Making New Memories

“Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rater than pushed by our memories.”

As much as this blog post is reader specific, I believe that it can go for just about anyone in the world who also reads it.

I was speaking to one of my wonderful friends about their upcoming trip. I told them about an exhibit that I just knew that they would enjoy.

They replied that they had been there, but the exhibit had some bad memories to it from their previous visit based on the company that they had with them.

As much as I felt for them and their heartache, the wheels in my head couldn’t help themselves from spinning. I was sorry to hear that their previous visit was not actually pleasant. But hey, that was then. This is the time we are in… the NOW.

If it was something that they were going to enjoy in the time of today, why avoid it??

So let me get to the point right away: Make NEW memories. Let not the past control or dictate our future. We hold the keys to our memories. We can save them or lock them away forever and forget all about them.

My personal is example is the fact that I have visited The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. Twice. And with each visit, I was within the company of two different people, who would ultimately become a bad situation and a bad decision to involve myself with.

Does this mean I should never go to The Alamo? Of course not!

If I ever get a chance to go again, I know that in a heartbeat, I would! Why? Because it is something that I totally enjoy! But with the bad experiences and memories of the bad women that I was with, I don’t believe that it should stop me from doing what I enjoy and love doing. Instead, if I ever get a chance to go again, I will go with someone else and make new memories to cherish.

The first person I ever met from the Interent lived in Indiana. Five full days of uncertainty and at the end- a bit of disappointment. Not because of the person with whom I am visiting, but because of circumstances that arose that was out of our control. The last day and a half in the state of Indiana, I was plugged in a hotel. Alone. And able to do nothing.

Does that mean I should never visit that person or enter the state of Indiana ever again? Hogwash!!

As a matter of fact, I still am in communication with that person today. Probably not as much as it was from the beginning, but I keep up with them every once in a while. Their life is busy and so is mine. But we get caught up every so often.

I just don’t think that we should allow our past to haunt us from doing things that we love to do.

My last girlfriend’s name was Melissa. Terrible and horrifying ending to the relationship. Should I take the lessons learned and avoid every female in the world by the name of Melissa, Melanie, or Lisa? Because they all are similar by name.

Sure, whenever I met someone else named Melissa, I would remember. But then again, THIS Melissa is not the OLD Melissa.

We will always have our memories. Some bad, some good, and some that you just want to hold on to for the rest of your life! But to be ruled by them is to be kept prisoner. Particularly the “bad stuff”. And eventually as we begin to move forward and make NEW memories, our brains won’t have enough room for the bad stuff and we can replace them with the new and better memories.

When opportunity knocks, it’s always best to open the door. When the experience from that opportunity is learned, we can take it from the bad and move on. Or we can take it from the good and thrive better in life.

But we have to make those choices on our own. Nobody can force us or make us to make choices that we deep down, really don’t want to do. I just have a firm belief that allowing that dark cloud to hang over us, when it no longer needs to be there, becomes a wasted opportunity.

As they say, “Get up and back on the horse again.” But for sure, I’m not calling anyone a horse! Let’s not get me wrong!!

When we are stuck by the lightning of fortune and opportunity, we shouldn’t just stand there and cough up dust. Instead we should go inside and do something about our soiled clothes.

And I am sure that my reader could possibly feel picked on by this blog post. Honestly, that isn’t what I am doing. Instead I am trying to present the tools of enpowerment for a better and happier time of opportunity to make NEW memories that are far better than the old ones.

If need be, I’ll pay for the damned admission price for the exhibit. I’ll send the money by post or wire it or whatever it takes, because deep down I know that they are going to enjoy the new attraction. The only condition is that they buy a postcard from their trip at some point. Neener, neener.

Don’t be enslaved by bad and old memories. Just LEARN by them. And lift yourself up and create times to be able to make new ones.

 

 

Getting Scared Comes Early

such beautiful chaos at the House of Torment

The weather so far in June has been very uncomfortable for this part of the world. We’re used to the high temperatures and humidity of course, but this early in the season? It has been very dry and very hot. We normally do not get such weather until July or August. And then sometimes we deal with it through September.

 

I kept thinking to myself that all I had to do was make it to the Fourth of July weekend. And then it struck me: July, August, September, October.

 

Holy smokes!! I know the months of the year beginning in July ….. AND …… there’s only a few more months until the whole “Halloween Season” comes. But mainly the fact that the “House of Torment” will soon be auditioning for characters for the local haunted attraction.

 

For the past three seasons I have always wanted to audition to be a zombie or a monster at this nationally acclaimed haunted house. But I always had missed out because I didn’t know exactly when to go and audition. Not to mention not really knowing what they are looking for in a monster.

 

I had always thought that I could bring something to the table by sitting in my wheelchair, all disfigured and gross.. and just scare the crap out of people!! I mean, there are endless possibilities on how to do it. Trust me, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting around thinking about it. So I have been wanting to this for so long. Why not make it an equal opportunity scare business by employing the disabled? People get scared of me all of the time, but that’s because they are ignorant. In this way, I could give them a reason to be scared. But I digress.

 

Then about a year ago (after the Halloween season no less), I read an article that the House of Torment was looking for people. The article was written in the early part of August. I know that they go through an extensive training during that month and then they open their doors at the end of September and into early October and stay open until Halloween. At least that is how it is to the best of my knowledge.

 

Personally, I think its great because most haunted houses are only open on weekends during the month of October and some of them will extend their hours of operation during the week OF Halloween. But there has been a few seasons where the House of Torment opened their doors at the last part of September and kept them open every day for business until the first weekend of November.

 

What a great way to make a living. Even if it is for a short period of time in the calendar year. I can dress up, look horrible, scare people and get paid doing it for a couple of months.

 

But like I said, every year goes by and I never find out where I need to go or what I need to do, until it is too late and the advertisements are beginning to circulate and the very late night commericals are begining to air.

 

Allow me to tell you a story of my first (and probably last) experience with the House of Torment:

 

As a paying customer I went through the attraction to the best of my ability. These attractions really are not made for people with physical handicaps and wheelchairs because a lot of the times their sets are built on feeding a person’s fear of small and enclosed spaces. A lot of haunted attractions simply post bulletins that if you are handicapped, you won’t get in.

 

But that one time that I went, I did okay.

 

There is one character by the name of Mr. Creep. You can look him up online. Top hat, top coat, walking cane. A “posh monster”.

 

So anyways, I was in the attraction and I saw Mr. Creep… but thought he was only a prop. I didn’t pay attention to it much. I moved about the attraction but did not realize that Mr. Creep was following right behind me.

 

I heard something, and turned around. Mr. Creep was right there again standing in the same position as before. I thought that haunted house staff members were playing tricks with me by moving this prop everywhere I go.

 

After a few times of this silly little game, I decided to test it out and see if this was a person in a costume or a prop. So I did everything I could to make it move. Maybe blink. But nothing happened. I then put my hand in front of its nose and mouth. The actor knew very well to hold his breath. So then I was moving my arm, waving it in its face and then I mistakenly bumped my arm onto theirs. So Mr. Creep ended up moving.

 

In a blink of an eye, Mr. Creep screamed at me!

 

I turned around and I was GONE BABY, GONE!!!

 

I literally ran over the group of friends I went with, passed them up and then ran over two other groups of people in the attraction that were ahead of me, all the while knocking people over onto the floor, and out the door I went without stopping or looking back. Screaming like a little sissy girl in the process, the entire way out the door!

 

Apparently, Mr. Creep followed me every step of the way and thought it was so funny as he stood there in the doorway holding his sides and laughing hysterically and yet some how still able to stay in character.

 

I didn’t think it was that funny. At least not at the time. But I laugh about it now and don’t get so upset when I tell others this story and they start cracking up.

 

I never went back there again. At least not as an fear enthusiast and a customer. The attraction really isn’t that far away from where I live. I go by it all of the time- all year round.

 

But then how ironic is it that I am absolutely craving the opportunity for employment at a place that just about scared the piss out of me? Wild, wild stuff!

 

The Halloween season of 2010, I kept up with the House of Torment as much as possible. I never got a chance to go to the area, but I was so amped that it was opening up again. I talked with a lot of people who did go to the attraction and had them tell me their stories and experiences. I even contacted via the Internet about possible employment but never heard back from them. I guess they were already in full swing of operation by the time I had done so that they didn’t need any more help.

 

I joined message boards, profiles, whatever had their name on it. I watched YouTube videos of people’s visits… laughing every step of the way when someone was using a cell phone to record video and an unindentified monster or zombie that was NOT in frame would come up and yell “BOO!”.

 

Now I understand that Global Fear Enterprises are the ones in charge. They offer a variety of wonderful services, including graphic design. But what I found was most thrilling was the fact that you could hire their monsters for public events and parties. I thought that was really cool. But I had to stop and think about whether or not that was just a seasonal thing, or of it was all year long.

 

Most people who have known me for the past year and a half now, know that I found this thing called “Monster Escorts”. Certainly it wasn’t how it sounded, right?!? So I sent a message inquiring about that particular service.

 

The language was a bit stiff, no pun intended. I was told that “Monster Escorts” was for more of an intimate time. That did not help!! Because the zombie chick in the photo of this blog post, I saw from others who went and took pictures, I became intrigued by.

 

Since I knew last year that I would not get the opportunity to go to the House of Torment to go get my picture taken with this actress, I wondered if their “Monster Escorts” would allow that chance for me to meet up with her and then I would have pictures taken.

 

Very wisely, I asked them to elaborate on what “intimate” meant. It was quickly explained that it was referring to more of a one-on-one scenario, like going on a date to the movies or out to dinner, rather than having a whole bunch of monsters come out at the same time. It would be just one monster to make an appearance.

 

Naturally, each monster comes with their own “handler” as they called it. Of course for safety reasons. That didn’t bother me too much. But I never got specific when I inquired to ask whether or not I would get the chance to see this particular actress in an intimate setting.

 

For the longest time, I contemplated the whole idea. It was kind of hard to take that it would cost $200/hour. But a business is a business. And they are to make money. I just couldn’t make up my own mind on whether or not I wanted to go through with it.

 

So I asked for a general consensus on Facebook. I said that if I received 40 ‘likes’ on that particular status that I would go through with it and some how manage the money to set up a date with a zombie chick. I only got 17.

 

Still though, the thought intrigues me again as the season is not that far away. Whether or not they will still be offering the escort services, I do not know. I will have to find out.

 

What are your thoughts? Should I go for it or should I just leave it alone? Leave your thoughts in the comment section.

 

But it is coming. The unforgiving heat of June is telling me that once the unbearable weather disappears, then the House of Torment will be open for business yet again. It is something I can look forward to as I lie here miserable in the heat and the relentless use of air conditioning. Something that I can focus on positively.

 

I suddenly just find myself totally stoked and pumped for it to come! I can’t wait!! Time to get my scare on a little early.

 

 

 

 

 

Friggatriskaidekaphobia

I believe that one and only time that I had been fearful of it being Friday the 13th, was when I was a child.

I was sitting on the bus on the way to school, and the neighborhood bully was taunting me about what I was wearing.

When I got off of the bus, the bully got in my way and would not let me pass by. He said that because I wore the color of red on Friday the 13th, that I had to be forced inside the school gym and be locked up in the dark with no water, food, or light and I would just have to wait for whatever “ghosts” would appear for them to kill me. Just because of a stupid color.

Needless to say that I became nervous. But the bully simply would not let me by him. My only saving moment was at the point where my younger brother came back to where the place where we had to stand to wait for the bus, and he backhanded the bully alongside the back of his head, then ran like hell.  The bully chased after my brother and I was free to go to my class.

Since that time, there’s been a huge fascination with the superstition of Friday the 13th, and what evil & doom it brings. Such bad luck falls upon you on this wretched horrible day. The fascination of the day even brought a string of classic horror films in the 1980’s. You know, the man in the mask???

But why? It is only superstition. It is about as real as me coming into your home late at night and snip the hairs off of your pet turtles.

And now, they’ve come with an actual word for it. Something to be added to the list of phobias.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia.

What the frigga- are you talking about? I think I need a Hebrew, Latin, and Greek dictionary to figure out this one. And maybe Aramaic for good measure.

What boggles my mind is that they’ve actually came up with this as a phobia. Something that someone fears. It only makes things worse in my opinion. Sometimes, phobias and fears are unrealized. And yet sometimes, they are real.

I personally have suffered from arachnophobia and selachophobia. Which is the fear of spiders and sharks. But it only comes from having traumatic experiences with them.

Needless to say that even my own phobias could be a bit ridiculous. I mean, not ALL of those animals are out to get me. Just the ones I had encounters with that scared me so bad that I freak out whenever it comes in my path in some form.

But to be afraid of a day? What harm has come from a day out of the calendar year?? It is my personal opinion that people who have such a penetrating fear of Friday the 13th probably had something negative happen in their lives that just so happened on that particular day. Something to cause them to have a bad day and they did not know what else to blame it on, so they blamed it on the superstition of Friday the 13th.

I could blame all sharks for wanting to eat me, because I was so close to be swallowed whole by one. But I wasn’t. So should I be blaming them? A tarantula jumped on my neck and bit me while I was in high school. I didn’t believe that spiders could do that but it did. Should I blame all spiders for wanting to jump and bite me? Probably not.

The thing that I feel the difference is, is that spiders and sharks are something that are tangible and real. A day is in a sense real, but its a measurement of time. Not necessarily something that is tangible. You can’t put a day inside an aquarium.

This whole fear thing probably also has something to do with the “unlucky number 13”. I do not know the history behind this supestition, and I will not waste much time researching it either. But for whatever reasons there are, we have this superstition of 13 being bad.

Fridays are supposed to be good. We say “TGIF” all of the time. But suddenly when the 1st of the month begins on a Sunday on the calendar? All bets are off for the second Friday of the month. People shutter and freak out that SOMETHING is going to happen!! 

And what of Saturday the 14th? Yes, there was a really lame comedy that came out many years ago. And that’s about as parallel as this entire superstition of Friday the 13th. I just believe its so lame. I feel almost sorry for those who are so frightened of it.