This is why I don't write poetry any more.

Wikipedia defines love as "an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment." I recently re-discovered my 1999 diary and apparently this is what 9 year old me felt for 'Dawson's Creek'. In amongst the vaguely threatening privacy message at the beginning, a self-made address book which only goes up to 'T', specific information about what I did on "13 Janurary 1999" (9:30 wake up, 6:50 P.M. See Babe Pig in the city.) and strict homework/tv watching timetable, opposite a page of "Self Trivia" I found this:

Reading that made me feel a bit like this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLgI-qbrWVo

Norman will never abate

In year 10 I decided to study drama. The scenario in my mind involved being given opportunities to write, direct and potentially demonstrate my one redeeming acting talent of doing a mean bloodcurdling scream. Instead, reality had me watching Hitchcock movies, making posters about the Stanislavsky method of acting, and playing a fairy called “Tizz” in the worst play ever to be inflicted upon supportive parents.

From this experience I gained self awareness (about being extraordinarily shit at making posters), widened literary exposure (having for some reason the ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ speech from Macbeth being part of my lines in the fairy play), interpersonal insight (about what a loon Hitchcock was*) and, most significantly, an apparently lifelong paranoia about showers (thank you 'Psycho').

I have mentioned this fear on more than one occasion. Looking back at the film itself, I don’t really understand where the horror comes from. It’s all a bit lame, the blood looks too thick, and all you actually see is a knife stabbing at an improbable speed and angle whilst a woman screams and is touched inappropriately by shower curtains. I also vaguely remember close ups of the killer’s crazed, wide eyes, but I’m not sure if this is just something my imagination has added over the years, and I’m not going to check. Whilst accuracy is ace, despite my rambling rationalisations, I cannot bring myself to look it up and re-watch on YouTube.

My germaphobia induced suspicion of both shower curtains and shared bathroom floors is not sufficient to explain my undiminished psychological response to this film. I guess something could be said about the almost unique vulnerability we have in the shower. If you couple being clothes-less and phone-less with years of Marple-induced conditioning that everyone everywhere is waiting to murder you all the time, you end up with one eye constantly on the door, and palpitations for the twenty seconds that all you can see is your hair as you hurriedly rinse conditioner.

This vague fear does not show any signs of abating at any time soon. I can’t remember the last time I showered without at least fleetingly thinking of 'Psycho'. I just don’t understand; why is this film so special? I can (sometimes) look in a mirror without imagining Bloody Mary emerging from it, I don’t (always) check my back seat for murderers, I can (usually) tell people that I’m phoning home without putting on my ET voice, and I can shout “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” even at times that I’m not fighting a Balrog.

Oh well. There are worse things than regularly thinking about homebody taxidermist murderers.



*exhibit A: deliberately trapping your daughter on a ferris wheel on set and then packing up the crew and leaving.

Methods to cope with an anxious wait

It would seem that a not indecent percentage of my year level is currently camped out on Facebook whilst simultaneously refreshing their emails with an increasing level of urgency. The annual hive-mentality-of-fear-of-being-the-lowest common-denominator is a time of year I dread. Somewhat contrary to what I’m currently doing, I am generally loathe to admit that I’m very very afraid of what results might be. Of course I joke that I have spent all day keeping one eye on my 214 unread emails, terrified that it will hit 215, and dying, every so slightly on the inside when I get an email from Amazon telling me that the time is ripe to buy the Beiberography ‘just in time for Christmas’, but seriously, every beep of my phone is another ten minutes shaved off the end of my life.

I don’t know if this is just me, but either way, I thought that I would compile a list of ways to cope with an anxious wait of any kind.

1. Take an unnecessary shower. Give yourself elaborate ‘fashionable’ shampoo hairstyles and swear, ever so slightly, when you tenderly shampoo your eye. 
2. Listen to three songs on loop all day. Preferably two manic or energetic, and one slightly more subdued. Turn up extra loud whilst on step 1, despite the fact that through the doors, noise and fear of Norman Bates and Bloody Mary you won’t be able to hear the difference between Gotye and Journey.
3. Exercise. Seriously. When I’m stressed, I can be so distracted by disquieting thoughts that for a few golden moments I will forget that I’m extremely unfit. Until I realise that I’m choking to death on phlegm.
4. Text people in the same situation, trying to maintain a casual balance between expressing fear and trying not to demonstrate the twisted thread of anxious terribleness you have become.
5. Extremely overreact to unrelated things.
6. Adopt irrational compulsive behaviours such as avoiding certain words and not allowing yourself to think of the worst possible outcome.
7. Take a nap. On the floor. 
8. Develop polar eating habits. Skip lunch, then power through a packet of 'Hello Panda' in the space of three minutes.
9. Watch TV. Today I chose "Upstairs, Downstairs" which contained more period drama than an all girl high school swimming lesson.
10. Switch from the previous three songs to one superangsty song and play it on loop. Example: in the time it has taken me to write this I am currently on my 7^th iteration of “Set Fire to the Rain”.

Anyways, that probably didn’t help. Maybe this will: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBcMKwbMEcQ