The Thing in the Tree

I confess my sins to the thing in the tree.

I do not even know what it is, this thing. This thing up there. It’s probably some kid from the school, I’d imagine. Frat pledge. Giant owl outfit.

I mean, that poor kid. He probably believed, going into all this, believed he just had to sit up there in his costume for a few nights. That he’d stare down at the track and think about calculus or Fall Break or girls. That everybody would leave him the hell alone and that soon enough, it would all be over.

Little did he know. Now he’s got some dykey, middle-aged mother of three-and-a-half pouring her heart out to him every other night.

Like a Refugee



I am a refugee from the political blogosphere. 

Here, take a whiff of my fingers. You can still smell it on me.

That’s how recent it’s been.

I find myself looking over my shoulder all of the time. In the grocery store. At the post office. Looking around to make sure they haven’t found me.

Refugees can get paranoid, you see.

With me, it’s all sort of touch and go. Even now. I take it day by day.

For five years, I was a ghost writer for several high-ish profile political blogger-commentators. If your daughter had a piano recital the same night you needed to write 100 column inches blaming George W. Bush for glitter glue, I was the one you called. If you were at a loss for how Obama’s stance on abortion could have caused that Icelandic volcano to erupt, then no worries, my friend: You just call Katy, wait a couple hours, and Whap! – a bitterly partisan blog you could slap your name on and hand over to any newspaper or web site in the world.

Guaranteed to turn readers’ faces red. To get blood pressure spiking. Tongues wagging. Et cetera, et cetera.