What I'm reading

I was an early fan of Stephen King's and read every book as soon as it came out. When I was reading It, the book so scared me that I had nightmares about it. One of King's talents is to make the terribly ordinary terribly frightening. In It, what was so frightening was a clown holding a bouquet of balloons.

So I had a restless night where I was scared and having truly frightening dreams -- it's finally morning -- and where I was living at the time my bedroom windows faced out to the back of the building where a square of four blocks created an interior courtyard, so to speak, filled with yards and trees and there was a big tree right outside my window.

I got up and went to the window, and there, caught in the tree was a bouquet of balloons. I just about fainted. Sane me knew it was just a coincidence, but it really was scary.

So I swore off King for a while, but now this collection of four short stories has been published. I believe this is his second collection. I had read the first -- four stories in a book called Different Seasons and two of those -- actually he calls them novellas, not short stories, were made into movies: Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption.

I started the first story today and have learned a new word. I know: if I had a Kindle, I could have looked the word up right then and there. The word is ratiocenative and I'd never to my knowledge seen that word.

Meanwhile Fran called and she looked the word up and ratiocenate (as a verb) means to think logically. How it was used in the King book is that a man is looking at the body of the woman he killed a month earlier and she appears to be alive -- but it was his imagination and he says his "ratiocenative ability returned."

Haven't been scared yet, but I've only read about 30 pages!