Oh wait… it actually is. I just can’t quit it. I have a strange life, there’s no denying it. Even when I thought things were rather normal, I’ve had numerous people tell me that my life is far from normal, even if that far from normal isn’t paranormal related. Perhaps it’s how I choose to see life, perhaps it’s just past influences, perhaps it’s just how I was born. I’m gonna go ahead & say it’s all three &, well… my life certainly isn’t boring. I’m also glad, in the grand scheme of things, that this is my life this go around.
If a man dresses up like a sports player to rob the Gem Exchange eat at a BBQ place, I say he’s strange. If he also brings his pet Marshall along, I say he’s a Demon.
Yes, I am trying to emulate Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which is that photo up there (Yes, I do dig that show!). Because isn’t it weird enough to seem some Demons at a BBQ place in town?
Lil’ Small wanted food from Strick’s, this local BBQ place. We arrive & there are two tour buses taking up most of the parking lot. ‘Wonder what that’s about…?’
Then I’m ordering my food to go & who sidles up beside me but some cop. A really tall & rather imposing cop. And not just any cop. His badges say Marshall & Natchitoches, Louisiana. Then there’s another cop, this one in all tan instead of blues. Then there are all these guys in grey & black sports gear coming through & refilling their cups. They have some words stitched on the upper left breast, but I can’t read it.
Surely… surely these aren’t prisoners, so what the hell is this?!
Then I see some are wearing T-shirts that say DEMON football. Others with a face of a DEMON (ya know the rather rogue-ish, good looking-ish, pointy featured type of demon) that also say DEMON football.
Well, alright, a college sports team that are voluntarily the Demons! I can dig it! I also make an aside to Lil’ Small, “Do you suppose they had to add the word ‘football’ so they didn’t just seem like weirdos?” But I think she didn’t really hear me or comprehend, but that’s probably because he order was up at that same moment.
Then later on the radio I hear that there’s to be a football game the next night (so Saturday night) between USM & Northwestern State. ‘Ah, they must be the Demons. Well, even though I don’t do football, we all know who I’ll be routing for!’
Here ya go, ya know if you’re not hip on collegiate sports (ahem… me). I mean what do they do to pump up school spirit? Scream “Demons Forever!” while throwin’ the horns? I laugh, but that would also be insanely awesome. I mean, it’s still The South, so you know they are religious people, more than likely Catholic being a former French region (though probably a big portion Protestant), & 98% of the team were black (which their demographic for the town has a huge population of African American).
Now, I can see Catholics, possibly, having The Demons, because Catholics are weird. But African Americans being readily on board with being The Demons? Seems a little weird. Does it make them nervous (people in the south are kind of superstitious, black or white or Latino) & also predominantly a Christian religion. I mean I think it’s awesome, but also… how did that even originate & do people just think it’s amusing… or sinister? Ya know, the people that live there?
And since people who are into sports kind of basically worship that sport, that team, the players… & the mascot, thus meaning that there are people inadvertently worshiping The Demons. Ah, seems sneakily evil. I like it.
Well, the school was founded by something something of the Sacred Heart (so Catholics. Ah, those wacky Catholics) & in 1922, students submitted ideas for a new mascot & a Demon won by a landslide. Though I’m gonna bet money that the school was predominantly white (if not all white) back in 1922. Then in 1984, they all decided to give him a name, so he’s Vic, short for Victory.
I still like the idea that they’re worshiping a demon. Ah, the south.
I’m sad to report that the Eagles beat the fuck out of the Demons on Saturdays game. Oh well.
This post, sadly, can’t be all about supernatural things. Besides the fact that I’ve been decorating for Halloween since yesterday, & something I’ve had a dream about twice (which doesn’t warrant its own dream post), the paranormal just isn’t a regular occurrence. Or even weird things really. Which… is good, ya know.
The thing I’ve been dreaming about? A portal. The bedroom that I sleep in now was my childhood bedroom. It has another, smaller room, attached to it. It used to be called the playroom (ya know because my toys were in there), but I now call it the slant room. The ceiling is slanted sharply to the back wall that is only about 3 feet high. On either end of the wall are two pieces of wall that have been cut out. They’re not hinged, but you just remove the piece to gain this almost exterior crawl space.
Dad figured it would be good for extra storage, because one can not gain anything of importance in the house for repair purposes. It’s just plywood & the eve of the roof & you can see daylight a little through it. That slant room was unfinished when my parents purchased the house. Anyways, I always hated that crawl space. I hated those little fake “doors”. Hated. So, when I moved back in, we (Lil’ Small & I) duct taped the seams & painted over them so we’d never open them, they’d never fall forward, woodland creatures or jefferson starships wouldn’t get in, & cats wouldn’t escape.
The left side one is what I’ve been dreaming about. I’ve dreamed about it before, battling the demon that kept haunting my nightmares all my life. Either being chased by it all through the house, even inside the walls, & down the (only in dreamworld) stairs that are connected to that left hand “door” of that small crawl space. We even fought with swords once, until I realized neither of us would win & we would fight forever, so I said fuck it, & banished him with my energy devil magicks… & he hasn’t come back since.
But why is it always the left one?
Anyways, in each dream I’m in the slant room. It’s always kind of messy. The first one had the partition “door” down & it revealed some pink insulation, & some of the paper & paper tape, which was billowing in the slight breeze. Instead of just a wall & you can only go to the right, I could see beyond it, towards the left, into darkness. Like it was a cave, breathing, & nothing good was inside of it.
The next night, the partition “door” was gone again, but this time it looked like it would normally look, not merely in the dream world. Both times I didn’t want anything to do with it. Didn’t want to go near the openings.
So, if it’s not the supernatural, what has been going on in Sarah Land? I’ll tell ya.
I wanted to take pictures of the cats in my room, knew Yata was underneath the bed, so I just leaned over to take a picture of him upside down instead of getting out of bed. Only, I slid off the bed & kind of got pinned between the chair that Scully is sleeping in (that first picture), my bed, & my side table. Which had me laughing. Took a picture of Colonel Mustard, from my vantage point on the floor, because he was wondering what the hell I was doing down there. I also took a picture of Yata, only when I got back onto the bed, it was just a fuzzy shot of the rug. So I had to get off the bed, kneel down & take a picture of him, with him wondering what the hell I was doing.
That was a fun day.
I have this sailor hat that Lucifer generally wears, ya know the cat from Cinderella, I have a plushie of him. It was my dad’s hat in his baby time. He gave it to me. Anyways, I just knew that Yata would be adorable in it, but had to catch him when he was lazy.
No cats were harmed in the taking of these pictures. It’s just, well, he’s never worn a hat before, naturally, so was… unsure. But it’s like I have my very own Donald Duck. He’s kind of pudgy, he’s white, he can be fussy, & he looks adorable in sailor garb! I have always adored Donald Duck, just so ya know.
Actually, what am I talking about! My life is always full of weird shit, man. Take this picture for instance. Our cousin, Tío’s youngest daughter (he’s the little kid in the picture), wanted pictures of our grandmother. So, I went through our stash & grabbed a bunch, & scanned them in.
So, this picture, is my dad’s birthday. That’s him opening the pot lid to whatever was prepared as his birthday meal. Obviously that’s my grandpa, the man. The lady is my grandmother, & as I said that’s Tío. Tía must be the one capturing the scene.
OK, so all of the pictures of my grandmother pretty much look like my grandmother. Except where Lil’ Small favours her or the one where she sort of looks like a not very happy Kitty Foreman from That 70’s Show.
It’s not like I’ve never seen that first photo before, of her in the red dress, but I suppose scanned in, making it larger, well… it unsettled me. My grandma, in that one lone picture, looks like that hooker serial killer lady from Florida! Ya know, Aileen Wuornos. Or at least as Charlize Theron playing the role, all dressed up to get a typist job in the film Monster. Am I just spottin’ serial killers everywhere, because I don’t think so, man. I’m never saying, “Hey, they look like such & such serial killer!”
I mean, I sent the photo to Lil’ Small saying the same thing & she did not respond with, “OMG you’re right!!”. In fact she didn’t respond at all about it except to mention grandpa’s facial expression & make sure dad’s the older kid in the picture. But perhaps she just doesn’t want our paternal grandmother linked with a serial killer. I mean, neither do I, but I can’t unsee it, man, which is why it unsettles me!
Next we move onto haunted rooms, or is it haunted objects? So, here is our dining room. Lil’ Small is in the very long process of re-doing it. 98% of the walls are that yellow colour now & there are even new curtains which she repurposed out of our old shower curtain. It’s just the carpet needs ripping out & the vinyl floor tiles put in, which she does have the box of those.
That’s not really the important part. The important part is those chairs have been up on the buffet for months & months & months. Upside down, like you’d turn chairs onto tables in a restaurant when closing to clean the floors.
Yes, our cats will hang out in there. Mostly Inky who sleeps on the very top of the buffet or on one of the upturned chairs. Him & the Gingies also don’t get along, & Puff-Puff thinks he’s real pretty & chirps at him. Puff-Puff is a boy cat & has a crush on Inky & Yata.
But never has there been any kerfuffle in the dining room. It’s usually Inky in the monster chair in the foyer swatting Puff-Puff away while Puff-Puff squeals at him to love him. Or the Gingies don’t like Bunny. At all. But generally Puff-Puff is just telling him to go away with Bunny backed up next to some furniture in the foyer or the living room.
Yet, I come home from the store yesterday, come in the front door & see this mess. Also… there are no candlesticks out & about. They’re in a separate room, in a box, or in a drawer in that buffet. No way cats would, or could, pull those out to knock ’em down.
Lil’ Small said it must have been the cats, & it very well could be, except for the fact that the dining room has been this exact way since April & the chairs have never been thrown to the floor… & also, where the fuck did the candle sticks come from?!
So… haunted dining room? Just so we’re on the same page, that buffet is creepy. I wish we’d never brought it home from our mother’s very haunted portal of a childhood home. However, creepy or not, the buffet has never thrown the chairs off before either, so…
Oh, but y’all! That’s not all! So, I had a small telly in here in the office, hooked up to an older Roku. I never watched it, so we thought we’d put it on the sundeck. Some weird shit there, man. OK, so Lil’ Small hooked it all up. Roku to telly & included the Wii.
I kept coming downstairs in the morning to make coffee & the telly would be on. On it’s screen saver. I just assumed that Lil’ Small had been working down there & left it on. But then she left to go house sitting & it happened again. “Umm….”
The next morning it was on again. I turned it off & asked dad if for some reason he was turning it on, which I knew he wouldn’t but I had to ask. “No, I turn it off. Maybe… it’s the old man in the basement” & he said that last part really solemnly. I don’t know if he’s joking, but he’s the only one with this story of an old man in the basement.
The only thing Lil’ Small & I know that used to live in the basement was something really creepy, some entity composed of blackness that lived under the stairs, which isn’t there anymore, & it certainly never presented as some older man looking like was from the 40’s or something.
We had that conversation & it didn’t happen for a fucking week. Then it started happening again. Lil’ Small said to change the input from Roku to telly, & if that didn’t work, unplug the Wii.
I’ve tried both & the telly keeps coming on by itself.
I’m aware that it could be electrical. However, it’s plugged into a surge protector like it was up here. And to the Roku, the same one it had hooked up to it up here. I changed the input to telly. I even, after that didn’t work, unplugged the Wii. It hasn’t rained in two weeks so no chance of weather related things like lightning or something. And the fact that when I called out the weird activity & dad called out the supposed old man in the basement it suddenly just stopped for an entire week!!?
Electrical things aren’t smart, they don’t just stop doing the thing that they’re doing because people are talking about them in the adjoining room.
I mean, sure, I will jump to the paranormal first thing, but I’ll also work things out logically & with an open mind (not just saying ‘Well, it won’t work because I know it’s a haunting!’), & only returning to the supernatural when all the logical avenues have been explored.
*gestures wildly*
So, what the hell!?!
On a happier note, I did say that I was decorating for Halloween. Even The Childhood Friends mom, who came over to give me birthday gifts commented on it, but in that backhanded way where it means it’s too early for that type of nonsense. I mean, I get it. They’re not a very Halloweenie family. I don’t think they have decorations even? Even though the big witch she macrame’d for my mom back in the 70’s is hanging on the back kitchen door like always, you would have thought she’d be happy to see that.
I think it’s because she’s a cradle Catholic & mom’s the spooky lady, so she’d macrame a witch for mom, but her own daughter has practically made a side job out of pumpkin carving for the last ten years, so…
Anyways, I don’t have a lot of Halloween decorations. So, a lot of them are just things I’ve drawn for past Drawlloween’s that I liked enough to keep. Tack ’em up on the doors up here on the second floor.
Since dad was upstairs watching telly in his room, thought I’d ask him what he wanted for their bathroom door. Because I’d already given them Hoia Baciu Forest that I drew as the picture for their bedroom door a few years back, so I’m not deviating from that.
He uneasily made fun of The Mothman saying he looked like that guy with all the hair from that show…
I thought he meant the monster from Looney Tunes, but he meant Cousin It from The Addams Family. Then nervously looked away from The Mothman & did not hesitate to choose The Haunted Diner. Which dad is not into gore, at all, not even cartoon drawn like what I do. He really did not like The Mothman picture.
Lil’ Small has said before that I’m not allowed to put him on the door to her room. Told mom dad’s decision & she laughed a little & then muttered, “Well, he’s kind of creepy…” & when I told her that he’s on the door to their towel closet in the hallway, she grimaced slightly.
To be fair I’ve never put The Mothman on the office door or my bedroom door, so apparently he is a bit creepy.
Alien Tea Shoppe 