Notes from October

Today we had people over at our apartment to carve pumpkins. I carved a cat's face. It kind of looks like Hello Kitty. We also had pumpkin treats galore--Heidi made pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake (with pumpkin frosting), pumpkin pizza (in the crust not as a topping), and we had pumpkin beer. Lots of vitamin A! We also just roasted the pumpkin seeds from the jack o'lanterns. We also had apple cider and apples with a caramel dip (it's actually just cream cheese and brown sugar). It was very autumnal.
This quarter is stressful. Last fall I took 10 credits, but 2 of those credits were basically a one weekend class. So I had 8 hours of class per week and no job. Now I'm taking 14 credits and have a part-time job. Blerg. I have to manage my time efficiently, and that is not one of my strong suits. Like I should be doing homework right now, but I'm not.

I also just ran through all my scary movies from Netflix, so I had to get some more in my queue. Also, apparently I no longer get scared which is kind of disappointing. Cat People was somewhat suspenseful but not scary, then again it was made in the forties. Alien was also a bit whatever. It wasn't really my kind of movie in the first place, and you know everyone is going to die until only Ripley's left. The alien was creepy, but aside from a few jumpy moments it wasn't scary. What Lies Beneath was actually the scariest movie I watched. It directly invokes Hitchcock and gets a bit ridiculous at the end. It also employs a lot of cliches, but those are cliches for a reason and were terrifying. I thought Rosemary's Baby would scare the bejesus out of me (quite literally), but again, nothing. The novel terrified me as a freshman in college, and the movie is a fine film, but it's more eerie than scary. Scream had it's scary/jumpy moments, but I was over it as soon as the film ended. Even The Silence of the Lambs was not super scary though Anthony Hopkins was quite evil.

I need a really good scary ghost movie that will haunt me long after the film ends. The scariest movies I saw last year were Misery and The Innocents. I also thought The Orphanage (El Orfanato) was really good and scary.The Shining of course is one of the scariest films I've ever seen and a masterpiece of cinema. Anyway, I've added Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? which I don't think will be all that scary, but hopefully dark and disturbing, and The Haunting (the original). Hopefully that will be terrifying. I'm also thinking about having a party and watching the classic 1931 versions of Dracula and Frankenstein. I don't think they'll be scary, but it could be fun to watch these really old monster movies and play games and make caramel apples or whatever. Sadly Netflix does not have Frankenstein to rent--it's only on Instant Watch. Have you seen any good scary movies this year?

Also, I need some suggestions for a costume this year. So far the only suggestions have been Mrs. White--the maid from Clue--or my professor Nancy Pearl based on her action figure. But if you have other ideas, especially ones that don't involve cross-dressing, I'd love to hear them!