we hold these truths to be self-evident...

[lagilman]

So, am watching "Most Haunted" on the Travel Channel. They're doing a riff on "Blair Witch," putting their team in tents on the burial grounds of a notoriously haunted castle, while the main reporters stay in the castle.

And lo, we discover that I am a total wuss, and would have, like the Black family in Richard Pryor's routine, been out of there the moment the first voice said 'get out!' Children and wise adults should not play wth dead things. Dead things have a tendency to be cranky.

(I don't use an ouija board, either. And I don't hang out in graveyards for fun. And I never, ever, ever say things like "If there's anyone out there who wants to communicate, shake the tent..." They can send a damn e-mail like the rest of the world. I have enough Weird Shite in my life without going looking for it.)

Comments

But

[johnwrt1.livejournal.com]

But you write books like "staying dead"? :)

Re: But

[lagilman]

Yes, the point of that specific title being that dead things should stay dead and leave the rest of us alone (and we should return the favor)...

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I'd find MH scarier if I didn't know it was faked. Sometimes you can see someone bumping the table during those Ouija and table-tapping sessions. And of course there's all that screaming and freaking over nothing at all.

Then again, nobody remarked on the shot of the hallway with the dog in it. After all their uproar about the Devil Dog. (Being Brit, they didn't get the joke about the chocolate version.)

[lagilman]

I'd find MH scarier if I didn't know it was faked.

Oh, their 'psychic' was hysterically bad -- I suspect that if he actually had any sensitivity to what he claimed was going around him, he'd be sweating and shitting, not overacting...

Friends have tried to get me to stay overnight at the Lizzie Borden House, which has been turned into a B&B. No. Also, no. Did something similar once, all unknowing. Did not enjoy.

[barbara-ferrenz.livejournal.com]

"Did something similar once, all unknowing. Did not enjoy."

Not my house, I hope.

If we screamed and carried on every time we heard a little sound, we'd be upset all of the time.

[lagilman]

Oh, true. I actually had lovely times in your house. But then, Herself has lovely manners. No matter what Karen says. *wry g*

[karenetaylor.livejournal.com]

Karen's an even bigger wuss that you are.

So why, oh why, is she trying to finish a haunted house novel? I have to get up and walk away after each scary scene. Which explains, of course, why I'm still struggling...


Then again, I still have the ugly thing "living" here, so I can't be all that bad, can I?

[barbara-ferrenz.livejournal.com]

"Then again, I still have the ugly thing "living" here, so I can't be all that bad, can I?"

The full title is "the ugly, scary thing" for a reason. It sure gives me the heebie-jeebies.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

I'd find Ouija scarier if it wasn't made by Milton Bradley. *ahem*

[pearlformance.livejournal.com]

lol. love yr last paragraph. thank god I peed before I got to your blog.

Ghosties

[otterdance.livejournal.com]

I have played among the dead things, with differing results. Definitely stay away from Ouja boards and the like. Did I ever tell you about my (last ever) experiment dousing in the haunted fort?

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

Okay, this has nothing to do with this post, but I wondered if you'd seen Holly Lisle's take on bookstores and if you would respond, being that you're someone who I think is knowledgeable on the area. Here's her link:

http://hollylisle.com/writingdiary2/index.php/2006/12/01/selling-to-the-net-or/

Mostly I'm curious about whether you agree or disagree on the argument. If you've time and interest to go there.

Di

[lagilman]

Hrm. The facts are all correct, sadly, but I think the argument is a bit simplistic in tagging Chain Stores Bad, Indies Good...

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

Oh.oh.oh!
Then I should tell you about the paranorm studies I got to see at UCLA then...
*bait*

[autojim.livejournal.com]

Scariest thing I've ever done? Stay in a shiny, modern hotel about 150 meters from Ground Zero in Hiroshima, Japan, in a room facing away from that direction so I didn't know how close I was until I'd been there most of a week... a week of VERY disturbed sleep. Not out-of-phase-with-my-time-zone sleep. Disturbed. Wake-sweating-and-choking-on-a-scream disturbed.

Some of you have heard this story before.

Then, on Saturday, I was out scoping out the local electronics boutique and... there it was. Ground Zero. The T-shaped bridge. The "A-Bomb Dome". And the Peace Park. And, well, I had to go in. I did not visit the museum, however. I knew things were gonna get weird when I crossed the street and set foot on the park grounds. An old man sitting on a bench facing away from me suddenly looked over his shoulder, eyes wide, and MOVED to get away. Not from fear of me. A young couple didn't even look back -- they got up from their bench and skedaddled. And I realized I had a couple hundred thousand cheesed-off spirits very interested in my gaijin self. They were familiar: I'd been seeing them many times during the past few nights.

Walked around the park, stopping at the various memorials, thinking respectful "I am not a threat to you and yours" thoughts as hard as I could. At the centopath -- a stone monument containing scrolls listing the names of the dead -- I heard movement behind me. Looking back, there was a group of Shinto priests heading toward the centopath. I stepped aside, and backed away, not wanting to disturb what were clearly regular rounds they were making.

I finished my own circuit, and was heading back toward the hotel via the famous T-shaped bridge when the same priests were heading the opposite way. The senior priest (well, he was the oldest) was at the tail of their line, and as I stepped aside to allow them to pass, he stopped in front of me, looked me right in the eyes, and said "They understand. Be at peace", gave me a polite head-nod of a bow, and continued on. It felt like a tremendous load was removed from me -- I was no longer the focus of thousands of unseen eyes.

I didn't have any more disturbed sleep the rest of that trip, or my later return trip to Hiroshima.

I do not seek these sorts of experiences. The ones that find me are unpleasant enough.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

You sound like Tannim is Misty & Larry's book. *brr*

[autojim.livejournal.com]

Urg. forgot to log in first.

Naah, not like Tannim at all. He's: way cooler, seeks these sorts of things out (I avoid and/or run the other way when possible), and, above all, is fictional.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

You mean, you're not!? *wide eyed innocent look*