After Ghost Hunting

I don't need a parade or anything, but I successfully roasted my first turkey last night. Josh gets a turkey from his boss every year (Merry Christmas!), so we have to use it or lose it. We don't prepare meat in our home very often, and the reason for that is meat is gross. Still, I got a sick thrill cutting out the turkey's backbone. I've always wondered about surgeons, but now I wonder less.

I'll tell you how I went ghost hunting. I was with my friends and two attractive brothers. One is a young Santa Claus. The other is muscles on muscles, and then on those muscles, tattoos. You might say I'm easy to please, and you might be right. We got in a truck that was bigger than a dragon. We went down gravel roads. The truck was very loud. It was important we were quiet when we got out of the truck. Ghost hunting was like fishing that way. We probably didn't see any ghosts. Maybe we felt them? There was a chilly spot in one of the cemeteries, but the night was already cold, and who knows.

The creepiest part of ghost hunting was when we drove past the house where two women had been raped and murdered over the summer. Maybe that house was a ghost. Yes, that house was a ghost for sure.

There were a few times we stood over a grave and passed around a tape recorder and asked questions of no one in particular. Mostly, "Do you have anything to say?" We used our kindest voices. The last time we did it there was an urgency, a polite demand for some sort of sign. Every dog for five miles started barking. A cow stood on a stick, and the stick snapped. Someone used the night vision to watch out for bobcats and coyotes. One of the oldest graves had an early form of photography to identify the deceased. Another grave had just been filled. Our shoes sunk in the dirt there.

My copies of my book have arrived. I signed some and sold them. People are saying it's pretty. Also, small. It's smaller than a sandwich. I read three stories from it yesterday. It was like looking at a picture I couldn't remember posing for. I wrote those stories, once.

Hollow Days

We didn't go around and get thankful at any Thanksgiving dinner this year. At one Thanksgiving dinner, we admitted our addictions. I didn't want to name my addiction (men), so I said baking. Two people said shopping. We all laughed. The good thing about shoppers is they give me stuff they don't want anymore. My hall closet is full of half-used scented candles.

There's this one friend who is maybe my sister. The only thing separating us as siblings is our different parents. We talked on my porch until 4 am last Sunday. I have a short list of hetero heroes. She's on the list twice. We drank the cheapest beer. We heard birds having sex or killing each other. We watched a cat draw blood from a stone some poor woman's hand. The last time we hung out on a porch, a sexy stick man did bike tricks in front of us. My sister-friend was amused. I was turned on enough by the stick man to show my teeth when I smiled. The stick man fell off his bike many times. 

I once fell forward on smooth concrete. I was carrying a pie. The pie landed hard. It hit like a car door against another car door. I got up, and Josh was afraid I wasn't OK, but it was the pie I was worried about. The pie was fine. I warned everyone that the pie had a rough life. But listen, you can't taste the fear in pie. If you want to eat a scared baked good, eat cake. Cake is always terrified it isn't as good as pie. It reminds me of that deathbed tradition where you ask a dying person if they want a final slice of cake or a final slice of pie, and they say, "Pie, pie, pie!" and the thought of more pie is so exciting it kills them right away. Cake is the slow death.

That is not a real tradition. When I left home, they told me to make new traditions.

I put up a tumblr. If you find me inscrutable (unlikely), go to the tumblr and easily figure me out.