Welcome to My Least Favorite Parts of Spooky Season

I have happily shared with you guys my love of the Halloween season. The beautiful colors of the falling leaves, the creepy yet fun decorations, and the wonderful things to eat are all wonderful. I'm fond of seeing all the little kids in their costumes and their excitement going trick or treating. 

However, I must admit that there are a few things about this time of year that either get on my nerves or cause me distress. It's not all sugar and spice and everything delightfully spooky this time of year and here are are a few of mine. 

Haunted House Mazes 

Some of you might be surprised that I'm not a fan of these pop up attractions - especially since I've been noted to enjoy Buschgardens Hall-o-Scream. Except I can't stand the sensory overload that is the haunted house (or haunted maze as my family always called them). From an overstimulation of noise, and overuse of strobe lights, to lots of fake fog to trigger my asthma, and the over use of jump scares, I just don't enjoy this experience. If I am somehow talked into (or blackmailed into) entering one of these monstrosities, I typically will be walking with my ears covered - much to the confusion of everyone but my family. These are great for some people, but not so much for me.

The only Haunted House I do enjoy is the one at Disney World/Disneyland.

Fake Chain Saws

Similar to Haunted House Mazes, these beyond evil noise makers never fail to freak me out. If you want to see me jump about a foot in the air, rev up a real chain saw in my general vicinity. I guarantee you a freaked out reaction. So if I can't handle the real ones, why would I like the fake ones often used in theme park scare zones or outside Haunted House Maze attractions. I hate them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.  

Zombies

First of all, the modern "zombie" is actually more of a traditional ghoul. The origin of zombies comes from Haitian and Caribbean voodoo (or Vodou) which is an actual religious practice. Most depictions of Vodou zombies in western media are wrong and insulting to the practitioners of voodoo/Vodou. Depictions of the more ghoul like zombie freak me out and the fact that the US military has a plan in place for when a zombie out break occurs doesn't help with my irrational fears. I'm not sure if it's the amount of violence associated with zombies or the sheer mindlessness of their existence that cause my skin to crawl more. Zombies are a big no thank you.

Fun Fact: I was once asked in college if I'd survive a zombie apocalypses. Before I could answer and without skipping a beat, my college roommate goes: "they'd die." Alas, my college roommate is probably right.

Harming of Animals

Sadly, Halloween and spooky season is also associated with the mindless harm of animals - especially black cats. Some of my friends growing up had a black cat and their family always made sure to securely lock the kitty away on Halloween for fear that someone would harm her. It's not cool to harm animals on Halloween for a prank or try to commune with the devil. 

PSA - keep all cats and dogs inside on Halloween, especially if they have black fur.

Overly Sexual Costumes for Children

Why is this a thing?

Pumpkin Spice Flavored Hate

I get that it's everywhere. I get that some people are totally put off by it. But I enjoy it and I don't care if that makes me "basic". Pumpkin spice and everything nice is a wonderful part of this season. The haters can go have their hate party in another part of the Internet.

And Finally: The Glorification of Serial Killers

I have a question - are TikTokers who watch the glamorized dramatization "documentaries" of serial kills and claim that they weren't disturbed okay? No, seriously, are you okay? It's one thing to enjoy watching Freddy or Jason or Michael Meyers on the big screen. It's an entirely different can of worms if you can watch media on real life evil people and not want to vomit. Please stop encouraging the glorification of people who have done horrific things to other people. Families of victims don't deserve this. The victims of these crimes don't deserve this. I honestly wish that these people would fade away from public consciousness. We don't need any more of these "documentaries" dropping around Halloween time (or ever).

I love the Halloween season and enjoy some of the spooky things that come with it. But as much as I love "all things spooky", there are a few draw backs. However, I can (usually) avoid the things I don't enjoy. 

You can find me this season hanging out in a pumpkin patch or exploring a corn maze (I promise to only sacrifice one family to the corn). I also enjoy seeing the cool decorations - minus any loud noises or jump scares. 

What are your favorite parts of the Halloween season? Have any least favorite things about the season?

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week. 

Welcome to the Taboo Costume Ball

Halloween is on Thursday. Have you picked out your costume yet?

This weekend and next weekend are the defacto days to celebrate the season. Right after we get to skip Thanksgiving and go straight into Christmas decorating (as long as we are going by the decorations in the stores). However, for this last week, I get to bask in the creepy, macabre, and darkness of the season and no one can question me about it.

Halloween is one of the few times where it's okay to wear whatever you want...within reason. (Here's your annual PSA: Don't wear the clothing of another culture and call it a costume). You want to be a princess, be a princess. You want to be a witch, be a witch. You want to dress up as a slutty version of Crowley from "Good Omens", Neil Gaiman might retweet your costume on Twitter.

Don't think too hard about that last sentence, but yes, I really did come across that on Twitter earlier today.

I've never made it a secret that I love this season. I think it's the reminder that life eventually comes to an end and that there is a new beginning waiting for me when that happens, this year more so than most. I love the atmosphere, the sights and smells and tastes are all unique, but fleeting.

I don't really enjoy being scared, especially not in haunted houses, but the decorations and aesthetic are intriguing and different. It's a time for us to embrace the parts of life that we don't always want to acknowledge.

One of those things is the taboo.

Is it any wonder why sexy or slutty costumes are popular among some circles? Americans in particular continue to have a more conservative perspective on sex and sexuality. Not all Americans, but it is a distinct, if occasionally subconscious part of our culture. Halloween is one of the rare acceptable times that people can explore what titillates them and not be ridiculed for it.

This does sometimes go too far. I didn't need to know that a sexy handmaid's costume existed and sexy or slutty costumes depicting another culture should not be considered (PSA: please for the love of all that is sanity do not turn another culture's dress and make it a costume). Also children's costumes with the word "sexy" should not exist.

There are some things that should probably just not be done.

However, an adult expressing their sexuality is perfectly okay and Halloween provides a safe space for some people to do that.

I'm not one for sexy or slutty costumes. I prefer dressing up as something "dead" like a zombie or vampire. Death and the dead are another taboo topic that Halloween exemplifies.

Everybody dies.

It's what makes life worth living.

I prefer to spend the Halloween season acknowledging this part of the human condition. I like watching atmospheric movies and reading scary ghost stories. I don't really like being scared myself, I do not like haunted house attractions for example. I like being reminded that life eventually does end.

Halloween allows me to celebrate life while also acknowledging death.

And there's a certain amount of humor that goes with that. Horror and comedy are often two sides of the same coin. It's why movies like "Dale and Tucker Versus Evil" and "Scream" work so well as both horror stories and comedies. Sometimes we need to laugh in the face of what horrifies us.

One of my favorite actives during this season is to listen to spooky old jazz music from the early 1900s. A lot of the recordings are distorted and a little off putting. The songs about dancing with the dead or making deals with the devil can be both funny and spooky. But what really creeps me out is the idea that the people who I'm listening to, their recorded voices and playing instruments, they're all dead. Every single person in those recordings died years ago.

Yet, I feel connected to them. I feel like they could manifest themselves out of the music to dance with me in my living room. We dance together like in the "Danse Macabre".

Life is short, so around Halloween, I take the time to be myself as much as possible. I wear my favorite goth clothes and steampunk jackets. I wear make-up that distorts my face and do my hair a little different. I express myself how I want to without worrying about society judging me.

So enjoy Halloween . Take the kids out trick or treating. Go to a party. Watch a scary movie or explore a haunted house. Find a costume and be the person you never thought you'd be for a night.

It'll all be over come November 1st.

But seriously, don't dress up as someone else's culture.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Darker Side of Things

Halloween is fast approaching! Have you guys picked out a costume yet?

Halloween has always held a special place in my heart. The decorations, the costumes, and the TV specials were always fun this time of year. I loved dressing up for Halloween (still do when I can). I always had to be either something dead or scary. One year, when I was dressed as a vampire, I scared my next door neighbor so bad that he refused to go trick or treating. I think he was barely one or two years old at the time.

Though I love most things about the season, I’m not a huge fan of haunted houses. Don’t get me wrong, the decorations and costumes are fantastic, but I can’t deal with the sensory overload that sometimes happens to me with the flashing lights and loud noises. Plus I really hate jump scares - they’re not actually scary, just startling.

It’s the Halloween aesthetic that I truest find beautiful. The leaves are changing colors, then falling to the ground. The air smells crisp and a little smoky at times. There’s an ever lingering reminder that with life eventually comes death.

I love it.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’d have notice that I really like witches and the Gothic aesthetic. I’m a big sucker for movies like Sleepy Hallow and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (even with the silly accents and over sexual tones). I read the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft over and over again.

Death is the overarching theme of the season with some villainy and chaos on the side. I think there’s a reason the Sanderson sisters are so fondly remembered even though they are planning on murdering children in the movie Hocus Pocus. They’re everything fun and evil about the season. They’re threatening, but not too threatening.

For a while now, I’ve been working on creating a collection of poems that I feel fit into the Gothic style. I’ve written about 30 poems so far and, though I’m n where near close yet, I would like to try to get them published next year. I might even include some ink drawings.

A lot of these poems focus on death and what comes after. I take great joy in playing with expectations such as using limericks, tropically a playful or funny poem style, and use that format as though it were on a gravestone.

I’ve been told by a few people that my work can be delightfully demented.

Or maybe I was using that term to describe my sense of writing style. I don’t always like it when something is scary to be scary or depressing to be depressing. That isn’t how I am always able to work through my emotions. I often twist and bend these expressions to where it might take a bit to realize exactly what I’m writing about.

Death can be absurdly funny, like in the movies Scream, Scary Movie, and Final Destination. There’s a part of me that’s satisfied when the villain is killed off for good to triumph, like in Hocus Pocus or pretty much every Disney Villain ever.

There’s nothing wrong with being fascinated with the darker side of things. True crime stories and ghost hunting shows are still popular. There’s a mortician who hosts a YouTube channel and explains different things about her job (it’s called “Ask a Mortician”. People still visit sites of mass destruction, murder, and battlefields whether as reminders of the past or to satisfy a morbid need.

I’m not sure where my fascination with the darkness in life comes from. It could be that I need to have some kind of exposure to the worst side of nature so that I can appreciate the best.

It’s hard to know what to do with extreme negativity when you’re not regularly exposed to it. How do you empathize with an experience you’ve never lived through, but know that other people have? How is it possible to understand another person’s pain when you can’t comprehend where that pain came from?

Seeking out darkness isn’t bad. I find that it’s just another way for me to make peace with the experiences I’ve witness and lived through.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.