Irrational Fears… Scary Things!

I know it seems I haven’t been doing much art work or crafty projects lately and part of that is true. I actually am working on two projects for a competition that I can’t show pictures of until I am finished. I once again promise that I am taking progression photos but it is like Fight Club – you don’t talk about Fight Club. I hope to have both pictures (yes there are two) finished this week, once they are finished they will have grand blog entries. I also have a new project in the design stage that my daughter and I will be working on too. It will be a wreath with clay eye balls. I think I figured out how to do the eyeballs. My supplies for the paper clay experiment will be here this week so I am really excited to make paper clay. I have 7 pages worth of Christmas ornaments sketched out to create for my Etsy Store. I am so excited! Some of the ornaments are really, really cool! I did quite a few sketches for Baby First Christmas ones and they are all fun and would be a great addition to any tree. I also discovered something that had been bothering me for quite sometime: OOAK, I would see this and it would drive me crazy because my brain was unable to process this. I thought it was some sort of secret club and was starting to get a little irritated that I could not find out what and where this OOAK club/blog was. Feeling very sheepish now I realized it means One of a Kind, so I admit I was jealous of an acronym.

The “New” Webster School – not the school I went too. This school was built when I was in the sixth grade. I remember playing tag in the construction site (now a days we would have been arrested) and running through the building before there were windows, walls, and doors – it was awesome for hide and seek!

So I titled this entry irrational fears… scary things. I admit I have had some pretty irrational fears in my day and some down right weird ones. Here are some of the more irrational fears I have had or still have. I grew up in Escanaba, Michigan (small town USA) the elementary school I went to no longer exists (I am trying to find a picture of it so I can better explain this irrational fear – no luck). This irrational fear started when I was in kindergarten. The old Webster school was a two story sandstone and brick building built in 1912 each classroom had 14′ ceilings and carpet (I still have no idea why carpet but it was carpet). I still remember the bathrooms in the basement the dark green floor, giant mirror, very, very tiny toilets and bathroom stalls with hook locks. The halls were all dark the lighting similar to an insane asylum and the gymnasium had the worst lighting in the world, it took 30 minutes for the lights to turn on. In order to get to any classroom you needed to walk up one flight of stairs. The higher grades 4-6 were on the top floor and K-3 were on the main floor of the school. The building was beautiful but falling apart and by my fifth grade year the ceiling started to cave in on my desk. My neighbor (who was two or three years older than me) told me on the first day of kindergarten, if I walked on the worn part of the steps or floor I would fall through to the deep dark basement never to return. The basement part didn’t scare me, I went in my grandma’s creepy basement all the time, the falling part scared the crap out of me. So everyday I walked on the outside of the steps around the worn part, I did this until the building was torn down. I even did this in Junior High with the worn marble (yes marble) staircases. It is one thing to avoid worn steps and floor boards in elementary and junior high school but to still avoid them as an adult (with a background in Historic Preservation) is absolutely irrational and ridiculous. I know the steps are sound but that little voice in the back of my head still says don’t walk there you might fall through.

Escanaba Junior High School – it is such a beautiful building

My second irrational fear from childhood is Robert Stack. The wonderful actor and host of Unsolved Mysteries. My mom watched Unsolved Mysteries every Tuesday night when I was a kid and this show scared the crap out of me. From the opening music (I just listened to the opening credits and I still get the chills) to Robert Stack’s narration I was extremely freaked out by this. I am not even sure why he scared me but Robert Stack was really, really scary. As I sit here and type I am reminded of one episode that made Robert Stack’s eyes glow, holy scary! Even in high school I would try to watch reruns of this show and couldn’t do it, I would hear the music and I was in the third grade all over again!

My next irrational fear I am happy to say I no longer have but it is amusing none the less. I thought I would die by being on a boat that hit an ice berg and sink. I call this Titanic-phobia. There are so many problems with this fear. First, I can count on my hands how many times I have been on a boat in my life (seven). Second, even in Michigan you don’t bring boats out in the winter time. Third, summer = no icebergs (even in Michigan on Lake Superior). I remember being on a boat for the first time and sitting towards the stern of the boat because if we did hit an ice berg I would be able to ride it out. Looking back on this irrational fear I can laugh now but up until high school this thought always crossed my mind. I now watch Titanic Documentaries all the time so my fear of this irrational scary thing is gone now.