Loscon was good for me.

I actually had moments on Sat where I felt like I would like to stay sober. internal processing cut for those that don’t wanna read it

I got in at 10:30am. I think it was a number of items adding up together.
cut for belly-button gazing

The horror genre seems to be showing up more around me. I am fine with that. I don’t have anything against it other than a lack of understanding why people would want to expose themselves to it. I know people do and I accept that. But I have to be very careful what I let into my experience.

I saw the trailer for the Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp last night. I am familiar with the basic idea of the story from being around the theatre. The trailer looked interesting and, hey, it is Tim Burton, I should be able to handle it. It looks cool.

But my mind has other notions. I dreamed I went to see the movie and was so completely creeped out I had to run out of the theater. I have a very clear visual of Johnny Depp’s version of Sweeney Todd pushing an upright body through a spinning saw blade splitting the body in half. That part wasn’t that bad. It was that Todd used his body to do the pushing and the blade cut into his sternum and he found it fascinating. That he was doing all this killing and cutting to see what it was like and with each one, he got closer and closer to doing it to himself. I had to leave the theater at that point because I couldn’t take any more. And I felt horrible doing so. Like I was abandoning something or someone. Like I would be stuck at that point of the story from then on and it would never end. But I couldn’t face the “real” ending. So I was left in a horrible limbo.

I still have a hard time figuring out which images my memory has that is from the actual trailer and from my dream of the movie. They have the same quality. My dream was that vivid and well produced.

My imagination is just too good. It will take things and run with them and sometimes there is no difference between memories of reality and fantasy. Typically I will have to consciously have to put a mental marker on things and say “that was a dream” to make the designation. And I can still be haunted by images that are horrific. I don’t like being scared.

I realized how low level my horror threshold is when I saw the Horror/Comedy House in the 80′s and had nightmares about being caught in the vines in the jungle in Vietnam. Turns out I was tangled in the sheets on the bed. I have very few nightmares so this is significant.

The odd opposite of this is that I don’t seem to have a problem with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. Something about it makes it ok for me to read.

So these are some of the reasons I can very careful about what I let into my head. The idea of wanting to put Horror in there strikes me as a bad idea.

My birthday is suppose to be Saturday. But I am not in a good head space for it right now. So I have decided not to have my birthday on Saturday. I might postpone it until later or just flat out skip it this year and have my next birthday a year from now.

It is very ingrained to be acknowledged for your birthday so I am trying to set it up that it just another day with a few birthday greetings from important people, like my dad.

If people are inclined to give me a birthday greeting or whatever, please hold off. I will announce when I decide to actually have my birthday.

There is no such thing as a Happy Birthday for me right now. I would rather wait to celebrate it than to have good wishes add weight to a bad day. And this birthday is a big one for me. I have been very aware of it for the last 25 years.

Happy Birthday to fresne, emberleo, and karlito1984.

Happy Birthday a day early to seabelle, and ‘s hubby.

Last Sat was JP’s birthday but he doesn’t read LJ so his birthday greeting is to the ether.

Yeah, November has a host of birthdays clumped together. Guess what our parents were doing on Valentine’s day.

I was reading a link from cmdrsuzdal about Whedon fans taking pizzas to the Writers’ Strike picket line and I find I have tears in my eyes. I was just thinking last night that I haven’t cried in awhile and I am due but I can’t find anything to cry about. Yeah, life sucks right now and I am focusing on surviving each day one day at at time but I can’t seem to cry about it.

This action touched me and sadly it is not a time to follow it up.
cut because I don’t want to smear this stuff all over people’s friend pages, feel free to skip is you wish