Arianna Georgi

Over the weekend my friends and I took a trip to Arizona.  One of things we did, in addition to drink many beers and attempt/fail many times to sing Alicia Keyes’ part in “Empire State of Mind” very loudly in the car, was take a trip to Sedona.  Sedona is very beautiful, but it is also is considered to be a “spiritual vortex” which means it is totally full of weirdos.   Walking down from a hill we hiked up (side note: not a good idea the day before a marathon) we were passed by a woman in full Native American dress leading a bride and groom up (side note: the bride was not even wearing tennis shoes).  We were also accosted by several young men who tried to ask if we “felt the energy man.”

We went to get coffee in town and ended up at what was the world’s creepiest strip mall.  A young girl on a bike circled the coffee store endlessly, saying each time she passed us “catch me if you can.”  An old woman came rushing out of a restaurant and then stood on the sidewalk.  When we passed, she stopped us and said, “I don’t know how to get back in…. they just told me everyone was outside and so I came, and now I can’t get back.”  Everything was adding up but luckily I watch a ton of movies so I saw the very clear writing on the wall.  We were definitely about to be serial killed/trapped in some sort of bizzaro-world for all eternity.   I got us the hell out of Sedona (and I am pretty sure I did so right before we were scheduled to hit an old vagrant in a rain coat and then all make a pact to never speak of it again until next summer). 

Since you may not have friends as awesome as me, I decided to put a list up, for the public good so everyone knows what to watch out for to avoid being serial killed/trapped in a vortex.  They are the Three Cs of Serial Killing Danger.  Enjoy and BEWARE!

1.        Creepy children:  You can tell creepy children from regular children because they are creepy.  They are most likely pale, although if your car has broken down in the middle of nowhere and you are about to be serial killed by mutant hillbillies, they may might be tan.  The say creepy things like “you shouldn’t have come here” or even just “play with me.”  They are also sometimes ghosts.  Creepy children are a good early warning sign that serial killing may occur.  If you see one, get the heck out.

2.       Cabins:  Cabins can be fun and just the mere presence of a cabin doesn’t always indicate you will be serial killed.  Unfortunately, 99% of the time it does.  And if you are headed to a cabin for the weekend in the middle of the woods with a bunch of your young promiscuous friends it definitely does.  Beware anyone that suggests a weekend to a cabin and if you do end up going to one, do not, for any reason, allow anyone in your car to utter anything like “this is going to be a weekend we’ll never forget.” 

3.       Car Trouble:  You don’t necessarily have to worry every time you get a flat tire, but if this flat tire occurs when you are in the middle of nowhere, or during a lightning storm, or just after you have had an encounter with a creepy child it’s bad news.  Pretty much when you get out your car you are very likely to have something either jump out of the woods at you or attack you.  Even if you manage to get the tire fixed, you are very likely to get back in your car and start it up only to have someone in your backseat.  There’s not much I can tell you that can save you in this situation.

Tags: creepy kids, Sedona, serial killers

 Some mornings Tanya and I get ourselves out of bed extra early to get in some bike riding before work.  We have a set 11 mile loop we do and almost every time we do it we joke about riding past what we refer to as the “haunted field.”  Basically along our route there’s a certain field we pass by that always happens to be about 15 degrees cooler than everywhere else.  I’ve been running by it for the past 4 years I’ve lived in my neighborhood and it has always been like this.  I used to think I was nuts until I rode by it with Tanya and she commented on the exact same thing.  Since in almost every ghost movie I’ve ever seen, the ghost is accompanied by super cold air, I can only deduce that this field is haunted (why do ghosts hang out in the cold anyway?  And if they like the cold so much how come they don’t just all go and hang out in Antarctica?).  Anyway yesterday when we rode by it was ridiculously cold.  I mean, it was probably about 60 degrees along the rest of the route, but in this particular spot it felt like 30.  No joke, it was so cold it hurt. There is probably some scientific reason for this, like that the field we ride next to is in the shade or has an air pocket or something, but I prefer to believe that ghosts are responsible because that makes it much more interesting and my life can be sort of boring and imagining there are ghosts around haunting fields I ride by on a regular basis livens it up somewhat.  It was so cold that when I got home I was actually inspired to look online to see if there were any local ghost stories that could explain the whole thing. 

What I found was a website entitled Ghosts of America.  It had a whole two pages for the area I live in which got me very excited until I started actually read the postings.  Anyone can enter ghost stories on Ghost of America, so what the site basically consists of is people going on it and making up the most ridiculous, and vague ghost stories I have ever heard.  It starts out with this one:

A lady gripping her head beside her arm is frequently seen in Abolitos Park at night hauling a dead body over rocks. A number of of the people who live here allege this ghost is the stressed spirit of a long gone Poway local. Regardless of what, it’s a chilling spirit that you don’t want to run into before dawn.

Okay, that’s sort of scary.  I don’t know why you would go to the local soccer park and run around dragging your head AND a dead body under your arm (that seems like a lot of stuff to drag), but I guess if you are stressed you might do this sort of thing.  It does indeed sound sort of “chilling.” 

But from here the site gets increasingly ridiculous:

The spirit of an airplane pilot became visible devouring a cookie at night on a sidewalk in Poway. Many reports of this ghost have been conveyed. Locals who have observed this ghost allege this ghost loves frightening foolhardy folks who come searching for ghosts in Poway.

This one doesn’t even make sense.  Why would an airline pilot come haunt Poway, where there is no airplane field to speak of.  Also, why is he eating a cookie.  Maybe in life they never let him have any of the cookies in the first class section of the plane, but they smelled awesome so in death he goes around eating any cookies he can get his hands on.  I think it’s the details here that make this really over the top.  Apparent “many reports” of the cookie monster ghost have been reported, which makes me wonder how those particular conversations went down. 

Person 1:  Oh my God, last night I saw the scariest thing!

Person 2:  Well if it was an airline pilot ghost eating a cookie you aren’t alone, everyone has seen that guy.

By page two, the ghost stories have devolved into pure crazy talk, like my favorite of all:

A headless man may often be observed at a coin operated phone in Poway making a telephone call.

Okay.  If you have no head, how are you even planning on speaking into a payphone?  Also, which coin operated phone is this?  This story is pretty vague on the details but I am very curious about the ghostly motives going on here.  If I ever come back as a headless ghost, my first order of business is going to be locating my head, not making payphone calls (unless they are to the guy that took my head- maybe that’s what’s going on…)

If you want to get vaguely scared, you should go to this page.  I am going camping this weekend so I definitely plan on scaring everyone around the fire with the tale of the airplane pilot cookie monster ghost.  I also plan on steering clear of local payphones, sidewalks, and soccer fields.  No matter how ridiculous you think it is, some things just aren’t worth risking. 

Tags: Airplane Pilots, Biking, Ghosts, Halloween, Poway

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t really understand Urban Outfitters.  The faded tee-shirts that look like they came from the bottom of a box in the back of Salvation Army and retail for 34 dollars, the “ironic” stupid hipster books they sell, the fact that I can’t really tell how most of the clothing there is supposed to be worn (is it a scarf, a sweater or a purse?).  Urban Outfitters has always eluded me, so maybe that’s why I don’t really understand what the hell is going on in the Fall catalogue.  What is clear to me, is that someone, at some point, decided the best way to sell clothes was to put them on drugged and/or emaciated looking models and then have those model all pose as though they are just about to be murdered by a serial killer, turned into a zombie, and/or are a ghost.  Makes sense, right?  Basically, every single model in the new catalogue looks like she’s participating in some sort of horror movie. 

Watch out, Girl Modeling the 20 dollar Huntington Scarf!!!!!!  Clearly you’ve just heard something alarming behind you causing you to turn your glassy eyes to look over your shoulder.  Was it an ax-murder sneaking up on you in the woods?  Maybe it was just someone just trying to chase you down so they can let you know jumpers are a really, really bad idea.

Oh no, Girl in 68 Dollar sweater vest!  You never should have left the camping trip/séance you were hanging out at with the Huntington Scarf Girl to go by yourself into the woods.  Something terrifying has obviously occurred on the left side of this photo and I really doubt you are going to be able to run far in those shoes.

This girl is clearly a ghost doomed to wander the woods endlessly looking for the pants that went with her overly expensive ponhco.  Seriously, if I was out alone somewhere and this girl walked by with her Samara Morgan hair and her limp, emaciated limbs I would head the other direction. 

I feel bad for this girl.  Unfortunantly, started her so much that she ran into the woods and completely forgot her dress is totally see through.  Not only that, but her dress doesn’t even look particuarly warm.  When the ghost girl shows up, I am pretty sure this girl is doomed.

This girl is obviously a zombie. 

 Urban Outfitters has clearly cornered the fashionable zombie, ghost, and horror movie vicitim market.

Tags: catalogue, fashion, Ghosts, Urban Outfitters, zombies

In certain kinds of TV Shows
there often comes a part
where the eager rookie, or spunky female cop,
or jaded, hardened veteran who swears this is his last case,
goes to talk
with someone
who wears glasses
and uses words like “database”
and looks very smart
and sits in front of a computer
and types a few things
and makes a statement
that causes me to pause every time,

“this guy is a ghost!”
they say,
and I know what they mean,
and even if I didn’t,
the smart looking person would go on to explain
“no license, no fingerprints, no record, etc.
it’s like you are chasing a ghost!”
And he does not mean a real ghost,
but it makes me think all the same,

that if I was a ghost I probably would commit crimes
having returned from the dead
to find there is no afterlife
or grand reason to be good,
just the same old world
but more transparent this time
with walls I could walk through
and children doing silly imitations of me
on Halloween.

I would think
that after wandering for a few weeks
doing typical ghost things
like spying my loved ones and
and appearing behind my enemies in mirrors to scare them
I probably would turn to a life of crime
because really
who would be able to stop me
and without fingerprints it would be easy
and anyway being a ghost would probably be
boring as hell

I would probably start small;
stealing candy bars from the drugstore
or old ladies’ handbags,
the kind of thing
I would never have done as a person
it would still be more interesting
than floating through the forest
startling hikers and squirrels
or slamming doors in old mansions
or anything else I could be doing

so I would move on to bigger things
and organize a crime ring
or drug empire
or whatever else it is the bad guy does
and run it
in the way only a ghost can
never showing up for meetings
and occasionally floating out to torment my associates
by moaning their names
if they got out of line

and after years and years
I would be rich enough to retire
and live the good life
on a yacht in Capri
and drink martinis all day
lying on the sundeck
only I’d be a ghost
and the life (good or not)
would have already been lived
and the martinis would dribble to the floor
and I wouldn’t be able to get a tan
so there would just be this
the floating around,
the moaning,
the organizing a crime empire,
and whatever else

and when the spunky female cop
or rookie,
or jaded veteran, showed up at my door
I would want to let them in
but the doorknob would slip through my ghost fingers
and they would burst down the door
to an empty room
and swear

while I stood in the corner wishing
they would handcuff me, or shoot at me
or anything else
to prove I am there.

Tags: Ghosts, poems