Maybe I almost hit him so I'd be shaken up and more careful and deliberate about my driving habits. But I know there is a reason I didn't hit him, and at the same time a reason that I almost did. Thank you God, that today I didn't hit that man. I pray wherever he is that he is okay and that you have impressed upon his heart that it was more than just a chance occurance, just as you have revealed that to me.

A Bug. In. My. EYE!

Ben and I were out walking Scruffy last night after we got home from work. I don't usually go on those excursions, but it had cooled down a bit after the rain we got, and it was a generally pleasant sort of evening. We walked side by side by side and everything was going fine.

Then I realized there were these nasty little gnats flying around everywhere. One even flew into my mouth. Gross, I know, but who hasn't had that happen? Just spit it out and keep your mouth shut.

And then it happened. One of the little buggers flew into my eye. My eye! Not just ow-that-bug-hit-my-eye but ew-ew-ew-that-bug-is-stuck-in-my-eye! I abandoned Ben and Scruffy and started running down the street towards my house, covering my one eye and squinting considerably with the other to prevent a second eye-invasion. Let's not even talk about how ridiculous I looked to any neighbor that might've been watching.

Tearing open the front door, I ran to the bathroom, pulled out my contact, and stuck my open eye under the running faucet. I figured the same rules for rinsing a household toxin from your eye might apply in this situation.

And here's just the thing... what else besides rinse it out and blink a lot can you DO when something gets in your eye? Not much! You can't exactly stick a q-tip in there and get it out... as far as I know you're not supposed to poke anything into your eye, or even rub on it for that matter (as Heather often scolds me). I was left perched on the bathroom counter with my face a few centimeters from the mirror holding my now burning from tap-water eye as open as I possibly could. And though I could not see it, I KNEW that bug was still in there, up on the top of my eye. Ben peered inside my upper eyelid with a flashlight (yeah, that was bright) and insisted that it was gone. FALSE. That bug was still in there! At this point my imagination went into overdrive. What if the bug was carrying a disease? Would I have to go to the ER if I couldn't get it out? OH MY GOD WHAT IF IT LAYS EGGS IN MY EYE.

The last thought was enough to send me over the edge, and I (predictably) started to cry. And as I looked into the mirror at my swollen and bloodshot eye, I watched as the evil demonic brutal invader of my eye, a tiny gnat bug, came tumbling out in one of my tears.

And that, my friends, is what happens to me when I go into the wilderness. And, this was just my neighborhood, which is quite civilized. Can you imagine the kind of stuff I might encounter and be forced to endure should I have to go into the REAL wilderness?!?! And it does, people, it does. I did, at one time, enjoy the outdoors, and in the right circumstances, I still do. I liked being outside in Colorado (except for one specific bug related incident - detailed here in my work blog). But good grief, if I can't even walk my dog down the street without a gnat invading my ocular space, there's no way I could be expected to survive the real outdoors without suffering serious insect-inflicted damage.