Storylog

One day in my fifth grade class, Mrs. Daniels, our teacher told us that in the afternoon, a guest was going to visit our classroom. Even though I was sedated and groggy from walking to school in the heat, my eyebrows lifted at the news, followed by my head. Classroom guests were always a good thing, as they were a distraction from well, school. Anything that helped the clock tick that much faster toward 2:50PM when the freedom bell rang got a good mark in my book.

Our class had had previous guests, such as cops, firemen, a guest art teacher, and others. The firemen were great. They took us to the gym and while wearing those manly man uniforms, made flamethrowers using a match and several different commercial aerosol products to demonstrate how dangerously flammable the contents were. The largest was a can of spray paint that produced a ball of fire so intense that I felt the warmth on my face sitting several feet away. Of course, none of us were to try this at home. No, that would have to wait until college when art school provided us with all sorts of flammables and combustibles. Not that I’m encouraging this, but you haven’t lived until you’ve painted a table with a rubber cement pattern and then lit it on fire from several feet away using a match and an aerosol can.

But, back to fifth grade and the sink of disappointment that I felt when Mrs. Daniels said that class would continue as usual and the guest wasn’t going to interact with us, just observe. We were to think of her as invisible. Mrs. Daniels explained that the guest was studying how kids in the fifth grade act and behave. Knowing us all very well, she quickly followed that with a warning that she expected us to exhibit our usual behavior and not to make a show of ourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s 3:30 in the morning. It’s rare that I can’t sleep. Sleep is my respite, my peace, my solace. Even with the dreams that never let me rest, sleep is my rest. It’s rare that I can’t sleep. Tonight is a rare night.

I turn off the alarm and walk outside. It’s a beautiful morning. The street by my house is quiet, but one person another person another person walks through the crosswalk at the corner. That’s where the action is, so I turn to my left and walk.

A woman paces on the other side of the street. She stands and stares at the sidewalk, then turns and gazes through the windows of a parked car, then turns again and lowers her eyes to the concrete walkway. Back and forth, back and forth. She never stops moving. Her legs are thin in her skintight jeans. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to tell you what I learned about talking to dead people at The Monroe Institute (TMI) and how you can do it yourself without going there or spending money. Finally, I’ll tell you a true story of TMI weirdness, and how I changed someone’s life by becoming a psychic for a day.

Why I did it, and why you might want to:

Forever there are things I can explain, and some I can’t. I had to be comfortable with that to make it through life. Otherwise I’d have spent the balance of my time on earth sitting in front of my house in the Buick, the engine off under the blue-white streetlamp, talking to my best high-school buddy Joe till four AM on topics like: why the God of love kills babies in earthquakes, why Mary laughed at his prom invitation, what it must like to be dead, and how to keep Jackie from figuring out I had no idea where her clitoris was. Read the rest of this entry »

I fled to Ohio right before my 21st birthday. It was the best kind of escape I could manage after years of trying, finally leaving my parents’ hovel to live with my boyfriend Jay, who had just graduated college with a degree in classics. I was teetering on the verge of something close to insanity, having lived through very strange experiences with my family, working two jobs to make no money and have no time, drinking quite heavily and doing stupid things to myself. Surviving on Corn Nuts and Faygo red pop, having acid flashback/panic attacks. Never sleeping, eating the donuts from one job, then rushing into my green waitress dress and running a mile and a half to work, where I was lucky to manage a free salad for myself. I would try to push my silly breasts up into a pleasing shape and smile and serve. Read the rest of this entry »

Death and the future have been much on my mind lately.

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My uncle died last year, after a very long battle with diabetes and kidney problems. Part of me wants to say it’s his own fault. He spent something like a decade after he was diagnosed completely refusing to stick to a sensible diet. He ate all the candy he wanted. He’d come over to my grandmother’s house, and she’d bake him a pie, and he’d eat it. My grandmother knew he wasn’t supposed to eat it, but she’d make it anyway—for decades, she’s defined her self-worth by how many people ate her cooking, and she knew he loved to eat pie. So she’d bake pies, and he’d eat them. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s his fault so much. It’s a fucking pancreas. It doesn’t have to pump blood, it doesn’t have to think deep thoughts, it doesn’t have to take in oxygen, it doesn’t have to digest food. All it has to do is produce insulin, and it falls down on the job? That’s a shitty pancreas, and my uncle should’ve demanded a new one. And any god worth his essential salts woulda snapped to it, given him a new pancreas, and a coupon for a free steak dinner to make up for the trouble. But it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. My uncle died short a leg and a few fingers. He fell asleep one day and woke up dead a month later. My grandmother knew it was coming, but knowing it’s coming doesn’t really prepare you. The word came, and she cried like a lost, wounded puppy. She’d outlived her only son. The moment her tears came, my father and brother actually fled the room. They were afraid of an old woman’s tears, and I still haven’t forgiven them for that. Read the rest of this entry »

When I burned out of college in spring of 2006, I found myself needing cash in the worst kind of way. I was flipping through the newspaper when I found an ad that read:

“Sweeper Vac Driver needed. 3rd shift only”

And gave subsequent contact info. I’m really great doing over night work and decided that I’d give it a shot. I arrive at the office, fill out an application, and before I walked out of the door I was given the job and told to report for training the following evening.

So, I reported to the office the following evening… and had the weirdest/craziest/funniest 8 months of my life. I was hoping to share a story or two with you guys. If you like ‘em, I’ve got TONS.

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Credit: Bruiser @ The Something Awful Forums

Honduras. Years ago. Years.

Resort. Beautiful. Bar. On the Beach.
Young blond guy. Turns out he was 18. Even as young as I was back then, I still had 10 years on him. God he was Gorgeous. He actually took my breath away when I first looked at him.
Sunset. Tropical drinks with 6 kinds of rum. Edible flowers.

I walked right up to him. Smiling. Staring. “What’s your name?”

“Kelly,” he said. Shook my hand.

Eye contact. Deadly. I grinned. “Kelly, I am going to seduce you.” Before the week is over. Before I go home. I am going to have you. Read the rest of this entry »

Growing up, we vacationed on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. One of our visits happened to be the summer after my sophomore year in high school, shortly after I became No Longer Ugly, shortly after I realized there just might be hope for my ridiculous redheaded appearance. My braces were gone, my teeth were slick, my curves were coming out of the woodworks, and I did three hours of ballet, five days a week. I had also become quite boy crazy by then, and was well aware that Hilton Head was swarming with them.

So when we arrived in Hilton Head that summer, I was feeling good. It was 1985, and I had used up all my pre-paid tanning sessions back home at The Golden You to ensure that my fair skin was no longer fair. I also had spent a week dousing my hair with Sun-In to ensure that my auburn shade was no longer auburn. I was a tan, toned, strawberry-blonde, sixteen-year-old hottie, pure and simple. The rest of the world just didn’t know it yet. (read more @ Confessions of a Pioneer Woman)

I am in the heart of the earth, a delicate canyon holding dried grapevines, petroglyphs, cigarette butts, bottle caps and a trickle of water no wider than my hand. I won’t tell you how to find this place. Know that it is within range of the vampire havens of Vegas and Laughlin. Know that from the opening of the canyon, you can watch a three-quarter moon fall slowly to a lilac horizon and count the countless red stars and black holes of Casino Row.

I set my bundle on a dark boulder. My night-sky bandana holds sage from Butler Wash, a crystal egg, a chunk of garnet, a chert scraper, bottle of snow melt from Red Mountain and four obsidian pebbles from the same place. Some of this will go home with me; some will not. I prepare to light the sage, turn to the West, to the home of She Who Eats That Which is No Longer Necessary, and see a woman walking toward me. She is pale, dark-haired and slender. She wears stone-washed jeans, expensive leather boots, a faded jacket, and she carries a bundle of silver sage. Read the rest of this entry »

The pink slip of paper with the worn creases neatly folded/refolded in my wallet serves as a reminder.

Deep down, I wanted to get caught. I wanted to see the flash of lights in my rear view mirror. I deserved to be punished. Deep down, I truly believed it despite all of my words to the contrary. It was all my fault. I needed to pay.

I saw the police car waiting in the dirt road to my left. I knew why he was there. I saw the stop sign before me at the intersection. My right foot had a will of its own. My mind blocked my brain from registering the red before my eyes. Read the rest of this entry »