Yep, New Moon

I went and saw New Moon this weekend. I'm not even going to pretend to be all embarrassed about it. It was awesome.

Seriously, I realize that it is angsty and about vampires and that 13-year-old girls go crazy for it, but I love it.

I, unfortunately, couldn't go to the midnight premier because I have a big girl job now and we had a crazy busy day on Friday that I needed to be ready for. (Otherwise, I totally would have. I love midnight premiers. Although hysterical middle schoolers scare me, so this one might've been too much for me.)

Instead, we went to a Sunday matinee. We bought our tickets 2 hours early and there were people lining up to get into our show already. We weren't that concerned with our seat position, so we came like 15 minutes early and ended up in the 2nd row which is nowhere near as cool as it used to be. In fact, it makes me a little motion sick.

The best thing about going to the Sunday matinee is that all the middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college kids had already seen it. Who does that leave? 20-something to middle-aged women. That was the entire sold out theater.

This audience definitely made things more enjoyable. There was no squealing and glee when Jacob took off his shirt, but instead hearty laughs at how cheesy it was. The entire series tends towards the cheesy and I was glad I saw it with people who could appreciate the humor but yet still gasp out loud when Edward leaves.

It was awesome, I'm firmly on board with the hype, and I'm immediately rereading my books (again) as soon as they get here this week. I don't care what you think.

And you're welcome for returning to Twilight posting. I know you've missed it.

Song of the Day: Roslyn by Bon Iver and St. Vincent

Sleep Sounds Nice

We just turned over all of camp in one day. There was a group in that left at noon and another group coming this evening.

This means that I spent the entire day organizing a lot of people, problem solving, walking at a quick and determined pace, and answering radio calls. (Seriously, I heard a lot of "Kate, copy, Kate" today.)

If you know me at all, you know that this is a little bit of work heaven for me.

But it also means I am exhausted. So I have no witty blogging in me. But I do have something that I think is just as good.

Classic YouTube Video Revisited: The Katana Slip (I'm not kidding when I say I used to watch this 15 times in a row, laughing so hard I was crying. So good. "A piece of the tip just got me there, O'Dell." Hee.)

Childhood Terror

I have a question for you, blog friends.

Do you have something that happened to you in childhood that should not have been a big deal but ended up putting an irrational life-long fear into your heart?

Or is that just me?

When I was about 5 years old, I saw 2 minutes of an episode of Picket Fences and it legitimately scarred me for life.

Yes, that's right, Picket Fences. I didn't even know what Picket Fences was about until I just looked it up on IMDB. Because I've only ever seen those traumatic 2 minutes.

Let me take you back.

It's approximately 1990. I'm sitting in my dad's room in my pink nightgown with the bear in a tutu on it while my dad mills about, doing some busy adult thing. He left the TV on and the show we were watching ended. I sat sucking my thumb as I wondered what would come on next.

Cut to the TV. A little girl is at Show and Tell in her elementary school classroom. She begins to tell the class all about this incredible object she found in her back yard. The background music begins to swell. She pulls out the object and it is a human hand floating in a jar.

At this point, I am paralyzed with fear. The theme song comes on, the credits roll, and it cuts back to a sheriff discussing the little girl's hand with his deputy. They explain that there is some kind of criminal on the loose who is cutting off people's hands as souvenirs of his criminal activity.

At this point, my dad turns off the TV and tells me to go to bed.

It was a while before I got to sleep.

Now, to preface this, I was under a few wrong assumptions at this point. One, I thought that being put under amnesia and simply falling asleep were the same thing. So, I thought someone could perform surgery on you while you were asleep as long as they didn't jostle you around enough that you would wake up. Two, I thought that it was possible that someone would want to just cut off people's hands and keep them. I now realize that the criminal in the show was most likely killing the people and then taking their hands, but that is not what I assumed at 5. I thought that there was someone out there in TV land, breaking into people's homes, cutting off their hands and leaving them to wake up handless.

I went to bed that night with a plan. I decided to sleep with my entire body covered by my blankets, except my head. If they had to move the blankets to get to my hands, I would obviously wake up. And since this fictional criminal only wanted my hands, not to kill me, he would run away when I woke up. (I kept my feet covered as well, just in case.) My plan was full-proof.

I never woke up to a hand-stealing mad man, but I carried the fear with me. I continued to sleep completely covered. Years later, when I rationally knew this was all idiotic, I still couldn't sleep if my hands or feet were not under the covers.

Nearly 20 years has passed since this incident, and I would like to say I've moved on. I understand that nobody is going to cut off my hand. But I still sleep completely covered by the blankets. Because it's comfortable, and a little piece of that anxiety hangs on.

Thanks a lot, Picket Fences.