October | 2013 | BulgingButtons

I detest being scared. I startle easily, and scary movies are torture to me. The feeling of fear is awful and I don’t understand why so many people seem to enjoy it so much. Fear sucks. Fear eats away at your spirit and leaves you edgy and depleted. It steals your joy and gnaws at your spirit. Fear by choice? No thank you.

Maybe it all stems back to the gas mask incident, I don’t know. One afternoon when I was two years old I was in my room having a nap. I assume I was resting peacefully when suddenly I was awoken by the most horrifying sight I had ever seen. I screamed in horror and scrambled over the rail of the crib, absolutely terrified. How was I to know that it was only my seven year old brother wearing a gas mask? Who does that? And who has a gas mask in their house? According to my mother, my father was a visionary. I wonder if he ever envisioned his daughter scarred for life by his naughty little son.

As if that incident weren’t bad enough, maybe The Poseidon Adventure sealed the deal. I guess my mom was feeling weak. My brother had been working on her for some time, begging to see this movie. Maybe she reasoned that since The Carpenters were in it, the movie couldn’t be THAT bad. Whatever her reasoning, she decided to take us to see it. We went to a matinee with only a few other people in the theater. Turns out that was a good thing. Apparently a six year old me wasn’t quite ready for disaster at sea. I still have nightmares about drowning and fire. No, Captain Scott, DON’T LET GO!!!!!

I was kind of a scared kid. I used to profile people in the line at the bank so I could describe them to the police after they held the place up. I would look around in restaurants, trying to figure out where I would hide when the crazed gunmen would showed up. I even had a plan in place for the off chance that a Nazi patrol would come to my house in the night to round us up, like they did to our relatives in Germany years before.

No thank you, I don’t choose to be afraid. I think there are enough scary things in the real world without adding in the likes of Freddy Krueger and Michael Meyers. I will not be joining you at the haunted corn maze or riding the triple corkscrew roller coaster. Jumping out of an airplane or bungee jumping off a bridge are not for me, and the idea of participating in any type of war games sends me scrambling in the other direction, especially if there are gas masks involved. Call me a chicken or a scaredy cat or whatever you want, but keep the scary stuff away from me, please.

October 9, 2013
by BulgingButtons 5 Comments

Daily Passion Prompt 27: Living Off My Hobby

If you trusted that you could live off your favorite hobby, what would it be?

If I could be guaranteed to make a living from my favorite hobby, I would be one happy camper! I would write to my heart’s content, blathering on about this topic or that. I would explore various themes and compose poetry and children’s books.

I would examine my diverse interests and expand my knowledge of them, then I would write about what I’ve learned. In fact, I already do these things, but certainly not to the extent that I would like, after all, a full time career is fairly time consuming.

I imagine working on a collection of short stories, possibly doing some memoir writing, and of course developing at least one beloved (and incidentally extremely marketable) children’s book character. Marmalade the Marmot, anyone? No? Sherice the shrew? Or perhaps Ibsen the Ibis? There must be a story (or better yet, a series of stories), for these wonderful potential characters, although I’ve been told to avoid alliterative names. I guess Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Elmer the Elephant got lucky.

Long story short I would write, write, write. In fact, this writing thing really has become much more than a hobby. It’s a passion that is beginning to take on a life of its own, and I’m loving every minute of the ride it’s taking me on.

October 8, 2013
by BulgingButtons 3 Comments

Walking My Feet Off in Canada

I’m on holiday with my teenage son and my mother, who is obviously a generation older than I am. She is a dynamo. She takes us on a trip once a year to interesting locales full of cultural sites and other points of interest. Together the three of us have visited New York, Boston, and New York again. Our current trip finds us in beautiful Toronto, Ontario.

These trips are invariably short, generally three days, two nights. This one is the same. In a way, I’m glad, because I don’t think I could keep up with my mother for much longer. She starts the day early, while my son and I are still in bed. It’s the time change, mostly, but she would be up ahead of us even if we weren’t three hours behind her.

Then, after we finally gear up, it’s off to the sights. We generally walk or take public transportation. None of us was raised on public transportation, so for us it’s truly challenging. Especially for me, since I usually am the one left to figure it out. I’m finding Toronto’s system more difficult than either New York or Boston, even though it doesn’t seem as extensive.

Last night the woman at the traveler’s aid desk in the train station (I kid you not, this exists) was clearly so lonely that she talked our ears off for half an hour. I still had no idea how to take the train (or the bus). We walked. It was a beautiful evening, and everyone assures me Toronto is a safe city. I’m glad, because it’s time to head out again. My poor tired feet are killing me.