Heads will roll

I'm a movie buff who happens to like Tim Burton's stuff. I decorated the door to my den with a poster for Sleepy Hollow on Halloween. Not the one with Johnny and Christina even though they are beautiful together, aren't they, but the one with the headless Hessian Horseman. That is one hauntingly beautiful, and grisly, image, too.

My kids are old enough to not have him riding into their nightmares waving that axe. They are also young enough to respect his authority when they haven't respected that closed door. Halloween went by but the Horseman stayed. The kids think it's a cool poster, a little scary but not too much. They stop to stare at him as he watches over me. And they forget to knock. They forget to barge in altogether.

So I'm hanging onto my Hessian fiend of a friend and letting him hang on my door for the time being. He has worked wonders for my writing peace if I've indulged while the children are still awake. They have seen Mom's head on fire when interrupted for the twelfth time in twenty minutes. The fact that the Horseman doesn't have one is ten times more effective.