It's That Time of Year...

The days are getting shorter, the leaves are changing, the neighborhoods of Providence are packed with college students... People have stopped washing their cars and temperatures are dropping faster than you can say 'thermal underwear'. Ahhhhh... It's Fall yet again. Leaves crunching under your feet. School buses stopping traffic every two blocks. It's time for Thanksgiving displays in the grocery stores... Time for pumpkins placed on every front stoop...

And time for Halloween programming on TV.

I have recently discovered that I love Halloween programming. I love how every channel seems to adopt a 'spooky' theme and therefore airs hours worth of shows that you wouldn't normally get to see any other time of year. I love this... And it comes as a surprise, even to me, as I'm not really a fan of the holiday in itself. I'm actually the type of person who would turn out the lights in my house so kids trick-or-treating would think I wasn't home.

So the fact that I turned on the TV last night and kind of went into a stupor of excitement was a little odd for me. Why is it exactly that I find myself screening the channels looking for the juicy bits of Halloween nonsense? Why am I a woman obsessed? Well, for one thing, this is the time of year that certain words (words that I am mystically drawn to) start popping up all over the screen... You know what I mean... 'Haunted' this, 'ghost' that...

And the truth must be known... I am addicted to TV shows about ghosts.

While the rest of America spends their weeknights watching their prime time shows, their seedy Tuesday night Reality TV, their sappy Wednesday night dramas, their thoroughly predictable Thursday night sitcoms... I have been waist deep in delicious ghostdom. For the last few months, I have been tuning in weekly to two programs, and am now completely smitten. I am in deep smit.

My love affair with ghosts began with the Travel Channel's Most Haunted. This show is truly frightening (in more ways than one!), mainly because the fact that the majority of the hour-long program is shot in the dark (with those crazily eerie night-vision cameras that make everyone look a little vampirish). But the best thing about Most Haunted is that it's British. For some reason the Brits are more dramatic about their ghost hunting. That and the places they visit are oh, a few centuries old. You can almost smell the damp and dark mustiness. But not to worry. Though the show has plenty of moments that are just full of heebie jeebies, it also has plenty of laughs. For instance, the hostess has a tendency to shriek unexpectedly whenever she gets spooked and the medium on the show manages to get himself possessed by evil spirits pretty much every week. All in a day's work for the English, I guess! But Most Haunted is truly entertaining, and it never fails to scare the crap out of me.

After being besotted with the Brits for a while, I then discovered Ghosthunters. This show airs on the Sci-Fi Channel, and unlike Most Haunted, is an American show. But despite that I absolutely love it. It is a refreshing change from the drama-heavy British shriek-fest. The main difference with Ghosthunters is that there are (rejoice!) NO mediums. In fact, the investigators are actually plumbers from Warwick, Rhode Island (Providence's neighboring town). Though they use the same system of taping with night-vision cameras, they are really just a group of normal people who happen to have a passion for haunted places, and therefore give a very real and often humorous point of view. And their goal is not to prove places are haunted, but to disprove their haunting. This makes for a very good show, because when something paranormal does happen, you feel like you're really there, like you've experienced it yourself. I've watched a couple of episodes where things have happened and gotten goosebumps. I'm hooked. I've seriously considered going down there and applying for a job. Hmmm... but then I realize I'd wet myself at the first sign of a ghost, so maybe not.

So with all the Halloween programming, suddenly these shows are in the spotlight. In the last week, Ghosthunters had a marathon. I missed it. I cried. So last night I made up for it by watching 3 different cheesy haunting shows on various channels. I discovered a brand new show on TLC called Dead Tenants. This show is hilarious. It's a rip-off of both Most Haunted and Ghosthunters. The team has so many investigators they probably need a bus to get them all there. AND, they not only have a medium... They have TWO mediums. Which makes for some pretty dramatic supernatural hodge-podge. With all the equipment, people, and spiritual manifestation flying around, there's hardly room for a ghost!

But I'm afraid I must go now. In the tradition of Halloween's 'dark' programs, there is a Most Haunted special starting at 8:00, in which they will be hunting Jack the Ripper, and I, being a sucker, absolutely will not miss it!

Beating the Proverbial Dead Horse, OR, Why Your Time Could Be Better Spent Doing Something Productive

So... I may never understand why I did this. Because, although I consider myself a writer, it's common knowledge I am a writer with perpetual writer's block, and I can never conjure up so much as a metaphor without it sounding like it was written by a third grader (and I'm dismayed to say that I think I was actually a better writer in third grade!)

But despite that, I couldn't help but jump at the idea of having a place where I can write stuff and people will actually READ it! Shocking! Well... I hope people will actually read it...

So I suppose this little bit of nonsense is just me making an excuse... A disclaimer of sorts... So that I can write as horribly as I want and not feel too bad about it. Eventually I may actually get better!

At which point I will stop posting and make everyone buy the book.