Halloweentown

Salem in October is insane.

Since I live in Salem, Massachusetts (not Salem, New Hampshire; or Salem, Oregon), you could say that I do in fact live in Halloweentown. Now that it's mid-September, the summer tourists are giving way to the autumn crowds which come here to enjoy the Halloween festivities. It's early yet, but many stores are already decorated for Halloween in anticipation of the throngs of visitors to this fair city. During the month of October, the population of Salem swells to twice the usual number due to all the of out-of-town visitors. Streets are packed with pedestrians, many of whom wear oversized witch hats with feathered brims or ceramic devil horns tied around their heads, waving around magic wands or pirate swords. And I'm talking about the adults, people. And the fairies! Don't even get me started about the fairies.

I do enjoy all the Halloween-related events leading up to October 31st, such as the Bizarre Bazaar, a two-day craft fair held on the pedestrian walkway, as well as the special events some of the stores or local organizations hold, such as psychic fairs, or the children's and pets' costume parades. But as much as I love living in Salem, I don't want to go anywhere near downtown Salem on Halloween day itself. An eight minute drive home can turn into forty-five minutes or more when many drivers display a blatant disregard for traffic rules, ignoring red lights and continuing to go through intersections, thus leaving those who have the right of way unable to proceed. And taking the bus to avoid the hassle of driving through town doesn't help, either. The buses are re-routed on Halloween day, but the city doesn't publicize it. On my first Halloween in Salem, I waited over an hour for my bus, and when it didn't come, I started walking, only to learn halfway through my walk that the bus took an alternate route. By the time I got on the bus, I was so close to my apartment that I should have just walked the rest of the way home.

When I first visited Salem as a tourist, I loved taking part in the Halloween festivities. Now I find them to be a pain in the ass. I still love Halloween as much as I always did, but now, as a resident, I find the hordes of tourists converging on my city to be a major inconvenience, preventing me from going about my business as usual. I can't get a parking space. I can't get a table in a restaurant. There are long lines to the ladies' room in the Visitor's Center (because sometimes I can't wait until I get home). Add to the influx of tourists the charletan "psychics" who don't live or work here but who come into town to compete with the established Salem psychics for the tourist dollars. It got so bad that the city now requires psychics to have a fortune-telling license, which led to "witch wars" in town, as a couple of local "witches" left dead racoon carcasses in front of the shops of a few of the established psychics in town. Yes, my friends, Wiccans can get downright nasty where money is concerned.

My sanctuary from all the craziness of Salem at Halloween is Salem Common. Although it is right next to the Witch Museum, which is arguably the most popular witch attraction in town, most tourists bypass it. I guess it's not exciting enough for them. Thus, even in the middle of October, the Common is still mostly filled with residents, people who continue their normal routine amid the chaos to take a walk, jog, ride their bikes, walk their dogs, push their baby carriages, or just sit on a bench and read. I can take a walk around the Common and feel like I'm a part of this city, and not remotely connected to the swarms of people taking up valuable walking space on the sidewalks.

At night on Halloween, I prefer to just stay home, because Halloween night in Salem is the craziest time of all. Each year I can't wait to read the local paper the day after Halloween to see a) who got drunk, b) who got stabbed, c) who got into a fight, or d) who got arrested. Not that it's really that bad, but honestly, there are a lot of drunken idiots walking around downtown on the busiest night of the year in Halloweentown. Which reminds me, it's the time of year to watch "Nightmare Before Christmas" again.



image courtesy of halloweentown.org

Well I'll Be Googled (Part Two): Quite Literally

Do you ever Google yourself? Sure, we all do! After all, we have to make sure no one is posting any malicious rumors about us, don't we? (thank God my name isn't Britney Spears or Paris Hilton). So imagine my surprise one day when, with a lot of time on my hands during my longer-than-expected period of unemployment, a Google result of my own name turned up a listing for an old 7" vinyl 45 rpm single by an artist with the exact same name as me. I'm talking first and last name (although I've obscured the last name in the photo above to protect my identity, as well as the name of the song to prevent searches for it, sort of like a blogger protection program - not that I don't trust you guys). Even the spelling of my first name is the same, spelled with one "n" rather than two, which is unusual, but it's spelled that way because it's my nickname. It's really weird looking at the record label and seeing my own name on it. So of course I had to buy it from the online vintage record site on which I found it. The single dates from the very early Sixties. I did a search for "Dot Records" and came up with some information about the label. It was started in Gallatin, TN in 1950 and moved to Hollywood, CA in 1956, where it continued to release records in many genres, including gospel, soul, R&B, country, pop, and early rock and roll, until it was discontinued in 1977 (maybe disco killed it?). Dot recording artists included Pat Boone, Gale Storm, Liberace, Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Welk, the Andrew Sisters, Donna Fargo, Barbara Mandrell, and Roy Clark (of "Hee Haw" fame), as well as this person with the same name as me that nobody had ever heard of before or since.

The site from which I bought the single featured a short MP3 sample of the song, and upon listening to it, I could discern through the many crackles and pops of the old vinyl record that this Lyn was an African-American man, and not a white girl originally from Long Island, NY. Weird, huh?

What's even weirder is that I found another single on another vintage vinyl website by an artist with the exact same name as my sister, and using her nickname too. What are the odds? Needless to say I've got to get my hands on that one too. Maybe I'll make retro-looking shadow boxes, or buy those 12" album frames from Restoration Hardware and put vintage fabrics and postcards in with the singles to make some funky art for our apartment. After all, how many people could boast of owning a record with their name on it (unless their name happens to be John Lennon, or Barry White, or Diana Ross, or...well, I guess a lot of people could, actually).

So add to the many disappointments in my life my failed career as an African-American male soul/R&B artist of the early Sixties. But that's okay. Good thing I turned to blogging.

Who do you share a name with?

Well I'll Be Googled

I know everyone who has a blog has done this - viewing their site stats to see what Google Searches have brought people to their blog. But it sounded like fun, so I thought I'd try it. Here are some of the searches that turned up my blog in the results.

Okie Dokie Pig in a Pokie - I get this one a lot. They must have been looking for information on the British tv show The League of Gentlemen, as this is a quote from one of the characters. Unless they really were searching for pigs in jail.

Girl Pig - Hmm, that's odd. No relation to the League of Gentlemen. Maybe it's related to the search for pigs in jail?

Girl Desktoppers – I have no idea what this means, but it sounds kind of obscene.

Fairys Houes - Is this even English? Or perhaps they're dyslexic.

I had car accident and I saw one doctor in the first place can I see this doctor again for me - And were you on crack when you had this accident?

I would like to see the newest in Life is Good shirts - Are you over the age of 50, by any chance? (see previous post).

Life is Good - I Guess

What is it about those Life is Good (R) t-shirts and the Baby Boomer generation? Yesterday my sister and I went to Rockport for the day, and I saw at least 5 people of advancing age wearing Life is Good t-shirts. It got so bad that at one point I said to my sister "If I see one more person over the age of fifty wearing a Life is Good t-shirt, I'm going to scream." Not ten minutes later we passed another older American wearing a shirt emblazoned with one of those ubiquitous stick people grinning maniacally whilst engaged in a variety of positive activities, determined to enjoy life to the fullest. My sister reminded me that I had promised to scream, but, alas, I didn't.

Then today at work, my boss came in on her day off to get some work done in her office. She, too, was dressed in a Life is Good t-shirt, casually tucked into the elasticized waistband of her Mom Jeans. I don't get it. Are older people who wear Life is Good t-shirts trying to recapture their youth, or perhaps trying to connect with the younger generations? Or is it that, in their infinite wisdom that comes from being on this earth longer than most of us, they know something that younger people can only take at face value: that Life is, indeed, Good? And can optimism, like glitter eyeshadow or denim miniskirts, ever be age-inappropriate?

At least the people at Life is Good, Inc. realize that, sometimes, the glass is half empty. In response to their Life is Good apparel, they've started a line of more pessimistic t-shirts called Life is Crap. The Life is Crap shirts feature those same stick figure people having a bad day, such as going to the dentist, or being hit in the groin with a soccer ball.



The Life is Crap logo features a stick figure person with a seagull flying over him, pooping on his head. With the popularity of the Life is Good line of apparel leading to the establishment of Life is Good stores, such as the one on Newbury Street in Boston, can a Life is Crap store be far behind?



So I guess the moral of this story is, that as good as life is, sometimes life can also be, quite literally, crap.

Too Pooped to Post

I think this is the longest I've gone so far without posting. I've been so busy with my new job that I haven't been online in ten days. I'm so tired when I come home that I have no energy to blog.

The job is going fine so far except for one thing: I've hurt my back. Nothing serious, but with all the bending and lifting that I do, I've pulled a muscle in my lower back. And the smaller movements seem to set it off more than large ones. Like I can bend down to pick something up off the floor if I do it slowly, but if I laugh, sneeze, yawn, or even shift my weight, I get a twinge of pain in my lower back that feels like it goes right through to my front. Dang. I think my body is telling me that I'm too old to return to retail after a 15-year hiatus. I'm going to see my doctor on Wednesday to see what he tells me. In the meantime, I've been popping Advils like they're M&Ms. And unlike M&Ms, Advils do melt in your hand.

I've finished reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." I'm satisfied with the outcome. That's all I'll say, so as not to spoil anything for those of you who haven't read it yet. Now I think I have to re-read all the Harry Potter books from the beginning, now that the series is complete. I've forgotten so many little facts over the years that the books came out, so it will be great to be able to read them all in succession.

Three Days and Counting

Actually, it's 2 days, 4 hours and 20 minutes until midnight of Saturday, July 21st. That's when "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be released. My local independent bookstore is having a day-long series of Potter-related events on Friday, ending with the release of the book at midnight. And being the nerd girl that I am, I've pre-purchased a copy and will be picking it up at 12:01 am Saturday morning, along with many other Harry Potter fans. Of course, I'm not completely geeky -- I could show up dressed as a character in the book -- but I won't. That would just be weird, although I could very easily make a Hogwarts school uniform out of the grey flannel J. Crew mini-kilt, grey cardigan sweater, and white button-down shirt that happen to be a part of my wardrobe anyway. And I do own a magic wand (it was a gift, okay?). The British edition of the book is expected to be 608 pages, while the American edition is 784 pages. Why is that? It's the same book, after all. Does the American edition have bigger type? Is the eyesight of American children collectively that much worse than that of British kids? (I blame video games). I love the American editions if only for the wonderful illustrations by Mary GrandPre (see above) used by Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter books. They're charming, and they appeal to both the children and adults who read the book. The British publishers release two versions of each book, one for children, and one for adults with a less juvenile-looking cover.

I saw "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" last Thursday. I enjoyed it, but I left the theater feeling that something was missing. I was a bit disappointed that some of my favorite scenes from the book were cut from the movie. Oh well. That's not going to stop me from seeing it again this Sunday. Then again, maybe I should just stay home all day Sunday and start reading "Deathly Hollows." Now I'm conflicted.

Tea Lady

I got the job at the tea shop. I start tomorrow. I had a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute interview on Friday, during which time a vicious thunder-and-lightning storm came through, all while we were safe inside. By the time my interview ended, the sun had come out again. How deliciously metaphorical.

I was really nervous about accepting this job, only because my confidence is a bit worse for wear after my last job. But as I look back on my employment history, it appears that my gut instinct is lousy. I seem to have made decisions that were the exact opposite of what I should have done. I've accepted jobs I shouldn't have, and turned down jobs I shouldn't have. And when I had interviewed for my last job, I came away from it really, really wanting it. I thought the people were great and it would be a fantastic job. Boy was I wrong on that one. So I should take a page from Seinfeld's George Constanza's book and do the opposite: "It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat... It's often wrong."

It's frightening that George Costanza has become my unemployment idol.

And when I'm plagued by self doubt, I just repeat the mantra of Saturday Night Live's fictional self-help guru Stuart Smalley: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." Truer words have never been spoken.



Two Dubious Role Models: George Costanza and Stuart Smalley