My brain is creative, sassy, and loaded down with IQ points, but it can also be very scary.

I accomplished a few things over the weekend. There is still, as always, much more to do, but I'm glad for what I did get done. I needed the lift. It did cost me, though. I think I strained my back, maybe irritated the sciatic nerve. I still did the shopping, though. I tried not to limp in public, but here in private... I'm a bit crippled. If I were any worse off, I'd be dragging my left leg behind me. I really should be going to bed instead of being in here typing, but... there is a nip in the air at night now. Halloween approaches, too. I might do toothbrushes and sugarless gum again this year. I'm thinking of adding some food pyramid cards to the feast. Heh. I can be such a bitch. :-) Who here thinks I would look good dressed up as the Tooth Fairy?

I have a weird Halloween thing, I really do. One day last year, in the middle of summer, I went shopping with my sister. I pleaded headache to be able to keep the dark shades on without fielding questions. Those glasses are my people shield when I'm not doing well (or when I don't want anyone to suspect why I am suddenly a very 'peaceful' zombie-like character - and no, it has nothing to do with any drug). Anyway, that particular pair were perhaps too dark. We walked by a half-raised, navy blue umbrella for sale near some picnic shit and I panicked. It wasn't because of picnic items, it was because of the umbrella. I only saw it in my peripheral vision and it looked black to me. It didn't look like an umbrella, either. It looked like a black cape or something like that. I instantly thought Halloween thoughts.

Another time, maybe a year ago, I was innocently cruising the net and stumbled on a page somewhere that had a little photo of a cozy autumn scene. I immediately thought Halloween thoughts and I freaked. I freaked so bad I had to call the shrink. I still don't really know why. Actually, it could have something to do with my uncles scaring me as a little girl. I don't know, though. Seems flimsy. I thought about something tonight when the cooler air found me. I thought of October of 2000. My father died about a week before Halloween. At the time, in spite of everything, he was my best friend on Earth. You all know what I did when he died, don't you? Go ahead. Guess. You know you want to...
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I WORKED. Yes, that's right, I got my dry eyes out there and sold every fucking piece of real estate I could put my greedy little pen to. As if I had merely lost a small wager or something instead of a father. He died on the 22nd. On Halloween, I went to my sister's house because I had business in the neighborhood. I ended up passing out tooth decay at my sister's front door while she took her kids around the block. The anxiety was creeping up on me, trying to find its way in. The panic was brewing, so... I made cold calls from my cell phone while I answered her door. I was so unhinged, I made a sale AND took a listing from that night's avoidance tactics.

It seems that every year after, each Halloween was a little bit worse than the last. I'm sure it didn't help that my mother the nut job could never seem to shut the fuck up about how EVIL the whole thing was. Still, there's more to it, I just don't know what it is. My brain took to communicating in a frightening code that made me fear that I was psychotic. The last year I took the kids trick or treating was 2003. Something terrible happened that night. I was, as usual, a nervous fucking mess, but I tried to just fake it. I figured if I just pretended to myself that I was having fun, then I WOULD have fun. You know how some people really get into decorating their yards? Well, I was 'okay' until this one particular yard. They went all out. Even had gravestones. As I passed the gravestones on my way back down the walk, I saw a name on one of them. You are never going to believe what I thought the name read. Go ahead. Guess. You know you want to...
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I thought it said 'Jesus Christ'. It didn't, of course. I took another look and it said something else entirely, but... I had two good reasons to panic. 1) I was 'seeing things', and 2) I thought I saw Jesus' name on a grave marker. I was a practicing Christian at the time, and that made me come unglued. No Christian wants to think that Jesus might not have been resurrected from his tomb. I was so scared and miserable that night, that I cannot even describe it. I couldn't tell anyone, either. As always, I had to pretend. Nope, no relief for me. What? Maybe I could have told someone in my crazy ass family? Are you kidding? If I had told my husband, he would have worried. If I had told my sister, she would have tried to push me into seeing a psychiatrist. If I had told my mother, she would have convinced me that Satan was controlling my mind and trying to drive me insane and the only way to thwart him would be to legally marry my husband and stop doing Satan's work by writing fiction (fiction is much maligned by many insane religious fanatics). I really had no one. I was alone. My father was gone and God was rumored, in my unconscious, to be dead. I was the only one left; only me and my crazy ass fiction writing. That night, as I fled God's grave, I remember passing a guy dressed up as the murderer from... whatever movie it was... Jason, the hockey mask... yeah, it was a fab night. NOT.

Now... I think my unconscious was just getting desperate in its attempts to communicate with me. It was trying to say things like, "God (Dad) is dead. He can't strike you down anymore. He can't strike anyone anymore. You can speak now," or... "What would you do if you were not locked into principles that have been imposed upon you by religion? Just see the fucking truth already," and "You don't HAVE to honor anybody but yourself and you don't have to forgive a fucking thing. Your God does not exist. Forget about all that bullshit, you are allowed to see reality. You can even get angry and curse your family and no god waits to punish you for it."

I really need to get my ass to bed. G'night y'all.