Distance

I wrote and then rewrote a post on distance. I wanted to wax poetically about how grateful I am to be able to look back on things and see how far I have come.  Every time I would sit down to write about it, I would mentally distract myself with something else.  Oh look, my Pinterest board is feeling lonely, or look I have another life in Fruit Ninja was becoming a common place thing.   It is amazing that I could have something plotted out in my head and half convinced that I want to write about it, and then when I sit down to do so, I have utter and complete writers block and just get angry and pessimistic about the words that do come out. 

It wasn’t until I was writing out post cards to my friend Steph, that I figured out how to wrangle myself in, and found the perfect way to approach the subject of distance, by not talking about distance. I have a bad habit of putting myself into a box and not knowing how to get out of it. 

My husband had given me a book of science fiction movie poster postcards, and one of the first post cards was of Bela Lugosi‘s Dracula, which made me think of my friend, Steph.  A long time ago when there were still VHS tapes that could be rented, Steph and I had grabbed two pints of Ben & Jerry’s (Phish Food & Cherry Garcia if memory serves) and rented Dracula 2000.   

I don’t really like horror movies.  Or maybe I just don’t like the suspense and anticipation and possible over the top gore unless it is funny. There is something about the music that sets me on edge and gets me all wound up. Most of my friends have realized this over the years that spooky mood music will make me jittery and horror movies tend to have a plethora of mood music.  Based on the cover, Dracula 2000 looks like a horror movie.  It is dark and broody and has a gothic Gerald Butler on the cover.  

To combat my jitters, Steph had purposed a compromise.  We would fast forward through the parts that had potential to be scary and then rewind and watch them when we knew what would happen, so that they no long held the horror factor. (Writing this out, makes me feel like a VHS player commercial, and a really bad one at that. Do people even know how VHS works now?)  It took about three hours to watch movie and we probably spent half that time laughing and rewinding. 

A week or so ago I was flipping through Netflix and Dracula 2000 came up.  I was feeling nostalgic and put it on.  The shortest distance between years is a good memory and a bad movie. Laughter bubbled out of me as I recalled how ridiculous it was to take three hours to watch the movie, and snorted at some of the stars what recent films they are in now. (Nathan Fillion, I am not sure you were supposed to be making me laugh as hard as you did, but thank you for your enthusiasm in Dracula 2000).