Tiny Ghost Story – My First Apartment

So, let me tell you a personal ghost story.

In 1996 I went off to college. It was about an hour away, and over the state line.  The college didn’t have much of a dorm setup – there were three options. The first was a converted Best Western with truly squalid living conditions. An old hotel with all of the amenities of the house from the Amityville Horror. Or, the really expensive option: an apartment in an aging, highrise apartment complex.

Ghost - rent
Which led to its own kind of haunting.

After some conversation, my parents and I decided that the highrise apartments seemed the best choice.

The drive was uneventful. We arrived in my dad’s station wagon, filled to bursting with what little items I owned. And on the way, my dad starts talking about my grandfather, long passed away a full ten years before I’d even been born. I was always fascinated with stories about both my father and I’s namesake. Old Maury had done much in his life. He’d been in the second world war. He’d been a rum runner when he was still in Minnesota during prohibition. He’d once set himself on fire in a drunken and ill-advised decision involving a generator, a cigarette, and a plot to siphon gasoline from his car.

And, as it turns out, my grandfather worked at this very complex I was moving into when my father was just a boy. He was one of the maintenance men when the buildings were brand new. They treated him pretty well too – he got an in-city basement apartment as a perk. I get the impression old Maury didn’t stay there for too long – he had a few demons of his own that kept him moving around between jobs. He was a complicated kind of guy. The kind of guy who tells his fourteen year-old only child that he has four brothers and a sister.

In fact, one of the heavy blankets that is in our car, a thick, woolen beast that feels like steel wool but is warm as you could ask for in cold winter weather, came from this very complex – or stolen, depending opn the version of the story you believe. There’s a reunion of sorts going on here, the blanket coming home. We have a good chuckle at that.

We pull into the complex and we find my apartment after a few misadventures. And as we’re pulling things up through the elevators, dad and I become separated. I’m walking across the courtyard of the buildings to get to the office. Dad is going to the car to grab something. And as I walk I hear someone. Someone who is calling my name.

‘Hey! Hey Burt!’

Ghost - ernie
Not what you’re thinking.

Now, I’m brand new here. I know exactly nobody – my roommate hasn’t even arrived yet. The only person who really knows me is Dad – and he’s somewhere else. I look up and at the windows. Nobody is leaning out to shout at me – as a matter of fact, from the angle I’m at with my own building, it’s hard to get a vantage point on me.

But, I heard it. Sure as anything, I know someone called my name. And I felt like I was being observed. Not maliciously. Not with ill intent. But with curiosity.

When I reconnect with my father I ask him if he was calling me, and he says ‘No, why?’

I tell him what happened and he says that it’s odd, but definitely not him. We both have a look around. We both felt a little weird about it. But dad eventually shrugged it off. ‘Maybe the old man is looking after you.’

To this day, I’m convinced that dad was right, Pop was looking out for me. Keeping an eye on his blood while roaming the halls of the complex.

And for the remaining two years of my time at that residence, I did feel like I was protected. Like whoever called out to me that day was keeping an eye out for me. Making sure I was okay.

That’s my ghost story. And I’m sticking with it.

NaNoWriMo – Be Creative All the Damn Time

You Know What? I don’t think I’m gonna wait for NaNoWriMo this year. The past couple years have been fun, but I gotta say… I participated in it one out of those three years and finished a manuscript. I can cross that off the bucket list. Participation is fun and all, but this year I’ve decided I don’t just have to be creative in November.

I got my idea early this year and just couldn’t keep it in. Not even after compiling a database of all of my favorite stuff to create a killer mash-up generator – shout out to Ben for writing the script to make it happen. Not even with the promise of literary abandon and excitement. Not even with the sweet, sweet promise of a seal of achievement.

NaNoWriMo - eh
Eh.

I think a big part of it is that a group of good friends in the past three years got together to take the challenge, but also to up the stakes. We’d toss stuff into hats for each other to write about and see what came out. But, as groups of adults are wont to do, some procreated, some got busy with their lives, tragedies struck. It’s just not gonna come together. Without that collaborative event, I think this year I’ll start working early. I think I’ve started to learn what a lot of NaNo critics say:

Why should we put all of this effort into just November?

I’ll be creative when I goddamn feel like it.

I felt creative three days ago and posted a bit from the most recent project, tentatively titled ‘Occupancy’ (you might even still see some of it here).  And then, I heard a ridiculous little voice say ‘just wait, it’s two weeks until November!

I strangled that little voice before it could say anything else as colossally stupid.

NaNoWriMo - hannity
I wonder if the little voice looked anything like this idiot…

Because why defer that which makes me feel right in the world (though writing a story about a seemingly abandoned apartment complex-slash-prison being a thing that makes me feel good is kind of frightening)? Why put it off when all of the cylinders are firing exactly as I want them to? Procrastination for the sake of Nano feels suddenly dumb. I can use that idea generator anytime I want. I don’t need target word counts, I don’t need a feel-good certificate from total strangers.

I need to sit my ass in my chair and work on my stories. I need to pump out words because they’re the right words, not because of an artificial time constraint. I loved NaNo  the years I participated, and some great stuff came out of it. But, this year, I think I’m in it because I want to be a writer. I want to have something I’m doing all of the eleven other months of the year too.

So I’m gonna write at my own pace this year. I’m gonna do my thing how I’d like to.

Cause the guy stuck in this weird apartment complex I’ve created isn’t going to go insane on his lonesome.

Better get writing.

The Penultimate Day – No Needles Need Apply

So, this is almost it. Tomorrow I go back for my A1C check-up. It’s down to the wire. Improve or face the needle for the rest of my life.

This is a big thing for me.

It’s not about the diet. It’s not about losing weight. It’s not about doing the right thing because it’s the right thing.

It’s about fear.

needle - slenderman's cousin
Slenderman’s nudist cousin is coming for me.

I am phobic of needles. Just don’t like em. Don’t want ’em in my life. I’ll have to look away this morning when the nice gentleman who comes to our office to distribute flu shots gives me mine. I hate them. The needles, not the nice people who administer them.

It is about the worst nightmare a Type 2 Diabetic can be offered. Fear of your salvation. Because recombinant insulin doesn’t get in you any other way. Needles are the only way to get it done. I badly want to not require recombinant insulin or their needles.

It’s why I’m working so hard. It’s bad enough I have to strike myself with a lancet once a day. There’s times I’ll just sit there for a couple second, slowly pressing the button to release the pinprick required to take my numbers. The dread just builds. I don’t want to do it.

The idea of having to do that with a needle makes it even worse.

You can hide it in a pen. But it doesn’t change the knowledge. What you can’t see stabs you just as badly.

needles - gomjabar
‘What’s in the box?’ ‘Liberty Medical. Probably oatmeal too.’

I’ve prepared myself and my girlfriend for the reality that it’s possible that, no matter what I do, injections may need to happen. Diabetes is a progressive disease. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how well you eat, your body just stops being receptive to the insulin you make. Doing the right thing hedges your bets, but it’s a dice throw on a long enough timeline.

It’s been at the forefront of my thoughts all month, and now it’s down to the wire. As Roy Batty said in Blade Runner: Quite a thing to live in fear isn’t it?

I don’t feel like a slave to it. But even after all of the good work, I have a lifetime of doing it to look forward to. A seasoned alcoholic though could tell you the best advice: to take it one day at a time. And that’s what I’ve been doing.

It’s just one more day until I find out if that’s the end of the road I’m on and if I must branch onto a new one.

They – A Horror Film That Needed A Little More

I cannot claim to be a comprehensive connoisseur for all things horror. I don’t watch slasher films. I don’t dig on Freddy or Jason. Obsessively gory films are generally not a thing I seek after, though I can make exceptions for zombies. Ghosts are my go to guys, but I also like a good monster movie on occasion – the more vague and menacing, and the less you see of it, the better. Which brings us to a 2002 film often overlooked, partially for good reason. It’s a little no-budget, guilty pleasure film called ‘They.’

they - monsterland
You can still find They on DVD – but you have to go to monsterland (or Netflix) to get it.

It’s a Focus Film with no particularly notable cast other than this guy who you probably recognize from Joss Whedon’s Buffy. I don’t remember They getting a lot of promotion or marketing. And overall, the movie wasn’t particularly well received. The lead actress only ever did this particular film, and her delivery was lackluster. It’s viewer reception was lukewarm at best. The film’s biggest claim to fame was that it was initially labeled as Wes Craven Presents: They, but he didn’t really have anything to do with it. His name apparently was just tagged to the film to push it during release – he’s not credited anywhere in the film.

They is focused around Julia, a woman studying for her psychology master’s degree who encounters a childhood friend, Billy. When he begins babbling about a shadowy ‘they’ that affect electricity, trigger fear in children, and that move only through darkness, she tries to console him, but instead witnesses his suicide. Shortly thereafter, she begins to experience the same terrors. She finds that she’s on to something however when she meets friends of her auto-darwinated childhood friend, and is drawn further into insanity.

The monsters in the piece are utterly alien. They have all of the powers claimed by Billy: they move only in shadow, they cause malfunctions in electrical equipment, they torment children. And, as it turns out, they mark their juvenile victims for tracking to be ‘collected’ later when they have matured.

they - subway
Especially in the subway.

However, the movie never explains why. And that’s where the movie’s appeal lies. It doesn’t have to explain anything. The many limbed, inky malefactors simply have rules they behave by – their motives are as inscrutable and alien as their outward appearances. They are the Things That Cannot Be Known. It’s Lovecraftian. The fear of the dark unknown is one of the strongest possible fears one can have.

they - scary clown
Except maybe clowns. Fuck those guys.

Yet, this film failed – it didn’t recoup the money that went into it, even after it went up for DVD sale, marking it as a box office flop. Even though its sales figures wouldn’t justify it, I think that this is one of the few films out there that could benefit from a remake. Perhaps with a new cast, a retained focus on the fluid nightmare fuel of the otherworldly fiends, and possibly with better direction, this film could take the step it needs to become something better – though I do still like it for what it is.

they - spiderhand
Terrifying

That Sugar Thing Again

It’s been about three weeks now of a much more strict regimen. To keep my sugar readings in line, I’ve dropped a lot of bad habits, started going to the gym four days out of seven, started counting calories, and in general denying myself many of the comforts I previously held. Why would I do this? Well, if you’ve been following, the ‘Beetus is a harsh mistress.

You may also recall that it was goddamned hard to get the numbers to start slowly creeping down. But, I seem to be doing well on that count.  It ain’t great yet, and I’d say my median score is somewhere around 176 mg/dL, but it’s better than 190-250 mg/dL at any given time. With any luck, I’ve shaved some points off my A1C – but there’s no way to tell until I have my next blood test taken.

The further good news is that my morning numbers have been slowly dropping. I haven’t had a 200 morning in a while, so something is going right. Also, I have found that late night exercise is where it’s at on two counts. First is that all the machines are free at around nine on a weeknight, so that’s a score any way I slice it. Second is that when I work out late, my morning numbers seem to be better than usual.

I’ve even got back to being able to do some of the stuff I could do the last time I got into shape. The weights have been increased on the machines by about ten pounds each, and I finished two 5K elliptical runs in the past two weeks. I even had a really good time on one of them – 2.2 miles in 22 minutes. That’s two ten-minute miles no matter how I slice it. And my heart is still in my chest!

Kali is pleased with your high-cholesterol!
Kali is pleased with your high-cholesterol!

All things considered, the change has been a positive one. I’m getting out of the house more, I’m seeing results (nine pounds!) and I think that this could all work out so long as the Holidays don’t just destroy me.

christmasdiabeetus
Aw, Wilford. You scamp!

And the holidays can be real hard on the sugars. Halloween alone should be enough to cause me to go comatose simply based on proximity, and when you add in the average Grands! biscuit intake through November and December, well, let’s just say it ain’t pretty in my family.

Colloqially known as 'Diabetes Grenades.'
Colloquially known as ‘Diabetes Grenades.’

So it’s going to take some pretty iron will to get through to the new year without tanking the sugar numbers. I get tested in another week though and if nothing else it’s going to be the first step on a long path. Wish me luck, and be sure to take cover when those flaky, delicious biscuits get tossed into your family’s foxhole. It’s loaded with all the carbs you shouldn’t eat.

It’s All About Halloween

For those who were not aware, I am a summer person. I love the long days, I don’t mind the heat so long as I have AC to sleep in, it’s beach weather. What’s not to love? So you might be surprised to know that October is my second favorite month.

While Autumn for me is the reminder of the harder, colder months to come, October gives me one last hurrah before the days grow too short and the temperature falls to fast. You can still get by without a jacket while the sun is up. Pumpkin everything arrives. When I could have them, gingersnaps and cider were high points for the gustatory as well. Ah, for the sugar highs of youth.

What it really comes down to in October though can be summed up in a single word: Halloween.

Halloween is that it’s the one time each year that you can be as weird as you damn well please and nobody says a word. I can watch as many horror movies as I want, show up to work dressed in costume, see gravestones all over the place and still feel normal. It’s a month long crescendo into the macabre and the weird. Everyone can join in too, from the tiniest child to the kind of creepy old man on your block who loves to scare the shit out of candy collecting youth.

Even Wilford is in the spirit - Halloween
Even Wilford is in the spirit.

It’s also prime writing time. I feel the hoary old spirits from beyond call out and push me to type well into the night. Well, figuratively anyway. It’s also the month leading up to Nanowrimo, and I really start turning my gears to work on new projects. I take my vacation the week of Halloween and usually use it to stay home and watch scary movies and play survival horror games. I’ll carve a couple pumpkins and help my folks hand out candy to the few kids that still come around the neighborhood.

My dad also would stand out in front of the house on Mischief Night with a goddamned sword and tell young punks to keep walking. which is terrifying and awesome all at the same time.

Halloween is a great time of year. I’m hoping to scare up some more good stuff this month and look forward to sharing it with you here.

 

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