I Love this Season

It's all about the spectacle:

Eye candy costumes (and ingestible candy...mmmm, caaannnndyyyy, chocolate aaaaahhh)

Scary Decorations (or at least campy ones!)

"Haunted" Rides and attractions

There's something about going out into the dark unknown night traipsing through barely familiar neighborhoods as the chill night air seeps through your costume slowly so that you don't notice until a couple of hours later when you're done trick or treating or having successfully navigated the attraction you went through and you're in the car warming up getting oh so toasty.

But also, and this goes along with the eye candy and ingestible foods, there's the colors, smells and tastes of Fall/Autumn. Reds, oranges, yellows, and browns in the trees and fields, not to mention pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns!

And the unsettled weather, whose blustery winds make strange noises in the trees and the rain which turns the streets into a Noir film adding to the sense of general unease.


Foot steps echo down the hall, some lights are on but not them all
The Spirits wait with baited breath, to see who's next upon their death
Within this night of unbridled doom, A creature wakes within a tomb
The casket lid slides to one side, there is not one place to hide
A piercing shrill splits through the night, another person falls to fright
Heed the words of those who know, or else wind up six feet below.
---Mark Osmun 10-18-2010

Grab an Apple Cider and Some Donut Holes; Here's a Spooky Story

The temperature was way too mild for two weeks before Halloween, but that didn't stop the feelings of uneasiness. The gusting winds battered the trees raining orange, red, and gold leaves onto the narrow, well-worn streets around the cemetery. The full moon illuminated dark black clouds that just radiated doom, even to the casual observer.

"This really isn't the night to be out," she told her date as they walked back to their car from the restaurant. The young man and woman, in their mid-twenties, hadn't noticed that the other couples had seemingly disappeared as they walked until their footfalls on the macadam made eerie reverberations off of the headstones, "I don't feel comfortable."

"What do you mean?" he asked looking at her.

"It's a little scary that's all. Passing the cemetery, the wind blowing the trees, the moon making shadows on the ground like that," she pointed at a particularly lattice-like shadow which darted and swayed across the ground and nipped at the toe of her pumps. If she weren't trying to be so bold, she would have run back towards the restaurant again.

"Really, I don't see what the problem is," he turned to face her and just then grasped the situation, "outside of the wind" which kept whipping her hair across her face while it blew the neighborhood flora into a frenzy. He grabbed her arm reassuringly (and to lead her because she seemed frozen in place) and she gripped his arm a little too eagerly she felt, but then she'd do just about anything to get out of there.

Little by little the golden glow of the neighborhood lights went out as homeowners went to bed and less vehicles were on the roads. Dan and Jennifer graciously eased into his car, grateful for its reprieve from the elements. Their sense of security was dashed though as Dan found the car wouldn't start.

"Let me try," she offered climbing over the floor-shift into the driver's seat, knowing it wouldn't start for her either. The battery was too weak.

"I'll call for a jump," he reassured her, only to find he couldn't get a signal on his cell phone. He figured the weather must be affecting satellite transmissions, "I'll have to find a payphone or something. Wait here." She nodded sheepishly. Staying put was certainly better than having to walk past Darklocke Cemetery two more times tonight.

Jen brushed her ash blond hair back out of her face. Something moved out of the corner of her eye on the left. Darted really. Too quick to see what it was. But as much as she wanted it to be Dan, she knew it wasn't him. She leaned out from behind the steering wheel to close the door and lock herself in the car and that's when she saw it. Her scream gave out with an unanswered whelp and had Dan made it back to the car, he would have seen she was gone. Instead, Dan was found the next morning alongside the cemetery fence, having been struck dead by a felled tree limb of some girth, never having made it for help in getting the car started. The only trace of Jennifer was the beret from her hair on the driver's seat.

**~**

The above story first appeared on October 21, 2007, on my first, now rarelY!, used blog. The trolley happens to be relevant as the weather and location were inspiration for the above story, although I doused it heavily with creative license.

Haunting Season

For those who may not be reading along I've stated numerous times how much I really, I mean REALLY love Halloween. One day just isn't enough. I like to stretch it from the Tuesday after Labor Day until roughly Veteran's Day. It's a time frame I call Haunting Season; not just for the spooky tales and urban legends, but also for the chilled blustery winds which thrash at rickety gnarled limbs and the contrasty sky of dark cumulus clouds against a setting red-orange sun. The kind of weather a person wants to bundle into cozy clothing and sip hot beverages.

The colored leaves; the spooky, scary decorations; the Halloween costumes and the suspenseful ghost stories when all combined really excite and entice me. And yet as a youngster since when the actor in the Jaycee's funhouse in my home town "spooked" my mother when I was roughly six up until I discovered the legend of Ichabod Crane - The Headless Horseman -- through Troll's at home Library -- I couldn't stand to be scared, I hated being scared, and didn't want to be.

In the following years I was more mature, smarter, more cynical, more of the scientific belief than the spiritual belief and frankly, it got really had to scare the wits out of me. Sure, I startle fairly easily to this day, but out and out scared, not so much. So I went in search of the scare thrill after college. I'm not one of those risk taking thrill junkies who plays chicken, but I do enjoy a good theme park decked out in spookiness, or a "haunted" trolley ride, or a spooky maze.


So I'm looking forward to the spooky, macabre, dark, murky, damp, ghoulish fun this year as in past ones. Rest assured I'll be sharing more examples of why I love Haunting Season. It's not ingestable candy anymore it's the eye candy.


Why yes, that DOES happen to be my home in these photos.

A Thriving Garden

One of the recurring themes throughout my five years of blogging is "Not everything is gloom and doom". Yes I've experienced more than a few close calls (some a little too close!) recently. Yes, my finances aren't as secure as I'd like them to be -- which means I need to get busy if I want heat this Winter...and yes, I've fought off two court summonses this Summer alone from outfits I owe money to.

The bright side is, the debt monkey is again standing on his paws and not on my back for the time being. Both outfits have been willing to negotiate new payment plans. I feel a little bit like I've made a deal with he devil, but these were the best options available at the time.

Yes, metaphorical dark skies (and literal dark skies) loom in my future, but as long as trouble comes knocking one at a time, I'm confident I can muster through it all. Indeed, this year has been the first in five where I haven't felt oppressed and depressed about my life situation. Life is intimidating and daunting, and I've been so scared and overwhelmed that I've been nauseous and heartburned for weeks on end and afraid to go to sleep, but for the time being all of that has passed and I feel confident I will be able to sleep a little more soundly these next few nights.

Fortunately, I recognize that I am currently blessed to have the job I have, the people I work with and the understanding to be grateful for it all.

I also wish to thank my friends (close and internet pals) and family, and God.

En Route to my Final Destination

"What are you doing tonight?" one of my co-workers asked me as our shift wound down.
"I'm going to Yonkers for train photos," I replied, "So if I'm not in on Monday I'm either arrested or dead."

I thought I was joking.

Here's the thing: there's at least a small supernatural aura or something connected to my family. My Mom has had two or three premonitions come true, I'm pretty certain I had a brief subliminal conversation with my then wife's dead uncle (who passed 20 years before she was born), and there's been other instances in which I've hated to have been right. Little did I know at 3pm how close I'd be to both of those terrible outcomes.

Things were going well, my friend offered to drive (in contrast to our scrapped attempt the previous week) and we indeed recorded the images we set out to photograph. Even we he'd forgotten his portable one-way radio on the station platform in Ardsley it was still where he'd left it upon our return 30 minutes later. That's where our story begins.

Now, I've only been working in public safety for one month and I'm not even on the street. I'm inside at a desk, but hearing about questionable people, and having lived in a larger city for eleven months I recognized this individual was of questionable stature, and he was milling about the entryway to the station platform. As I approached he kept his hand in front of my face and began verbalizing something. I immediately disarmed the situation with a stern "No" and avoided eye contact, mounted the steps and retrieved my friend's electronic device in the time it took said friend to round his compact car and say "how are you," to the questionable character. Since one of the trains we wanted to photograph was approaching we stayed at Ardsley -- a hamlet of Irvington.

Low and behold, an Irvington patrol officer pulls into the train station parking lot. We're driving an out of state vehicle and parked in a permit required resident's only parking lot. Uh oh.

BUT, the questionable male milling about is the policeman's top priority as he's likely been troubling the previous commuters passing through. My friend and I can overhear the conversation between unwanted and officer and the unwanted gives the officer a story about waiting for the next train to head home -- which he's lied about twice up to that point - and the unwanted comes on the platform to join us, followed not long after by the officer.

Well, you had to be there to get the full understanding, but my friend engaged the officer about why we were there ourselves and though he could have done without it, the officer got a brief working knowledge about the local freight operations!! Okay, so said our goodnights after the freight train passed and using some judicial editing and leaving out the stuff that happens next for a future blog entry, we're on our way home after a long but fun (and briefly dicey) night of train photography.

Since my friend was driving, and neither highway nor parkway home are the most user friendly I suggested since he was driving he should go with his gut as per which road we should travel.

This was one of those "if only I'd" moments. "If only we'd left for home earlier than we did" or "If only we'd taken 95 instead of 15"...

There wouldn't have been an airborne car headed right at us at 2:15 in the morning.

I was in the midst of explaining how major freight railroading would never return to Connecticut when my friend yelped as a car came flying through the air from the southbound lanes, clipped the center median guardrail and gave my friend's car a glancing blow as we swerved across two lanes to avoid it. THANKFULLY my friend did a great job of keeping the compact under control, but what a scary thing to see!!

And what a way to be reminded of one's mortality. These close calls are becoming more frequent I'm afraid. February 2009 I was the passenger in a vehicle which did a 720 degree spin (That's nearly two full rotations) on the way down a hill slicked with black ice. It took me eleven months to not get shivers driving through there. July 3, 2010, a condo fire destroyed the building immediately next to mine in the complex, I still sometimes have trouble falling asleep in the dark seven weeks later. At the quarry four days before my last day there a loader operator chose to get too close to my truck and miraculously didn't hit it, but had my co-worker put his arm out of the window, or had he gotten out of the truck he would have been clobbered. Now this incident.

I've watched the first two Final Destination movies, and though I know it's Hollywood fiction, there's definitely an element of truth in it. I've believed from a long time before those films that a person dies when it's their time -- and I have also wondered about when it was MY time to go. Sometimes scared of it, sometimes able to accept it but ultimately, that's one of life's and God's biggest mysteries and until the end; after I'm deceased and in the coffin, I don't think I want to know when my last breath is. Honestly, I don't even want to think about it, ignorance is bliss, but that too is an irresponsible way to go about life.

It always seems too that the bad things always compound on top of each other (not just always come in threes -- but that can apply too) and I tend to feel that evil is just a centimeter away when I'm overly stressed by life's responsibilities which makes getting back up on then proverbial horse which threw me that much more difficult and I just want to hide, which begins to bring about agoraphobia. I'm not sure how much more my poor heart can take.

I've Got More Facets Than A Gemstone

C'est vrai. It's true. After all I'm a writing, photographing, musical, train guy with a yearn for adventuring once again. Usually my wanderlust will come about when the stresses of life begin to oppress me. Tonight, it seems more akin to the old saying "idle hands make the devil's work".

Life is good overall, which is something I haven't felt for at least five years. Three weeks at my new employment have me feeling settled in and the more I develop my work abilities (I'm developing a new set of skills at an entirely new career than railroading) the more confident I am that I will in fact succeed, of course there's a long way to go still, but my new employers already knew such and in fact have been pleased with how I skewed the bell curve.

Back to my original thought though. After four somewhat grueling days on duty I have a pair of days off. The first I basically wasted by taking it easy despite having home chores in desperate need of getting done, but the tingle to experience re-ignited today, and with such personal freedom at my disposal, and so many places to visit and things to be experienced I just can't decide where to go. But, as Whisperin' Bill Anderson sang "I get the fever"

Poor Substitute for a Small Bird's Vocalizing

As a comic reader and fan-fiction writer, I naturally looked up one of my favorite scribes, Marjorie Liu, and discovered her blog and Twitter. This weekend (second to last in July 2010 should you be reading this years into the future from tonight) is the great big San Diego Comic Con -- of course, Ms. Liu is participating. So I followed a link from one of her tweets and discovered Stan "the man" Lee's Twitter.

But the only thing that crosses my mind is "Stan Lee is the Hugh Heffner of comics". Granted, my brain is super-fried after it's first week on the new job (there's an incredible amount of information to learn in conjunction with my new career and it's overwhelming at times. I've been almost vegetative upon finally trudging through the door well after dinner each night so that needs to be taken into consideration).
seriously, though. They both smile non-stop, with a genuinely big and sincere smile -- because they love what they do and it shows. Both are of the same generation, that awesome one mine can't even comprehend how to come close. And they're both insanely successful publishers (I won't go into the perks train of thought). Just sayin' -- even if I DID take an awfully long round about way to say one sentence!!!