Movies seen at Panic Fest 2022

I tried to see as many movies as I could, which ended up being 15 feature length films and 3 short film showcases. I tried to write small bits about each movie I saw, with as few true spoilers as possible, though I think that definition is in the eye of the beholder. . Especially with the shorter films, that means that what I could write without spoiling things was very very brief.

While all films made with limited budgets, which describes almost all current horror films and definitely almost all of the new films shown at this fest, tend to have a small cast and crew, I was specifically looking to the films this year to make interesting use of the small casts and crews that working during the pandemic would have imposed on them. One of the films used the spread of a virus as it’s main theme. Another film was set during the pandemic and I think used that very well. As someone both interested in limiting the spread of the coronavirus whenever possible, both as a healthcare worker and as a human, and as someone interested in the logistics of filmmaking, I definitely paid attention to the ways in which these films may have been made in one way solely because of the pandemic.

Without further ado, here are the movies that I saw at Panic Fest 2022 (including one featured in the picture above):

Friday

Bitch Ass - My first movie of the Fest, picked to see in the theater with others after hearing podcaster Elric Kane talk about seeing it in person with a crowd. This black horror movie, introduced by Candyman himself Tony Todd, name checks movies such as Blackuka and The People Under the Stairs. To gain entry into a gang, a group of four teens break into a house only to find they are the guests of a board game obsessed killer, playing him for their lives. There are plenty of laughs and some surprisingly well done gore, for a lower budget movie. I was glad that I saw it in person, though I keep thinking about what it might be like to see it in a theater like I grew up going to, in a largely African-American community. 

The Sadness - The title of this film does not at all fit. Directed by Canadian Rob Jabbaz, this Taiwanese film is hyperviolent and gory. It will definitely end up on the Iceberg of Disturbing movies, probably just below the water line. A young couple try to get back to each other while a virus quickly spreads across their country, turning people into sadistic killers. The gory physical and sexual violence was quite disturbing. While the movie does touch on the question of if the virus is overriding people's sense of right and wrong or if it is just unleashing what is already inside of them, I felt like that got a bit lost in all the blood and violence and rape-y-ness. This movie does earn all the trigger warnings and is not for the faint or even not so faint of heart. 

Saturday

Watcher - Introduced as Argento with a little bit of Demme, this was a good movie to cleanse the palate after The Sadness the night before and to start the longest in person day of the Fest. A woman moves with her husband to Bucharest for his job. While she is trying to learn it, she doesn't speak Romanian and must rely on her husband to translate or the hope that others speak English to communicate. We feel her isolation as she moves through the city or sits alone in their apartment while her husband works long hours. While we watch her, she watches her neighbors, only to find one watching back. Especially as a woman, the movie makes you question what is the difference between his gaze and her's, between a man following someone and a woman following them. All this is complicated by a serial killer murdering young women in the neighborhood. I really liked this one and the questions it lead me to while also having a very satisfying ending. 

Surf 2 (with Joe Lynch) - Other than enjoying it with other people on big screens, I think the most fun thing about film festivals are the guests and the movies they bring. Sometimes it's new movies, but often it is older movies. Director Joe Lynch decided to bring Surf 2, a low budget surf horror comedy from 1984 with a great new wave and punk soundtrack and tons of "hey it's that guy!" actors. In a packed theater, it was a ton of fun. Quintessential 80s nerd Eddie Deezan is using his special Buzz cola to turn the surfers of Santa Monica into goth punk zombies, hoping to ruin the big surf contest. Full of puns, dad jokes, 80s teen raunchy humor and gratuitous tit shots, it is awesomely bad and a great time. 

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes - I had to come back to write about this after I saw it because I didn’t quite know how I felt about it. What started out as a rehashing of arty-70s European horror movie, where a couple end up trapped in the house that the wife’s family have left her just like they are trapped in their marriage, becomes something else after the first act. But is it a movie about people who made these films during that time? Or a treatise on time and relationships and fidelity? This is where it got a bit murky. I was hoping for something that cleared things up a little bit more, but didn’t get anything. Maybe I could find clarity on a second watch or by talking to someone else who had watched it. It did have a higher budget and a more polished look for such a small production and definitely pulled me back to that time period, though I’m not sure it was the best film for the middle of the afternoon doldrums on the longest day of the fest. 

Sleepwalkers (with Mick Garris) - This movie is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this year. Director Mick Garris came to introduce his first collaboration with Stephen King and do a Q&A afterwards. I remember seeing this movie on VHS when I was 12 or so. The movie about incestuous mother and son cat-human beings, who somehow are only vulnerable to actual cats, trying to seduce and kill a female virgin in a small town gave me lots of weird feelings at the time. The movie was a cheesy good time, a throwback to a post-slasher, pre-meta time period in horror movies. I really liked hearing the very good-natured Garris talk about making the film at a time when $9 million was a small indie budget for a Hollywood film. 

Sidenote: The song Sleep Walk by Johnny and Santo is played over and over again in the movie. It happens to be heavily sampled in a song Never by my husband and I's favorite nerdcore rapper Schaffer the Darklord. Everytime it played, we both wanted to start the first verse. This was the first movie my husband got to join me for and it was made all the better by having our own little in-joke the whole time. 

Allegoria (with Krsy Fox and Spider One) - The last time I went to Panic Fest, I feel like I had heard more about the movies beforehand and had many that I really wanted to see. This time, I largely made my decisions first based on what was "in theater only," knowing I would try to watch as many as I could virtually at home in the next week. That means that I went into most of these movies blind. I didn't realize that this film was made by the front man of Powerman 5000 or that he and the film's star /writer /editor would be there as well. The film is an out-of-order series of related scenes about the horrors of the creative process for different kinds of artists, from an actress to a painter to a screenwriter to a sculptor. It was creepy, with several slowburn scenes, and funny, without being a comedy. Another aspect of this fest is that many of these films were made during the pandemic. It was really interesting to hear the filmmakers talking about making it during their height of the pandemic as well as seeing how the film itself worked around the pandemic, having a small crew and budget, and having a very short shooting schedule (6 8-10 hr days.)  

Sunday

Shorts Block #1 (Watched virtually at home)

Munkie- Young Asian-Canadian woman who's strict father disproves of her boyfriend sets up a robbery-murder of her parents. 

Tapehead- Faux documentary of a man who is obsessed with getting horror VHS tapes who ends up being strangled by a VHS tape that was eaten by the VCR. I thought this one was really fun and low budget and would definitely want to show it to others, maybe as an into to watching VHYes.  

Viral - Everyday Joe who wants viral video fame hits something with his vehicle and gets got. Interesting use of changing found footage for the changing times. 

Hip Cat - Actor gets roped into snobby dinner party and chased off with pitchforks. This one was a little difficult to understand why things were happening. 

The Sound - Woman goes deaf suddenly. Two years later, she starts to be able to hear something again.

The Courier - motorcycle delivery driver picks up delivery only to be drugged and given weird  egg thing. 

Monday

Masking Threshold (Watched at home virtually) - A man who has been hearing a sound for three years, but finds that doctors have been unhelpful in diagnosing or treating him, decides to conduct and record his own experiments, to be posted on the internet. He starts from a place of very strict scientific experimentation and atheistic belief but becomes more and more unhinged as the movie progresses. Shot so that we never see the narrator's face, only glimpses of his body, and inside one small room of his house, it is an interesting experiment in film. Even at 90 minutes, it did start to feel a little drawn out, but I have an appreciation for people trying to do something different in a subgenre like found footage. 

When the Screaming Starts (Watched at home virtually) - When a documentary filmmaker decides to make an aspiring serial killer the subject of his new film, he gets something different than he bargained for. This faux documentary definitely looks like what it claims to be, though unlike movies like What We Do In the Shadows, it also asks the question of what culpability does the person making this documentary have in the killings? This was a more light-hearted British horror comedy that I liked a lot. 

Woodland Grey (Watched at home virtually) - Ok so there is always a point in the fest when you hit a wall. This seems to be it for me. I just couldn't keep super interested in this movie and there was a lot of "what is everyone's backstory here?" going on. A man living in the wilderness helps save a young woman. She finds something out back in a shed and things go poorly from there. What if you go into the woods to get away from the things in your life that are haunting you? What if they just find you there? What if they won't let you leave? 

Short film showcase #2 (Watched at home virtually)

Super Host - Some weirdos stay in a woman's home as an Airbnb and leave something haunting behind. 

Lucid - Made during the 48 Hour Horror Film contest, this short features a couple who find their walk taking way longer than it should after a woman in a surgical mask warns them against continuing. Nice little ending wrap up. 

Still Together- Starts with an upbeat 80s movie intro and drops our main character into a male mannequin comes alive at Christmas 80s film. Someone saw the 80s movie mannequin and decided to ask what horrific thing would happen if that happened.

Weee Wooo - Woman at a ski lodge inexplicably goes deaf and then, just as inexplicably to me, goes outside in the middle of the night to see what weirdness is going on out there. 

Smile - Depressed woman told to smile. Creepyness in her apartment. 

My Friends the Plants - Cute little faux documentary about a woman who is trapped by the plants that mysteriously showed up at her house and only drink blood. Once again, some inexplicable decisions were made but the cuteness made up for it. 

The Gift - Aliens appear in the sky, but do nothing to show themselves for a long time until they visit a young boy one night with a gift.

The Last Christmas - There is a movie on Netflix from several years ago where a little girl wants to prove to everyone that Santa really exists so she makes plans to catch him. She actually does and hi-jinks ensue as she and her older brother have to try to save Christmas. Santa is a still hunky Kurt Russell. This is the horror movie take on that same idea. What if you were a kid trying to prove to other asshole kids that had made fun of you for your belief in Santa but everything went horribly wrong?

Wednesday

Presence (Watched at home virtually) - Two 20-something women with a big business idea go on the yacht of a billionaire who claims to want to be an investor in their idea. Everyone has secrets and some ulterior motives and maybe even an evil spirit inside them in this pretty and fairly polished film. 

Some Visitors / Lux Aeterna - This was the last film that I saw at the theater and I was very glad I did. The gruesome short Some Visitors put an interesting spin on the home invasion thriller. After the suggestion from Colors of the Dark Podcaster Elric Kane to see Lux Aeterna in a theater, I decided to push myself. It brought up interesting questions about female directors, female actors, and how both are treated in the film industry, though the lead character still has to go through what we the audience looks to be torturous for her, so are we complicit? Maybe that is why director Gasper Noe also makes the audience go through a similar sensory experience, so that it is not just the actor who goes through it. This movie is definitely not for people who have light sensitivity or get overwhelmed by movie club scenes from the 90s and 2000s with lots of flashing light. 

The Abandon (Watched at home virtually) - A soldier injured in a firefight wakes up alone in a small room with mysterious physical properties that seems to be testing him. He starts to communicate with another woman who is in a room just like his and they attempt to work out where they are, why they are there, and how to get out. Even though my husband and I guessed at many of the answers only a few minutes before the movie got there, the characters were smarter than in most films and we both liked the “what if” conceit of the movie, which I don’t want to spoil. 

Friday

Ego (Watched at home virtually) - After The Watcher, I think this may have been my favorite film of the fest. My husband liked it a great deal too. Low-budget, very few characters, both pandemic-made and pandemic-set, this was a movie about an 18 year old woman, already going through some mental health issues and the recent death of her father, who finds someone who looks just like her as she is using a dating app during a Covid-lockdown. This was creepy and “what the fuck?” and “is she crazy or is something really going on? If something really is going on, then what and why?” I was really glad that we pushed through and watched this. 

Saturday

Malibu Horror Story (Watched at home virtually) - With the festival coming to an end and wanting to find something that we could watch with my 14 year old step-daughter, I took a chance on this one and I think it went well. In this film that is a mix of found footage, more polished show, and regular filmmaking, a group of youtube paranormal investigators go into a cave that was a Native American sacred space to find paranormal evidence of what happened to a group of teens who disappeared ten years earlier. Obviously, they get more than they bargained for. I really loved the use of found footage combined with the other filmmaking approaches. There were some poor decisions made at the end of the film though.  

Sunday

Short Film Showcase #3 (watched at home virtually, last thing watched from the fest)

Shifter - Lots of inexplicable decision making in this short where a woman is talking on the phone with her partner when someone who looks like him also shows up. 

Velma - The production design on this movie was amazing in its 1970s home decor, hair, and costuming, and wacky foods. Poor Velma laments in voiceover how she thought this date was going to go well as we watch each man eat her weird 1970s dishes and then go off hand in hand with her. With each date we see more and more until we ultimately find out what has been going wrong on each date. 

Shiny New World - This was the best short of the three showcases that I watched by far. Shot in the cheery style of a new employee training video, you are introduced to your job as a cleaner for the Shiny New World company. While these vacation bungalows are often used by families, sometimes they are also used by teenagers with Necronomicon-esque books, with gruesome results. 

The Specter of Weeping Hill - A woman digs up a grave to face her fears. 

Caregiver - A student documentarian interviews a young woman who is a caretaker for her father as well as volunteering with the elderly. 

You Missed a Spot - Masked serial killer in a world where everyone is a clown. 

Lethalogia- Lethalogica is the inability to remember a particular word or name. In this short, a couple trace back the events of their night to try to remember “What was that thing you said earlier?”

Creator- What if the AI that was created to filter the worst of the worst content on the internet decided to use all that it had seen to create its own real life content?

Neighbors- A man plant-sitting for his friends finds they have loud creepypasta neighbors.

Two Years

Yesterday was the end of Panic Fest 2022, a local film festival for horror, thriller, and sci-fi movies. It might sound weird, but I feel like Panic Fest 2020 played a large part in the turning point of my life back in early 2020, even as I am still trying to live up to what I wanted to do then. Going back this year was an amazing experience that just solidified where I already was. 

A lifelong horror fan, often on my own though, I had wanted to go to Panic Fest for years, even though I didn’t grasp at the time what a film fest entailed. I just saw movies playing there and guests coming on social media or in flyers when I went to the theater that hosts it. In 2019 I got the opportunity to go to a festival in Salem that was mostly horror films but also had parties and such, so I had a better idea of what film festivals entailed after that. Finally, in 2020, I had decided to go, at least to a few movies, since it would be a kid-free weekend for me. When I was trying to decide on which movies to go see, my secondary boyfriend, referred to as G in previous posts, offered to just buy me the full pass. While I mostly went alone, my bestie met me for one movie and my primary boyfriend at the time also went with me to one movie. I had an amazing time. When I was in my 20s with very few friends, when I had the cash, I would often plan a full day at the movies by myself on an off day during the week, 3 or 4 movies in a row. I had also gone to Oscar nominated movie marathons, both alone and with others. The opportunity to spend 4 days doing nothing but watch horror movies with other people who also love horror movies enough to be there was unbelievable to me. 

It also highlighted issues in my primary relationship. My primary partner didn’t like horror movies, though he supported my love of horror in his own ways. Spending the whole kid-free weekend at the festival meant that we would only get one weekend that month together with no kids. He desperately wanted to spend as much of my kid-free time with me and was upset about losing what he saw as "his time." His reaction highlighted in my mind how much I had gotten to a place where I didn’t necessarily want to spend that time with him. In the end, several months later, an argument over this same issue - what I was planning on doing on a kid-free weekend - would end up being the straw that broke the camel’s back for me and I would end the relationship. Looking back at it now, it also brings up how differently I feel this year about the current relationship that I am in, as well as how the person I'm with now feels and reacted to me going to Panic Fest in 2022. 

Looking back from 2 years on, it feels like no time at all between Panic Fest and Covid-lockdown and the end of that relationship, but it would actually be several months. I have heard Colors of the Dark podcasters Dr. Rebekah McKendry and Elric Kane, who I met at Panic Fest 2020, talk about how it was the last festival that they went to, about how they were joking about this new virus in China as they got on the plane, and about how Dr. McKendry. who always wears a mask and gloves on the plane because she tends to get sick if she doesn’t, warned Elric and their other friend that they would be wishing they did this if that new virus from China ended up over here in the U.S. At the time, it was all jokes. It didn’t stay a joke though. My primary boyfriend and I would go to an Oscar nominated movie marathon in February. We would host a dinner party with a couple and a triad we knew, joking about how it was a “mask of the red death” party. We would go through almost all of the strict lockdown in our metro area before breaking up. 

Last year, Panic Fest was all virtual. I did not have the money, or the time, I don’t think, to participate. This year, when it rolled around and was both in person and virtual, I jumped. We are transitioning to thinking of money as “our” money still and do not have a joint bank account, so even though it was more moving money around between accounts, in my head it still felt like my husband giving me money to be able to do this thing, especially after I had a week off with the stomach flu left me without the planned money from my paycheck to pay for things like food and drinks and souvenirs at the fest. He was happy I was getting to go do this thing that is big for me. He never complained about being without me. And then a thing that caught me off guard happened. I realized as I was planning which movies to see that I was going to really miss him. I didn’t want it to stop me from going, but I started to feel like I would enjoy it more with him than alone. He became kid-free on Saturday evening and asked if I would like him to join me. I gladly took him up on his offer. While I wrote out the movies that were playing, so he could decide what he wanted to see with me, he told me that he would just go see whatever I wanted. (My husband would not describe himself as a horror fan, but he will watch most horror movies with me and grew up watching all the 80’s horror movies with his friends as teenagers. He just doesn’t want us to only watch horror movies, which is fine because I don’t either.) He joined me for what I was planning on watching on Saturday night and then watched movies virtually with me in the evenings of the next week. I really enjoyed his company for everything in a way that I have often struggled with when it comes to horror movies with other people I’ve dated. I guess this just highlights why we are a better fit than the other people.

 Like many people, my life has changed significantly since I went to Panic Fest 2020, in ways that were largely completely unexpected. While the rest of the world went through Covid lockdowns and many people lost jobs early on, I wouldn’t lose my job until the summer of 2021, when I couldn’t come back soon enough after a back surgery, and then lose 2 more jobs in the fall of 2021 and early winter of 2021-2022. While I have a job now, of the same sort I was working in January of 2020 when I went to Panic Fest, I have had car issues, health issues, and been bouncing around assignments so I haven’t enjoyed a regular and dependable paycheck in the last few months. In summer of 2020, I would start dating, at first casually dating, the man who is now my husband but was then a years long friend. Our relationship would grow increasingly serious, leading us to decide to move in when my lease was up but then deciding to get married before that. My kids would go from being in school to being virtually schooled, including one semester where I was the parent helping them during the day while working 2nd shift, to being back in school. It has been an eventful two years and I could not have predicted I would be where I am now the last time I went to Panic Fest. In fact, if you had told me, I would have probably laughed in your face. 

Being at Panic Fest would help to continue other changes in how I saw things as well. It would open my eyes to all the other horror lovers out there, in my area, who are just regular looking men and women with regular day jobs. After going to Salem Horror Fest in October of 2019 I knew that these people existed, but it was hard to believe that they were here with me in the Midwest. I probably need to explain something. After about the time I was in 8th grade, coming across other female horror fans in person seemed difficult. For several reasons, I had trouble fitting into goth culture when I did find it, but even befriending goth people was no guarantee of finding other people who actually liked large swaths of horror films. Maybe they liked vampire films or The Crow or a few here and there, but no one who had much of anything beyond that interest or knowledge. As I got older, I could find more men who liked horror but we often don’t see eye to eye on why we like horror movies or what we get out of them. Also, while I love a pop culture or an academic reading of horror, many of these people I have met decidedly don’t. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, I have found it hard to feel like I belong in what often felt like a conservative (white, ok so I am that one) cis (and that one too, though I try to be an ally as much as I can) hetro non-feminist horror fandom that glorified the killers. As I started to listen to horror podcasts, even ones with men on them, who have the same feelings I do, I knew there was a place for me somewhere, but I had never found it. Being at Panic Fest  with a pretty even mix of men and women, both with people who wore their vests full of horror pins or were gothed up as well as people who one would never guess were horror fans, made me feel like maybe I could find that locally. 

It also helped push me to keep my desire to write in my head, even if I haven’t always devoted the time I wish I had to it. I remember talking to Dr. McKendry, telling her that I just loved horror but didn’t have a film horror story in me. She told me that everyone has at least one script in them, even if I haven’t found it yet. I kept that in my brain and when I found my story, I decided to start a screenplay, which I’m still working on. I have also continued to write, as my life and time and mental health have allowed. It hasn’t been as much as I might have wanted, but it has been something. That desire to keep devoting some time to writing lead me to decide to work fewer days a week and set aside one of the days for writing. 

In the last two years, I have also started to find my horror voice as well as find more horror voices. In giving credit where credit is due, the primary boyfriend I had in 2020 pushed me hard to embrace my love of horror and let my horror flag fly, even if he didn’t like horror movies. I have horror decorations, horror jewelry, and horror clothes. At the time, sometimes, it felt a little too pushed. It sometimes seemed like things went a little overboard in an effort to make sure that I felt comfortable being my horror-ness, especially while living with someone who didn’t like most horror movies. I feel like since then I’ve found a place that is more comfortable for me. One of the areas that I’ve spread into recently is horror twitter, specifically horror author twitter. It is lovely to see horror writers who don’t look goth at all, showing me I don’t have to always look goth to be taken seriously in my horror-dom, as well as ones who seem SHOCK happy, showing me I can enjoy all the dark I want while being happy. 

Like with most of my writings, as I peter out, I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say. I think I just wanted to have some external processing for all the feelings that doing this thing 2 years later brought up. I am eternally grateful for all the people that helped me find all these feelings these last two years, from the man I now call my husband to the horror authors on twitter who inspire me to the masses that came out to the Fest who showed me that I’m not alone. I’m crossing my fingers and working hard so that I am even more a part of the horror community, maybe even having something published before the next Panic Fest. 

Blending Families in a Time of Covid

Laying on the floor with my legs up on the couch to relieve pressure on my back. Currently I'm the one making sure the kids don't need anything while my boyfriend is cleaning up the kitchen post-breakfast and our daughters are playing Minecraft.

Except we're in neighboring suburbs as we do this. The girls are playing Minecraft in our respective homes on a Saturday morning when we have them over the weekend. They are using our messenger log-ins to talk to each other over video chat.

Welcome to late-pandemic. I'm fully vaccinated. He is still several days away from his 2nd shot and 2 more weeks away from them being fully effective. Our kids aren't vaccinated. We have some plans for hopefully moving on together later this year but so much is in the air.

One of these things is how well our kids will get along. Our daughters playing Minecraft and doing video chat is a test of this. It has worked out well so far. But this hasn't gotten to be tested with my son added into the mix as well.

We messed up our scheduling for the end of April and month of May. I have either one or both kids every other weekend. He has his kid the weekend with the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month. Most of the time, we are in sync, having kid weekends apart and getting non-kid weekends together. But every 3 or 4 months, it switches up. Typically I then adjust my schedule, take kids for 2 weekends in a row and then every other weekend from there. Because of a mixup in our shared calendar, I switched my weekends and now for the end of April and all of May, we are off sync, no weekends without kids together. The silver lining is that my fuck-up means that through all of May, he and I get to spend time with the other's kids, to see how we parent around the other one and how our kids like being around the other adult before we need to make any binding decisions.

For now, we are settling for Minecraft and video chats as a start. It's going well. As well as it could go for kids 7 years apart. Every once in a while, my boyfriend wanders back in the room his kid is in and I hear his voice. My heart swells and I think that this is what it's going to be like, the girls playing, him helping with video game stuff, just like maybe I'll get to do spooky stuff with them. (It is difficult to see how my son will fit into all of this but I foresee quite a lot of my bf teaching him things by taking them apart, learning computers by messing them up and then fixing it, just like my bf had to do back in the days before you could look up on your phone how to fix the thing you just fucked up on your computer.) Until then, we work with what we have.

And then I bit you

This weekend I had some real moments of doubt about this thing we're doing. Not about us as partners. Not about all the talk of our future. Not about being poly and hopefully starting to make other connections once we're vaccinated. No my doubts were about the BDSM, about me being the Mistress and you being the submissive. I know you aren't cut out for it being the other way. I am not sure I'd even want you to try to do that. But we also havent found that spot for you, that thing that gets you worked up the way it does me, that subspace. You want me to push you but I'm not exactly sure how. I feel like I am failing you, like I am failing us. Any other time, we'd just go to all the demos and classes we could, learn from and play with whoever we could. I know enough people in our local community. But we still aren't out there in it because of covid risk.

Then, I bit you.

You got into a bad headspace about something. When I came out of the bathroom, you were on top of the covers, cuddled up to your body pillow, facing my side of the bed. You were silent as a stone, but you were still there, still facing me. Sometimes that is the most we can manage. Sometimes even that is an incredible act of bravery. "This is what it's like to stay with me." I laid next to you on the bed and asked if I could touch you. You said yes and we were there together, quietly, for a few minutes.

I was there to listen to why you were upset, your doubts and fears. To hold you and touch you. Then you started to spiral into blaming yourself. I didn't know what to say or how to stop you from going where I knew you were going. I knew because I've done the same thing myself a million times. You were laying on your stomach. I had been caressing your back and kissing the back of your shoulder. But in that moment, when I didn't know quite what to do to stop the train, I found a meaty place on the top of your arm and I bit you. Not hard enough to really hurt but harder than the graze of teeth when kissing. It did what I wanted it to. You can have your feelings and I'm here for them, for you. But you have to stay here. You can't go there.

Later I thought about it. Who the fuck does that? What kind of relationship is that ok in? The answer: ours. The truth is that you have taken to service brilliantly. Even before we were in these roles, you used how I kept my place up as an inspiration for keeping yours better. You've become accustomed to doing the things that I've asked or that you know I'll need or want when I'm with you. Things that I sorta felt silly asking for at first have become almost second nature to us both. Hell, sometimes you remember better than I do. Knowing that you have put this devotion into me makes me want to be better too. A better person and partner and adult and mom and Mistress. As a good friend reminded me today, "we are all in service to our partners, top or bottom." The reason I hadn't looked for a new Dominant partner was because I didn't know anyone I was interested in who I felt I could trust with my devotion and service. That makes it all the more important to me to be someone you can trust with yours. Someone I trust with yours.

Yes, I am still stumbling in the dark. We still haven't found our thing. And yes I still worry we won't. Except... we have found a thing. We have found how your service to me demands more of you while also showing you that you are deserving of being owned. We have found how your service demands more of me as a person and as the one who cares for you while also demands that I give up my white-knuckled control over my life and doing everything for myself. No it isn't like finding out that you're a secret pain slut or that I'm amazingly adept at needle play. But my hope is that those things will come with time, and getting to have some mentorship and teaching in the community. This foundation of love and trust will be what we build that on though.

If I Only Had Time Is Bullshit, Sorta

Spring 2020 I ended my long-term relationship with T. I thought I would have lots of time. I remember thinking about all the things that I would do once I was single, especially as I was single during a time that was after the initial lockdown, but while everyone was still supposed to be keeping a smaller circle, going out much much less, etc. I suddenly had Monday nights, Wednesday nights, and every other Friday and Saturday nights to myself to make plans with myself. I was writing more, meditating more, binging shows I wanted to watch more. I didn’t want to start any new romantic relationships and didn’t even see how that would be possible. 

Within a month though, I was messaging and having virtual dates with people who had been my friends in the BDSM community or over facebook, just to see what would happen. It was sexy and thrilling to know that these people wanted me too, when I had thought that my dating life might sorta be over. Then I started messaging with E regularly and by the end of June, we were dating regularly. I was spending Wednesday nights with him, then weekends when I didn’t have the kids, and even sometimes Mondays. We’d talk every night until late at night. Much of that writing and meditating time was sacrificed to spend that time with him. I was ok with that, knew that it was what happens when I get in a relationship, but it still went away. I still kept dreaming about getting to quit my day job and write full time. Then I changed my schedule so I could preschool-ing the kids in the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday before going to work 2pm-10pm. At first I had the dream that I could write on Tuesday or Friday mornings, but what I found was that I was really sleeping in and grocery shopping those days, as I couldn’t do it any of the times I had the kids with me or after work. (One kid wears her mask pretty well but the other kid has sensory issues and won’t leave his on.) I kept dreaming about how I wanted a week off work where I could just write. 

As usual, the universe did give me what I asked for, just not how I might have hoped. By the end of January, I was having pain in my left leg. At first it just felt like I just needed to stretch, which I did. By the end of the first week, though, I was having numbness and pain in my left calf if I stood on it too long. I went to the doctor and started PT. After 2 months of this though, my pain got even worse. I spent one week where I cancelled on the kids and work every day because it wasn’t better. After that I went on FMLA and started pursuing seeing a pain doctor, to get a cortisone shot. I switched up kid days, so that I didn’t need to get up in the morning to get them anymore, since the morning is by far my worst time of the day. I have them overnight 2 nights during the week and then do school work the next morning with them. (Yes, my co-parents are very flexible and we don’t have any custody schedule filed with the court currently, so we can change this easily enough.)

That should give me plenty of time to write, right? In theory, yes. But in practice, most of this time, when I’m not with kids or doing the absolutely necessary chores, I’ve been laying down, as it is the least painful position to be in. It is difficult to type in any of the comfortable laying positions. I also just don’t have the energy while dealing with the pain. So I have had time for writing, I haven’t had the mobility or the free energy. 

Two weeks ago, during a conversation with E, I realized that he doesn’t fully understand my mental illness or know my struggles with it. (I should say mental illnesses, plural, as I manage both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, but really borderline is the one that he knows less about and has taken more mental effort to manage, while my bipolar disorder is mostly well managed with medication.) An idea that had been on the back burner for a while had been to write him something that would give him an idea of what BPD looked like in me, but I hadn’t had time for doing that either. After that conversation though, I realized that it needed to get bumped up the list. As I was brainstorming that though, I realized that I could write a book with all of this information. Last Tuesday, when I didn’t have children at all and wouldn’t see E in the evening either, I sat down and spent all day typing things out for E. It was more of an outline of the specific issues that arise with my BPD, how I have learned to manage those issues, and how he can help me if I am having a difficult time managing those issues. It came to 18 pages typed. Then I started working on an outline for the book, which would include more personal anecdotes about my life living with BPD and then adding in more polished versions of what I had written for E. Yesterday was another Tuesday. I worked on filling in the outline more, but by hand in my notebook while laying in bed. 

I also have several other things that I would like to write. A fiction short story. A few blog posts that I had written the ideas out for but hadn’t actually filled in. Working on either one of my novels that i have outlined. Writing a piece to hopefully catch the eye of a local online magazine so they might give me a paying writing gig. Currently, sitting in an office chair usually isn’t too painful. They provide more support for my back and I’m getting better every day at keeping my posture good. I have gotten the cortisone shot last Friday, though I am still having a bit of pain. Even before that though, I was able to sit in my desk chair to type. 

So now I technically have the time to write. I can even often sit up at a computer to type. But the thing that gave me that time drains my energy and emotional resources so I do not always want to write, do not always feel like I have the headspace to write. And I’m supposed to be healing, not writing. Should I push through and write? Or do I heal, not write, and then I’m back in the same spot when I have to go back to work of not having the time to write? What if I can’t go back to work at my current job? I’m trying to thread the needle between those first two questions, while also not letting myself get depressed or down, in part because of that third question. I would love to work full-time as a writer. As E and I get closer to moving in, the agreement is that I could quit my current job to do anything else I wanted as long as I could make as much as I was making in my current job, which isn’t a whole hell of a lot, but it has been enough to (mostly) keep my head above water on my own with the 2 kids part-time in a 2 bedroom apartment in a decent school district. So here is me, working on writing regularly, no DAILY, on my multiple projects so that maybe I can not do my job. Or in case I can’t ever do my job. Wish me luck. Hopefully more will be showing up here too. 

Costing Your Old Life

It’s a weird thing, making a new life. Maybe more so realizing that you have made a new life.

There’s a meme that makes the rounds on Facebook. I always like it and often share it when I see it because I do think it is true. It is a quote from writer Brianna West, “Your new life is going to cost you your old one.” I had this in my head as I was celebrating with my parents and my kids on Christmas morning, eating breakfast casseroles after opening presents, just like we used to at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house when I was younger. When you were all still alive.

I have a Spotify playlist called “XMas”, full of less traditional Christmas songs, or at least songs sung in less traditional ways by less traditional artists. I was playing this on repeat Christmas morning when the Jill Sobule version of “Merry Christmas From The Family” came on that you had liked so much. It was on that CD I bought at 14 of Christmas songs sung by alt rock artists. After a childhood of buying my mom Christmas tapes and then CDs by artists that she (or we) liked every year, this was the first one by artists I listened to. I had really bought it because I read that Tori Amos would have a song on it. I was excited to share it with you because of that. Honestly, neither of us liked the Tori Amos rendition of “Little Drummer Boy,” but we loved the Jill Sobule song. Sung by her on this album, it seemed a bit sarcastic, slightly making fun of her mildly trashy, mildly racist family. I wouldn’t find out until years later that it was originally written by an alt country artist. When sung by him, it sounds a bit more proud of his trashy family than hers does. I still love that song and listen to it every year, often sharing it on Facebook during the Christmas season.

The choruses about running to the convenience store for stuff they have run out of remind me of a specific Christmas years before I bought that album. My parents and I were still living in Chicago so we were celebrating at my dad’s parents house for Christmas eve. As per usual, we escaped the family by making our own convenience store run. You would get Diet Coke as always but I really wanted to find a place that had Crystal Pepsi. I must have been 10 years old because that came in out 1992. You would have been 21. All that was on the radio was Christmas music, old fashioned Christmas music. You were so tired of Christmas music by then. I’m sure we must have put a tape in at that point, as we had to drive around town for quite a bit to find a convenience store still open without the aid of google maps. I couldn’t tell you exactly what was said or if maybe we did eventually find a radio station with regular music on. But it is one of those memories for me that both makes my day and breaks my heart at the same time, now that you are gone.

To have this life, I had to give up my old one. Even if it wasn’t exactly my choice. If I hadn’t lost you, and Grandma and Grandpa, I might not have had to do the work on myself that I did, the work I had to do just to survive it. I wouldn’t have had the desire to create a bigger family that lead to my kids. I wouldn’t have had the skills, gained in therapy after your death, to be able to slowly but surely get to where I am now. This Christmas that I am so proud of doing on my own (-ish) with my folks and my kids (all in masks because of Covid) in the apartment that I love wouldn’t have happened without all that. I wouldn’t have been able to make and keep the 2 romantic relationships I have and cherish now, or the close friendships that mean so much to me. I wouldn’t have this life that I am trying as hard as I can to live on my own terms.

Some of the memes continue the quote, “It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It’s going to cost you relationships and friends. It’s going to cost you being liked, and understood. But it doesn’t matter. Because the people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. And you’re going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forwards. And instead of liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of understood, you’re going to be seen. All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are. Let it go.” I am finding all of that to be true and yet I’m not quite sure I can ever do that. You and that history are in the music and the traditions and the food. I just hope to find ways to integrate that into the new life that I build that is mine, that is what i want it to be.

Graying At the Temples

Last night I sat across from my twin brother and saw the gray in his beard, maybe really taking it in for the first time. 

An old friend messaged me out of the blue with a picture of him and his son. When I sent him back a picture of new glasses and new haircut, he said that he basically feels like in every picture he looks the same, except a little bit older and a little bit grayer. 

Today I was listening to the alternative radio station. On Sunday mornings they typically have Resurrection Sunday which plays alternative tracks from the 70s and 80s. When I first moved to this city at 13 I remember how cool I thought it was and Sunday mornings for much of my high school. I would get up and listen to Resurrection Sunday, even taping songs that I liked. ("Make a little birdhouse in your soul....") While I'm not always up and sometimes I've had to work on Sunday mornings, it is a thing that I like to put on when I can, when I'm up, when I'm in control of the radio. But the radio station recently adjusted their format, going to something a little bit more corporate. I was interested to see if they kept Resurrection Sunday. And they did but they didn't. The new show only runs until 11:00 instead of noon and it's called "Postmodern." (I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.) It includes a lot of songs from the '90s, so songs that I grew up listening to as newer alternative tracks when I first started listening to Resurrection Sunday. I was sort of devastated. I felt really old. Something that I've listened to for a really long time was suddenly gone. And then when I started doing the math I realized that I'd been listening to it for almost 25 years. That it had been 25 years since I had been that girl sitting in my bedroom listening to music that my parents had no interest in and reading books that I had secretly checked out from the library, giving myself my first education on non-mainstream sexuality. Those are some of my favorite memories and they were bright spots in a really depressed and stressed out time in my life. Those memories feel so close but they were actually quite a long time ago.

 I haven't dyed my hair in a bit. (I really should write down when I do these things.) For all of my life I have dyed my hair for funsies. Because I wanted to. Because I dislike how dark my natural hair color is. I like my hair a lighter shade of brown or red. I have a box of hair dye sitting in the bathroom, just waiting. I've been noticing more and more the gray in my hair. About a month ago I felt really self-conscious seeing the gray at my left temple in the mirror after I knew that my newest boyfriend had been looking at that side of my face and hair while we laid in bed talking earlier in the day. When I told him about it I recognized how silly and vain it sounded. Honestly he didn't have his glasses on, so he probably couldn't see it at all. He's also a full decade older than me so he's already dealt with a lot of these feelings, but it did still bother me at the time.   

Growing up there was not a time that I remember where my mother and my grandmother were not dying their hair explicitly to cover gray. My mother diligently dyed her hair every couple of months to cover the gray. No one ever sat me down and told me that women with gray hair looked old and that looking old was bad. They didn't have to, right? It's one of those culturally indoctrinated beliefs, backed up by all the things we see around us, the advertisements, the behaviors of our mothers and grandmothers, comments people make about each other and themselves. This idea that we are less attractive the older we look and so should learn to lessen or hide the signs of aging. 

But as I was talking to the boyfriend who is closer to my age, who is about to turn 40 in January, about feeling self-conscious about these signs of aging, another thing hit me. There are times when I look in the mirror at that gray and my temples and the random shiny silver hairs that sparkle among the almost black hair and I am amazed. I am amazed that they are there. I never thought I would live this long. Now I'm not like some people where I had a number, where I thought I wouldn't live past 27 or 40. I just never got to a place where I could imagine this age, my hair being gray, wrinkles. But I did get here. In many ways it's been hard won, but I have won it. I am so proud of that.

And now I still have to think about whether or not I want to dye my hair. I don't want my daughter thinking that she has to cover up those things, that she is less attractive for being whatever age she is, for looking that age. Hell, now at 38, I have three lovers who all look at me like I am amazingly beautiful and the best thing on the planet. I don't have to wonder whether they want me or not, whether or not they're with me physically just because I'm the only option or because they are expected to be as my partner. I made it this far and I'm really proud of it. I'm better than I ever was and I'm proud of that. I like my hair red, I like my hair lighter than it is, but a part of me is proud of the gray and doesn't want to cover it up. 

I'm also thinking that I should embrace the new Sunday show. It still has some of the songs I loved from the old show, it just covers a longer period of music history. I don't begrudge new music in general, why should I feel that way about adding music to this canon? I can also use new technology like Spotify to listen to the music I miss, and I don't even have to wait until Sunday morning. Just because I am getting older, doesn't mean that I have to stagnate. 

Update after the initial writing: I did decide to dye my hair. I am hoping it turns out as bright as I want it to be, a red contrast to the black cat's eye glasses I just got. I am dying it because I want that change, that lighter different color. Not because the gray makes me look old. This dye isn't designed to cover gray and I know that the gray in my temples doesn't hold color for very long. I don't want it to. I just want a difference. Something new. It may be a fine line to walk, the am I dying it for myself and the color or to hide gray. Nothing is ever simple and direct. I hope to teach my daughter that it is all complicated and sometimes The best we can do is to think about a thing before we do it, knowing that the answer is never entirely one or another. 

Transitioning Roles

My BDSM is in a weird place.

It’s not going away, it’s just…in transition.

For as long as I could remember anything on the deviant end of the sexual spectrum turned me on. I remember being a kid and watching Silk Stalkings on USA. I was probably way too young to be watching it. I think that I would actually sneak to watch it. It was one of those shows where I had to turn the channel back to something else whenever anyone walked in the room. Silk Stalkings was like Law and Order: SVU except if the fashion was more Miami Vice and the goal was definitely more to titillate than SVU would ever own up to. By the time I was a teenager I was searching out any kind of literature about sex and gay-ness and BDSM. It was the trifecta my hidden interests. Goddess love the local library and a mom who would just drop me off and not pay any attention to what books I brought home.

In my mid-to-late twenties I started actually seeking it out. I met several Dominant men who scared me off. I also had several partners that had some interest in BDSM but weren't really interested in living it as a lifestyle the way that I seemed to be. But I kept seeking it out and then I finally found a partner who identified as a dominant but who didn't scare me off. Even though S and I were supposed to be a side relationship, we fell in love and stayed together for many years, creating a household and family with his (then our, then just his again) partner L. 

In that relationship, there were many ways where I felt like a kid in a candy store. I wanted to try so many things and when we did play together there were lots of things that he helped me explore. There were more things that we talked about and hoped to do in the future. In that relationship I also made what felt at the time like a natural transition from submissive to slave. I do have a streak of wanting to serve. I was the only child in my family and the only grandchild on my mom’s side, who we spent more time with. I was also a girl-child with a mother who liked to keep a fairly clean house. I had chores early on as well as just general pitching in when I could. Once when I was at summer day camp and I jumped right up to help clean up the tables after a snack and wipe them down, something that usually the counselors did, the counselor I had a crush on called me “very domestic.” Thinking about it now, I’m not sure that he wasn’t making fun of me. Back then, I thought it must be a compliment and went home to find out what that meant. Now it gives me the warm fuzzies to be told "good girl"  and "good job."  It makes me happy when I know that I did something that made my partner's life easier even if only in a really superficial way. Even now, without actively trying, I do still set up things for G (#2 in previous posts, now the only partner I have) and serve in little tiny ways that I can, even if that's just trying to make sure there is a big glass of water around and a wash cloth and towel for him.

But there was also something else going on there I think, in the transition from submissive to slave. I know that at that time of my life I was desperate to have someone else watching over me and helping me to continue to make the right decisions. I had gone through over a year of therapy to help manage the worst of my mental illness but I still struggled to be what I felt was productive enough and to keep everything in line. When I looked at relationships on FetLife and things I read about Master/slave relationships, that was something that these Masters helped the slave do and I wanted that. I know that in the beginning of that transition S wanted to help me with that too but I think often people taking on a Master role with someone who is looking for a lot of guidance and control don't always know what they're biting off. And I also think that a slave who wants that level of control often doesn't know what that requires. I know I sure as hell didn't. And for as much as I love to serve I also have a stubborn, "fuck you" streak a mile wide. Obviously that would prove to be problematic.

The other way that I used being a slave to patch over issues was that I still had no way to figure out how to negotiate the workload in a relationship. In that relationship with S and L I used having that role as a slave to patch over the fact that the people that I was with did not have the same expectations of house cleaning as I did and were not going to do that sort of work as often as I would want it done. I don't mean to sound disparaging because I believe it's just a difference in how people see things and where people choose to put their energy. For me, it can be energizing to clean or stop me from being able to relax until something is done. I know that it is not that way for everyone. I also know that L in particular worked a taxing job and also dealt with her own mental health struggles, and just wanted to relax when home, not spend precious time and energy doing cleaning things, at least not until they were at a higher threshold than when I would do them at. But when you live together either the neater person has to lower their standard, the less neat person has to raise their standards or the neater person has to take it on themselves to do then lion's share of the of the work. I chose to take on more of the work and then just pushed it into the slave roll. It was way for me to tell myself that it wasn't a big deal that I was doing a majority of housework because I was the slave and that was my place and it made my partners, particularly my Master pleased with me. And on one level that's totally true. On another, it meant that I didn't have to do the hard interpersonal work of negotiating with them to handle things in a more balanced manner or the hard personal work of deciding when that was not a good situation for me. I would also find out later that me doing all that work would make them feel guilty, even though I tried not to handle it in a passive-aggressive manner. Some times there is no winning.

Even after that relationship blew up, I still wanted that role. I still wanted to serve. And I got with a partner, T, who had never really had a slave but was more than happy to try for me. While that relationship was very different from the the one before that, I think my stubborn streak was probably too much for what that role entailed. He was involved in our local BDSM community and had experience with what someone being a slave looked like. He knew that I was trying for that, but some of the ways in which I bridled at his authority in the relationship as a whole did not come off like that. Also, a large part of T's social life was being involved in the BDSM community in our city and, in an attempt to find our spot, we took on roles in the community that meant I served in a different way and that took away from serving him at those events. We made friends with people who run a small local dungeon and that became a big part of our community activity, especially when I went back to school and was not available for as many events as I had been. In an effort to assist our new friends and to take a larger role in the community, I started running the door at their events. That meant that for the first 2-3 hours of the night I was away from my Master. While I can be somewhat shy with people I don't know well, running the door gave me a great opportunity to introduce myself and talk to many new people. It also meant that I met them as just myself, not at T's girl or slave. After I was done working the door, I started to socialize with people I was developing friendships with, which took away from serving him at those events. While I got more out of those events socially, it definitely took a toll on the Master/slave dynamic in our relationship.

There were other issues in that relationship. As I started making changes to myself and as I grew, I felt like what we wanted grew apart. This was also true in the sense of the BDSM relationship. The first time he and I broke up, I remember telling my good friend, who is the Dominant in her relationships, that I wasn't really sure I would ever find another dominant. I told her that I looked around at our community and was not necessarily impressed with the dominant men I saw. At that time, a year ago, I knew that I wouldn't be able to submit to someone that I didn't respect and who did not have their shit together in their life and I didn't really see that around me. She reassured me, saying that it might just take time but that it would be worth it. In the year since, there has been even less BDSM in my life. I went through a streak where I couldn't make it to events because I had children on the weekends at those happened. While I got back with T and tried to make that relationship work out, we didn't play in public because our dynamic felt weird and it made me more pissed off to get hit then anything else. Don’t get me wrong. I actually don’t mind getting mad during play and it can lead to great catharsis in the end. We did do that in private play. It just isn’t the public play that T and I wanted to engage in.

Now I am at a spot where I have no idea what is necessarily going to come next. I've broken up again with T. My only partner is G, who was my secondary for the last year, someone I've known for 7 years now, who has an interest in these things but not much experience and definitely no interest in any sort of 24/7 situation. He definitely isn't interested in having a Master/slave relationship. And to be quite honest I'm not either. If the last few years have taught me anything it's that no one can make decisions for me as well as I can make them for myself. Even when they are bad decisions, I'm probably better if I'm making them myself. I'm the only one who knows me and who knows exactly what's going on in my head. I am still at a place where there's always something I don't tell my partners, always some preference I have that maybe doesn't make any sense at all that if I then make a decision against that will come back to bite me in the ass. This isn't to say that I'm not happy to make decisions with a partner and that I’m not still working on being more emotionally honest. I am both of those things. But I still have to do the hard work of making the decisions myself. I can't use the BDSM dynamic to paper over my shortcomings or the shortcomings in the relationship, can't use it as a way to not communicate how I feel and what I want and to do the hard work of trying to find what fits everyone. Right now I live by myself and take care of the kids by myself when I have them. I know there will be times when that's really hard, when that is much harder without a partner to help pick up the slack. I also think that it's what's best right now. And I'm aware that if I ever live with anyone again there's going to be a lot of talking and they're going to have to want to do all that talking to figure out where everything fits for us.

What I do know is that I still like getting hit. It still turns me on to think of kneeling in front of or next to my lover. I want to explore sensations and have experiences that are typically outside of most people's sexual repetiore. I want to get to have other skilled BDSM practioners use their skills on me. Sometimes, I even want to be the one holding the reins. I want to find my own path and see where it leads. While there is a part of me that yearns for clearly defined and unchanging roles, I'm getting better at telling her to chill out and just let it be what it is for now.

Planning in a time of Pandemic

Last week, I wrote a piece about upcoming plans the people in my larger poly group had (though I only finished editing it today because I’ve been wrapped up in other things.). Things changed quickly after that though. #1's FWB cancelled because of fears of Coronavirus on Wednesday night. That night it felt like a possible overreaction. By Friday night, #2's partner's conference in a month had been cancelled, and thus our overnight time together. 

But it wasn't only those plans that were cancelled. A few people I know are working from home but I also know people who basically aren't working for the foreseeable future. A bartender who is now just without a job, a bartender /server who is trying to get by on people picking up food from the pub they work at. Even a lawyer who isn't doing any work at the moment because court has been cancelled for a month.

Even I didn't work the beginning of this week, though that was because I got sick - with strep. Yep, during a pandemic I managed to get sick with something completely different. Between having both children at my apartment and being sick with strep, which #1 is particularly susceptible to, I haven't even seen him like usual. #2 and I managed to squeeze in some time today but seeing #2 is up in the air in the future for various reasons, including that if either one of us had a temp, we wouldn't meet up just in case the one with a temp did have covid-19, so the other wasn't spreading it to their household. There is also the constant threat of city-wide lockdown, which could start at any moment. Of course, 3 years ago I decided to choose the one profession that IS still working right now, healthcare. For better or for worse though, I am not working in a facility at all at the moment and am not even sure if I will continue to work if a lockdown happens. In addition to still bringing in a paycheck, I do know how lucky I am to be able to see my partners at all. Many people either can’t or they or their partners are choosing not to see anyone other than who they live with at the moment. As many poly people only live with one partner, or no partners at all, they are going to go through this without seeing the people they love, or having to choose which partner that is. 

As as I am writing this, a message from #2 and a text from my mother came in at almost the same time. Our metro area now has an order to stay in except from essential duties starting Tuesday. It may not change anything other than that what was once a strong suggestion has now become an order. It will probably mean that I won’t get to see #2 until all this blows over. It is also one step closer to a more formal lockdown. At this point though, other than definitely not getting to see anyone other than #1, my kids, and people I work with/for, since I am still working but wasn’t doing anything non-essential anyway, it won’t change my life much. 

And yet it still feels like a big change to life. And a big downer.

I think that is all from me for now. I think I’m going to work on some of my other writing. After letting things sit while I was sick last weekend, I finally hooked up my little crummy laptop that has broken Q, A, and 1 keys to a USB keyboard, finished the editing of the previous post and started working on this one. After I edit and hopefully post this one tonight, I think I’m going to work on my fiction. Even though it is supposed to be a scary story, it seems like it might lighten my mood more than reality. 

I do have one nice poly story for you in this time of pandemic.

So last weekend was my weekend with both children. Now, both kids just started pre-school this last fall. It was their first exposure to the germ factory that is a roomful of other children and they have been sick ever since. Especially one of them. When I got them on Friday, their dad told me that neither of them had a fever but one still had a (wet) cough and the other had a runny nose. Meh. Whatever. Just another weekend with them. Saturday I developed a headache and my ears ached. When I did a daily temp check, I found that we all had elevated temperatures, in the 100-101 range. Fuck. They didn’t complain of any new symptoms and we just stayed inside. Sunday we have the same thing, except that now my throat hurts. Bad. Like glass. Warm things do not help. Still have elevated temps. Kids still feel fine. I call the doctor and the nurse doing phone triage says that it doesn’t sound like COVID, call if any new symptoms occur, but we can probably just self quarantine for this too, until temp goes away. Now, while we don’t think this is COVID, the kids’ dad has respiratory issues, so I tell my exes that I’ll just keep the kids overnight and call in sick for Monday. 

Monday morning rolls around and it is now definitely strep that I have. My temp is over 102 now and there is now more pain on one side than the other. The kids’ other mom has the day off work as they decide what they are doing, so she offers to come over and help with the kids. She even stays the night for Monday and Tuesday night, while the kids’ temp gets back to normal and I get some rest too. Now, she didn’t have to do that. I also didn’t have to keep the kids at my house, as it wasn’t what our custody arrangement is. I have never had another adult stay over at my apartment with me. While I have a really civil relationship with my exes, we are still exes and not exactly friends at this point. At first, I was a bit uncomfortable with her there. I’m sure it wasn’t the most comfortable for her either. It isn’t something I really want to do again. AND it helped so much and worked out really well for all of us to get our needs met. I am so grateful that I had that help and that even though things ended, we can still come together when we need to. I even think that she and I helped mend some fences in the talking we did while she was there. 

Take care of yourselves. Take care of those you love. Try to use this time that you may be stuck in and around your house to do things you’ve been putting off, like that home project or writing that story. Get outside and enjoy some sunshine, even if you can’t do it with other people. And if you still have to work because you work for essential services, thank you. I hope that you also stay well.   

Different, or Even Unequal, Does Not Mean Unfair

I am part of several groups on social media for open and/or poly relationships. People new to poly often ask how poly people don’t get jealous or how do they deal with feeling like it is unfair if their partner gets dates /sex/relationships when they are striking out. I have seen several times where one partner, who hadn't had much luck dating, wanted to close the relationship or have their partner stop seeing someone new until they had found someone to date. Those people in the group who have been open or poly longer try to explain that 1) everyone's luck in dating will ebb and flow and sometimes the shoe will be on the other foot and 2) even experienced poly ppl do feel jealous, insecure, and a whole host of other feelings about their partners dating, having sex with, or having relationships with other people. 

This morning I got poked by that bear.

#1, who hasn't really dated since we opened the relationship, has a weekend, Thursday to Sunday planned with a long distance friend with benefits. A full weekend with three nights together. A month from now, #2 and I have an overnight planned. Our original plan was to spend Monday from our respective AM child drop off times until time to go to work Tuesday morning. We were both taking the day off work. Last night I got a message that he just realized his kid has Monday off school so he'll be parenting that day, at least I'm assuming until his ex takes over in the evening, as he still plans on being over Monday night. Also, he can take Tuesday morning off work to spend with me if I can do the same. I hadn't asked off work yet so it's not that big of a deal to roll with it and just ask off for a different day.

But this morning as I was thinking about the last few things to clean or pick up at #1's house before FWB arrives, a little thought started poking at me. "grumble grumble why does he get a full weekend with her and I only get an overnight? Not fair grumble grumble stomp stomp pout pout."

Which wise mind knows is such bullshit.

1) I signed up for the current situation with #2 knowing all the possible drawbacks. From the start, when our relationship was friends with heavy flirting that may lead to a sexual relationship, his side was DADT. As the relationship progressed and deepened in the last almost 2 years (though definitely in the last year), I kept buying the ticket knowing the limitations.

2) While I don't get opportunities of the same length to see #2, I get many more shorter periods to see #2 than #1 does to see his friend. Just because of her distance, he rarely gets to see her and she would need to at least stay over 1 night for it to be worth it, preferably 2. He has also, by his choice, not pursued dating since we opened up the relationship. Currently he is just letting opportunities arise. 

3) #1 has rarely begrudged my meetings with #2 and for a very long time now has been very accommodating. My wise mind actually doesn't begrudge him his. I want him to get to have experiences and relationships too. I usually try to make arrangements for him to have free time and space when he thinks something could come up or for a visit from her.

Why didn’t I just bring this up to #1 this morning?

One of the things about dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder is that my emotions tend to be bigger, more extreme, and closer to the surface than other people's. One of the ways I have found to deal with this is to wait to respond to things. While there is a fine line between waiting to talk to someone about an issue and letting things fester, I know that often speaking all of my mind at the exact moment I find out about something rarely works well. I sometimes wonder if #2 and I don't fight as often as I have in previous relationships is because we are often doing it over texts so my face and body language doesn't betray the emotions I might be feeling. He gets the wise mind response, the thing I know is right and how I will feel once I am able to process things, not the tensed jaw and bitchy look I might have in that first moment. In contrast, #1 and I do much of our discussing in person where I can't hide my face and either say something angry off the cuff or am quiet while I get myself together which comes off as distant. Maybe because of who we each are as individuals, talking in text can often come off mangled and sound passive-aggressive to the other one, who answers without checking in to see if that is what the person meant. I have to admit that I am as guilty of this with him as he is with me. I'm glad that #1 slept in a bit, not showering with me this morning, so I didn't have a chance to betray any grumpiness I felt before my wise mind kicked in. 

As a coda to this whole situation, none of these things might happen anyway. When I was writing this on Wednesday afternoon, #1's FWB is having nerves about traveling. #2 may not have that night free either because of possible coronavirus-related cancellations. 

This is the way this sometimes goes. It is much easier for everything to fall into place properly when there are only two people involved and their life situations. It's more difficult when you add in more people, longer distances, kids, and having to either get the approval of another partner or skirt it entirely. It can be a complicated mess where things don't work out how you want it. This is another thing those who have been open or poly longer can tell newbies. I still wouldn't change it because of the love and autonomy I continue to find and develop here. Even if #1 gets a full weekend and I don't even get an overnight with #2.

[This was written over a week ago. Sorry. I’m still trying to get this whole “write, edit, and post in a timely manner” thing down. It was actually written during the day of Wednesday, March 11, 2020. Since then the many things have changed, both in the world and in my personal life. I will write about that at a future date. The short version is that all the plans talked about in this post have been cancelled.]

Panic Fest 2020 - Days 3 & 4

And Sunday. Final day of the weekend of the festival.

The day's movies and podcasts started at 1 p.m. Beth and I had talked about getting lunch before the first showing but we both got up late. I decided to skip whatever I had planned on going to originally to go to the live taping of the Shock Waves podcast with Beth.

Shock Waves is a horror podcast, previously in the Blumhouse family and now in the Fangoria Network, that has a bit more free formed and meandering discussions but centers around top 5 lists from the hosts and guests. The hosts are Dr. Rebekah Mckendry (professor, writer-director), Elric Kane (professor, filmmaker) , Ryan Turek (Blumhouse's VP of Development) and Rob Galluzzo (Fangoria's Director of Distribution and Acquisitions.) Only the first two were there but it was still great chemistry. I have listened to the podcast a few times but generally prefer a more focused and/or academic look at horror movies or topics. (Beth would later tell me about Dr Mckendry's Nightmare University podcast which I've started devouring this week and plan to use as an outline for themed horror movie nights in the future. It is much closer to the podcasts that I usually listen to though she focuses on specific subgenres of horror films in ways that I have found new and interesting, while also dipping her toes into the production and marketing side of some of them, to give the audience an idea of why those movies were made at that specific time.)

After some technical difficulties getting the laptop set up, they got started. Their topic was body-horror though they had made a deal pre-show to not include any Cronenberg films in their top-fives for fear that his films might dominate the lists. Instead, they had a separate discussion about his films. They each had a list with movies I added to my notes as movies to see, including Seconds (on Amazon Prime), XTRO, Society (which I know I saw on one of the streaming sites recently, maybe Shudder?), Baby Blood (French), and Evolution (on Netflix.) Dr Mckendry's description of Tokyo Gore Police also peaked my interest in a way that seeing the cover and whatever summary went along with it has never been able to.

I also really liked Dr. Mckendry's point about horror often acting as the avant-garde. It is often made more independently, from filmmakers early in their careers and willing to take chances, and it has more opportunities for visuals and ideas that are on the edge. If horror doesn't push this edge, Dr. Mckendry asked, who would? And how will Hollywood ever take risks if they haven't seen indie films successfully doing some of it first?

Beth came in late to Shock Waves and I was writing and didn't see her, so we hooked up at the end of the show. I followed her up to the front where she talked to Dr Mckendry about her film Rot and getting films made on a small budget, filming over the weekends while you worked other jobs. Dr Mckendry apparently made All the Creatures Were Stirring over twelve days, six weekends of shooting, with a three-week break in the middle for her to have her baby. That is some hardcore filmmaking!

It's always going to be weird to be the person who is JUST a film fan in situations like this, but I did also talk to Dr Mckendry as well. I had seen her on two panels at Phoenix Fan Fest two years ago and it was amazing to see a woman up there with the men talking about horror films past and present, as well as about the production side. I told her that I had gone to Salem Horror Fest to see The Faculty of horror podcasters and have started a blog to write about my own experiences and thoughts on horror, though I didn't have anything fiction in the works right now. "You'll find your story,"  she said to me. That made me feel really good.

Next Beth and I went to see James Versus His Future Self. It was a sunny romantic sci-fi comedy about a self-obsessed physicist on the brink of a discovery in time travel when future self comes back in time to tell him not to invent time travel. Of course the knowledge that he is successful pushes him to want to continue his work, against the wishes of future him. I really like that the movie had some interesting answers to some time travel questions as well as interesting answers in how to film a time travel movie. Even as cynical me kept waiting for something really dark to happen, the film stayed pretty light and fluffy, though it also made me get a little teary near the end. This would be good for someone who doesn't require a big budget in their movies and likes romantic comedies or Big Bang Theory but not scifi movies about spaceships.

I had to skip the next time slot but Beth went to see a movie called The Perished, an Irish film about a woman, abandoned by her boyfriend and family, is recovering from an abortion in an old house that was once part of a Catholic Church compound, and where 800 dead babies happen to be buried, babies who decide they want her to be their mother. Beth really liked it and I hope to catch it in the future. The director of the film Paddy Murphy was there all weekend promoting the film and seem to be very outgoing and friendly to all people, whether industry people or just local film fans.

I had to run to get my kid from my parents and then take her to bf1's house and get her settled for the night, as he offered to watch over her so I could go to a special screening, as long as timing worked out well with dropping her off.

Luckily everything worked out well and I was able to make the movie Hardware as well as stay for the Nightmare Junkhead podcast taping right afterwards. Hardware is a punk Apocalypse movie from 1990, the first movie directed by Richard Stanley, who started in music videos and would go on to make the infamous Island of Dr. Moreau with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, and whose new movie Color Out of Space just came out. The guest on the podcast was director Joe Lynch who also does the podcast The Movie Crypt. Before the podcast they show the series of trailers Lynch had put together of other movies from 1990 to help us get a feel for what was out at this time. It included Tremors, Nightbreed, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (the only sequel), and Darkman. During the podcast they would talk about how many of these movies are beloved by movie fans but didn't do well at the box office, sometimes because they didn't know how to market them properly. One of the podcasters included a story about how a local tv station was giving away tickets to Tremors during a kids show. Even though I saw it when I was 8, I'm not really sure Tremors is a kids movie. 

Hardware itself is definitely a 90s apocalypse movie. Everything in the city that they're in is grimy, a hodgepodge of technology all jerry-rig together, lots of video screens, but there are still very bright colors, particularly reds. If you think about apocalypse movies recently, they're all dark, both in that there is little light but also in that the colors are often drab and muted. This movie had so much color to it. It centers on artist Jill and her scavenger boyfriend Mo, who brings her back parts from a busted up robot for her to use in her large industrial art pieces. Only the robot turns on, puts itself back together, and kills everyone it can. While the men on the podcast all talked about how Mo was the hero of piece, Beth and I both saw Jill as the primary heroin, with maybe some final girl thrown in there. There were several fake out endings as well as the film's final note being they even though they killed that robot, more were being made. The movie touched on political topics, like the apocalypse being from nuclear war, as well as issues of population control. While there is the sex scene that all early-90s R-rated movies required, there is also a creepy voyeur across the street, talking dirty while he's watching it. As icky as that scene made me feel, as viewers of the film, aren't we all that creepy guy, watching this sex scene? 

I really liked the podcast taping as well. I am not sure how well I would like the podcast Nightmare Junkhead on the regular, though I am going to give it a try. It is done by two local podcasters who also did the podcast The Nerds of Nostalgia and have a great chemistry between them. I really liked their interaction on stage, but I'm not sure how well it will work in the podcast form. Going out for a night of drinking and movies though, I'm in. I also really liked Joe Lynch from The Movie Crypt podcast who talk about the industry side in how many of movies being made in 1990 were risks taken by the studios to find something new that would work, often combining several genres into one to find something that would work for audiences and give them their next big hit. This it often lead to the studios not knowing how to market this new kind of movie, then the studios and other insiders calling them bombs when they weren't huge hits their opening weekends. What no one could know that first box office weekend was how many of these movies would become more well-known once they were on video and how many of them might make back their budget that way. I will probably give all of their podcasts to try.

On the drive to take my daughter to bf1's house, a thick fog had developed. Well it had dissipated before I drove to go see Hardware, but when I got out of the podcast taping, there was still some fog. The short walk to my car was definitely a little creepy. All I could think about was what kind of movie scene could be shot in this particular setting, which was a definite change from my usual thoughts of how I was going to die in this foggy horror movie scene. I once again skip to Taco Bell and went straight back to the house and to bed.

Sunday night wasn't the end of the festival though. They re-showed films that had played over the weekend on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with Thursday being the best of the Fest, where they showed the movies that the audience had voted as the best. I did manage to go back on Monday. (I had kids on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Wednesday I was just dead tired so I did not go back either of those days.) Bf1 went with me and we managed to meet up with Beth for the first show we saw.

The first show we saw on Monday was Two Heads Creek, an Australian comedy about an Anglo-Polish twin brother and sister who find out after their mother dies that they were adopted and their biological mother lives in this small Australian town. When they go to find her, they find a town that is a little behind the times and harbors a big secret. There was a short clip before the film of the director welcoming us to see the movie as well as talking about how the film is trying to deal with the issues that Australians are having with immigration in a humorous way. I'm going to be real, it makes it seem like Australians are really fucking racist and anti-immigrant. Maybe it's just that some are. It's not like you couldn't make a movie like that about the US right now. But it was a fun and funny and gory horror comedy, which even included a musical number during their big Australia Day dinner. Bf1 had been skeptical about the humor working, but it's really landed well. 

The final movie I saw from the festival was Color Out of Space, the new film by Richard Stanley, based on an HP Lovecraft story. It really seems like HP Lovecraft is having a Renaissance right now. I think in part because many authors are not steering away from him because he's problematic (read: racist) but are embracing the W/weird and cosmic horror, while taking out the racist elements. I have definitely heard about other HP Lovecraft stories or stories that are borrowing from his work that are being made into either TV shows or movies.

I think this may have been the scariest film I saw at the festival. Other than Synchronic, I think it was probably the biggest budget of the films that I saw the festival. This is the story of a family who has recently moved out to the country, only to have something fall from the sky onto their property. At first, it looks like a glowing, throbbing purple-pink meteorite. Though it loses it's color and then disappears in the next few days, it begins to change the vegetation and, more disturbingly, the behavior of the family. It has The Thing-level body horror as well as a great deal of dread. For those looking, it has call backs to Stanley's previous work, as a quote from Hardware appears in the older son's room, as well as something that serves as both a reference and a fuck-you to Lovecraft, the black or biracial hydrologist wearing a Miskotonic U shirt the whole movie. Nicolas Cage is also in rare form as the father, loving and gentle at the start of the movie, but increasingly unhinged, perhaps channeling his own "intellectually abusive father" as it goes on. 

Skipped Taco Bell again as I went back home at 11pm for the 4th night in a row just to drop into bed. I would pay for that lack of rest for the rest of the week after. I think maybe the next time I do this I will be taking Monday off. Even if I still do movies on Monday night, being able to sleep the whole day on Monday would definitely have made a difference.

As I write this, a over a week after this ordeal started, I have to say how much I enjoyed it and how gracious I am to those who made it possible, from the people in my immediate circle who helped to pay for it and make sure that my kid was taken care of, to the people at the theater and the film fest to make it work every year, all the way to the filmmakers who make their films and put it out there for us to see an experience. For someone like me this feels like a very unique experience. I know that it happens every year and I hope that in the future I will be able to take part in it, whether I see one movie or 13. But it is still a super unique experience to get to take in all of this in one shot. I think that during the years when my kids were real little I might not have seen 13 movies in a year, much less a weekend. Thanks everyone. 

As I finish editing this over a whole week after watching my last film of the fest, I have to give even more credit. Though it has taken me longer to write about it all than I thought, I have written it. I am about to publish it online. I am pushing myself to watch more movies rather than just staring at shows I've seen before. This week I have watched a movie every week night. I feel not just more inspired to write but have even had those moments of "if they can do it, then I can too." (That doesn't always last as long as I'd like but that is for another post.) I am so glad I got to do this and I hope to be able to do more and more often. 

Panic Fest 2020 - Day 2

So remember when I said that this shit was tiring? Well I started writing about day one on Sunday. I am just starting to write about Saturday and it is Thursday night, after the kids have gone to bed. I have just been dead tired. And I did not even make it back Wednesday night. (Editing will not end up being done until Tuesday.) So let's push on, shall we?

Saturday was the biggest day of the Fest for me. I saw movies in every one of the time slots, which ended up being 6 movies. I didn't end up seeing any of them with any existing friends, though I did have a few conversations throughout the day. It was Saturday that made me realize how much I have gotten used to watching movies with either bf1 or my twin. When I was in my twenties and working second shift hours at a video store, I would take one of my weekdays off about every month or so and go see 4 or three movies in a row at a movie theater, carefully timing them so that I would get out of one and go into another. Because I am a goody2shoes, I paid for all these movies. Of course. But I was used to not talking to people then. One year I even went to one of the Oscar screenings that had all five nominated movies in one day, all by myself. I don't think I talked out loud to a person, other than the concessions workers, that whole day. But times are changed and now even though I don't HAVE to have someone with me to go to a movie, I usually do, so it was a little bit lonely.

The first movie of the day was Sea Fever. This was a tense Creature Feature movie, almost all of it set on a single fishing boat where a scientist student has come on board to research the catch. Things look ominous from the start as the student is a redhead, which apparently is unlucky on ships. I really liked this movie. It built up slowly, with some great glory set pieces along the way. With it set almost completely on the one fishing boat which is out to sea, there is that classic nautical combination of claustrophobic ship setting while being abandoned on the big open ocean without any help. I also really liked their creature design. It definitely seemed other worldly beautiful, and also terrifying. 

It was at this movie that I struck up a conversation with another woman who is sort of local (lives about an hour away) and has been coming to the festival for several years. She made some remark about how come she always has to date people who don't like horror movies. As this is an issue that I also have, we made some casual chit chat before this movie and another one later in the day.

The second movie of the day was Rot. This is the movie produced by Beth, the woman that I had met during Extra Ordinary. Honestly, I had been planning on seeing something else that I thought either bf1 or my twin might join me for, but as neither of them was coming and I'd heard interesting things about the ending of the film, I went to see it. I'm glad I did.

This is a tight and tense movie in the vein of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that centers on an overworked grad student and the radical changes in her boyfriend's behavior. My first notes on the movie after it was finished were "toxic masculinity fable written and directed by a man!" There are many parts that spoke to me, from some of the action taking place in a long-term care facility to the ways in which other people have their own opinions about your relationship. The curator was right, it did have the craziest last 15 minutes of any of the films. I don't want to spoil it, but if anyone sees it, and I do recommend you do, message me after to tell me what you thought of the ending.

I felt a little weird doing it, but after the movie was over, I took the chance to go up to the producer and tell her about the ways in which the film spoke to me and what I saw as the symbolism of certain things in the film, though they might not have been intended that way. She was so interested and open to hearing what I had to say and seemed to appreciate that I had really taken the time to think about it and talk to her. We talked a bit about other things as well and she asked for my number to try to do something as the fest went on. (She asked for my number!) And a Fest friendship was born. 

My third film of the day was Blood Vessel. Elevator pitch : Motley crew of Allied survivors of a U-boat attack find a deserted Nazi ship that has vampires on it. Many different countries are represented and everyone has a sad or traumatic story about the war. It was ok. I've definitely seen worse big budget horror and this was probably filmed on a much tighter budget. This may have also been the time of the day that I started to drag. The movie started at 3pm or so. Even during the week at my job, this is the time when I struggle to stay awake. 

Next come the two movies that I have some issues with calling horror movies, though I did find them horrific / horrifying. 

My fourth movie of the day was The Swerve. Insomniac mom / school teacher sees her life unravel as her husband tries for a promotion, her passive-agressive younger sister comes back from rehab, and a mouse takes up residence in her immaculate home. It definitely shows how someone unravels, as well as how the roles we get in our families as children and teens (the problem child, the perfectionist) can continue to mess with our heads, our romantic relationships, and our relationships with our siblings. You could posit that the horrific thing she's up against is her own mind, her own mental illness, and that is the thing she has to hope to survive, but I didn't feel like it was presented in a tense enough way for it to feel like a horror movie. I do think it is a powerful drama that showed me how a person can unravel to the point of doing the things she does. I would warn against seeing this movie though if you have issues watching movies with strong mental illness themes. 

The writer/ director and the producer stayed after the movie to talk about the long process of working on this script as well as taking a few questions, which was cool. I really do think interacting with the people who make the films and podcasts is such a unique experience that you can only get at a festival, and it made it so worth it to go. 

Next came Swallow. This was a stylized film about a new wife and mother-to-be who is dealing with Pica and starts eating non-edible, even dangerous, objects. I think if presented differently this also could have been a horror film but as the film was made it was more a drama with horrifying elements. Every time she puts something in her mouth that you know could be dangerous to her, you cringe and feel for her, but you usually see the result rather quickly. From the start, she has a very affected manner and it is telegraphed to the audience that this is not how she grew up long before we ever find out anything about her past. I did like her development through the movie and the confrontation at the end hit me personally like a gut punch. 

And one last movie for the day! At the last minute, the festival was able to get Synchronic, the film due out next year from Benson and Moorhead. The curator who introduced the film warned that some of the special effects work wasn't done but I still thought it looked pretty good. While still on a smaller budget, this is a big step up from the budgets that this directing duo have had in the past, allowing them bigger name actors and more effects. In the movie, a new drug Synchronic is popping up at weird emergency medical calls answered by EMTs played by Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie. While lifelong friends, the men have different lifestyles, with Mackie being a promiscuous bachelor and Dornan being married, with one kid starting college and another just having turned one. When Dornan's daughter gets mixed up with the drug, Mackie goes on a journey to help her. I dont want to say any more and give too much away. The journey of discovering the drug and how it works is a really fun ride. I also liked the focus on the buddy relationship between the two men, showing that any long term relationship, whether platonic, romantic or familial, can lead to many of the same resentments and issues, even while you still love that person. 

This night I also went back home and crashed. Do not pass go. Do not collect food at Taco Bell. 

Panic Fest 2020 - Day 1

Fuck. Film fests are brutal! I have a newfound respect for reviewers who do them.

In October, I went to Salem Horror Fest but managed to only see two movies. I was drawn to it by The Faculty of Horror podcasters being there. They always do a live podcast, showing the film directly beforehand, as well as one or both of them doing a separate lecture. I was also drawn to getting to go to Salemlecture, Massachusetts, during Halloween season. It was crazy busy and lively. There was so much to do and bf1 wanted to do THINGS, not sit in movies. Fair. It was a big vacation squeezed into a four-day weekend. Also many of the films weren't first runs and I either had seen them before or could see them some other time. (I will say that I can't wait for Scream Queen to come out on steaming. There was something else going on then and I decided to skip the documentary about the lead from Nightmare on Elm Street 2.) I came back having done lots of cool things, including getting a tattoo, and I wouldn't change any of it. This last weekend I went to Panic Fest here in my hometown at a great local independent theater. They bring in almost all indie films that are still trying to get picked up for distribution. They are mostly horror and Sci-Fi movies, though one could argue about horror versus horrific/horrifying, which is something I will get into more with two of the movies I saw on Saturday. At this point, Panic Fest is a full week, and then some. Officially it opened Thursday, though there was a showing on Wednesday, and they had the best of the Fest on the next Thursday. The weekend I attended there were films showing in all four theaters. Some movies showed again one or two times, during the week. showed

This just so happened to come on a weekend when I don't have kids, additionally when my parents asked me to have my daughter for some time on Sunday. I was going to just pick a few movies but bf2 offered to buy me a full pass and bf1 encourager me be gone for the whole weekend. Sadly, I still had to make decisions on what I would see. There were definitely many movies that I didn't get to see during the fest. There were times already by Sunday that I wish I hadn't seen what I saw, that I picked something else. I skipped almost all the podcasts for movies. Last week I sat down and made a sort of spreadsheet with what was playing at each time. And then looked up the summaries of all of them and picked number one, number two, or not very interested. I also made a list of ones that sounded like horror comedies that bf1 might want to see. So there was some prep work on this. Definitely. And I didn't even stick to the script perfectly.

I started writing this on Sunday and I'm not sure about writing, or really posting this on Scream Shed, but I'm going to try. At this point I did three movies on Friday after work, including one with twin bro, (thanks man!) and 6 on Saturday. Currently I'm writing at the taping of a podcast on Sunday, going to maybe one movie before going to get kid, and then to maybe one movie + podcast, if everything works out. Then maybe one or two movies on Monday, and one or two movies Wednesday. I want to write a little about the movies and my thoughts as well as cool Film Fest things. But, damn y'all, it seems like it wouldn't be hard to sit on your ass all day and night but it really is exhausting. And hard on my tummy, even though this place has better food than many theaters.

My first movie of the Fest was Extra Ordinary. It is about a woman who has turned her back on her natural ability to speak to ghosts and  become a driving instructor in her small Irish Town, only to be sucked back in to help a man and his teenage daughter. SNL alum Will Forte plays a one hit wonder who lives nearby and is planning his comeback in an unusual way. I really liked the production design. It had a town stuck in the past vibe, like the wardrobe from the late 80s and early 90s with some early 2000s Tech, like the Nokia brick phone. Great, low-key, mostly clean humor. A breakdown in communication meant that bf1 didn't come to it. Other than a reoccurring vomit gag, I think he would have liked most of it, so we'll probably look for it on streaming services. 

This is also where I met my friend of the Fest Beth. Almost all of the showings I went to were full. This one was no different. Shortly before the film started, a thin young woman with big glasses and friendly energy sat next to me and apologized to me for crunching her chips, the side for the theater's grilled sandwiches. When the festival's curator came to introduce the movie, he mentioned that the producer of one of the other films in the Fest was here and that her movie had the wildest last 15 minutes of any film at the Fest. He pointed to the young woman crunching next to me. She and I made a little small talk before the movie started but it would not be the last time we talked.

I did however chicken out on an introduction I should have made before this movie. One of the horror podcasts I listen to, The Horror Podclass, is based out of my hometown, though I didn't realize it until several episodes in when one of the podcasters, Tyler, added "here in Kansas City" to his intro of "and by day I'm a high-school teacher." With a push from bf1, I introduced myself to Tyler during a previous movie showing hosted by Signal Horizon, the horror and sci-fi website that hosts The Horror Podclass. In the last couple of months, the second chair of the podcast has been filled by a local author Orrin Grey. Both men had talked about coming to Panic Fest. During Extra Ordinary, Tyler was a row in front of me and as soon as one of his companions started talking, I knew it was Orrin. But I chickened out on saying anything before or after that movie, even though I really wanted to tell him that I love him on the podcast.

My next movie was Porno, which my twin brother from another mother came to see with me. The film is all set at a Christian-owned, G and PG only theater. During an after-hours film club, four teen employees and their college dropout projectionist watch a movie they hope will be a porno that they discover behind a boarded-up area of the theater. Needless to say, it does not go as planned and the five of them must deal with a literal demon as well as their own demons. My comments to my twin: "Wow this movie has a lot of dicks." (To be fair, there are also breasts, though mostly the same pair.) For a movie about a group of Christians, this movie had a good amount of sex, violence, and gore. I think the jokes about and on Christianity were pretty spot on, but I wonder what someone who identified as Christian would think of them. (And also what someone who used to be involved in conservative Christian congregations but has since "fallen from grace," so to speak, would thing.) Overall, I think this movie would be great for a horror comedy night with your adult group of friends, as long as they are not active conservative Christians.

As an aside, I really appreciated the use of nudity and overall how they chose to display the body in the movies at the Fest. In a genre well known for exploitation and gratuitous (mostly female) nudity, I thought that these films used nudity in thoughtful ways and had more male nudity and penises than female nudity and breasts.

After a bit of an after movie chat, I was back on my own for the last movie of the night, VHYes. Introduced with a bonkers video mixtape from Magnetic Mixtape, as well as a raffle (I won!) that they cosponsored with their Analog Sunday cohosts Forever Bogus, this movie was a late night movie treat. The plot is rather loosely based around a 12 year old who receives a VHS camcorder for Christmas and then proceeds to tape over his parents wedding video (Dummies! They should have broken the little square off!) with day to day shenanigans and late night TV. For me it worked as a love letter to the late-night TV of my youth, with comic actors from shows like Reno 911 recreating the greatest hits of my late night TV. For others, it probably hit their young love for making home movies and homemade films. Even though the late night TV gets progressively weirder, I found myself lulled by this nostalgia, making the scareiss at the end all the more effective. If you and your friends fondly remember watching USA's Up All Night or dirty edited their own movies with tandem VHS players,  I'd recommend this as a (very) late night treat. 

Though I was a bit hungry, I skipped any late night food and went straight home to bf 1 and the warm bed. I would have a big day Saturday.

(Started Sunday, finished writing Thursday, took until today to edit it. What can I say. Life is busy and tiring.)

On NOT Finishing Things

[Originally written 12-20-19]

Running out of time…

I once watched an episode of the tv show House where he figures out that the patient has bipolar disorder, and his current condition was the result of an experimental treatment to "fix' it, based in part on the unfinished projects around his house. At the time, I sort of resented that. It was never a part of the diagnostic criteria that I had read and I had finished plenty of things, I'll have you know. *pouting,arms crossed*

As time goes on, I recognize it happening in my life, though I don't know how much is just life and how much is a side effect of my mental illness.

I started this blog wanting to blog every day. Then I saw that my first post had my legal name, freaked out, and decided that I needed to fix it before I posted any more. I have several half finished posts and a few finished posts but none of them have been added to the site . I haven't fixed the authorship issue. I also realized that while I wanted to write about movies, I didn't actually know how to do that or how to watch a movie in a way that lends itself to that. I just got a book in on that as part of a Christmas gift, but I haven't started reading it yet. [Update since original writing: have started but am only on chapter 1. I have fixed the issue with the blog though and am posting this]

I need to update my resume so I can look for different, better paying jobs in my field with this current "first job in my field" on that resume. [Update: I have updated my resume and downloaded a copy on my phone. This will make it easy to do quick applications from my phone even over breaks at work.]

 I have been in my apartment since March and it is not completely unpacked. I am reminded of a scene early in the movie The Incredibles where Helen calls Bob while he's at work to tell him that they are finally moved in. He asks her about the 3 years before this that they've lived there, do those not count. We can see 3 empty boxes on the floor by the door as she explains that she just unpacked the last boxes, so they are finally moved in. I remember this and I don't feel so bad anymore. Several of the things I still need to do cost money- new beds for the kids, shelves in my bedroom and the bathroom ,a new bookshelf or two so I can unpack all my books. I also spent July thru November mostly at my primary boyfriend's house, helping him through a hard time. Even now that I spend more nights in my apartment, it is mostly just when I have my kids so there is a limited amount that I can do.

Bouncing back to my writing, I have several outlines and ideas for books that I have never finished. 

So much to do, so much that I start in times I have energy and some time, just not really enough time to finish it all at once. Or my energy runs out. Depression and the bleh of short days ("isn't it midnight already?" "no baby,  it's 6 o'clock. It's just fully dark.") Then I feel bad for procrastinating. And I have to do this laundry and this these dishes and now I'm tired again. 

Tomorrow we are celebrating Christmas with the kids,my parents, and my primary boyfriend . After the children go to bed tonight, i still have presents I need to wrap, a bit of cleaning to still do, which I can really only do after they go to bed, which is after I'm already tired from 8 hours of work and several hours of being with the kids. I'm thankful for the boyfriend's help or it would really only be mac & cheese and a meat tray for Christmas dinner. [Update: I got everything I wanted to do for our little family Christmas and it went off amazingly. I had a great time and so did the kids, even though I now know not to make anything but Kraft mac & cheese for the kids.]

The list gets longer and longer but there isn't any more time.

Epilogue: After writing this, I sat down and wrote up first a list of the things that I really wanted to get done and then I made a calendar of the two weeks after, which includes a day off for Christmas and a weekend without kids or my primary boyfriend, setting aside specific time to deal with the resume and the blog issues, among other things. I’m still fairly proud of myself for getting things done so far.

Welcome to the Scream Shed

Are you really a writer if you don't write anything? Maybe, maybe not. But I've decided to stop asking myself that question and just write. 

I needed a new space though. Inspired by a blogger that I read every day, who decided there years ago to write something for her blog every day and who has also written 3 non-fiction books, and who recently wrote that the world needs more atypical writers, people who are still figuring things out as they write, as well as podcasters I have admired as well as exchanged emails with or even met in person, I decided to create a new space for me to write about the things that interest me, the things that go on in my head, the things I want to discuss and share with other people, the things I'm still trying to figure out. 

So what are this interests and who am I?

In no particular order...

Horror movie enthusiast : I would like to write about horror from a personal as well as academic, feminist, intersectional viewpoint. I am still trying working on how to do that but I have inspiration from podcasts like Faculty of Horror, The Horror Podclass, and Scream Scene; books like House of Psychotic Women; web sites like Graveyard Sisters and Dangerous Characters. I have loved horror movies since I was a kid and am just now finding a community in it. I hope to find a voice. 

Pop culture : While I love horror (movies as well as TV shows and literature), I also love pop culture in general. I know about way more movies and TV shows and books than I have ever gotten the time to actually watch or read and like to be able to converse on the topic with most people I come across. I also have an interest in how pop culture influences our lives, changes in popular culture throughout the decades based on changes in the larger culture, pop culture through a feminist or intersectional or academic lens, etc. Yes, yes, yes, I already hear my step-dad saying, "Why can't you JUST enjoy the movie?" Well, because this is me enjoying it. 

Mental health issues : For as long as I can remember, I struggled with mental health issues: depression, bipolar, borderline. The first two are fairly well controlled with my current medication. The final one is something that I have gone through therapy to help and, while I continue to work on myself, I may never fully get to where I want to be. I am also intrigued by how the human mind works, how we cope with things, etc. 

Polyamory/ Consensual Non-monogamy : For over a decade, I have been either single or in relationships that were somewhere on the non-monogamous spectrum. I am nowhere near perfect in it. I have a great deal of theoretical knowledge that can sometimes fall apart when faced with the reality of real people and real life limitations. I am trying though. I keep trying. And I'm just trying to figure it all out. 

Kink : I'm in a weird place with all this but it is still an interest and I hope I can still write about it even if I'm in a weird space with it.

Issues for and in the queer community : I'm bisexual / pansexual. I'm interested in inclusion and being thoughtful about my actions and working to check my privilege as a white cisgendered allosexual straight-passing woman. 

Racism : As a white woman, I want to work against racism as well as promote the voices of people of color speaking for themselves instead of me feeling like I can or should speak for them. 

Parenting : I co-parent with my exes. We were a triad, 2 women, 1 man. We had two children while together, one child biologically mine and one child biologically hers. My exes still live together. While we can be flexible with it, we do try to keep set days for when I have one or both children and vice versa. The children are in preschool. I still feel like I am still figuring out this parenting thing. 

Relationships of all sorts : They're complicated. Sometimes I might want a place to talk about them or issues that happen in relationships. This is going to be a sticky wicket though. Part of why I'm attempting to make a fresh start is because I may have been too confessional in my previous blog. I want to be able to explore issues that come up while walking a line in not making people in my life who may be involved in the situation feel upset or like I am disclosing too much about them. There may be a learning curve here where I don't publish those things until I feel I have a handle on it. We'll see how that goes. Page Turner from Poly.Land, the writer who's efforts to post every day on her blog has inspired me to do the same has several posts about writing about people in your life including this one. I'm hoping to find my own way, with the help of people with more experience. 

Why “the scream shed"? A friend gave it to me in a tipsy list of new blog names. It stuck for me because it's like "she shed," except me screaming at horror movies, screaming at people in movies and TV and books and real life doing stupid things, screaming at myself in real like doing stupid things, screaming into the void. 

So …

Welcome all. Thanks for visiting. 

Please come back soon.