The Heebie Jeebies

Alright, I am a 31, almost 32, year old woman. Girl. Whatever. I feel like at some point I should stop waiting for the boogeyman to appear in reality, but I just can't. I chalk it up to a VIVID imagination and an unfortunate sense of pessisism. Regardless of the reasons, whenever I enter into any setting that mirrors any thriller/horror movie I am instantly transported into a fantasy world that terrifies me. Nothing even has to happen, I just give myself the heebie jeebies. Here are a couple of examples.

My parents used to live out in the boonies in Monument, CO. On the drive to their house I would pass this older home and big barn. Then I saw The Ring and decided that this house and barn looked just like the ones in the movie. Immediately I started hating the drive to my parents home. Forget that I later had a second viewing of this movie and realized they're nothing alike, it was in my mind and my mind was not letting go of this comparison. And often they would have me housesit for them so there were many drives down this particular road. To make matters worse, on their property was a stable where they kept their dogs and it was just a quick few steps from the house to the stable, but it was dark and you had to cross this tiny bridge and go through some overgrown bushes. With the combination of the setting of what to me was a terrifying movie, and being all out in the open, completely alone, when walking to the stable, I really started hating housesitting for the folks. I was expressing this to my dad one day and he seemed very confused about why I was scared.

DAD: "You mean to tell me that you can live downtown around a bunch of college kids and bums and that doesn't scare you as much being out here with no one around you?"

ME: "That's exactly it. Out here, there's no one to hear me scream."

The most recent scene of my self inflicted terror is at my new place of employment. I work for an older hotel. The basement of this hotel is pretty extensive and is where the housekeeping and laundry operations are. It also houses the employee break room and bathrooms. To get to the basement you have to walk down a flight of stairs and it's full of cement stairs and clanging doors. Then you come out into one end of a long hallway that is painted yellow and orange. Down towards the end are the bathrooms and employee break room, so essentially, I get to walk down this long hallway, complete with flickering flourescent lights, all the while staring at the double doors at the end of the hall (I've included a picture of said hallway). And what I know is that on the other side of those doors is a meeting room that used to be a night club in the late 80's. What I also know is that some people believe that old night club to be haunted. Nuff said. I'm done for. As I'm walking down this hallway I'm just waiting for any one of cliche movie psychos to come out with a knife and chase me down. Will it be the prom queen who got stood up and blood poured on her when everyone realized what a fraud she really is? Will it be the janitor who's had it with feeling lower than everyone else? Will it be the masked insane asylum escapee? What about some random figment of my dreams and/or imagination? Or will it actually be the ghost of some 80's yuppie that overdosed on cocaine and George Michael? Whoever it would wind up to be in my imagination is enough for me stay the H-E-L-L outta that hallway thankyouverymuch!

Everyone seems to get a kick out of these fears of mine and I'll admit that I find them pretty entertaining myself, but no matter how absurd I realize they are, they are still there...haunting me. Yeah, that just happened.

What the heck!?

I'd like to know who it was that decided that as adults we don't get to participate in the fun holiday activities. Or am I just too immature to really understand why it is we don't get to? I miss the days of hunting for Easter eggs and getting a really cool basket full of candy and toys and new books. In my family all the cousins would search for the golden egg and it was full of all sorts of good things, including money. It was that plastic egg that ladies pantyhose used to come in. I miss knowing that I was too young and I was never gonna find that egg before the older kids, but I'd still like to try from time to time.

I know that I still get to dress up for Halloween but I'm really jealous when I see all the kids go out with pillowcases and such trick or treating. What the heck is up with having to stay at home and just answer the door over and over again?

And Christmas is okay, but all the work that is put into helping Santa get ready for the next morning takes a lot of the fun out of it. I'd like to go to bed early and come out in the morning with an unimaginable spread laid out before me.

I will say that on Thanksgiving I do really enjoy the adult table more than the kids table so atleast I have that going for me.

I'm just sayin is all. I'd like to have some ridiculous fun as well on the holidays instead of just being a bystander. Who decided that it had to stop for adults and what can we do to change this travesty?

Farewell Via de Ventura

For as long as I can remember, my sense of smell has been the most powerful at invoking nostalgic memories. There's a smell that I can never describe in words but I most often come across it in people's homes and it always sends me straight back to my childhood. It's a comforting smell. I remember that wherever I was when it first presented itself to me, it was a place where I felt safe and happy. I remember that I smelled it at a babysitter's or maybe a friend's home, basically, it wasn't my own. And I remember that there was a woman in the home that I really liked and I can see a blurry picture of her face in my head. I remember that when I was young I really liked Wonder Woman and, for whatever reason beyond her dark long hair, this woman with the comforting smell reminded me of Wonder Woman. It's the most powerful smell in my catalog of smells and whenever I come across it I find myself inhaling all that I can of it so that I can go back to wherever that childhood place of comfort was.


There are other times that I'll be driving down the road with the windows down and I get to experience all different kinds of smells. Sometimes I'm assaulted with Arizona's fine fertilizer smell, I had no idea that Mesa had so many farms. The smell of manure is actually the first thing I remember about driving into Mesa. I was so excited to be in Arizona finally. I drove 15 hours through different states, in awe of the mountains and valleys I saw before dark came. I was intrigued and a little frightened by the outlines of the cacti that were lining the street, as if I was getting an offensive greeting and at the same time I found it so comical. And then, finally, I'm in Mesa and I no longer noticed anything except my great need to cover my face and the stinging in my eyes. The only other time I've smelled fertilizer that was so offensive to the nose was when my sister lived in Hereford, TX, cow capital of the world, or so I've been told. I was disappointed and a little worried that I would now be forced to live in a place that literally smelled like crap. Thankfully, I did find out that this would not be a daily occurrence.


And with all that said, here's the whole point of this post. I currently commute to Scottsdale for my job but I only get to do that for one more night. I've accepted a job at a hotel much closer to my home and just off the interstate. Before this job change I had just recently discovered Via de Ventura Dr. It's a shortcut to my hotel in Scottsdale by one minute, but discovering it felt like discovering Atlantis. When I found it it was just starting to get warm here enough that I wanted to drive with the windows down. I drove past a pond and you could feel the moisture in the air, I love humidity, contrary to how the rest of the human race feels about it and I was just basking in the open air on my face and the beautiful palm trees that lined the streets and the median. And all of a sudden, there it was, the sweetest smell to ever come across my nose. Maybe it was the orange trees growing nearby along the roads, I really have no idea. What I do know is that whatever it was that I was smelling made me want to pull my car over, lay on the grass next to the pond and just look at the stars and smell that smell. It was hard to continue on to work from there, and this was happening to me night after night. I've never experienced such a content feeling before and this smell, this sweet blossoming fresh smell, was one of the most soul comforting smells I've ever come across.


After tomorrow night I won't be driving on Via de Ventura. I'll be taking the I-60 with all of it's noise and busyness. That feeling of contentment and peace won't be there anymore and I know that I'm, ironically, going to miss my commute to Scottsdale.