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I completely forgot that today was Halloween. I had been thinking about this holiday over the past few days, & I was even debating on wether or not I should wear a costume. One thing leads to another, & the thought had entirely slipped my mind. It wasn’t until I was out spending the day in The City with my mom & Jian that it finally dawned on me. I had seen a few people dressed up in costumes at the barbecue restaurant we ate lunch at. At first I was a little confused, but it slowly crept into my mind that it’s Halloween. All week long, we had been worried that we didn’t stock up on enough candy for the Trick-Or-Treating children in our neighborhood, but we weren’t even home the entire day; so we never even got a chance to pass out a single piece of sugary goodness. It was fun seeing so many little children in The City dressed up in costumes. The best costume I saw was this little girl being pushed by her mom in a stroller. The little girl was dressed as Vanelope von Schweetz from the movie Wreck-It Ralph. Her stroller was decorated to look exactly like the candy race car from the movie, complete with working lights & music that played every time the stroller moved. The mom was dressed as the princess, the dad dressed as Wreck-It Ralph, & the big brother dressed as Fix-It Felix…all characters from the movie. It was so creative.
So, Halloween came & went uneventfully for me. I didn’t get any candy (I don’t really like to eat candy anyway). However, I did get a pair of holiday rock concert tickets. One of my local radio stations puts on an annual winter holiday concert called “Not So Silent Night“. Every year I think about getting tickets, but one of two things always comes up: 1. I don’t want to go by myself & most of my friends flake out on me, or 2. I am not interested in the bands performing. This year, I bit the bullet & bought tickets. I will be going with Jian, & I’m pretty stoked about the band lineup. This will be the second time this year that I will be seeing WEEZER live in concert. I am the most excited about that. There are other bands that I’m also excited to see in concert for the first time, like: Death Cab For Cutie, Chvrches, Bastille, & X Ambassadors. There are two other bands & artists performing at this concert (Silversun Pickups & Halsey), but I’m not interested in seeing them as much as the other bands. I’m still super excited to be going to yet another concert this year. I’m currently trying to convince Jian to go with me to see CAKE in concert for New Year’s Eve. He doesn’t really know much about this band except that their song “Short Skirt /Long Jacket” was used as the theme song for his favorite TV show “Chuck” (starring Zachary Levi).
Ok, so enough about concerts. Let’s talk about pillows! What a great topic, pillows!! Yes, I am pumped up about pillows. I just got a new set of pillows for my bed, & I am so in love with them. Just in this year alone, I’ve probably gone through at least four different pillows. None of them gave me good neck & shoulder support, or kept their generic shape. I was growing increasingly frustrated with my lack of good quality sleep & my stiff neck. That was the case until I found my perfect pillows. These pillows have just the perfect amount of firmness & fluffiness. They retain their shape very well, & they support my neck & shoulders so well. I have been getting such restful nights of sleep that for the past few days I’ve been going to bed early & waking up an hour before my alarm clock rings. My pillows are so comfortable that I have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning because I just want to lay on them a few minutes more. I admit, I am enjoying snuggling my pillows in the morning. They make me so happy. I think I am going to “test” my pillows again…Cheers!
Today’s song of the day:
On an unrelated note, one of my other cousins just got engaged. We’re going to start this post with that, are we? Yes, we are. I hope you remember the cousin I’ve been mentioning who recently got married in Mexico. Well, her baby sister just got engaged to her long-time boyfriend (he’s also her high school sweetheart). That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Now, on to my original topic. I’d like to talk about habits. Weird habits. Good habits. Bad habits. My habits. I have one strange habit; it’s not a crazy one, just strange for the fact that I am a thirty-something adult who still practices this habit.
I CANNOT GO TO BED WITHOUT CLOSING MY BEDROOM DOOR.
There, I confessed it. I can’t sleep at night unless my bedroom door is closed. I know that’s not some bizarre habit or anything to get worked up about, but it’s just something that I’ve been wanting to talk about. I think the reason(s) behind this habit is the weird part. Let’s flash back to my childhood. Dun, dun, dun! When I was a little kid, I had to share a bedroom with my older sister. Our house was designed & built in the Eichler style, so our bedroom had a sliding glass door, which obviously offered NO PRIVACY whatsoever. When my oldest brother moved out to attend college, my sister moved into his former bedroom. I, however, was stuck with the room with the transparent door. I didn’t mind at the time because I was just a little pip squeak who didn’t know any better.
Of course, when I became a teenager & privacy became something desirable, my parents moved my things into my other older brother’s former bedroom, WHICH ACTUALLY HAD A WOODEN DOOR! For quite a while, my parents wouldn’t allow me to keep my door closed. They also changed the doorknob so that it wouldn’t have a lock on it (not that I would ever lock my door). As I grew deeper into my teenage years, I would test my limits by closing my bedroom door for short periods of time, or keep it ajar, promising my parents that I would keep my bedroom door open if I had any friends over. Eventually, it just became a regular occurrence to have my bedroom door closed, & one of my older male cousins came to live with us for a short period of time. That was just one more reason to keep my door closed, I didn’t want him to barge in while I was changing my clothes or something embarrassing.
Even after my cousin moved out of our house & back in with his dad, I kept my bedroom door closed, mostly at night though. I convinced myself that it was to keep out intruders. A simple wooden door obviously wouldn’t deter highly motivated, ambitious &/or particularly aggressive intruders. However, it WOULD (possibly) slow them down while I attempted to escape through my bedroom window. I would tell myself, right before going to bed, that I should close my bedroom door to guard myself from potential burglars or predators. I knew that my flimsy bedroom door could quite easily be busted down or pried open, but at least my door creaked rather noisily (to my advantage), which would alarm me of a potential danger & prompt me to climb out of my bedroom window to avoid any harm as much as possible.
Eventually, this thought morphed into thinking that I should keep my bedroom door closed in order to keep out any unwanted spirits. This was when I was going through my Astrology-magic-witchcraft phase. Also, I was sorting through my thoughts of whether or not I believed in ghosts/spirits/apparitions. And…I had previously watched the movie The Mothman Prophecies (the one with Richard Gere, Debra Messing, & Laura Linney). So, I thought keeping my bedroom door closed would increase my odds of not being possessed or ensnared by any sinister force.
Till this day, I still sleep with my bedroom door closed, mostly out of routine & habit rather than for intruders &/or ghosts. Even if my room is sweltering in the summer heat, I will keep my bedroom door closed at night. I close my door at nig hit without even putting much thought into it. I like the simple sense of privacy as well as the psychological sense of protection it gives to have my bedroom door closed at night. Cheers!
Today’s song of the day:
Last night my neighborhood experienced not ONE, but TWO power outages, each within minutes of each other. Normally, power outages don’t bother me. They are often annoying inconveniences, but last night I had a minor scare. It wasn’t really the outage itself that scared me, nor was it the darkness, but it was the timing of the power outage that freaked me out because I was utterly caught off guard at an especially awkward time.
It was late last night, not 1am late, but still late for what I was doing. I was taking a bath after everyone in my household had already gone to bed. I had my bath set up perfectly: Soothing hot water? Check. Charged up iPad? Check. Netflix movie queued up & ready to go? Also check! No interruptions? Check, check, check. Until it had happened. I was lounging comfortably in my bathtub in the middle of watching a Netflix movie. I had already completed the cleansing & washing part of my bath, the business end. So, next came the leisure part of my bath routine, my favorite part of taking a bath. More than soaking in the hot water, I like playing games or watching a Netflix movie on my iPad “Richard” while lounging in the bathtub.
Last night I was particularly relaxed because nobody was up & about with any opportunities to interrupt my relaxing bath. That’s when the power outage decided to rear its ugly & inconvenient head. I was two-thirds in to watching my movie, & all of a sudden I heard a noise, one close to a power source shutting down, then all the lights went out. Barely five seconds later, the power returned. However, I was already feeling alarmed. I jumped out of the bath, grabbed my towel, & woke Jian up to ask him to check the home’s circuit breaker panel. Everything seemed to be in order since the power had come back. The Internet connection had been rebooted, so I had to wait a few minutes to continue watching my movie. Needless to say, I didn’t take this first mini outage as any cue to finish up my bath & go to bed. I hopped right back into my bath, which was still warm, & continued to watch Netflix.
Ten minutes later, I was really becoming engrossed in the movie, & the power goes out again. This time I was a little more on the scared side. The entire neighborhood was covered in pitch black darkness. I’m not afraid of the dark in my own home, mostly because my 90-year old next door neighbor always keeps his kitchen lights on, & it creates a glow that shines all the way to my house. I live on a hill, & my elderly neighbor’s house is on the higher side of the slope (I’m on the lower side of the slope). Our adjoining property-line fence sits lower than most fences because he complains about it blocking his non-existent view. Therefore, his kitchen light shines into my bedroom at night, creating a nice nightlight effect. This helps me to see in the dark, especially if I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee.
This time I was sitting in the bathtub, & all of a sudden everything goes black & the house is eerily quiet (probably because the bathroom ceiling fan went out as well as my movie). The bathroom was so dark I couldn’t even see the door. I got out of the tub again, & woke Jian up yet again to check the house once more. This time the power stayed out for over twenty minutes, & I finally decided to finish my bath. I couldn’t watch anything on Netflix anyway, so I had no interest in sitting in a pool of water bathed in darkness (haha, no pun intended). It felt weird, cleaning up & getting ready for bed by the light of a flashlight & backlight from my smartphone. There was nothing romantic about it, no soft glow, no ambience. It was all shadows & creepy beams of light dancing along the cold walls. I did end up finishing my Netflix movie. The power came back on. More than anything, I felt grateful that though we have many clocks around our house, most of them run on batteries, so the only clocks I had to reset this morning were the ones on the kitchen stove & microwave. Who decides to take a bath late at night in the middle of a power outage? This guy. [Points to myself] Cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
Rabbits & Foxes 
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