Here's To Three Glorious Years

Daniel And I's Wedding Anniversary

As of today, I've been married to my husband Daniel Jean-Claude Romeo Roebuck-Lafleur (two hyphens, two last names and four first names...no, I'm not joking) for 3 years. It seems like only yesterday that Daniel, surrounded by bowls of post-bar mac n' cheese and slightly tipsy, got down on one knee as Pink Floyd's Fearless blasted from our speakers in the living room. Taking my hand, he asked me if I would make him the "happiest man in the world and spend the rest of my life with him". "Are you drunk?" was my initial reply. Clearly I said yes moments later though and here we are. It's been an amazing journey thus far, full of ups and downs, really high highs and really low lows but there isn't a second that I would take back. I love the bugger and my life is richer for him being in it. As I write this and reflect back on our time spent together, it's amazing how marked special occasions have been by the horror genre; our first date in Toronto (our future home in just a couple of years) was dinner and showing of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (we wanted our money back). The night of our wedding, when I was still in the grips of a crippling, never-ending battle with my anxiety disorder (which left me good for absolutely nothing but clawing at my skin and hyperventilating), was spent by the rolling fire in the basement of his home watching Billy O'Brien's Isolation. Our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee was full of visits to more tourist trap haunted houses than you could shake a stick at, including the notable instance wherein Daniel met Bill Mosely (who was signing autographs at Ripley's Haunted Adventure) for the first time. Our first road trip to Indianapolis was for Daniel and I to attend Horror Hound Weekend (where we met next to no one as the crowds and handling of them was absolutely ridiculous, but Daniel did get to meet Elvira, one of his heroes). Every holiday we spend together is celebrated by a horror marathon of one sort or the other. It goes on and on.

The husband, Daniel, best monster-man a boy could ever ask for.

I will say this, Daniel isn't the guy I met online 4 years ago. Perhaps it's through osmosis, but he's transformed over our time together from a standard fan of the genre, to an outright enthusiast. His knowledge on certain sub-genres and obscure directors and stars rivals even mine now, branching out as he did to indulge his love for no-budget exploitation shockers. Then there's stumbling upon him in the bathroom reading Fangoria on the toilet, passing him in bed at night, tucked in and turning the pages of Horror Hound. It's enough to give your host the biggest, most proud smile imaginable. It's definitely something I could get use to for another 3 years and then some. So, here's to you Daniel. I love you madly and as I've said elsewhere on The October Country, "I can't think of another person I'd rather share all this ghoulishness with". That still holds true more than ever. Happy Anniversary.

Daemonophobia / Oclophobia

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

I could probably publish a small novel on the completely innocuous things that now vibrate with a sinister aura to me thanks to legendary filmmaker (and painter, musician, animator, photographer, carpenter, spokesperson for Transcendental Meditation) David Lynch. No really, I could. Heretofore, many of these everyday doohickeys and thingamajigs were no more threatening than Pepé Le Pew making it with Penelope Pussycat but in Lynch's batshit crazy hands, something terrifying creeps in, creeps through the everyday facade of normalcy. I imagine that now that I have stumbled through Lynch's looking glass, there will forever be hinted terrors behind the commonest shapes and objects he has fixed his surrealist's eye on. I also imagine that I will be covering these many ridiculous fears he has sown in my mind permanently, quite regularly here at The October Country. Because honestly, no filmmaker has unnerved me as consistently as Lynch has. So for today's sojourn into the world of personal and irrational fears, I'm going straight to the top of the list. The mother of all achievements as far as Mr. Lynch's bizarre, scary creations are concerned: the demonic, disturbing, what-the-fuck entity known as BOB (Frank Silva) from television's Twin Peaks and it's attendant incarnation, the owl (fittingly associated with sorcery and evil throughout history).
Hence:

The daemonophobia...

...that begot the oclophobia (and future Salem album cover)....


...that resulted in a fear of finding this at the foot of my bed one day:


Conclusion, thank you for many a sleepless, harrowing nights alone in bed Mr. Lynch and for making those deep, dark woods just a little bit blacker.

Teratophobia

"Yesssssssssss Justin, I WILL traumatize you for the next 20 years!"

- The beautiful Geretta Geretta as possessed prostitute/demon hag Rosemary
from Lamberto Bava's Dèmoni AKA a strong motivating factor for me checking beneath the bed prior to lights out for well over a decade.