Other Thoughts | 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 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.

October 8, 2013
by BulgingButtons 16 Comments

15 Favorite Books

The Rules:
Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books (or series) which have influenced you and will always stick with you.
List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. In no particular order:

1. My Brother Sam is Dead, Collier and Collier

2. Little House on the Prairie Series, Ingalls Wilder

3. Harry Potter Series, Rowling

4. The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger

5. The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne

6. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Niffenegger

7. The Deep End of the Ocean, Mitchard

8. The Notebook, Sparks

9. The Lightning Thief Series, Riordan

10. The Hunger Games Trilogy, Collins

11. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Frank

12. The Story Of America, from the US bicentennial era, I don’t have much information about it but I loved it

13. The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd

14. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Boyne

15. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini

I’ve stolen this prompt from Lynne McAennyl who used it in her blog. I’d love to hear what your favorites are, if not all 15 maybe just a top 5 or even 3. I’m sure Lynne would like to read about them as well.