At The Mountains of Madness

So what have I been up to for the past few days? Settling in at home seems to be the running theme. It's nice to relax. I'm glad I made the decision to stay home as long as I did. Yes, I do miss out on the Amalfi coast outside of Naples with all the rest of the crew, but I couldn't see myself coming back home for Easter and then making an about-face turnaround and return to Europe and non-stop vacation traveling. The pace is much slower here and that is a nice change from the fast pace that I have been going at recently. Also it is nice to be home in New Jersey and back in all my old prowlings.

I'll elaborate more what I have been doing at home. Met up some Regians: always tons of fun doing that. I had always thought NYC was an expensive town, but now that I returned this time around my perceptions have changed. I was able to get a massive sushi lunch (about 8 sushi pieces and 2 rolls plus miso soup and a Kiran beer) for $10. And then there was a great bar on St Mark's Place which had happy hour $3 beers. If I tried to do this in London, both by converting into dollars and staying in Pound Sterling prices, I probably would starve and lose a few belt sizes (actually I think I have already done that).

I was going to bore you with the Regian fare we did that night in the city (I assure you, Regians would only find it enjoyable and relish doing it) but instead I will answer something that hs probably been on your mind for a while: what the hell is that weird thing in the picture on the side of the blog? The title of this post explains where it is from: HP Lovecraft's novella "At The Mountains of Madness". Those are the aliens that are discovered by the haplessly ignorant Antarctic explorers before they realize the dreadful significance of their discovery--brrrrr! I get chills thinking about the story: the dramatic irony is killer. I have some omnibus volumes of HP Lovecraft's work and I have been making my way through them. I have been reading this volume since I got back stateside and have been reading them at 3AM in my basement all along. And then embarrassing to say, I get slightly scared. Which is completely ridiculous because it is a fictional story. But hear me out first!!! The narrators in all these stories philosophically seem to resemble me: intelligent, learned, highly educated, rationalist, well-versed in the Classics, traditionalist, and skeptical. So these narrators start the story being completely incredulous and then as the story progresses, more and more of a mountain of evidence lands on them showing them their conception of knowledge and the world is entirely wrong. Supernatural (or as it may be beyond our meager abilities of scientific knowledge) malevolent forces suddenly become apparent and the narrator nearly loses his sanity at the impending doom of humanity and the Earth that this discovery entails. Examples: quintillion year old ancient alien beings that created life on on Earth here by accident and still remain hidden away in the wilderness and secret underground cities maintain contact with groups of individuals in occult and witchcraft groups who continue to do the bidding of their evil masters, preserve the dark arts, and prepare the world for the future return and domination of these evil beings. I guess what makes it so believably scary is that Lovecraft writes these stories with the narrator's voice first appearing skeptical and Lovecraft also tries to make the science and events in the stories so believable and realistic that when the "fictional" happens, you feel like you have discovered some great secret horror that should have been left unturned and forgotten.

So yes. I finish a short story like such at 3 in the morning alone in my basement, all quiet and motionless. So then I realize I am being stupid for staying up so late and decide to go to bed finally. But I need to get to my room first. So I make my way through the dark cautiously, turning around multiple times even though I hear nothing. I sort of start when I see something weird in front of me which ends up being a stray piece of furniture. And of course we have a good amount of windows in our house. So when I go by a large set, like in the kitchen or living room, I make sure I am facing the windows and keep my back to the room or turn on lights and quickly dart through! Haha I know this must sound ridiculous, but stuff like this always used to scare me when I was little and I guess to a certain extent it still does. But there is hope: I only seem to get this way after I finish reading Lovecraft, so if I stop doing that, I should be fine then!