Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

Before I start this review, I feel like I should preface this by saying, if there was some sort of target audience for this season, I'm well aware that it wasn't me. A desperation for pregnancy and motherhood is not something I will ever understand or relate to, and I, in general, am grossed out by pregnancy and everything that comes with it, so this season was turning my stomach before it even got into anything overtly horrific. Also, like much of the fandom, I was unimpressed with the majority of the casting. However, Kim Kardashian's Siobhan wound up being my favorite character, solely because she had some great lines. But anyway. Delicate is the story of Anna Victoria Alcott, an actress teetering toward washed up, who desperately craves motherhood. She seeks out the help of New York's greatest fertility doctor, Dr. Hill (notably portrayed by Denis O'Hare, who I would watch read the phone book, but I really don't have much to say about his performance in this...

This past week, as I've watched the Easter displays in stores disappear, I've felt the heaviness of the end of a holiday, more than I usually do. I don't do much to celebrate Easter anymore...to me it's more of a children's holiday, celebration-wise, what with the egg hunts and Easter Bunny lore and all, but I do feel a great deal of nostalgia when I think about it. This past season was eye-opening for me when it comes to the impression Easter made on me as a child, realizing how many memories I have attached to it, though I doubt it could ever be a favorite holiday ever again, at least in the traditional sense. Was I sad to see it end after the wave of nostalgia it brought me? Of course. But that also doesn't mean that I can't still think about those things now. It's long been established that living life by a calendar is absolutely beneath me.  I've realized, now, though, watching the displays get taken down and torn apart and built back into somet...

  It's hard, sometimes, not to feel like a costumed clown, out in a world that you feel no real connection to, except for during that one specific time.  I wonder, sometimes, am I the fool? Or is it everyone else? Do I sit behind a billowing black veil, unable to see past the shadows, or is it that no one else really sees me, or even the potential within themselves to be more than they are? Sometimes it feels like a cruel joke, to fit in for a season and then be cast out once again.  But how, I must ask, can it be foolish to simply live your own truth? To do what makes you happy, regardless of how others perceive you?  Perhaps I will sit behind this veil forever then, or at least until my time comes again. I don't think it's foolish, at all.

 Here is a very interesting fact about myself that I recently remembered: The first holiday I ever tried to preserve and continue to celebrate after it was over, actually wasn't Halloween. It was Easter. When I was very small, my mother had window clings for every holiday. (I actually have a post about the scarecrow that went up at Halloween and stayed up through Thanksgiving  here .) As a little girl who liked particularly girly things at the time (I believe this happened somewhere between the ages of four and six), the Easter clings were actually my favorite, particularly the little lamb. For whatever reason, that particular year, I couldn't bear the thought of those clings being packed away for another three-hundred-and-something days, and begged my mother to move them into my window in my bedroom so I could enjoy them year round. She agreed, albeit reluctantly, and the Easter clings adorned my window until they eventually dried out and shriveled up from the summer heat, mu...

  The shadows in the cemetery that day were unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was more than a cloudy afternoon. It felt ominous, like a warning. A warning I should have heeded ages ago, if I'm honest. I look back on every tear shed, every whispered word, every time I should have put a stop to a desperate fairytale that was spinning out of control. I question my sanity, when I look back on it. Who was I? Or perhaps, who was I  trying  to be, and for what purpose?  Why was I looking for something I'd had all along?  I'll never forget how blue the sky was, the moment hope returned.  I had to shut my eyes to see clearly, but when I opened them again, the world was vivid, as if that shadowy night never happened. Or, at the very least, happened somewhere far, far away.  As I finally stood up again, I nearly tripped over my own feet, like a newborn animal. Rebirth, it seems, was the theme of the day. I felt something catch me, holding me steady once mo...

I remember a car ride with my parents. I'm not entirely sure how old I was. Middle school aged, I believe. My father commented on how, in about a week or so, the clocks would move forward, and it would stay light out later into the evening hours. I always tried not to really listen to my parents' conversations in the car, or at least not let on that I was. But this time, for some reason, I blurted out in response "How depressing." I believe this may have been the first time I ever expressed that out loud. I've never cared for spring, and especially not summer, even in childhood. Even when I didn't realize I was doing it, I was always searching for Halloween, in everything around me. And what is more reminiscent of Halloween, in the treacherous off-season, than bare trees, dead leaves, and darkness?  Putting my aversion to warm weather and sunlight aside, spring comes along and breaks the illusion. It's hard to get lost in the memory of trick-or-treating, o...

 I can't remember the last time I went for a walk before today. It may actually have been Christmas Day, as I was sick for most of January and the earlier part of February. That strange period of time when last Halloween is so close, yet so far Today I set out, on my usual route, half happy to have the time, energy, and daylight to finally go off in search of inspiration once again, and half annoyed at the sunlight in my eyes and the knowledge of the imminent boss battle ahead of me, as it's already starting to feel like summer and it's not even officially spring. It felt strange, in a way, to be walking that way again, after so long. On my last walk, I felt the strange melancholy of a post-holiday world, combined with the Christmas facade falling away. I was standing on the borderline of autumn and winter, while today I almost felt as if I were walking the plank between winter's pirate ship and spring and summer's endless ocean.  Memories of autumn flooded me, as I...