I’m beginning to think too many of my stories begin with “This one time when I was really drunk …”

I got out of bed a couple of nights ago after learning via twitter that the northern lights were visible in the south.  I didn’t actually make it outside, however, as I was scared just walking through my darkened house by myself.  You know, on account of the zombies.

I have a, shall we say, vivid imagination.  I picture bad things happening and can visualize the end result.  ‘The Walking Dead’ is not helping with my comfort levels.  But luckily those zombies can’t bust through locked doors.  Obviously this means that all zombies cannot burst through locked doors so at least there’s that.

I stopped watching scary movies after ‘The Ring.’  That thing freaked me out FOR YEARS after I watched it.  And that was it.  I made it a personal goal never to watch scary things again.  I’ve since become a little lax on that mantra, preferring to take every show and movie as it comes.  But basically I avoid torture porn.  And any preview for the ‘Paranormal’ movies.  I mean it.  If it's on and I can't change the channel I'll either leave the room or plug my ears, close my eyes and sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.'  Cause that’s just messed up.

But ‘The Ring,’ man.  I don't even remember what it was about exactly.  It's possible I blocked it out.  One time when Chris was off gallivanting in Alaska and I was by myself, pre-children, I drank a whole bottle of wine.  (I was lonely.  Don’t judge.)  After going to bed I woke up in the middle of the night to pee (because of the wine).  I didn’t turn on any lights because I didn’t want to wake myself up and so left the bathroom door open so I wouldn’t be in complete darkness. 

And I saw her. 

Well, really, I visualized what it would be like to see her when I was completely alone and also drunk and then I saw her.  VIVIDLY.  Crawling in the hallway outside my bathroom door.  I had to picture myself stepping over her to leave the bathroom because even in my drunken stupor-induced hallucinations I have to be correct and literal.  I made it back to my bed, shut my eyes, pulled the covers over my head and pretended like I hadn’t just had a mental breakdown.

This was at least three years after seeing the movie.

Even now I’ve just worked myself up writing about it.

When I was little my parents let me watch ‘Critters.’  Have you seen this movie?  Little alien porcupines come to earth and eat people.  High cinema, is what I'm saying.  At one point a demon porcupine is under the bed of one of the characters.  So yeah, limbs are not allowed to hang over the side of the bed to this day.  They get tingly and I imagine something reaching up to take a nibble.  (Thanks guys.) 

Also, I saw ‘Jaws 3’ when I was 7 or 8.  Thus began my fear of the water and my shark nightmares.  We had a window in our bathroom and while taking a bath I’d picture the whole house as being under water with a giant shark swimming past.  Sometimes they’d come up out of the drain.

I'm still traumatized by a dream I had as a kid.  My mom was swimming in a large indoor pool and for some reason she had extra-long Crystal Gayle hair.  An orca began swimming behind her and the water turned bloody.  She got out of the water and was shorter, like that grandfather on ‘King of the Hill’ who had his shins blown off.  She still had her feet but she’d lost her shins. 

That’s weird, right?

So water is another of my fears.  I just can’t stop thinking that there is an entire world underneath, one that I’m not able to sufficiently run away from if the need arose.  Like, can you really out-swim a shark?  And if you’re dragged underwater by a giant manatee (Shut up.  They’re freaky.) there’s only a certain amount of time you have to get away until you run out of breath.

Plus there are so many different species of fish and such under there that I’ve never even heard of, many with teeth.

I tried to go scuba-diving with Christopher once in a lake where we shared a tank of air and I used one of his extra mouthpiece/hose things.  My body just wouldn’t work.  I couldn’t sink, for one (that could have been because of the extra layers of cushion I’ve got, but I’m going to say it’s because of the fear).  And I started hyperventilating and popped right back up to the surface.

So you see, I’m the type of person who scares herself into thinking a shark is swimming behind her in a pool.  Obviously I have to just climb out at that point.

Welcome to my crazies.  Let me show them to you.

My first birthday.  Also probably the last time I was without fear.