Yikes!

Recently I watched Psycho on Turner Classic Movies.  Remember what a stunner it was when first released? Good olde Alfred Hitchcock. Guess I have become numb to the horrors of the possibility of getting stabbed in the shower. I found it to be a captivating and relatively calm movie by today’s standards or lack thereof. I also found it rather amazing that the only two things I remembered about that movie were the shower scene and the one in which the rocking chair spins around and Norman Bates' mother is revealed in all her skeletal glory.  As for the rest -- it was like I was watching it for the first time.  Now I am wondering if Wait Until Dark is still as terrifying. One blind woman against three sadistic men who terrorize her and anyone watching the movie.  As for Deliverance ... the terror lives on a bit.  I still have a problem with banjo music.

To think that I spent years peering through the shower curtain while I showered and disliking to drive through the forests of southern states.  The transformation is astounding when I think about it. Nowadays it is people in hockey masks that scare me in a startling way... or .. anything that even smacks of the opening music of Jaws.  Actually my first encounter with Jaws was the book, and as I sat reading it in my back yard, I picked my feet up off the ground and looked around for fins.  Later on that summer when at Rye beach in New Hampshire, I didn't go into the ocean more than knee deep and even that was scary.  

Obviously, it's been a long time since I have been to a scary movie. Further --  I am totally out of my Stephen King phase - books or movies. It's more than the fact that he is now just way too woke for me. Guess I am at that point where I am no longer in the mood to be terrified.  The real world is sometimes scary enough.  Just watching the news can put me on edge. That's why I frequently go on "news blackouts".  I figure at my stage of the game, I am an easy target in way too many situations. The mere thought of walking through a parking lot to get to my car sometimes makes me sweat.  This nana no longer runs. 

The thing is -- I have not given up hope that things will be better after January 20th... Inauguration Day ... in case you have forgotten.  Things are already better.  I feel like the world is already a safer place than it has been for the past four years. One can feel the sigh of relief. I think of it as the great exhale. Then comes the fresh air. I think that I may even watch the news again -- at some point -- maybe.