Eisoptrophobia-fear of mirrors or seeing ones self in a mirror.

there are millions of childhood fears people eventually grow out of
fear of the dark, monsters hiding under your bed, getting into trouble...
then there are those fears that find deep roots in our childhoods and grow strong.

that is the case with this fear.
its one that im seldom likely to admit
because when i say it aloud it seems
well, childish.

for me this all goes back to the bloody mary game.
im sure everyone's played the game at some point in their lives
or at least is familiar with some version of  it.

some versions say her origins came in 1892
about 4 years after the jack the ripper killing spree ended
mary conolly a well known alcoholic and prostitute
was brutally murdered by one of her clients
her throat was slit ear to ear and she was left to bleed to  death
her murder confessed and was justly hanged
but according to legend she was troubled in death just as she was in life
and still seeks vengeance for her troubles
those who call her spirit are doomed to meet the same fate by her hands

but legends of "bloody mary" existed at least 3 centuries before

queen mary I "bloody mary" upon her ascension to the throne
made it her life's goal to return the church of england to roman cathloicism
she carried this out through lethal force.
she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake
at least 100 of which were protestant leaders.
it's said that the rage she unleashed on them
is rooted from her anguish of being unable to bare a child.
she suffered several miscarriages
and ultimately died from ovarian cancer at the age of 42.

queen mary I is also believed to be the origins for the
nursery rhyme mary mary quite contrary
with the line "how does your garden grow?"
referring to her lack of heirs.

the game calls her spirit by her name three times
taunting it with things like "i've got your baby"
she is said to appear in the mirror in a distorted form
full of rage and the ability to continue her bloody reign
starting with your death.

i was probably around the 7 years old, i couldnt have been older than 8
when a group of kids at my daycare convinced me to play the game with them
i had goosebumps before we even started
all of us piled into that tiny bathroom
my heart raced as they called her name
it was pitch black in there you could scarcely see your hand in front of your face
they ran screaming and laughing from the bathroom upon the 3rd time
promptly locking and barricading me in there alone.
the power of imagination is quite strong, i dont believe i actually saw anything.
the story alone was beyond frightening
i truly believed that mary was coming to get me.
i screamed and pounded on the door for an unknowable stretch of time
before one of the workers finally came along and let me out
never mind the group of kids who locked and barricaded me in there
i was harshly scolded and punished
for yelling and not using my inside voice.
i didnt tell my mother for fear i'd be in trouble for getting in trouble.

till this day the fear of mary prevents me from
walking into rooms with mirrors while the lights are off.

and as such i dont spend much time looking in a mirror
just a quick glance to make sure my  hairs laying flat enough
or to see if i have any food stuck in my teeth.

rather silly, i suppose. 
kid stuff ya know?

Daguereologue-an imaginary interview with an old photo of yourself, a figure frozen in time, who spends their days wondering where you are and what you're doing now.

just imagine.
h.g. wells would be proud.
modern science has invented the technology
to allow you to revisit any point in your life.
provided there's a picture of it, that is.
for a nice lofty sum, you can gain access to one of the new scanners.
simply scan your photo, and it produces a digital copy.
then you plug the digital copy into your computer
and now you have to ability to talk to yourself as you once were.



not exactly what you were expecting?
well progress doesn't always come in leaps and bounds
sometimes baby steps are better for the whole of mankind
i mean imagine an actual time machine hitting the commercial market
it would be absolute bedlam!
megalomania would run rampant through the masses.
forget about the butterfly effect.
we'd wipe out all of existence in the short span of a week.
and that's being optimistic.

this modest technology only expands a bit on the moments already suspended in time.
it doesn't allow you to alter the course of history.
or see things that you havent seen.
it's not about the next bold adventure.
it's just a new way to relive old memories.
if there's anything more marketable that money, sex, and power.
it would be nostalgia.
especially in a society where the people are living longer and longer.
the  majority of people over the age of 60 tend to be a bit dissatisfied with their quality of life.
unable to do the things that they once could and find themselves longing for their misspent youths.
is there anything they would've changed?
maybe so or maybe not.
ultimately they tend to look at those long gone days through rose colored glasses.
seeing things more how they would've liked them to be and less as they were.

given the opportunity to relive those days they'd happily empty their pockets.
but would they be satisfied customers?
would the conversations they'd be able to have with themselves make them happy?
or would the realization of reality be too much?



the old man who tells his great-grandchildren the story of his football championship glory
whose handsome youth sheepishly admits he sat on the bench his whole career.








the vain woman who swears upon a stack of bibles
that her beauty is all natu-ral
her photograph ticks of a list of cosmetic surgeries
 she's had thus far in life.









the lonely widower looking forward to hearing
his wives voice once more
only to hear that she'd been sleeping with another man since their wedding night.

heart-wrenching and life changing.
the backlash would be outrageous.                             


the industry would go under overnight.

people dont want the truth.
they're quite content with their lies.

one baby step forward and five giant leaps back.

Contact-high-five- an innocuous touch by someone just doing their job, that you enjoy more than you'd like to admit.

"It's the sense of touch.
In any real city you walk, you know?
You brush past people, people bump into you.
In LA nobody touches you.
We're always behind this metal and glass.
I think we crash into each other just so we can feel something."
                                                -CRASH, 2004







think of the reassuring nurse who pats you on the arm
and tells you not to worry that the shot will be over before you know it.
in that same instance they swiftly poke you with the needle.
you hardly felt it wincing only for a fraction of a second and its gone.
now remove that tiny little arm pat
and delete those simple words of  kindness.
what you've got left is a silent person in a white coat
waiting to poke you with a needle.
--because that's not creepy at all.


i think the words mean just as much if not more than the touch.
take away  the touch and leave the words in the above scenario
and the creepy factor isn't present, take away the words
and leave the touch and it's could be taken different ways.

the desire present in us is not necessarily a physical one, it's emotional.
what we crave is a connection.
an echo of what we put out into the universe.
something that reassures or encourages us.


words hold infinite power.
they can build you up and break you down all within
 the whispers of the most insignificant syllables.

the simplest "hello" or "thank you"

the smallest silence.

all are potential life changing moments in someones timeline.

the only problem is that
everyone has their own interpretation of signals
and a lot gets lost in translation.

Backmasking-instinctive tendency to see someone as you knew them in their youth

our family still participates in the antiquated tradition of decorating graves.
i say antiquated because every time i've mentioned it to someone
i receive a bewildered slightly creeped out look
none of them seem to know what im talking about.
we're a little old fashioned i suppose.
but for me its always been the norm.
some of my earliest memories are of us walking through the graveyards
my parents reading out the names on the stones and saying this is your
grandfather and grandmother, that is your great-great grandparents,
your cousin, your uncle, your baby aunt...
its an annual thing. typically falling around the time of memorial day.
the graveyards in which our loved ones are buried in have what they call decoration.
im told its short for decoration day, which is the former name for memorial day.
traditionally the day was meant as a time to honor fallen soldiers
by decorating their graves with flowers, flags and such.
but decoration honors all who have gone before us.
there are two primary graveyards that we visit.
one for my fathers side of the family and one for my mothers.
not all of our family members are buried in theses places but most of them are.
about a month before the day we start collecting artificial flowers 
alot of thought and time is spent building our collection
make sure we have enough boy flowers
lets get something fun like a pinwheel for the kids
and dont forget the yellow ones! grandma sure did love her yellow roses."

the event is usually followed by a BIG family barbeque
at my aunt and uncles house in the country.
so many relatives! so many hellos and hugs and a great sea of folding chairs
"do i really know all of these people?"
their "summer house" is located about half-way between the two cemeteries
and within walking distance of the creek where i learned to swim.
where my brother and i spent our summer hours chasing crawdads
and building moats around my aunts feet.
at night the grown-ups would sit in the soft glow of the porch light
talking, drinking coffee eating my aunts sugar-cinnamon pound cake.
i can still hear their sounds,
the symphony of crickets and frogs
the cidicas (katie-dids as they called them)
the distant train whistling in the wind
if my uncle's brother came over there was sure to be music 
the soft melodic rumble of my uncles' voices
guitars and mandolins picked
cousin eddie would play the saxophone if you asked him just right.
sometimes there were tears but mostly there was laughter.
and my aunts trademark laughter once it started it took forever to wind down!
they'd tell the same stories over and over
every once and a great while they'd recall another one to add to the playlist
always about their youth and our deceased relatives
remembering the good ole' days.
the whole atmosphere just made you feel so connected almost as though
everyone you were related to was there with you that you were all one.
i slept well on those nights.
in recent years work and other obligations have kept me from attending decoration.
the last year i went was shortly after my aunt died.
the family was still there.
we still walked the rows of graves.
when we reached hers, my father cried.
an event that i can count the number of times
i've witnessed in my life on one hand.
he said something that struck me as odd at the time
but is much more crystal now.
he said

"i wish i hadnt seen her at the funeral, she didnt look like that"

to him she never looked a day older that 17
even though she was well into her 70s when she passed.
to my father she had been and will always be
his ever doting, beautiful, zealous, big sister full of life and love.

Adomania: sense that the future is arriving too quickly.

growing up when someone said something about the future
 my mind always wandered to the world of hanna-barbara's jetsons

flying cars, robot butlers, lunar vacations, living in outer space
i suppose now part of the child in me still wants to believe in that world
full of fascinating gadgets and unending possibilities new frontiers to explore
but now when i think of the future bradbury's short story
"there will come soft rains" crosses my mind.
a frightening caricature of the jetsons.
bradbury has brought to life sara teasdale's poem in the wake of nuclear war human life has ceased
yet the computer controlled home marches on carrying out its pre-programmed duties indefinitely.
its a sobering thought and speaks volumes on the inevitable self-ruin of man.
the jetsons takes place in the year 2062 and bradburys quiet nightmare takes place in 2026.
49 and 13 years from now and little of hanna-barbra or bradbury's visions ring true.
sure there are a multitude of space-age gadgets
all manners of touch-screen technology and self-parking cars.
no robotic butlers like rosie but a variety of robotic vacuum cleaners
did hit the market a few years back. they were more or less a passing fad.
while there are no lunar vacations, space tourism in a now a reality
for the hefty price of $20-$30 MILLION!
we are living on the edge of the future and its exciting!
but its also scary as hell!

i've always felt i was a bit behind the curb.
as though my peers were miles ahead of me that there was no way i could ever catch up
so why bother running the race at all?
intellectually i think i've actually always been slightly ahead
i was quick to learn and my head was always swiming
with a million or so ideas from all the books i'd read
but socially i was one awkward turtle.
when i was younger i was very talkative
and thought i was the most important person in the world
my mother received several school phone calls regarding my inability to shut up.
but as i got older the world around me seemed so much more vast more so than i ever imagined
and suddenly i felt very small and unimportant.
i began comparing myself to everyone i met and i never felt like i measured up.
i didnt go on camp outs or sleep overs didnt really participate in any extracuriculars
i read lived in books
didnt have many friends, didnt date much,
public speaking was an instrument of torture worthy of the Inquisition.
i never really knew what i wanted to be when i grew up
well admittedly i did have an inexplicable conviction when i was 5 to be a ballerina
i was very resolute in that decison--dont worry it only lasted about 3 weeks..
during the height of my most angst ridden years i was terribly cynical. much more than i am now.
i had a haughty disdain for the majority of my graduating class.
the pep rallies at the high school i attended
for some asinine reason were compulsory.
they were held during school hours and all of the exits were well guarded.
so imprisoned in the bleachers while everyone cheered for our losing football team,
i would play a game in my head to pass the time.
i would look at whatever overly perky cheerleader, jock, club president etc.
that happened to be in the limelight at the moment
and i would imagine where they would be in ten years.
my condescending 17 year old self always jumped to
barefoot and pregnant, bald and unemployed,
living in parents basement still reliving high school glories.
i mean my gods! they made my life miserable!
i was getting out of this place and never going to see any of them again.
a blink or two of the eyes and all those people who i imagined
"made my life miserable"
for the most part have graduated college with viable degrees and careers
and happy marriages with 2+ kids
and are generally productive members of society mortgages and all.
i made a half-assed attempt at going to college and "finding myself"
it didnt take.
i've traveled a bit but i still live 20 miles from where i grew up
worked a few dead in jobs
dated all the wrong people
all of this i've been politely ignoring as i go about my day to day
waiting for my real life to begin...
when i turn five i can do_____
when i turn fifteen i'll _____
when i turn 25 im going to be_____

gabriel garcia marquez said
  "people spend a lifetime thinking about how they would really like to live"

i dont know what i thought it was going to be like
just that its not supposed to be like this.
i guess i always figured at some point i would know where i was supposed to be
that everything would suddenly make sense
that i would "find my place in the world"

i've been idle too long.
the future is arriving too quickly
and the streaks of grey in my hair tell me that i can not ignore it any longer.

  

alimento-mori- the insomnia borne jolt of awareness that you will die.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

the writing prompts got my brain muscles remembering how to move still in need of some serious fine tuning but moving forward is still progress. i may revisit them at a later date. right now im gearing up to attempt the a-z blogging challenge next! emphasis on the word "attempt". posting everyday will be the biggest challenge for me because it means i have to actually sit down everyday and try to turn off the ADD long enough to thumb together cohesive sounding thoughts. i tossed around a few different themes and originally thought id settled on doing fairy tales or nursery rhymes which sounds do-able in theory but i couldnt really commit to it. back to the drawing board eh? i stumbled upon (quite literally stumbleupon.com) the dictionary of obscure sorrows(dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com)and loved it! i thought it was swell! i considered making a dictionary of my own but i loved their words so much a felt like they should be used. my only problem with this idea their dictionary does not have any words beginning with the letters I, J, P Q, U, V or Y. amazingly though they have conqured X and Z which i assumed would be my most difficult posts. so i was googling and internet exploring as one does and came a phobia dictionary i've seen similar ones before but this one had the phobias broken down by letter(www.bifaloo.com) so filling in the gaps of my obscure sorrows with phobias was a cinch. and thus the "theme" for a-z was born. coming soon from catharsis: the chronicles of fear and sorrow

one who walks swiftly

she brought me the seed of an acacia tree today. acacia! an acacia seed! my word i almost didnt recognize it! i havent seen one since i was a calf! by the sun it must've been 4 o'clock when she showed up. i've gotten so used to seeing her every thursday. recently she's been coming later and later every week, her shoulders looking heavier and heavier, i was afraid she wasnt coming. my heart was moments away from shattering and then i heard her "hello friend." such simple sweet words, of which begin and end my world."hello friend" i swear i could've floated right on up to the heavens! i gave her a gleeful bleat and galloped up to the fence. that wretched fence! one day i'll muster enough courage to run straight through it gather her on my back and we'll ride off into the sunset! ah..such ambitious dreams all for naught... it simply can not be. now fated to live out my days within these walls, but i was once a beloved child of africa, i left my happy home on the adolescent whim to lead the exciting life of a circus performer, and such i have done. i have performed for a great many kings and queens all manners of lords and ladies. i have looked upon all the great wonders of the world and yet all their glory and prestige falls flat in the presence of this vision of joy. this maiden holds within her all that is still pure and untainted in the world. and here she stands before me with this magnificent gift! an acacia seed. she says"i read giraffes like acacia trees." oh my dearest! the worth of this gift you hold in your hands is much more than mere substance. its name bearing from its pharmaceutical properties, its kin the great myth of osiris and isis,the offspring of the great abre du tenere, the tree of life, moses' burning bush, the source of christs thorny crown. how perfect is it that she would be offering to me the symbol of purity and endurance of the soul? a reflection of herself. i could cry. i really could. what does a poor soul such as myself ever hope to offer to her? she sits and talks for a while. i could listen to her go on forever. she tells me of her day, it has not been a particularly good one. she hasnt had many good days in a long while. my heart aches for her. how i wish i could comfort her! hold her tightly and make her feel loved. i imagine how she would smile as i told her of my adventurous days. if only. i sigh, bend down and gently nudge her with my head she softly strokes my neck. the park will be closing soon we both know she'll have to leave. as we watch the sunset a falling star flies across the horizon she sighs and says "i wish i were a giraffe"