It’s almost NaNoWriMo. I can’t believe it’s been just over two years since I died twice and came back. Oooooh! Halloween is in a few days. Perfect time for some spookiness. The problem is that what I find scary is not what other people find spooky. I don’t count jumpscares beacuse that’s just a physiological response. It’s weird to me that other people are so freaked out by them. Or by a face showing upn in a window.
I feel like a weirdo that I am completely oblivious to those kinds of scares. In the RKG streams/spooky games, people always joke about how Krupa is stone cold. He said in this stream that he had feelings! Everyone chuckled. In his case, he’s just not physically and overtly expressive. In my case, I really don’t feel it.
It’s like my cat, Shadow. Most cats freak out over vacccum cleaners and thunderstorms. Shadow does not. But he’s had nightmares that have woken him up and made him run around the room. Then he’ll settle back in his bed and eventually fall back asleep. I feel that so hard. He does not care about your fake scares, people! He has real demons to fight.
He lived through something that should have killed him. It was an urinary infection, and the vets told me that he probably wasn’t going to make it. This was when he was six. I waited all Friday for the news, and I had prepared myself to have my heart broken. The vet already asked me what I wanted to do if it came down to making the decision. I said to put him to sleep because I did not want him to suffer. When she called, my heart was in my throat as I was ready for her to say it was time to let him go.
When she said he reached the number he needed to reach and was fine, my brain shut down. I had been steeling miself for the bad news; I did not know how to accept the good. I went to get him, and I was told to take him home and keep him sequestered for a few days, but that was it. That was elevenn years ago. He’s been right as rain since then.
His brother, Raven, suddenly died seven years ago. I can still remmeber the horrible night. Afterwards, Shadow was inconsolable for six months. We were grieving together, and I don’t know what I would have done without him. After my medical crisis, he became a different cat. When he was little, he only liked me (as far as humans go). When he first met Ian eight or so years ago, Shadow instantly took to him. But we were the only two humans he completely accepted.
After my medical crisis, Shadow became loving towards all humans. He completely lost his fear of them, and I wonder if it’s in part because he saw them working on me while I was passed out on in the front hallway.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Fear.
I don’t know fear the way other people do. It’s something I have to remind myself of–that I am a weirdo in so many ways. That’s one reason I’m doing this romcom/murder mystery. It’s something that I’ve never done and I’m not sure you can wed the two together (see what I did there?) I’m setting it in 2022, but maybe I’ll have it happen around Halloween.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. Even if I don’t dress up for it, I enjoy it. No, I do not give candy to the kids. I keep the lights off and pretend I’m not home. Let me put it this way–I don’t hate Halloween the way I do other holidays. It’s funny because I wrote an op-ed when I was in seventh or eighth grade about the crass commercialism of Christmas–which was nearly forty years ago.
My mother once said to me in extreme exasperation, “Just because something is traditional, it doesn’t make it bad!” I retorted, “It doesn’t make it good, either!” That’s the thing. I have never felt warm and fuzzy about traditions or holidays. I don’t understand the thinking behind doing something in a certain way just because it’s always been done that way.
I mean, I get wanting to get together with family. If you have a good family, why would you not want that? And I get eating a ton during those get-togethers. That also makes sense to me. What I don’t get is that it has to be during a presribed time or doing it in a rigid way. Like for Thanksgiving, why does it have to be turkey? My brother makes brisket because that’s his thing and that’s what he likes. He doesn’t like turkey, so why waste hours making one?
It seems to me that when people are so rigid about their traditions, they’re missing the point of a tradition in the first place. In addition, they’re miserable because the actual event never goes the way they see it happening in their heads. To me, it should be about getting the people together and enjoying their company, rather than if the right kind of pie is on the table.
My brother recently told me that his ex-wife held a grudge for years (which was not uncommon for her. She held a grudge like nobody’s business) because at their first Thanskgiving together, my mother said she would bring the cranberries. Which she did! A cranberry ‘salad’ that included marshmallows, walnuts, and a few other ingredients. I really liked it, by the way. It was tasty. Anyway, me ex-SIL was upset because in her mind, cranberries meant, well, just cranberries. And maybe dash of sugar. Smushed? Maybe. I’ve had her version. It’s not to my liking, honestly.
I get that she was disappointed to not have the cranberries she wanted, but to hold a grudge over it? Come on. But that was her to a T. Unspoken expectations that were never met to her specifications, which meant she ended up unhappy.
How the hell…
Anyway. My point is that I would rather make a glorious mess trying something new than write something decent, but safe. That’s why I’m trying a genre I’ve never written before, coupled with a genre I know like the back of my hand.