Fear

I slept poorly last night. I spent yesterday doing homework, (mostly studying Hindi) and watching The Wire on my study breaks. I also cooked and knit a bit, but my brain was most occupied alternately by how to conjugate hindi adjectives and the requirements for being a drug dealer in the projects. Its not the drug deals, the junkies or the violence of the Wire (all 4 episodes that I have seen) that gets me; its the apathy of the cops, the desperation and hard-heartedness of the people in the projects. But the worst part for me, was seeing the one or two characters who cared one way or the other. Those were the characters that stuck in my head and made me think about the show long after I had turned away from the screen.

Apparently this is a bad combination for my brain. I kept waking up in a panic, dreaming that I was failing at school and my classmates had to carry me academically. The worst part was that they resented me for it, they were not glad to help, and they didn't care that I was grateful for the assistance.

Because its October and because I am a fan of Neil Gaiman, I have been thinking about what kind of scary books to get people in my life for All Hallows Read. The thing is, what scares me might not scare you. The things that keep me awake at night, namely the soft heartedness of people in hard hearted situations, might not keep you awake at night. And the things that might scare the pants off of you, are things I might be able to live with (although I doubt it, I'm pretty sensitive). Which makes buying scary things hard. So I have decided that instead of going with things that are scary, I will go with things that are traditionally Halloween-y. World War Z for my brother who out of the blue last week announced he was the best at Zombie survival skills, I truly had no idea. Enders Game for my dad, who has always loved sci fi, and because I just really want an excuse to give him this book. And I think I will use this as an opportunity to introduce my best friend to my favorite author, Neil Gaiman, who writes about strange things, but not always scary things.

To round out this fairly unorganized blog post are a few antidotes to unpleasant and scary things. First off, Madison the 5 year old make up guru, watching her is almost as calming as meditation. There is nothing quite like the focus and competency of small children to calm the nerves. Secondly red pandas playing in the snow which are always good for a smile, especially the last little dude, and finally an oldy but goody: marcel the shell, who won't fight unless provoked.