Facing your fears
With Halloween fast approaching (and what are you giving out this year?) we seem to be surrounded by ghosts and other things that go the proverbial bump in the night. Last night, TCM had a Val Lewton film festival, including my favorites of his movies I Walked With a Zombie.

But all these TV specials on the paranormal and scary movie nights have got me thinking about fear. I know that I joke about being terrified by Celine Dion, but that's not what really scares me. Like most people, I have my share of phobias (not too crazy about heights. I'm OK in tall buildings, I just don't like heights I might fall from, like being on a ladder) and my share of things that just cause me stress (I hate going to parties where I only know 1 or 2 people).

I remember when The Blair Witch Project came out and everyone was saying how scary it was. I was a combination of bored and car sick. I think that's because scary movies really only work if they tap into some sort of fear that you have. I don't have a fear of being lost in the woods -- because when the fuck am I ever going to go into the woods? So the whole "trapped and hunted" thing just didn't get to me. But I give it points because it tried to have a scary premise, and didn't base its whole fame on "boo scares" (things jumping out at you unexpectedly) or on being just gross. I haven't seen many modern horror films because I really don't want to spend 90 minutes looking at exploding spleens.

It's interesting that some people are terrified by one thing that doesn't faze another. For instance, I have no problem speaking in public, being on stage, or generally making an ass out of myself publicly. And yet I know many people for whom this would be a pee-inducing fear. I'm also not afraid of spiders and snakes (aside from my hatred - not fear - of ants). But (and this is weird, I know) I find certain types of flowers (especially little ones) to be creepy. Don't ask me to explain it, I can't. It's not a fear, I just think they're gross. I don't want to touch or get near them. And dead flowers are the worst. Husband knows never to give me flowers because either they'll creep me out when they're still fresh, or I'll throw them out days before they wilt because I don't want dead flowers hanging around. Totally irrational, I know, but there it is.

I do, however, have certain legitimate fears. For example, I'm terrified that in the upcoming election McCain will win and we'll have 4 more years of incompetence, compounded by the Queen of the Idiots - Palin. I also fear that Prop 8 will pass and Californians will outlaw same-sex marriage. I am not, however, afraid of ghosts. I think I might have even seen one, once. Or maybe I just like to believe I did because I find the idea of ghosts to be kinda cool.

I'm not afraid of being chased into a dark basement by a serial killer (because who, in California, has a basement?) but I am afraid that I will never own my own home -- which is the one thing I've always wanted. I don't fear mummies, zombies, werewolves, vampires, or other undead demons, but I am afraid of not living up to my potential. When my first marriage broke up, and I found myself single (and, apparently, completely unattractive to the opposite sex) I was afraid of being lonely for the rest of my life. Not alone, because I was OK alone....but lonely. Since I'm not really close to my family I would often find myself by myself on my birthday or other occasions and it sucked. But then I met Husband and my life changed completely.

But I still have odd, irrational fears that, while completely unexplainable, are real to me. For example, because I feel we'll never be able to afford a house here, I have this terrible fear of ending up broke, living in a dilapidated Airstream on the edge of the Mojave Desert. No, really, I do. I have a fear that my brain will erode if I stop reading and learning all the time, so I find myself picking up books or watching documentaries on things that might not necessarily interest me just so I can do something more productive than watch I Love Lucy or read a cheesy romance novel. I worry that I'm not a good enough friend, that the people I love won't know how much they mean to me -- even though I try to tell them because I know how fragile life is and how important it is to tell people how you feel. I'm afraid that I don't do enough for the world at large, that I'm not making a big enough difference -- either monetarily or through volunteering. And I fear that the world is falling apart because more people aren't even trying -- that we'll lose our polar bears and our rain forests, that we'll keep killing each other in the name of religion, that we'll keep dying of starvation, AIDS, and genocide. That while the majority of solvent Americans are still counting their stock options and driving their Hummers, the rest of the world is in crisis and in need of us to open our hearts and our wallets.

But, after all this gloom, I find consolation where we started -- in old horror movies. Movies that aren't scary in the lest, but so much fun. Movies with the aforementioned zombies and mummies that demand a dark room and popcorn. The kind of good, escapist, pleasure that they don't seem to make anymore. You can keep your knife-wielding-psychotic-killers-in-a-sorority-house films. I'll take Boris Karloff anytime.

Feel free to share your fears. After all, I fessed up to little flowers.