Finally back to my old routine... sleeping for 8 hours, waking up after the sun has fully risen, blogging at night and sitting more than standing. The National Conference of Architects is finally over! I have yet to digest the events of the past days... It felt like a 3 day somnambulist expedition, waking up before 6 am has that effect on me.

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My first experience of Trick or Treat was last year... ok so it was second-hand. Here's a pic of nephew and niece in costumes my sis and I rushed a night before the event. Who knew I had "stage-mom" genes...


Trick or Treating isn't too big in the Philippines. Kids here do their Christmas carolling instead (Like a reversed Nightmare Before Christmas) The old hide-and-seek with the carollers dance begins sometime in October. Aside from visits to the cemetery, scaring one's self shitless during this blessed night is the tradition my generation has embraced.

I am channel-surfing like a minesweeper. I make mental notes of channels that are showing horror flicks and skip said channels with the memory of AJ, for fear that I may retain some creepy imagery which my hyperactive imagination might feed on. The thing with me and scary movies is when I happen to stumble upon one, I need to finish it. By doing so, I tend to criticize the pathetic storyline, my inner critic overshadows my inner scaredy cat. An unresolved movie is a phobic's imagination's playground.

Horror films on Halloween... I made that stupid mistake with Halimaw sa Banga (Ghoul in the Big Clay Jar) when I was 10 (who knew a movie with cute girl named Matet could cause me several years of utter fear of huge ornamental jars)... with Amityville when I was 14 (the scarier part is that it's based on actual events)... with the Shake, Rattle and Roll movies when I was in highschool (I know the special effects are pathetic but Mary Walters, bless her soul, made me gerontophobic)... with all three Scream movies and both I Know What you Did... movies when I was in college (Just kill Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt so we can get on with our lives!). I have yet to make that mistake after I left the academe.

My checklist for watching scary movies: foremost, the date must be nowhere near October 31, noontime, lots of friends, a back-up plan to spend a late night spent trying to forget what I saw. I remember watching a Scream marathon alone in an empty house, everyone went down to Bulacan for Undas (All Saints' Say)... I unplugged the phone. It isn't as scary on hindsight, especially thanks to the Wayans Brothers parody. I am such a wuss. That coupled with my morbid curiosity makes for a lethal combination, drawing out any notion of sleep from my head... eyes darting between window, door and mirror... making sure an elongated skull mask with a Rambo knife or that damn crawling Japanese girl with wet hair doesn't catch me off guard.

Ok, all this talk of horror movies has unleashed repressed images in the recesses of the "Do not open" chambers of my brain. I guess I made the mistake again... and I guess whoever declared November 1 a holiday must've been a pansy like me, Heshe didn't sleep the night before and needed a day to recuperate...

My back-up plan: watching my movie backlog.

Where is a Julie Andrews movie when you need one?
Raindrops and roses and vindictive kittens...
Bright copper kettles and warm blood stained mittens...
Brown paper packages, decapitated heads of things...
These are a few of my favorite things...

Labels: blah (3x), holidays, movies