Things that terrified me as a child:

-My dad once brought home a sample portfolio for a printing process that inexplicably contained a juicy macro of a praying mantis eviscerating a bug. I wasn’t ready for it when I turned the page…

-I must have been about five when I saw the video for Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (pt.2).  Horrifying, not just in the imagery. I have a vivid memory of waking up in the middle of the night with the sound of English school children protesting the need for education before being minced into worms.

-There was a regional children’s TV program here in Ontario which involved a moose and a beaver in furry costumes that had all kinds of weird stuff, including a grainy student film where a young boy digs up a box containing two eyes, which he then inserts into the empty sockets of a grinning skull.  I can’t be the only one who was traumatized by this, and I’ve looked for it countless times. It seems to have vanished in the sands of history.

glumshoe:

Concept: a shapeshifter that has excellent craftsmanship but poor judgement. It can flawlessly impersonate a washing-machine, for instance, but doesn’t understand that a 1994 Whirlpool washing-machine is not very good camouflage on the slopes of Mt. Rainier.

-I witnessed a collision between two carts in the Ikea warehouse. It was as if everything was in slow motion – the horrible sound of buckling cardboard. Then, the nervous glances between participants, each daring the other to break first and put the damaged merchandise back on the racking…

-I think sometimes I like watching documentaries about early Norwegian black metal simply because I’m drawn to the strangely precise way Norwegians have of pronouncing English words.

-C. is away on a week-long trip and I’m really cutting loose and going wild, mostly by using ingredients I normally refrain from in deference to her tastebuds.  So far I’ve tackled mushrooms, green peppers, and Cajun seasoning. 

The other evening I brought some beer over to my friend Tony’s house and we were visited by a demonic creature of the night.  We had to get it outside before his wife returned, because she has a fear.

It was a playful bat, and it kept going from room to room and back again, finding its way upstairs despite our protestations. Tony eventually herded it with a feather duster toward the door.  It was all very exciting.

Tuesday morning thoughts:

-Started watching Broadchurch the other night.  Have you ever noticed that even in series that are exceptionally realistic in tone and setting, any time there’s a funeral EVERYBODY shows up dressed head to toe in black?  If I gave you two days notice, where would you buy a black overcoat for your 8 year old?

-That point in a guitar solo where the musician plays the same phrase over and over again in a triumphant feat of stamina to whip the crowd into a frenzy? Yeah, don’t clap for that.  It’s a sham. 

– Preparing C.’s absentee ballot is enlightening. It’s amazing how complex the procedure for mailing it is – different sizes of envelopes, placement of stickers, etc.  The U.S. does not make it easy to vote if you live outside the country.

Stressful day.

-The serpentine belt on my car decided it wasn’t happy with our current arrangement and it wanted to explore new opportunities within the organization. I’m waiting to see what it’s going to cost me. I really did not need this, financially.

-I’m trying to reorganize my work website, which is hosted on an extremely antiquated Google platform that makes changing anything… well, I want to say “impossible”, but that’s not quite right. The options are so limited. I have no html experience and it’s frustrating.  It’s also not the kind of thing I want to sink a bunch of money into, because as far as I know nobody really finds me through it, except for the one guy who told me he liked it because it was “real simple”.  I’m not sure that’s a compliment.  Just the same, it looks very unprofessional.

-I’m struck by the notion that there is very little I can actually count on. I want to have control.