(Love)Craft Closet

“Having re-read Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulu, I conclude that the phrase ‘That is not dead which can eternal lie’ aptly describes my unfinished craft projects. Shall henceforth refer to the craft closet as R’lyeh.” My Facebook status, July 4, 2010, 7:17AM

I. Tell-Tale Tendencies

My house is clean. I keep the place picked up. I take out the trash. I keep up with the dishes.

But it’s all a front. 

Beneath that thin veneer is a seething mass of stuff straining against the burdens of tidiness, waiting to take over the house. I know it’s there, the beating of that hideous heart.

It’s called the craft closet.

II. Eldritch Things

I haven’t met a craft I can’t do. I see things on Etsy and Pinterest and craft shows and say, with perfect confidence, “I can do that!” I’ve dabbled in sewing, scrapbooking, beadwork, cross-stitching, painting, plastic canvas, things with wires.

Each hobby comes with its own unique blend of tools…

and supplies…

and…

stuff.

I have it all.

I admit this with great shame.

Other crafty ladies, or those who aspire to be crafty, see nothing to be ashamed of. They constantly tell me, “You’re so lucky.” I am. 

I am a talented, creative, artistic person. I have ideas. I see the potential in the mundane.

But in the grand tradition of those who want what they don’t have, what I have is creative ideas and what I want is to be organized and put-together.

I’m not.

III. That way madness lies

My personality tends toward disorder. I’ll jump into a new recipe without planning ahead, so that cooking inevitably requires every mixing bowl I have. I’ll scatter clothing across the bedroom looking for a single scarf and then decide it doesn’t match my outfit after all. A place for everything and everything never gets put back in its place. Knowing these things about myself, I routinely sort through my home, culling my possessions, carting off to the Goodwill anything I haven’t used in a while.

But I never sort the craft closet. To cull the unfinished projects is to admit that I will never complete them; therefore, the craft closet is an episode of Hoarders waiting to happen. There are piles. There are piles of piles. The supplies multiply of their own accord, like Tribbles made of cloth and paper and notions. I could lose a cat in there.

IV. Hyde and Seek

Poets wonder what happens to thwarted ideas. A dream deferred, I should know, festers in the brain not like a raisin in the sun but like a tentacled elder god, wrangling my consciousness away from me at inopportune moments. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the weight of the unfinished projects of years, the unfulfilled ambitions.

When the guilt becomes too great to bear, the artist emerges, like a Hyde to my Jekyll, scattering craft supplies across the living room floor (and the dining room and the bed and a few chairs), but she’s broken, this inner artist. She lacks follow-through. I regain my senses amidst unfinished projects that I don’t have the will to finish, surrounded by craft supplies that I don’t have the will to put away. Bits of thread and paper and scissors litter the house for days until they can be beaten back into submission, imprisoned within the closet once more.

V. Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

Other times I tackle the closet with the intent of killing it. I will finish these projects, I say, or I will throw them out once and for all, but whenever I open the door the wall of decorative photo boxes full of all things undone renders me a gibbering mess, rocking on the couch, staring into space, muttering obscure incantations. I don’t want to work on the projects, but I want the finished products. What if I throw out the supplies today and then I’m motivated tomorrow? This question fuels my insanity, the answer unfathomable to me.

VI. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be

And so I leave the door closed.

I try to pretend the mess isn’t there.

I wonder if I could find some kind of holy seal for the door, something to drown out the siren call of things I haven’t done.

But I always know they’re there.

Unfinished.

Undefeatable.

Unquiet.

Undying.

Archaeopteuthis

I chatted with my coworker Benjamin at the circulation desk. “I had the most wonderful dream last night!” I recounted to him as we emptied the book return. “I dreamed that scientists had discovered the fossilized remains of the beautiful, ferocious, majestic, FLYING giant squid.”

“Okay then,” said Benjamin without the proper enthusiasm warranted by this news.

“It was a cross between archaeopteryx and architeuthis, so the scientists called it archaeopteuthis.”

Benjamin stopped scanning books and looked at me over his shoulder. “You gave it a scientific name, in your dreams?”

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it great?”

He gave me a level look. I could tell he needed more encouragement.

“They ate Brontosauruses,” I told him.

“Brontosauruses?”

I nodded.

“But that’s huge.”

“Yes.”

His eyes lit with understanding then. “I can just see it! Swooping out of the heavens, catching an unsuspecting dinosaur in its tentacles, enfolding it in giant bat wings…”

“Ooh! I hadn’t considered bat wings. I was picturing fluffy feathers. Bat wings are better.” We continued to scan the books. Then I said, “But the whole thing’s patently ridiculous anyway.”

“Because squid don’t have wings?” said Benjamin.

“What? No! Because they don’t have bones. They can’t leave fossils.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, transferring books to the shelving cart. Then he said, “They can leave the imprint sort of fossils, like footprints and things.”

I scoffed. “The majestic flying giant squid don’t leave footprints. They fly.”

“Yes, of course. How silly of me. But what if one crash landed into the side of a mountain or something?”

“That would never happen. Squid have very good eyesight. Even in the dark.”

“What if it was too bright?”

“It’s so dark underwater, I’m thinking they wouldn’t come to the surface in the daytime. They’re probably nocturnal. What else could cause it to crash?”

“Struck by lightning!” he proclaimed.

“Yes!” I said, my fist thrust upward in triumph.

“Lightning can happen to anybody!” he said.

“It’s perfect!”

And then we went back to work.

Automotive Soul Mates

The Honda was a beast. Every available option: power seats, moon roof, six-disc CD changer, climate control. And it was mine.

It was also years past its prime. I’d driven it into the ground. I couldn’t even care when it broke anymore. It was like the time my mother had an elderly yet incontinent dog and we all politely waited for it to die of old age.
“He’s gone on the floor again, hasn’t he?” she’d sigh.
“Yes, mom,” we’d sigh back.
You couldn’t be upset at a dog like that.

Now, we sighed at the car with the same feeling.
“Is that a new ding in the door?” Sigh.
“Is the engine making a new noise?” Sigh.

“Did a rather small yet suicidal deer just completely destroy the entire front end in the space of two very exciting seconds?”

Sigh.

-

It had been my first car.

Not “my parents car.”
Not “my boyfriend’s car.”
Not “our shared car because we’re poor newlyweds who only need one car.”

MY car.
“My car, with the seats and mirrors permanently adjusted the way I like them because, yes, sharing is nice, but, dammit, I’m an adult now and I don’t have to share.”
Mine. Mine. MINE.

Therefore, I was up all night worrying that I would be incapable of driving another car.

“What if the rental car is nothing like the Honda? What if it’s an alien car with the buttons all in the wrong places?” I asked Matt, on the way to the rental car place.
“Just tell them you want a mid-size car,” he said. “Believe it or not, most cars are remarkably similar to each other.”
“Okay,” I said, looking out the passenger window of Matt’s car, which is not at all similar to any other car I’ve ever driven, a manual car that I cannot, in fact, drive. “What if they give me something I can’t drive?” I asked.
Matt, parking at the rental place, shrugged his shoulders. “Then you trade it in for another one.”
I appealed to his vanity: “What if they give me something that looks stupid?”
In the callous voice of a man who drives a convertible sports car, he said, “Then you’re going to look stupid.”

-

The rental car was nothing like the Honda. Having made it home from work - my normally passive commute remade into a harrowing experience fit for the plot of an opera - I sprawled in the living room floor to mope.
“How does it drive?” Matt asked.
“It’s terrible!” I said. “The brakes are all wrong and the steering wheel makes this horrible wind-up toy noise whenever I turn.”
“Wind-up toy noise?”
“It’s like, well, you know: whhhhirirrr.”
“That’s not a real thing.”
“No, really, it is,” I assured him. “And I have to adjust the seat manually, and I can’t just set the AC to 70 and let it ride! I have to keep readjusting the damn thing! While I drive, no less!”
Matt arched an eyebrow at me. “Okay, now you’re just being silly.”
“No, really! The rental car is evil.”
“The rental car is normal. Those features you had before? They’re not standard features. You’re not going to find them again.”
“Okay, forget the AC. I’m serious about the wind-up toy noise!”
But he wasn’t listening to me.

-

When I called about the suddenly flat tire, the rental agency apologized profusely, promising a replacement rental car within the hour. I began to cheer up a little. “It’s confirmation!” I thought. “I’m not crazy! The rental car really was evil!” A little spark of hope for a better rental car in the next life ignited in my soul, only to flicker and die when an equally nasty rental car took its place an hour later.

That night, nestled on the couch with a chocolate bar and a Jane Austen movie, I grieved. Two out of two rental cars had bested me, a figure which my mind astutely observed equated to one hundred percent of them. I pondered the possibility that the Honda was the only car in the world for me, my automotive soul mate, and that I would never be whole again.

“Dear, I’ve got it!” my husband said, penetrating my grief with his enthusiasm. “You say the rental car doesn’t drive like your old Honda? So why not replace the dead Honda with another Honda? Only, you know, a NEW one? Come look at this.” He led me toward his office, where his monitor showed the 2012 Honda Accord glinting like an unfathomable secret on Honda’s nonEuclidian “Build Your Own Car!” page. Matt clicked the mouse through a 360 degree tour of the cab.
“My god, it’s full of buttons,” I said.
Matt nodded. “You said you wanted all the features your old one had; here you are then!”
I stared at the slowly revolving cab, full of knobs and toggles and voice activated features that would doubtless respond to my every request in the voice of Hal (“I can’t let you do that, Dave.”). “This isn’t a car! It’s an evil robot!” I said.
“No, it’s great! You’d just have to learn what all the buttons did.”
“And while I’m puzzling that out, the steering wheel will come to life and eat my face.”
“Look, we can even order it in that shade of blue you’ve always wanted!”
“What, SkyNet Blue?”
“It’s not that bad!”
“It’s an anime villain!”
Matt, noting my agitation, closed the browser and gave me a hug. “We’ll just see what they have at the used car lot this weekend.”

-

“Are you sure this is the best route for a test drive?” my husband asked, after the third construction zone in as many blocks.
The salesman, who looked no older than eighteen, smiled, addressing all of his commentary to Matt despite the fact that I was driving. “Oh, sure. This curvy bit here really gives you an idea of how the car performs!” Oblivious to my white-knuckled grip on the wheel, the salesman directed me down winding roads in an unfamiliar part of town.
I had spent the morning test driving car after car, each more horrid than the last. I wondered, was there actually something wrong, not with every single car in the world, but with me?
The salesman continued, “If you turn here, it leads right back to the lot! See?”
I parked the latest in a long string of disappointments in the corner, where the salesman immediately picked out the next candidate. “Why don’t we try this one next?” he said, holding open the driver’s side door of a mysterious black car with windows so dark the cab was scarcely visible within. Infernal devices gleamed on the dashboard.
“I’m not getting in there,” I said. “Too many buttons.”
The salesman’s plastered smile faltered. He looked at Matt for guidance.
“We’re just going to look around on our own for a minute,” Matt said.

When the salesman was gone, Matt walked me deeper into the car lot. “How you doing?” he asked.
“I can’t do it anymore,” I said. “I don’t have another test drive in me. They’re all terrible.”
“Let’s stop for the day, then. We can try again next weekend,” he said.
“No. I’m done. I don’t care enough. Just buy me any old car so we can leave.”
“If you can’t have your perfect car, pick one feature you’d like to have and we’ll go from there.”
“Alright,” I said. I thought about all the great features I liked in my Honda. It really had been a great car. If it had been blue, it would have been perfect in every way. “Can I just get a blue one?”
Matt thought about it for a minute, then pointed over my shoulder at a car I hadn’t noticed yet. “Do you mean like that color of blue right there?”
It was SkyNet Blue.
Matt waved the salesman back over. “I think I’d like to test drive this one,” he said. “Or maybe my wife is up for one more?”
“I believe I am,” I said.

-

It drove perfectly all the way home.

The Video Game Club Plays Oregon Trail

“Today, you will be playing a classic computer game,” I announced, as the video game club shuffled into the library computer lab for their monthly meeting. “Oregon Trail is a historical fiction game where you guide a wagonload of settlers across the plains to a new life on the American frontier.”

The kids clicked the link I had prepared for them on the school’s server. “Mrs. H?” one said as he opened the game’s title screen. “This doesn’t look right.”

“You will be disappointed in the graphics, but I expect you to get over it. This game was played by the people who grew up to make games for people like you. You will respect the history of this.”

The club, mostly eighth graders who thought they were signing up to play Halo, groaned collectively.

“As an added incentive,” I said, “I have here in my pocket five dollars cash for the first among you to reach Willamette Valley and thereby beat the game.”

Excited murmurs filled the room. David, an introspective library assistant, smiled as he said, “How hard can it be?” while Mike, my star pupil, was already spending all of his money on bullets.

----

The students chatted amiably as they prepared for the journey. They were delighted to discover they could name all their party members. Tom named his party members after his friends, including Justin, who was sitting next to him.

“That will make it awkward when they all die,” I said.

“You can die on this game?!” Tom squeaked.

“Of course.”

“But you can continue, right? Or start again from the graveyard?”

“Sweetie, this game is old. They hadn’t invented continues yet, or spawn points, or health packs. This game is cold, hard, and brutal.”

A cheerful song rang out from Mike’s speakers as he began his journey with nothing but a wagon full of ammo.

“Ignore the song,” I said. “Brutal. Don’t forget it.”

----

The wagon train proceeded smoothly at first, but then they were beset by hardship. What had seemed like clever character names in the beginning began to look ridiculous when illness set in.

“Kirby has dysentery!” someone shouted.

“Ate the wrong enemy, I imagine,” I said, eliciting laughter from the students.

“Yomama has measles!” said another.

“Let’s not bandy insults during club time,” I said, grinning.

“House has typhoid!”

“It’s never Lupus,” I said, but the laughter grew strained as each player encountered difficulties of his own.

----

“Thieves stole my bullets!” David proclaimed in astonishment. “Why wasn’t I able to shoot them?”

“At least you’re still alive,” said Justin. “I died of dyslexia!”

I had to think about that one for a moment. “Do you maybe mean dysentery?”

“Yeah, that!”

“I died because they wouldn’t let me buy food!” said Chris.

“What do you mean they wouldn’t let you?” I asked.

“It wasn’t for sale in any of the towns I stopped at.”

“Why didn’t you hunt?” I asked.

Chris stared at me in uncomprehending silence.

“I’ll let you think about that for awhile, okay?”

“What the?” David shouted, drawing my attention. “Renee has a snake bite. How on earth did she get a snake bite? She’s on the wagon! Who told that girl to get off the wagon? This child is special! Now I have to rescue this child ‘cause she got a snake bite and she prolly gonna die.”

“She might live,” I said comfortingly.

“No, she gonna die,” he said, without hope.

----

When Jamal’s self-named character died, I guided him through the process of filling out the tombstone (“Here lies Jamal. He was the best.”) as other students looked on, like rubberneckers at the scene of a pileup.

Others were less sentimental about the game’s unforgiving nature. “Here lies Mario. Stupid typhoid,” aptly portrayed the sentiments of the moment, as did “Here lies Renee. I told you she was gonna die.”

When Tom’s Justin died, he sheepishly turned to the real Justin, who glared. Voice heavy with heartfelt sincerity, Tom asked, “What do you want your tombstone to say?”

Through gritted teeth, Justin replied, “I’m with stupid.”

----

Disease wracked their bodies. Bones were broken. Oxen drowned. One by one, parties fell by the wayside.

“Forget it,” Jamal muttered, giving up. “I’m gonna do math homework instead.”

At the last minute, David came unhinged. “Now Zeke has a snake bite! Jee-sus Christ! Who keeps telling these people to get off the wagon? These people are stupid! You know what? I’m done. Oregon just isn’t gonna be populated. It’s a mythical land that don’t exist.” So saying, he gathered his things and left the library, followed by the others.

Alone in the library with Mike, I watched as he used the keyboard’s arrow keys to steer his wagon down the Columbia River and into Willamette Valley. As I slipped him the five dollars, I asked, “What did you think?”

“It was fun,” he said. “I don’t know what they were complaining about.”

“Well, Mike,” I said. “Some people just aren’t prepared to face the harsh realities of life. Just… well, do me a favor and don’t tell David you won.”

Mike smiled. “But, Mrs. H, what about facing the harsh realities of life?”

“Plenty of time for that later,” I said.

“Like maybe next month?” Mike asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Wait ‘til you see what we’re playing then.”

Happy Glades

In an effort to embrace the country ethic of our new home state, my husband and I wandered the Kansas State Fair with enthusiasm and gusto. We discussed the admirable qualities of the show horses, though neither of us has ever been into horses. We cheered on the pig races. We watched a chainsaw artist demonstration. Sometime after the red velvet funnel cake but before the quaint, toothless, old farmer in the livestock barn lectured us on earless goats, we found ourselves in the John Deere display.

“Let’s go back to that taco stand we passed,” I said.

“Sure,” said Matt, before he did a double take toward the tractors. “Is that a tank over there?”

Looking back, I said, “So it is…”

“Why would it be with the farm equipment?” Matt asked. The tank squatted among the tractors like a fat toad, completely out of place. There was no military recruitment booth nearby.

“I suppose it depends on what kind of animals you raise,” I said.

We gazed silently at the tank for a moment, and then our eyes met. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yes,” he said. “T-Rexes.” This is one of the many reasons I married this man.

“I’m going to write this down later, you know.”

“I hope you do.”

“What’s the name of our T-Rex farm?”

“Happy Glades,” he said.

---------------------------

Welcome to Happy Glades Farms, Home of the 400oz Steak!

Our family-owned, rural Kansas farm is your best choice for locally raised, all-natural T-Rex. At Happy Glades, we believe in a holistic approach to agriculture, using small-scale farming for off-the-scales livestock. All of our meats are produced right here on the farm, 100% free-range in the fresh air and sunshine of the mid-American prairie.

Here at Happy Glades, we know how important it is for you to feed your family wholesome, nutrient-rich foods. That’s why all of our Tyranosaurs are farm-raised, USDA certified organic. Our mouth-watering selection of specialty steaks come only from the very best organically produced grass-fed-beef-fed Tyranosaurs, resulting in the rich flavor of real meat. Additionally, given the realities of Natural Selection, we personally guarantee that our choice cuts of meat come from only the healthiest animals.

Our dinosaurs are never injected with synthetic hormones or vitamins, not only because Tyranosaurs tend to eat the vets who administer the shots, but because hormonal growth enhancers are bad. They’re bad for humans and bad for the environment. Also, artificial hormones come too close to playing God and we’re already pressing our luck with the genetically re-engineered dinosaurs.

But it doesn’t end with steaks! In addition to our fine meats, Happy Glade Farms offers seasonal organic produce, carrying on a fine family tradition of ecologically sustainable growing practices that enhance the environment. The unparalleled flavor of our produce comes from the quality of our all natural, residue-free fertilizer, which is available from Happy Glades in bulk year-round at extremely reasonable rates.

We know you have a choice when it comes to your family's health and diet. For quality, integrity, and really big steaks, choose Happy Glades.

A day in my life: Psychoanalysis at the Craft Store

The contents of the craft closet had disgorged themselves across the whole house and the ribbon I desperately needed for the project currently at hand had not presented itself. Fists were shaken heavenward but the gods were pitiless and cruel.

I would have to go to the craft store.

Unfortunately, craft stores and I do not mix well. In fact, ever since the notorious Photo-Box Incident of ’07, I am outright forbidden to set foot in craft stores. But I needed ribbon. The need was undeniable. If I put it off too long, the inspiration for the project would dissipate and I would be left with yet another three-quarters-completed project, nicely folded in one of many decorative photo-boxes in the craft closet, waiting for inspiration to strike again.

Taking many deep breaths to steel myself, I set forth.

Oh, I was focused. I was a champion focuser. I was there for ribbon. I would leave the store with ribbon and nothing else. “Ribbon, ribbon, ribbon,” I chanted to myself in the parking lot. We would not have another Photo-Box Incident on our hands.

“Ribbon, ribbon, ribbon,” I continued to chant to myself in the store.

“Can I help you find anything today?” a helpful woman in a blue apron asked.

“Ribbon?” I said.

“Oh, sure,” she said. “What kind of ribbon did you need?”

“Ribbon ribbon?” I said, clinging to my wavering focus.

“Well, let’s see, there’s wire ribbon, satin ribbon, curling ribbon, sequined ribbon… I’m sure if you visit each department you’ll find something that’ll work.”

Visit each department in the craft store? I wondered if, somewhere across town, my husband had sensed a disturbance in the Force. “Ribbon,” I said to her as I walked away.

“Your welcome!” she said.

I started in the floral department. Having never actively pursued floristry, I sailed elegantly through the department, gazing with cool disdain over the sprigs and sprays of dried and artificial flowers that presumably have names. They would not distract me from my goal. “Ribbon,” I continued to chant. “Ribbon, ribbon, ribb- ooh! Feathers!”

And then, my Super Ego apparently decided it was time for a break. I felt my psychic apparatus fracture into distinct and separately functioning pieces. There was Id-Tori, blissfully tossing handfuls of product she did not need into her shopping basket, and there was Ego-Tori, thinking, “What happened to focus and control? ‘Ribbon, ribbon, ribbon,’ remember?”

As Id-Tori pleasure-principled her way through half a paycheck, Ego-Tori marveled at the ingenious organization of the craft store:

For example, she mused, there is no “ribbon” section in the craft store. One finds ribbon in the floral department, the sewing department, the craft department, and the scrapbook department. The same goes for stickers, paints, feathers, and photo-boxes. These and a dozen other products besides are scattered and duplicated across the store, in every department. To find the perfect product, the shopper is forced to search the entire facility, encountering hundreds of unplanned purchases along the way.

One could argue, cleverly and well, that it makes sense for the store to be organized by hobby, whereby the scrapbookers can find all their supplies in the scrapbook section without searching the entire store, and seamstresses needn’t sully their creative energies with, say, knitting yarns. The florist need only concern herself with flowers; the artist, with paints and brushes.

One could say it may not occur to the aforementioned scrapbooker, who works primarily in paper products, that she could use ribbon in her layouts. By keeping the ribbon in the scrapbook aisle, the craft store is, in fact, selling more ribbon by planting ideas in the heads of these grossly uncreative people. “Oh, my! Look here! It never occurred to me to use ribbon in my pages before. My eyes are opened!”

Craft stores, Ego-Tori observed, are ironically the only stores where the managers are creative for you. They don’t do this sort of thing at Walmart, for example. They don’t keep the eggs in the baking aisle, no matter how logical it may seem to do so. They don’t keep the hamburger with the hamburger helper. They don’t keep the honey and whipped cream in the women’s underwear section. Shoppers are expected to make these clever connections on their own.

Id-Tori smiled and nodded through Ego-Tori’s economics lecture. With a cart full of lovely things that were not ribbon, she continued her search, visiting each aisle in each department, checking all the ribbon, finding none suitable for the project du jour. She didn’t care. She’d found scrapbook paper, stone beads, quilt fabric, and a decorative photo box. She was past the checkout lane and halfway to the car before Super Ego slunk back into the room, soliciting a “Where the hell have you been?” from Ego.

At home, I unloaded the car. No longer motivated to work on the three-quarters-completed ribbon project, I folded it nicely into the new decorative photo box and stacked it in the craft closet with the others from the notorious Photo Box Incident of ’07.

“What now?” I wondered.

“Maybe,” said the Id, “we could make something out of all this lovely new scrapbook paper.”

“Good idea,” I said.

Outnumbered and largely ignored, Ego protested, but it was no use.

Spirited Shopping

The billboard was for a fashionable boutique. “Spirited Shopping!” it proclaimed, in stylized calligraphy.
“Wait…” I said. “What?”
“I know,” Matt said.
“What kind of advertisement is that?” I said.
“Maybe they sell ghosts,” Matt said.
“Huh,” I said, articulately.
Maybe they do…

The bell above the door jingles. A well-dressed salesman says, “Can I help you find something today?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “I was hoping for a little something for the house.”
“Corporeal, Incorporeal?”
“Incorporeal would be preferred.”
“Excellent. Right this way.” He leads me through many fine displays, before stopping at something ragged and loud. “Is this what you had in mind?”
The ghoul before me rattles spectral chains.
“I like the shrieking,” I say, “but I don’t think the chains match the rest of my décor. Do you have something less tormented? More sort of forlorn and mopey?”
“I think I know just what you need.” I follow him toward the smaller spirits at the edge of the showroom floor. “Now this here is your standard banshee. Heavy on the shrieking and angst, but maximum translucence to match any style.”
“Ooh! Nice!” I can just picture it in the living room, by the fireplace.
“Plus,” he says, gesturing to an end table floating in midair nearby, “they come in varying levels of poltergeist activity. I’m sure we can find one that suits your taste.”
“Do you only have redheads available?” I say.
“We import these from Ireland. I don’t believe they make any other color.”
“That’s okay. I think I like it.”
“So, will I be sending one of these home with you today?”
“Let’s talk price!” I say.

“Do I even want to know what you’re giggling about over there?” Matt said.
“Probably not,” I said.

Conversations with Noah, Age 4 (Part IV)

By the fourth weekend of the Oklahoma Renaissance Fair, to hell with camping: turns out, there really can be too much of a good thing. Instead, the ten of us and the kids had a sleepover at a nearby house, laughing over board games well into the night.

In the morning I practiced my daily yoga on the living room carpet as my friends packed up around me. At home, my yoga is usually free from interruptions and watchful eyes but I thought to myself, This too is yoga: not only the poses, but the concentration on breath and the working through distractions.

If I can focus on Warrior II even when my husband pinches my ass every time he walks by, I can tolerate anything.

A podcast on my iPhone guided me through the last series of poses – “In Warrior I, take an inhale. Exhale, open your arms to Warrior II.” – as Noah, wearing a plastic knight’s helmet and waving a plastic sword, galloped into the room on an invisible horse.

He watched as I moved through Extended Side Angle and Reverse Warrior. “Whatcha doing?” he asked.

Exhaling through Chaturanga, I said, “Exercising,” then inhaled through Upward Facing Dog.

Noah nodded. “That’s good for the body.”

“Yes,” exhale into Downward Facing Dog, “it is.” Inhale. It’s hard to hold a conversation while focusing on breath, I thought.

“Exhale,” the recording said. “Bend your knees and step through to a comfortable seated position.”

“I exercised by punching a bag once,” Noah said.

Perhaps this too is yoga, I thought, an opportunity to deepen my own understanding through teaching. “Sit with me like this,” I said, crossing my legs and bringing my hands up to prayer position.

The recording said “Honoring the teacher in all things, exhale as you bow forward. Namaste,” and ended with a chime. I ignored it in order to sit with Noah for as long as he might be willing to sit.

Which wasn’t long. “What are we doing?” he whispered.

“Meditating,” I whispered back.

“What?” he said, blank-faced.

“Think deeply,” I said, thinking deeply myself (namely: how does one reach the age of four without learning that word?).

“About what?” he said.

“Think about the universe.”

Noah frowned gravely and lowered his hands to his lap. “I don’t like to do that,” he said.

That was an unexpected reaction. Surely he was too young to be disillusioned by his own insignificance compared to the vastness of space. I asked, “Why not?”

He said, “Someday the planet spins really fast and it breaks apart” – he made a ball by interlacing his fingers, then tore it asunder – “like this.”

I blinked, stunned in equal turns by his horrific dramatization of our impending destruction and by his shaky grasp of verb tense. “Who told you that?”

Noah pointed behind me. I twisted to see my husband watching our exchange from a nearby chair, no doubt waiting for another opportunity to pinch my ass. His eyes widened at the accusation.

“Matt, you fiend!” I said.

Matt raised his hands defensively. “I don’t know where he learned that but it wasn’t me!”

I turned back to Noah, who was fidgeting, legs at an angle as he inspected his big toe. “That’s a yoga move,” I said. “If you stretch your leg out like this, you’ll have a seated Toe Lock.”

Noah adjusted his form to match mine.

“Great!” I moved into another pose. “This one’s called Seated Forward Bend.”

Noah copied me once more, giggling as his plastic knight helmet fell down over his face.

“Now,” I said, placing the soles of my feet together in Cobbler’s Pose, “see if you can make your nose touch your toes.” I demonstrated.

Noah pulled his feet in but seemed unable to bend forward.

Funny, I thought kids were supposed to be flexible. “You’re going to be here for a while,” I said. “Keep thinking about the universe.”

He continued to struggle.

“Okay, we’ll try something else.” Obviously, a kid with tight hips needs Pigeon Pose. “Do what I do,” I said, moving slowly into the pose so he could follow along.

His plastic helmet fell off as he moved. “I can’t do that in my knight mask,” he said, flopping to the floor.

“Then take it off. Yoga is more important than being a knight,” I said.

“I need to fight the dragons!” he said. Again with the dragons. Always, this kid, with the dragons.

“Yoga,” I said, channeling my inner (though sexier) Yoda, “is about fighting the dragons in your mind.” I touched my finger first to my head, then to his.

Noah cocked an eyebrow at me. “That’s not my mind. That’s my forehead.”

The force is so not strong in this one. “You’ll never reach enlightenment at this rate,” I said.

Noah merely smiled, crossed his legs, and raised his hands to prayer position as I had shown him before.

You know what? I thought. This too is yoga.

“We have to bow to show we’re done,” I said. “Can you say ‘Namaste’?”

“Namaste,” Noah said, bowing.

Honoring the teacher in all things, namaste.

A day in my life: Inertial Groceries

I operate entirely on momentum. I never want to get out of bed in the morning until I'm out of it. I never want to leave the house until I've left it. I never want to go to the grocery store until I’m already there. It’s a chicken and egg dilemma, especially when I’m out of chicken and eggs. And absolutely everything else.

I put off going to the store as long as possible.
--------------------------------------------

Having grudgingly made my way there, I love it. The colors! The smells! The choices! The endless creative possibilities inherent in the choices!
Look! Bell peppers are on sale! Just imagine all the delicious things I can make with bell peppers!
(See also: Look! Mac-n-cheese is on sale! Just imagine the tastiness of this completely fake food when I don't want to cook!)
Everything is delightful. I debate over brands and flavors:
Do I want chicken tenders or chicken strips?
Fresh broccoli or frozen?
Chupacabra on a stick or diced for stew?
I taste all the free samples. I wave at the live lobsters. I visit each aisle at least once. I read labels. I fill the cart. I fill the bottom of the cart.
--------------------------------------------

I do yogic meditation in the checkout line. I'm in no hurry: I'm living in the present moment. I don't mind that the checkout girl methodically takes her time - that makes her good at her job, just like I'm good at my job. The world is a beautiful place. I had fun shopping. I have groceries. I shall cook them. It shall be glorious. Om Shanti Shanti.

The bag boy smiles at each customer. "Can I help you to your car?" he asks a guy who only has two bags. "Can I help you to your car?" he asks an old lady, who politely declines. “Can I help you to your car?” because it’s a great day and it would be nice to get out in it.

That’s when I notice a trend among the people in front of me: ten items or less all around. Did I choose the Express Lane by mistake?

I check.

No.

Meditative calm flies right out the window.

Frak! I think. Am I the only irresponsible person in the world? Does no one else wait until the last minute? Have I violated social etiquette without knowing it (again)? Am I secretly the only person who actually likes food? Is that why I’m fat? Frak!
The bag boy stares with haunted eyes as I unload my cart. "I'm so sorry," I say. How could I be so inconsiderate as to put him through this?
"I've seen worse," says the checkout girl. Was that sarcasm? I can’t tell! What must she think of me?

People in desperate need of yogic meditation line up behind me, tapping their feet impatiently, waiting to purchase only one or two things. I check again: this is still not the Express Lane. I am fine. I am not a horrible person.

Would it kill them to open another lane? Gah - focus! Present moment. Om Om Om.
I want to shout “Quit Judging Me!!!” as the checkout girl announces my total and passes me a receipt as long as I am tall.

The bag boy doesn’t make eye contact as he offers me the cart of bagged groceries, nor does he offer to help me to my car. I have broken him. He has faced malevolence and found himself lacking, like a fallen hero to be pitied rather than scorned.

But my heart is strangely devoid of pity as I cross the parking lot where it has started to rain.
------------------------------------------

Safe at home, I just manage to put the groceries away before my momentum runs out. I am mentally and spiritually drained, a dried-up husk that only vaguely resembles personhood. I read on the couch for the rest of the day. And do nothing else. I might be persuaded to flee the house if it caught fire, but it would require a highly compelling argument.

To revive me, my husband makes a show of being impressed by the groceries. “What did you get today?” he asks, pulling me into his arms as he sits next to me on the couch.

“Tilapia was on sale,” I say, my soul tentatively returning to my body. “And they had this cheese, and I stocked up on broccoli. I had fun!”

“That’s good,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “Why don’t I make dinner? I could do carbonara.”

“Okay!” I settle contentedly into the cushions. The world is a beautiful place after all, and we have groceries and they are glorious.
Then he calls from the kitchen, “Did you get any eggs while you were out?”

Frak.

Conversations with Noah, Age 4 (Part III)

For Pirate Weekend at the Oklahoma Renaissance Fair, the Castle of Muskogee hired a professional Jack Sparrow impersonator. After hours spent unsuccessfully attempting to get a decent picture of him, I returned to the booth to ballyhoo. “Ballyhoo” means sensational advertising. It’s what they used to call the man who stood outside the side show tent telling people to “step right up.” I learned the word from my maternal grandfather, who ballyhooed for the circus as a lad. Also, I like saying “ballyhoo.” Ballyhoo.

Standing in the walkway holding a display piece with both hands, I advertised our educational booth in the Children's Realm. "Make the assassins work for it!" I cried to a large crowd. "After a free armor making lesson from Miniver Mail, you'll be able to make chain mail to protect your vulnerable bits against all manner of ninja attack."

“Tori! Look! A pirate!” Noah said.

“Where?” I said, looking about hopefully for Johnny Depp’s doppelganger.

“Me!” he said.

I looked him over. Hands on hips in what I’m sure he imagined was a heroic pose, he looked more like Peter Pan than a pirate, despite his suitably billowy shirt and a wooden sword. Still, he earned points for trying. “So you are,” I said encouragingly.

To a man with an expensive looking camera, I called, "Chainmail is very photogenic! Stop by Miniver Mail and see for yourself!" The man shook his head and walked on.

"What's that mean?" Noah asked.

"Means it looks good in pictures," I said, then called after the man, "Chainmail is good for the soul! That empty feeling in your heart? It's because you're walking away!"

"You're funny," Noah said, sitting in the dirt at my feet.

A family of four approached. “You want to touch the chain mail,” I said, holding out the display piece.

“Cool!” said the boy, who might have been twelve.

“We give free lessons,” I said, gesturing to the booth behind me. Father and son took seats at the lesson table with undisguised glee. Mother stood close to watch, smiling beatifically.

Score one for the ballyhoo, I thought. Turning back to the wide dirt path, I came face to face with a thin girl, no more than six years old, sporting short spiked hair. “Are you lost?” I asked.

“No,” she said, pointing to the family at the table behind me. I remembered it had been a family of four. “I’m a knight,” she said, brandishing a wooden sword of her own.

Noah relinquished playing in the dirt to stand by the girl. “I’m a pirate!” he declared.

“Knights are better,” she said.

“Nu-uh!” he said.

As they argued, I stepped around them to continue the ballyhoo. “Ladies and gentlemen, there are two types of people in the world! Those who love chain mail…” dramatic pause “And those who do not yet know they love chain mail! Stop by Miniver Mail for a free chain mail lesson to determine where you stand.”

“Can I be your assistant?” said the girl. I looked down to see her smiling cheerfully while Noah looked sullen, probably because knights really are better than pirates.

“Sure,” I said, handing her the display piece, smiling as Atlas had smiled to Hercules. “Hold this.” I flexed my unburdened fingers and faced another crowd. “We at Miniver Mail promise that chain mail is one hundred percent zombie proof! If your chain mail fails under zombie attacks, we guarantee a full refund on the price of your free chain mail lesson!”

I was interrupted when Noah startled the crowd by clumsily slashing his wooden sword at the girl, who deftly swung the display piece up to defend herself. Grabbing Noah’s collar with one hand and the chain mail with the other, I said, “As you can see, chain mail is the best defense against both zombies and pirates.” Then, for good measure, I added, “And zombie pirates!”

“I say, chain mail isn’t much defense at all against zombie pirates!” said a familiar voice. The crowd parted for Captain Jack Sparrow. “I’ve been a zombie pirate, so I should know!”

The man I had been trying to photograph all morning stood two feet from me, while my hands were full of children and chain mail. I am being punished, I thought, for some wickedness that I have not sufficiently regretted yet. As soon as I figure out what it is, I’ll repent good and proper.

The two children stared in awe as Captain Jack carried on, “Nor, might I add, is it any defense against Krakens!” Turning to the crowd, he said, “But I’ve not yet tried it with mermaids! If you’d like to see how I fare against the likes of them, my new movie opens next Friday.” He bowed for the crowd, which began to disperse, then swaggered away.

“Hold this,” I said, shoving the chain mail at Noah to chase the man down for a picture.

When I returned to the booth, the girl and her family were gone. Noah stood with the display piece. “Chain mail is nice!” he called to people passing by. “Come see the chain mail!”

“That will do, Noah,” I said, holding out my hands.

Smiling, he passed the piece back to me and played in the dirt once more.

The ballyhoo commenced.

Conversations with Noah, Age 4 (Part II)

One of the perks of working at the Oklahoma Ren Fair is the opportunity to camp just off the castle grounds Saturday night, for easier set-up Sunday morning. Camping! The beauty of nature! The great outdoors! The late nights spent laughing around a fire with dear friends --

"What was that?!"

-- and their young children.

"That would be a truck," I said.

In the glow of a lamp, I commiserated with the women while the men raided Walmart for snack cakes. Our feminine discussions of Ren Fair dresses and Firefly were only occasionally interrupted by Noah, age 4, the only wakeful child remaining, curled in the camp chair next to mine.

Around us, other vendors and actors camped in tents and RVs. From the parking area on the other side of a copse of trees, another vehicle engine roared. "It sounded like the dragon!" Noah protested.

A “life-sized” fiberglass dragon is one of the highlights of the Fair. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Of course it's not the dragon," I said. "The dragon is sleeping. So should you be."

I tried to pay attention to the women’s conversation, but Noah spoke again: "What if it woke up?"

"Impossible,” I said briskly, “All dragons sleep at night."

"All dragons?"

"All night. Every night.” I focused again on the adults.

I had not completely lost the thread of a discussion of favorite quotes from Firefly. I was about to share mine (“I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.”) when Noah said, "Even robot dragons?"

"Ye- what?” Lords of Kobol, I thought. I can’t lie to a child about the inherent superiority of robots. “No,” I sighed. “Robots don't sleep, that’s what makes them so devious.” Martyrdom sucks. I wondered aloud, “Where does one even begin to find a robot dragon?”

“The basement,” Noah said.

Logical. If I had a robot dragon, that’s where I’d keep it. With all my other toys that aren’t currently working. With that in mind, I said "The batteries are probably dead. Robots get horrible battery life."

The sound of yet another vehicle roared through the trees. “Then what’s making that noise?” Noah asked, eyes wide.

“Probably just a cow,” I said.

“A monster cow?”

“No.” The mournful cry of a peacock filled the night. I had no hope of rejoining the girls’ conversation by now. I resigned myself to the topic at hand. “Where would a monster cow live anyway?”

Noah cocked his head in thought then said, “In the basement.”

“With the robot dragon? Are they roommates?”

Noah nodded.

“I'd love to see the lease agreement,” I muttered, then said, “We're nowhere near a basement. We’re in the woods. You can sleep without fear of either robot dragons or monster cows.”

Noah gasped at the sputtering of still another engine somewhere. Where were these people going at this time of night? I thought. Didn’t they know there were cows about?

“What about the real dragon?” Noah asked.

“What real dragon?” I asked, derailed by the introduction of a real dragon at this stage of the conversation.

Noah gave me the exact look my physics-educated husband gives me when I’ve missed something obvious about quantum tunneling. “If the robot dragon is in the basement, the one over there must be real,” he said.

Touché.

Thinking quickly, I said, “You don’t have to worry because real dragons don't eat little boys.” Here, I realized that the girls’ conversation had stopped because they were listening intently to mine. Why were they not steering the narrative back to Firefly? “They eat sheep,” I said. “At dragon restaurants, they serve the finest woolly steaks and fuzzy stews. Lots of white fluffy things. Sheep and cauliflower. Dragons love cauliflower.”

“We should go fight the dragon!”

“Loving cauliflower is hardly a punishable offense,” I said.

“We should kill it while it’s sleeping!”

Break into the locked gate surrounding the castle grounds to fight a fictional dragon? Hell no, I thought. Out loud, I said, “That wouldn’t be chivalrous! We’ll get a good night's sleep and set out in the morning when we're refreshed.”

“But what if the dragon attacks us at night?” Noah said, as the men were returning from the store. Matt, my husband, tossed me an oatmeal cream pie.

Noah’s dad, Charley, unloaded a grocery bag into an ice chest. “Wait, what? Who’s attacking us?” he said.

“No one is attacking us,” I said to Noah, “Because your father has valiantly volunteered to set a watch on the camp. That's where he’s been all this time, scouting the terrain and making preparations. Go ahead, boys: tell him how you were bravely shoring up our defenses against nocturnal dragon attacks.”

“Sure,” said Matt around a mouthful of snack cake. “Of course that's what we were doing.”

“Okay,” Noah said. “We’ll kill the dragon in the morning.” He kissed his parents, said, “Good night,” then ducked into his tent.

In the silence that followed, Charley blinked in the lamp light. “What?” he asked.

“Dude,” Matt said, patting his shoulder. “Just let it go.”

Conversations with Noah, Age 4 (Part I)

The first weekend of the Oklahoma Renaissance Fair is always miserable: a cold, wet, last gasp of winter fighting hard on its way out. This fact is absolute and predictable. You can plant crops around the Ren Fair schedule. It's better than any Almanac.

Pathetic in the light rain, I huddled in a camp chair under a tarp while my friends set up our booth before the Fair opened. Sarah, my best friend, passed me another blanket as she pulled up a chair next to mine.

"So, how are you enjoying the Ren Fair?" she asked.

I practiced my evil glare, but she only laughed.

When Nicole arrived, I practiced my glare on her son Noah, age four. Noah, shaking from the top of his head down to his cute little ren fair boots, red hair damp under his pint-sized cloak, took one look at my pile of blankets and crawled into my lap.

I made a mental note that the evil glare still needs work, but decided to make the most of this tiny heat source. I pulled the blanket close around us as Nicole set about organizing the merchandise table.

Sarah and I chatted for several minutes. When our husbands strung a rope across the booth, Noah, no longer shivering, turned to watch. “What are they doing?” he asked.

“They’re hanging a curtain,” Sarah said, “so we can nap behind it if we get tired today.”

The green sheets flapped in a wet breeze. “They look like ghosts,” Noah said.

“Nonsense,” I said. “They’re green. What kind of dead creature would leave behind a green ghost?”

Noah thought about this. “Trees,” he said with a nod.

I looked at the trees around us. There was certainly a lot of green about. “I suppose. Tree ghosts. Not the strangest thing I’ve heard. What about the red sheet over there?”

Noah looked in the direction I pointed. “Fire ghost,” he said.

“The ghost of a dying fire. That’s downright poetic,” I said.

Sarah sighed. I ignored her. “Tell me, young man: how does one go about fighting tree ghosts?”

“Optimus Prime could fight them,” Noah said.

I too believe Optimus Prime can conquer any foe, corporeal or otherwise, but I pressed on regardless. “Indeed. Well, sir, where do you suggest we find Optimus Prime at this time of day?”

Noah, immediately crestfallen, said, “I don’t know.”

At the sudden change in tone, I looked to Sarah for guidance. She shrugged. In the telepathy I have that comes and goes, I knew she was saying, “You started this. You’re on your own.”

“Why don’t you know where to find him?” I said.

“I had Optimus Prime, but I lost him!” Noah said, tiny voice breaking slightly.

With genuine feeling, I said, “I was the same age as you when my own Optimus Prime was stolen, but the important thing to remember is that Optimus Prime is always in your heart.”

Sarah’s husband Alex, who had stepped behind the booth for a drink of water, stopped at this and, shaking his head, immediately went back out again, leaving the tree-ghost curtain open behind him.

“Maybe Bumblebee and I can look for Optimus Prime together,” Noah suggested.

“Gosh, that would be quite an adventure,” I said.

“Can you take me to get Bumblebee? I left him at home.”

Sarah smiled. In telepathy, I said with a sidelong glance, “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Her sweet expression very clearly said, “Yes, and I’m enjoying the aftermath.”

I told Noah, “You can’t go on an adventure with Bumblebee.”

“Why not?” Noah said.

“You’re not old enough to drive. Bumblebee’s a car. How will you look for Optimus Prime together if you can’t drive?”

“Bumblebee can drive himself!” Noah said.

“That’s right, he can,” Sarah agreed.

“Hush you,” I told her. To Noah, I said, “You should wait until you’re tall enough to look out the window so you can search for Optimus Prime while Bumblebee drives.”

“We can’t wait that long!” Noah said. “What if Optimus Prime is in danger?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “It could be an emergency.”

I practiced my evil glare against Sarah once more, but it did nothing to calm the child. Through the open curtain, I could see Charley, Noah’s father. I decided it was either him or me.

“I’ve never been to your house before, Noah. How can I take you to Bumblebee? Do you know the way to your house from here?”

“No…”

“You have to find someone who knows the way. Maybe if you tell them Optimus Prime is in danger and it’s an emergency, they’ll take you home.”

Forsaking the warmth of the blankets, Noah leaped from my lap and ran to his father. “Daddy!” he called. “Optimus Prime is in danger!”

Across the space between us, Charley glared at me. In the telepathy I sometimes have, his eyes said, “What have you done?”

I whipped the tree-ghost curtain closed. “I really need to work on my evil glare,” I told Sarah. “Mine is nowhere near as good as his.”

Ending the Movie

The ruptured appendix was ill-timed: I had waited three years for Fellowship of the Ring to come out. Two days out of the hospital, stoned out of my gourd on pain meds, I sat in the packed theater on opening night propped between my husband and my father, the latter only there to help my husband carry me to the car if I passed out. He had never read the books, was only somewhat interested in the film. I felt bad about dragging him along: I needed him to like this movie.
Fellowship was long enough for me to pass out for an hour in the middle and still catch an hour on either end. In my pharmacological euphoria, it was the best movie I had ever seen. Beautiful! Perfect! A thing of wonder to behold! At the film’s conclusion, I looked starry-eyed at my father, awaiting his thoughts.
"They end it there?" he cried. "They haven't destroyed the ring yet!"

Ah, yes. That.

I hate it when movies don’t end well. Fellowship of the Ring can be forgiven, seeing as how it’s the first of a trilogy: we had to wait two years for it, but Return of the King ended at least three times.

Other movies have no excuse.

I seek the worst from my movies: Pure Escapism. I am not in this for the art. I am in it for the explosions and the symphonic soundtrack and the satisfying ending. It doesn’t even have to be happy – it just has to be a clearly delineated ending.

Few traumas compare to the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when the credits roll prematurely. It’s a broken, soulless feeling. Blinking in the raised lights of the theater, after two hours that I’ll never get back, too heartbroken, too shocked to cry, I say, “I wonder how this movie ends…”
Because ending and stopping are so not the same things.
At all.

How could you do this to me, Hollywood? I trusted you.

The only way to cope with the betrayal is outright denial.

I’m particularly fond of pretending the producers simply forgot to end the movie. Picture, if you will, this happy and contented scene:

It’s 68 degrees and sunny, with blue skies and a gentle breeze. The producer is sitting on the veranda, having coffee and doing the crossword, perhaps humming to himself.
His wife comes in and lovingly kisses his cheek. She moves to stand behind him, rubbing his shoulders, maybe pointing out the answer to number twenty-three across. He loves that she’s so clever. She says, “Didn’t you have to be somewhere today?”
He puts the paper down, thinks, stares off into space. Then he says “No… No, I don’t think so.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Oh, well. More coffee, dear?”

Meanwhile, some camera guy passes through the quiet studio on his day off. I don't know why he's there - maybe he forgot his cell phone? Anyway, he has nothing else to do that day. He was feeling productive but the hardware store didn’t have the parts he needed for his latest home-improvement project. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for something creative and productive to do… And that’s when he spies the poor unfinished film on the cutting room floor! “I’ll just tack some credits on the end of the last roll,” he says. He calls to his buddy, the janitor, “Hey, Mac, wanna be a producer?”
“Sure!” says Mac. Why, he’s never been a producer before!
The two of them have the time of their lives! They’re so happy as they slap the film in a can – if only they could bottle this feeling of accomplishment and carry it with them always!

And off to the theaters it goes.

It makes me happy for them, these imaginary people, when I tell myself this lie.

When the Zombies Rise, We'll Carpool to Walmart

We had all moved to the same backwater town, about a half hour outside of the city, for the cheap rents during grad school. Our four households not only doubled the town’s population of twenty-somethings but comprised the entire geek scene, a new species migrating in from hipper climes. When gas prices skyrocketed after Katrina, we were in a unique position to carpool together.

We changed it up often, tweaking our rides and our schedules, using different combinations of carpool buddies to keep things fresh, but the months of carpooling strained our conversational talents and we often fell back on ye olde standby: the zombie plan.

“I’m telling you,” Sarah told us on the way home that day, “Walmart is the way to go. We weld the carts into an impassable cage structure in the entryway and hole up for the duration. We’d have clothes, food, tools – heck, they even have ammo. We could spend our days on the roof, sniping the zombies in the parking lot.”

“But how would we get there after the invasion?” I asked. “It’s half an hour away. So much could go wrong.”

“Infestation,” said Alex. “You said ‘invasion,’ like they’re some army waiting to invade our borders. You meant ‘infestation.’”

“Fine, but that doesn’t answer the question,” I said.

“Oh, but it does,” Alex said. “No bio-terror zombie infestation is going to start here. We’re in the middle of nowhere! We’ll hear about it on the news with days to spare.”

“Hang on, now,” Matt said. “If we’ve got advanced notice, we can do better than Walmart.”

Sarah scoffed. The Walmart plan is, of course, genius, and we all knew it. “What did you have in mind?”

Matt drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “What about a fortified island?”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Alex said, bluntly. “We’d be sitting ducks.”

“I don’t believe the shambling undead are coordinated enough to swim,” Matt said.

“You’re right,” Alex said, “but obviously the virus that causes zombification is anaerobic – I mean, zombies don’t breathe, right? – so zombies wouldn’t have to be able to swim. They could just walk along the ocean floor.”

I wasn’t convinced. “They wouldn’t make it. Zombies are dead things and fish eat dead things.”

“Not so!” Alex said. “The scavengers that eat dead things only eat fresh, non-diseased dead things. They would smell the zombification virus and leave the zombies alone. Besides, even if the human zombies got eaten, things that eat zombies become zombies. An island would leave us vulnerable to zombie fish.”

We drove several minutes in silence as this sank in. “Remember that shark at the aquarium?” I said. They all nodded. The shark with the crooked jaw had teeth curling outward at a variety of odd angles. It was just the sort of shark I could imagine becoming a zombie.

Sarah shuddered and said, “At least zombie sharks can’t get out of the water.”

The car settled into silence as we pulled up in front of Alex and Sarah’s house. It seemed as good a place as any to end the conversation, until Matt said, “But if you give the shark a skateboard…”

“No,” Sarah said. “Just no.”

“Well, think about it,” Matt said. “It will give us something to talk about tomorrow.”

No MSG! No Transfats! No Medicine Men!

On a trip to visit my mother in Oklahoma, we made the drive over to Tahlequah, capital of the Cherokee Nation and home of my alma matter, Northeastern State. Aside from all the happy memories of my college days, Tahlequah also offers an old-fashioned main street, full of unique restaurants and cute, artsy little shops. It was in one of these cute, artsy shops that I noticed the preponderance of cute, artsy things advertised as being handcrafted by “genuine Indian medicine men.”

Well, of course, people. I have, like, four of those in my immediate family. This is Oklahoma, “Land of the Red Man.” You can’t sneeze without getting blessed by a genuine Indian medicine man.

In Oklahoma, everyone’s an Indian. In grade school, on the playground, we all used to talk about how much Indian we were and what kind. Pasty redheads with freckles will tell you “I’m a quarter Cherokee and 3/16th Creek,” and they’ve got a little ID card from the US government to back up the claim. Hell, I’ve got one myself and I’m the palest pale person in three counties – I can’t fetch the mail without sunblock. Around here, if dad decides to dabble in reiki, suddenly he’s a genuine Indian medicine man, never mind that he put his new age on backwards.

You could get scuba instructions from a genuine Indian medicine man, have your computer fixed by a genuine Indian medicine man, get cut off in traffic by a genuine Indian medicine man.

That guy who fragged you three times in pvp last night? Yeah, medicine man. Suck it, noob.

Seriously? At this rate, it would be more interesting if anything wasn’t made by genuine Indian medicine men.
“This here, see, this is special. This was handcrafted by nobody of particular importance.”
“Woah…”
“Can you feel the power?”
“Oh yeah. I feel it.”

Not that I’m decrying the idea of genuine Indian medicine men (grandpa might think I didn’t love him anymore!), I’m just wondering, why here? Are these artfully constructed dream catchers and prayer wands supposed to impress the hordes of tourists who are even now flocking to our windswept plains? Look, Tulsans, I love you and I love my hometown, but be honest with yourselves: how many times have you told your medicine men, “Man, I cannot wait for tourist season to be over. Would you LOOK at these lines? Tsk.” We have got to get our genuine Indian medicine junk a new outlet.

Let me explain: I recently moved back to the Midwest after an extended residency in Louisiana. There, everything was made by genuine voodoo priestesses. I even worked with some. (They often made goodies for the workroom.) Whenever I asked my coworkers about the genuine voodoo priestesses, they would yawn and shrug their shoulders. “Meh,” they said.

Yawn?
Over genuine voodoo priestesses?

Now that I’ve moved, I often have this conversation:
Adoring Stranger: “Oh my gosh! That purse! Where did you get it?”
Me, humbly and not at all smug about it: “You like? It was made by a genuine voodoo priestess!”
Excited and Envious Stranger, eyes a-glow: “Get out! Really?”
That’s the appropriate response right there! Not this yawning business.

What I'm trying to say is this stuff is only as fascinating as it is foreign.

Is the Land of the Red Man really the place to be peddling this lovely and spiritual merchandise when we could be making a killing off of it in, say, New England? Forget the lottery, my fellow Oklahomans, for before us is a vast, untapped, renewable, and exportable resource. Band with me: Find the genuine Indian medicine man in your life and put him to work.

“You can come out when you meet your quota, grandpa. I’ve got a man in Philly waiting on these. Hop to it and start whittling.”