I'm Not Strange, I'm A "Dark Tourist"! (OK, I'm Sort of Strange...)

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I'm not "tiny" and have no desire to be or see ANYONE "naked" but there is a group of folks researching and appreciating creepy and unexplained phenomena that have finally been named and the name and description of this group made me feel a little less strange, a little less alone.

Morticia - A Corpse Flower

Anything trendy I have regularly recoiled from but I knew I was a "Dark Tourist" my entire life I'm just happy that there are others who have odd areas of interest and it's a "thing".  (Well, it's on Netflix so it's sort of "a thing") From early on I've been fascinated by the darker side of things.  When I read there was a corpse flower blooming at a local college, I was so there!   Corpse flowers bloom (and produce the rotting flesh stench they're named for) once every ten years, if that, for 24-48 hours, then the bloom quickly dies.  I've hiked up to the Hollywood sign (A starlet committed suicide there), seen OJ's house, timed the walk to Nicole Simpson's house, drove by the Manson Murder house with a curiosity that rivals dedicated bird watchers!  New Orleans is just a ghost mecca - something creepy on every corner!  (I've been there twice),  I listened for hours to  online conspiracies on EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) with my nieces, Ouija boards were supposed to issue invites to demons and ( I thought my sister was pushing the planchette so we spent every "communique to the spirit world" arguing about who was cheating) so I avoided Ouija for the most part, just to be safe.  You never know.

And that's my point. The news requires our total focus now.  What terrible event has happened today?  What stupid/horrendous/illegal thing has Trump said/done/assaulted? I'm pretty strong but I don't know if I can take much more!  Matt Damon and Tom Cruise have made films about Mars.  Have you ever seen Mars?  It's awful!  Even if we could get there (we can't) who'd want to go?  No one can live there!  But if we don't stop killing Earth (we have about, oh, 20 years left before we have to move.)it will be too polluted to be habitable. I can rarely be unpleasantly surprised looking at something interesting. Halloween cocktail parties in marble crypts in N'Awlins are a little creepy but very fun!  National news is very difficult to process and can be a harbinger of doom - it's exhausting! Not fun, not even boring. Now when I hear "Breaking News" I shudder. I have to watch.  The "unexplained" is just a mystery that will eventually be solved.  The dead coming back?  Cool! 

"Suicide Forests" I can handle, President Trump?  Not so much.   Jason Voorhees? Ted Bundy?  Freddy Kruger?  Yawn.  Russians manipulating our elections?   That is truly frightening.