Obsessed With Death?

In interviews, I'm often asked what's with my obsession with death. Honestly, I never put much though into this until I realized four of my five novels have dealt with death as part of the main storyline, my favorite shows are Dexter and The Walking Dead, and I've started a collection of Day of the Dead statues from Mexico. On second thought, maybe I do have a thing with death. Okay, time to panic.

As pretty much anyone else would do with today's technology, I went on the internet with the intent to self-diagnose. Here are some of the signs I discovered:

1. Your favorite things to do are visit cemeteries to look at graves.

Uh, I seriously have a major issue with cemeteries, and have given my husband strict directions not to bury me in one. I think they're creepy, and that it's morbid to think you're standing over the rotting corpse of someone you love. If I want to remember someone, I would much rather do so with pictures from their happy times on this earth.


2. You have all the Faces of Death movies, and love to look at graphic images of real deaths.

I do enjoy a good zombie movie, though there are more often times than not that I have turned away when a scene become too gory. I usually have to remind myself that it's all Hollywood magic, just so I can continue to watch. I can't imagine I would be able to stomach one minute of the Faces of Death movies—I just Googled it out of curiosity, and about lost my cookies after what I found.

3. You wear black clothing and black makeup.

My daughter would tell you a majority of my wardrobe consists of black and white (she's trying to break me of the habit), but I have yet to don black Doc Martins with black pants and a black top. I do wear black eyeliner, but a very modest amount, like a perfectly normal woman who isn't so great with makeup does. Pretty sure I have a long ways to go until I resemble Winona Ryder's character in Beetlejuice.

4. You're afraid of doing anything for fear of dying or some other tragedy.

While the occasional thought of plunging to a firey death has come to me a time or two when riding an airplane, I would say I'm not fearful of doing things in general. Although terrified of heights, I still climbed part of Mount Rainier, zip-lined and parasailed in Cabo, stood on the top deck of the Empire State Building, and rode dozens of rollercoasters. Looking back, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm a bit too adventurous, and it wouldn't hurt to tone it down a bit.

5. Your favorite thing to write is poetry and journals that speak of death.

Okay, maybe it could be proved in a court of law that I'm guilty of this one, although I suck at poetry, and I stopped writing a journal years ago. But then again, there's the books...

So 4/5 negative answers must prove for something, right? At least I'm telling myself that. I like to think that as death is a natural part of life, I'm just extremely conscious of it, and not trying to pretend like the possibilities aren't looming over our heads. All I know is that I won't be checking into Death Junkies Anonymous anytime soon.