The past few days have been entirely strange. Now that I’ve finally been given a respite from these awful headaches, I’ve been trying desperately to write the proposal for the Daily Prophet. It’s not working. Everything I’ve written has come out like absolute schmaltz. I can’t get a single sentence to come out that doesn’t sound like the worst conglomeration of cheese ever before seen on paper. My days recently have been spent tearing myself to bits in front of my monitor, trying to mash together a bunch of words to explain why kids need to learn to read, what the Daily Prophet will do to help that, and why I think people should throw money at me. I just can’t get to work.

After spending several hours tormenting myself, I tend to throw up my arms and cry, “That’s it! I can’t handle it anymore!” Toddling downstairs, I end up sitting on the couch some time in the late afternoon and watch a movie or blow up some aliens thanks to the catharsis that is Nintendo, thinking desperately about how I might be able to pull my writing abilities out of the proverbial toilet. Needless to say, I haven’t gotten much writing done, despite the average of four/five hours I spend agonizing over it every day. Hey, at least I designed the portfolio. The words may be cheese, but good gracious, those words are going on absolutely gorgeous pages.

At least I’ve watched some rather entertaining movies. I saw ‘Psycho‘ for the first time – personally, I wasn’t that creeped out by it. Mostly, I felt extremely sorry for Norman. Although, that classic shot of him at the very end was rather frightening. If you haven’t seen it, right at the end Norman’s sitting in this all white room, wrapped in a blanket, thinking. The camera slowly zooms in on him and suddenly, with his head down, his eyes flick up and stare right into the camera. It scared me, and I don’t know why.


I’ve noticed that look in a lot of movies. Take, for example, the end of Return of the King. Frodo does that exact same look, glancing up at Sam, while they’re inside the volcano about to get rid of the ring. Why is that look so automatically frightening to everyone? Just that certain contortion of human facial features is enough to make people gasp. Why? In unto itself, it’s just a glance, just a downward positioning of the chin, while pointing the eyes up and forward. That shouldn’t be scary, and yet we see that expression throughout history in many forms of art. I’ve tried to place it in some kind of classic horror film to see if maybe it became a sort of iconic movie image, but it’s not. It can be found anciently, between cultures that never interacted as far as we know, and it’s always associated with evil. Kind of makes you wonder why.

Anyway. That was an unexpected tangent. So ‘Psycho’ was good, very beautifully made. I also watched another Alfred Hitchcock film I’d never heard of before, ‘Strangers On a Train‘. That was by far more frightening than ‘Psycho’, and it completely solidifies my feelings that carousels are evil and should be destroyed. It’s a great film about a lunatic who meets a tennis star on a train, and proposes they swap murders; both of them have people they’d prefer to disappear. Only problem is, the tennis star never intended to murder anyone, and was indeed creeped out by this stranger on a train. One thing leads to another, the lunatic murders the tennis star’s wife, and creepiness ensues. You’ve got to rent it, it’s an amazing movie and the acting was phenomenal.

The night before last, Steven and I couldn’t sleep so we watched ‘Misery‘. I had recorded it (thank you, tivo!) a few days before. I wasn’t expecting it to be that scary, but Steven apparently got a kick out of watching me cringe at the film. It’s enough to prove to anyone that you *never* ever want to be famous. Ever. Now I see why Kathy Bates deserved that Oscar, she was so incredibly frightening. Unlike Norman Bates, I didn’t feel sorry for her character at all. She was just absolutely insane, and unlike Norman Bates, I didn’t have anyone to blame for treating her so badly that she was driven mad.

Then, of course, yesterday afternoon I was so frustrated that I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to watch something so absolutely stupid that it was entertaining. I turned to ‘Army of Darkness‘ (thanks to tivo, yet again), which oddly enough, aired on AMC. I think it’s great that stupid movies such as that one – when made with the intention of being stupid – are considered american classics now. That movie really is the epitome of stupid American humor. “This is my BOOMSTICK!” Hehe.

I think all of these movies have gone to my head, though. Last night I had the strangest dream. I’m not sure I should blog it, though. I told it to Sujit today and he said that I’m freaky. Of course, that’s beside the fact that I was just as freaked out by the dream as he was, if not more so. Eh, this is my blog, maybe I’ll write about it tomorrow if I still can’t figure out what the dream was all about. It was so confusing, and yet at the same time could easily mean *something*, just can’t figure out what exactly. (And no, the dream didn’t have anything to do with being a writer, stalked by a pair of Bates while riding a carousel haunted by an army of the dead. Although, I wouldn’t have complained if Bruce Campbell were in the dream…) But as for right now, this entry has gotten long enough. So, until next time, hail to the king, baby.