#and horror particularly gets written off as drivel by people who have only ever watched like. one slasher movie.

[laios-thorden]

To them [people who don't read horror] it is a kind of pornography, inducing horripilation instead of erection. And the reader who appears to relish such sensations-why he's an emotional masochist, the slave of an unholy drug, a decadent psychotic beast.

-David Aylward

horror is about catharsis. it is about experiencing fear or pain or shame or suffering via a piece of media, and being able to sigh in relief when it is done. it is about emotion and flesh and the human condition.

the point of the genre of horror is to inflict the emotion called "fear" or the related emotions "discomfort," "disgust" and "shame." if you do not want to experience and explore negative emotions and the stories that they can tell, you do not actually want to engage with horror. the point of horror is that it might make you feel bad or upset or, god forbid, scared. there are stories that rely on that and it doesn't make horror a lesser medium for narrative than any other genre. it just means that you personally might not enjoy horror.

it's fine to not like horror, but don't pretend like it's something it's not because it makes you uncomfortable.

a lot of takes about horror i see are like, "why doesn't horror have x, y, or z" and the answer is it does. you aren't engaging with the medium or searching out stories that have those things because you don't want to deal with the trappings of the genre (being scared/experiencing negative emotions). liking one piece of horror media doesn't mean engaging with the genre as a whole with all its tropes, trappings, and its rich and varied history.

Ursula K Le Guin writes,

A writer sets out to write science fiction but isn’t familiar with the genre, hasn’t read what’s been written. This is a fairly common situation, because science fiction is known to sell well but, as a subliterary genre, is not supposed to be worth study—what’s to learn? It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

the same is true for horror; people who do not engage with horror as a medium, as a genre, as a way to tell stories and convey meaning do not get to reinvent the wheel. doing so won't be met with gratitude by people who do like horror. it's not helpful. it's condescension.

[youmightaswell]

Die!

What I did during my pandemic non-vacation

Right before the pandemic hit, my work was slow. My client stable was dwindling and so I set  the goal of finally compiling all my personal essays from the last 20 years into a book I'd call "The Unbearable Heaviness of Being". And then, serendipitously a  more literal unbearable heaviness of being hit.

Still, one would think a pandemic would be the ideal time to start that book. Maybe even start the "Letters from the Inside" book about my serial killer writing project for the last 10 years, or even my own memoir. I had nothing but time. I had to stay inside anyway. Nothing else was pressing, and I am usually especially creative during times of stress and hardship.

But lo!  I am also a procrastinator when it comes to a writing assignment -- even a self-inflicted one.  

So over the last three months I found every excuse not to write those long-form pieces. It seems like all I did was bathe, eat, eat some more, and lay around in bed, most often talking to the dog in guise of actually talking to myself. I spent an inordinate amount to time figuring out how to handle my grooming at home now that my external fleet of professionals were no longer available. Day after day I wore sweats or pjs (careful to change from day ones to night ones once the nightly New Year’s Eve-type cheering started, a new type of closing bell.) The one day I felt invigorated and optimistic enough to put on jeans I had to peel them off by mid-day unsure of how I ever wore such a tortuous garment. 

I felt comfort when I saw reassuring messages on Instagram -- which along with Facebook and Twitter, I spent an inordinate amount of time on -- saying that it was just fine not to produce anything during this quarantine. That is was an unprecedented time and one that was highly stressful so it is fine to do whatever you want to keep calm and keep on...  I did just that, or at least it seemed so. I felt like a sloth, eating carbs and sugar -- things for the last two years I carefully avoided. I texted exes, fought with feral Trump supporters, washed dry-clean only clothes. You know, indulged in the wildest of vices.

The shelter-in-place mandate will come to a close soon. Being in NYC, probably it will take longer than most areas to dissolve, but still the streets are getting a bit more crowded, and people seem to be back in my NYC apartment building, once again, hogging the dryers (which I then have to neurotically wipe down with disinfectant wipes.)

So I initially felt a bit down at what a failure I've been to do something productive during this time.

As a result, I decided to take inventory of my last three months. ***

- I applied for PPP (dealing with Chase bank for two months having  to re-apply three different times at their ever-changing directives, only to be told they couldn't verify my income and therefore I was turned down). I applied for EIDL,got $1000 payment and then was told that because inadvertently answered a question wrong -- these applications are super hard--I was denied and now they were only allowing re-applications of agricultural industry workers. Then I applied for freelancer unemployment, twice, only to not be able to get through, not be able to revise my PUA application and am still waiting to hear something, anything.  As such with  EIDL, PPP, SBA, WHO and all other pandemic-related acronyms, I now have a great fear -- PTSD, if you will -- of acronyms in general. No good can come from them. 

- I washed my hands -- and my dog’s paws -- a billion times. I also did way too much laundry because in times of stress and lack of control, my OCD (another scary acronym!) gets rampant and doing finite tasks makes me feel more in charge. I saged my apartment weekly, casting out negative energy and viruses and calling upon all good things to enter instead. The only entrance was made by my super who yelled at me for mentioning him in an article I wrote about my doorman who passed away from Covid-19. Still, I disinfected doorknobs, elevator buttons, and even the container of wipes, multiple times as if trying to free a genie in a bottle, to no avail.

- I tended to all sorts of medical tests for myself and my dog, culminating in standing a long line to get the Covid-19 antibody tests. (Sadly I was negative.) 

-I binged watched (Dead to Me) and cringe watched (White Lines), valuing a good hate-watch more than quality programming. 

- I read about 10 books, a few that have stayed with me in the best way possible, such as "My Dark Vanessa" and "Excavation".

- I listened to the full true-horror podcast "Let's Not Meet" - because sometimes the only way to quell true-horror is with true-horror. Hair of the dog sort of thing.

- I tracked down ARCs (one of the nicer acronyms) of books that will come out later this year so I could read them without any preconceived notions about them. 

- I finally watched the backlog of hoarded movies I had borrowed from the NYPL: The best of which was "Giant", a classic 3.5 hour saga.

- I read countless magazines and most things I read were drivel, but then I curated the best essays and realized they all seemingly dealt with food, which makes total sense during a pandemic when we all reverted back into hunter gatherers.    “Fuck the Bread. The Bread is Over,” the NYT’s written by restaurant owner/chef of Prune, and the essay by art critic Jerry Saltz about his peculiar eating habits were the best.  While they all seemingly dealt with food and eating, they really don't deal with that at all.  They definitely appeased my appetite for touching writing.  

- And I did some touching writing of my own. I wrote an essay about the death by Covid-19 of my favorite doorman to much notice. It was the article I’ve written that has gotten shared the most online, I think, ever! More importantly, it touched his family in a way that seems significant, his daughter reaching out to me with this message: 

- Related: I organized a GoFundMe for the aforementioned late doorman’s family and raised over $7,000 in just one week! I got our whole complex and neighborhood to participate, and I believe it helped us collectively mourn. 

- Related, I helped a dear friend with dealing with heartbreaking news that her elderly mother had contracted Covid-19. She called me the night she found out to weigh options. Sadly her mother passed. I had a tree planted in her mother’s honor. 

- I signed up with Postcrossing and sent postcards to people all over the world and have gotten a ton back. In times of isolation it helps to feel connected in some way. 

- In that same vein, I participated Oregon Humanities’ “Dear Stranger” project - in which one writes a letter to a stranger and sends it to the organization and they exchange it with other stranger’s letter and mail that one to you. Interestingly I wrote my letter on an old map. The letter I got in return was by a female freelance writer of my same age, also written on an old map. More serendipity! More connection without ever leaving the apartment. 

- I saw a segment on NY1 talking about how this pandemic and isolation is taking its toll on seniors and one NYC nursing home that was requesting cards and letters to cheer them up. It was the catalyst for me to start a new project I call: “Letters from the Inside... of the Senior Center” - in which I researched and compiled a list of nursing homes around the country who accept letters of cheer to their seniors. I now have a list of about 800 names. I’ve sent about 75 cards/postcards myself so far, and have enlisted friends, neighbors, and others to send cards as well. My goal is to get each senior at least one card or letter. 

- I had a milestone birthday with little fanfare. My dog, Biggie, turned three. 

- I finally finished annotating each chapter of “Blind Eye,” the best-selling book about serial killer Michael Swango, who I have written to for 10+ years as part of the aforementioned “Letters from the Inside” project I created. I sent him questions on each chapter. 

- Related: After 10 long years of corresponding, on my birthday we started what has now turned out to be weekly calls. His prison has finally allowed them. Last call I told him that he has not answered my last few letters. He told me to yell at him, remind him, and push him to get on it. I quipped that it was probably not in my best interest to antagonize someone who murdered 60+ people. True horror, indeed. 

- The CNN docu-series about him in which I appear as an expert was postponed but will air later this summer. 

- Speaking of true horrors, I had a woman threaten to spit on me when I requested she leash her dog -- who had tried to attack Biggie. (Odd foreshadowing for the recent Amy Cooper debacle.) 

- I lost my long-time nurse (I get immuno-therapy infusions twice a month and have for years for an immune disorder) because she was fired by her nursing company. After having to deal with an inadequate string of nurses I lobbied to get my nurse hired at my pharmacy’s nursing division so now she can be my nurse again. She is thrilled she has a job; I am thrilled I have my old friend back each month. 

- I feel in love with Cuomo.

***

After sitting down and taking this inventory, I am amazed at how much I have actually done in such a short period of time. It seems insane that I was feeling so bad and slothlike for being so unproductive, when in retrospect, I actually accomplished a lot. 

I guess what I can take away from this long stretch of isolation is this: We can’t see how far we are traveling without looking back on our journey. While something -- particularly traumatic or stressful -- is happening, it is easy to feel static, frozen and worse, uncreative. But feelings aren’t facts. 

Just because I didn’t write my book, I did lots of creative things with my time. I was tangibly helpful to others without even noticing it when I was doing it. I felt like I was faltering and failing, but in looking back at that list above, I really wasn’t. I may have even excelled. 

And now, I think I need to lay down.