Bumping for October

It's never easy dealing with dumbasses, and I had to talk to quite a few today (namely, my ISP people). But never mind them. I'm really hoping that things normalize this week.

So it's October already…we're nearly halfway into the first month of the final quarter of 2006. Jeez, why didn't anyone wake me up when September ended? I like October, though. Even the name of the month is cool; it sounds so dignified. And there are some great occasions associated with it: there's Oktoberfest, there's Halloween.

Halloween seems to be toned down in my neighborhood this year. Last year, one of my neighbors had these cool decorations. One of them was an effigy of a hanged person on her balcony. Sounds macabre, but it looked awesome because of the lighting they had and the way the figure would move at the slightest breeze. I heard that they even changed their doorbell to the evil "hahahahahaha" you hear at the end of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," isn't that great? I enjoy MJ's music and I think he's a great performer (saw him in concert once) but I'm appalled at the way he looks now. He seems to be in Halloween mode all year round.

Halloween is supposed to be scary, but it isn't for me. It isn't especially frightening at this time of the year, in my opinion--not that I've had much experience with things that go bump in the night. Sure, there were a few goosebump-inducing incidents in the months after my father died many years ago, but nothing much since then. Sometimes, though, the hair on my nape stands on end and I feel like someone's watching me. And there are times when I see movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I look there's nothing there. (Insert "Twilight Zone" music here.) Other than that and a few weird dreams, I've had no ghostly experiences.

Some movies that I found scary:
-The first Nightmare on Elm Street. I had trouble sleeping after watching this many years ago, the presence of Johnny Depp in it notwithstanding.

-Sixth Sense. Just plain eerie. I liked it, though.

Some books that I found scary:
-It, by Stephen King. I don't like circus clowns, and the character of Pennywise in this novel frightened me.

-Salem's Lot, by Stephen King. This one scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I read it when I was a teenager. But when I read it again a few years ago, it didn't frighten me at all!

-Anne Rice's books about Lasher and the Mayfair witches. There's just something about very old houses and the presence of their long-dead inhabitants and old families that I find equally enticing and repulsive. (Which reminds me, there's an old house in a place here called New Manila; it has a dilapidated look--vines snaking up on the fence, peeling paint, one dim light on the porch at night--but strangely, they don't take away from the house's dignified bearing. It looks so haunted, it enthralls me.

Audio that I find scary:
-Sound effects from the shower scene in Psycho. I mean, really.

-Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. This one is just haunting. It brings to mind an image of Bela Lugosi playing a grand piano by candlelight.

Nothing scary has happened to me this month, thank heavens. The only thing that's been going bump in the night for me is the bumping and humping Red Hot Chili Peppers! Love this one.