Normal on the Outside

As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my mom. When she would go to the meat section, I was fascinated with certain packaged meat products. I would stand there and stare at the cow livers and tongues. I would even poke at the meat just to feel the texture. The liver was smooth, while the tongue had a rougher texture. I have no idea why I needed to touch them or why I was never "grossed out" by it.

My mother often bought whole fryer chickens, the ones you basically had to "gut" before you cooked them. I was very curious about this process. My mom took notice of my curiosity and asked if I wanted to help. I remember receiving some sort of pleasure skinning the chicken and handling the "innards". That became my duty in the kitchen whenever chicken was cooked!

As far as my interest in horror movies goes, that started at a young age also. I remember watching "The Birds" and "Psycho" with my dad around the age of 7, in the early 80's. I loved those movies and wanted to live in Norman Bates' house! Even in black and white those movies were awesome. I know now that chocolate syrup was used in the shower scene in "Psycho"!

I also remember a movie that came on around Halloween. It was called "Dark Night of the Scarecrow". It came out in 1981. I watched that movie every Halloween until they stopped airing it.

I guess the first "popular" horror movie that I watched was "Friday the 13th". I was scared to death of Jason when I first saw that movie. The same with Michael Myers when first seeing "Halloween". Something about a man in a mask! Freddy, on the other hand, was not scary to me at all. He was hilarious!

In 1987, the movie that made me fall in love with vampires, came out. I spent a Friday night with my junior high best friend and we watched "The Lost Boys". We watched it again the next day, 3 more times! I grew up with a southern baptist momma who didn't even allow me to watch The Smurfs, much less horror movies! Boy, if she only knew what I got away with!

Back to my sick fascinations! In high school I took advanced biology. It came time for our dissection project. We were going to be dissecting a cat. I was, and still am, a cat lover, but for some reason it did not bother me to be cutting away at this cat. Maybe it was because the object laid before us no longer really looked like a cat or maybe it was because I am just that sick. Who knows. My partner and I completed the assigned list of items we were to dissect. After that, the teacher allowed us to "explore" our cat. Without going into great detail, to spare my fellow cat lovers, I removed the brain. I also kept, said brain, in a baby food jar and stored it in my locker for the remainder of the school year. Why? I don't know.

I will also spare my fellow cat lovers by not posting a picture of a cat dissection!

Serial killers are another fascination of mine, but I will save that for a different blog. But just to let you know: yes, I had small animals as a child and NO, I did not mutilate them! lol

My love for horror movies is stronger than ever. The more gore and sick and twisted content, the better. How can someone look so normal on the outside but be so sick and twisted on the inside? I guess those are the ones you have to look out for!