Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Horror

I should have known I wasn't ready to sleep last night. I was wound up from too much coverage of the nightmare in Wisconsin. First the thrill of an engaged electorate and record turnout and then the gut punch. I kept trying to turn it off but hoping for a miracle.
The New Yorker is a Science Fiction edition. I was flipping through it and found a fun piece by Colson Whitehead on his love of horror movies. I do not like horror movies but I do like Colson Whitehead. I had to skim through some of the descriptive detail. Then a short piece by Ursula Le Guin. I started a story by Junot Diaz but had to quit. People were dying of some kind of something. I do not like horror.
So I turned off the light, closed my eyes and imagined myself standing on the steps of the Supreme Court screaming and then imagined my own horror movie in which Emma and the Haymarket martyrs rose up out of their graves and went to the Wisconsin statehouse to wipe that smug, obsequious smile off the Governor.
Yeah. Not sleeping.
I started Bones, Blood and Butter, which might sound like horror but isn't. The story of her family's yearly goat roast mellowed me out enough to try again but I had a bad night. Woke up numerous times to go to the bathroom and once  because of a bad dream. I can't even think about horror movies and not have bad dreams. Woke up in pain. Knew I wasn't even going to try and go to the pool but felt weepy about it.
Made walnut pancakes for breakfast. Made a huge mess and made them too thick so they were hard to cook all the way through. Ate them with raspberries. Good but shoulda been better.
Sulked and pouted.
Eventually cleaned up the pancake mess and mopped the bathroom floor.
Cleaning is good therapy.     

2 comments:

lynnie said...

I have only just this past couple years started to like horror films. I credit Prozac with this big change in tastes. Turns out horror movies can be fun if you do not imagine every horrible thing in it appending to members of your wn family. At east for me.

But I don't like scary books.I'd probably lie the one about cooking and feasting though. I remember you used to be a chef, didn't you?

Tish said...

I cook. I don't claim the word chef because I don't feel like I know enough but I can cook. The book is pretty great.