Boo

Do you have that one image in your mind that is possibly recurring and definitely terrifying?

I mentioned earlier that I get scared pretty easily. (Example: I watched the preview, not the movie but the preview, of Hollowman and couldn't be alone for weeks. And even still, every time I see something that looks like footprints in my carpet I run away.) Normally I will have watched a frightening movie (Hide and Seek), just told some scary stories (demon stories always get me), read a scary book (made the mistake of reading Carrie all by myself last year), or, recently, read a scary play (I couldn't sleep the other night because we just read Macbeth for class and had discussed the meanings of the three witches and apparitions).

But what has become a daily routine of mine is to get frightened whenever I wash my face at night.

I have only seen one X-Files episode in my life and I will never see another one again. I don't exactly remember the plot. All I remember is an Indian guy without legs rolling himself around on a skateboard-type thing. He was so creepy and menacing. He would just roll around and attack people I guess, for no reason other than his understandable angst against full-functioning bipedal humans.

So whenever I wash my face, right when I have soap in my eyes, I think that man is next to me at my ankles, staring up at me. Even as I write this I'm getting a little fidgety. He's scary.

(Actually, I just read a scary story in People magazine and couldn't go to sleep right away. And since blogging always helps me fall asleep, (not that you're boring) I figured I'd vent about it. Unfortunately I chose the wrong topic to write on since I'm scaring myself as I type.)

My mother and I got into an argument about my sensitivities today on our way to Thanksgiving dinner. When I was little, I watched a version of Wizard of Oz I bet no one has ever seen. My mother took the liberty of ridding me of the pleasure of viewing the fantastic film with fresh eyes by taping it and omitting every part with the wicked witch and those monkeys. For years, I had no idea there was a bad witch at all, and to be honest I'm still confused about the monkeys.

I was arguing that had she not shielded me from the frightening images, I might have been a tougher human being. It's like an immune system. You have to let the kid play in the dirt a little so he can build up his white blood cells to fight against that cold so common and pig-like flu. Perhaps it is because of her constant veiling of reality (Like Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse! Look how I bring in literature) that I am such a scaredy-cat. Luckily I have a really good friend that I call every time I can't sleep. He talks me out of my senselessness until I realize that Kevin Bacon has no beef with me.

This is one reason why my CIA obsession has helped me so much. I ask myself, "Would Sydney Bristow really go to her parents' room because of something she read in a play?"

Luckily I don't get graphic nightmares really. My last nightmare a couple nights ago was pretty scary though. I dreamed I was the photographer at my sister's wedding and my camera wasn't working and I could only get four pictures of her special day. She was pissed. If you know my sister, you know that was a nightmare.