Sleep Tight

Last week, the kids got sick. Then they gave it to me and I got sick, too.

Now, this really never happens. I never get sick. I am immune to everything! But this thing the kids found and dragged home last week, it even took me down. Our fevers climbed so high that music turned architectural and our iphones looked like blurs.

What else could I do? I tucked the kids into bed and I pulled up a chair and told them stories.

I told them stories I’d written (and some that I’d stolen) and I described worlds I’d made (and some I’d visited), and I gave them the sorts of warnings that good parents give their children at one time or another growing up.

One of the things was a story and a world and a warning all in one.

This is how it went:

A Murder Mystery

It wasn’t until late Friday evening that we became aware of the outbreak, and by then it was too late. The window for containment – the containment of whatever it was that we were dealing with – was closed, but still we went through the motions of containing it.

Zero Zero was the first to go. He was a gorgeous arboreal avicularia versicolor we’d had for four years and oh, he was my pride and joy, so much so I’d had his name tattooed across my back.

We found him Friday just after the evening news, with his legs curled up beneath him and largely unresponsive, looking like the new Goliath looked when she’d arrived.

Madame Guillotine was next, and then Soma Bath, and then Astrid and Poppy Day. And Lucifer Landed, well, she was still twitching as I laid her out on copy paper to poke and to prod for mites or fleas – for anything that might explain what was killing all the spiders.

I Am the Daddy

(A Play in One Act)

Curtain opens, revealing the interior of House of Pies restaurant. KATY and SCOTT THE LAWYER sit in a booth, on opposite sides of the table. On the table lie empty coffee cups, wadded napkins, various eating utensils, half-eaten foodstuffs, empty cigarette packs, pencils, pens, iPads, and piles of papers related to KATY’S child custody case.

ADRI paces back and forth past the booth. SCOTT THE LAWYER bangs his head against the table.

"Ours"

We stared up at the sky.

We were looking for planes.

We stopped what we were doing and we looked. I had been sitting in the driveway, wrapping presents, but I stopped doing that. Angela had been reading a book called Lizard Music  by Daniel Pinkwater, but she stopped doing that. Rachel – for reasons less than entirely clear to me – had been attempting to transplant a small tree from one side of the driveway to the other side of the driveway, but she stopped doing that, too.

Our mouths hung open. Our heads swung around in all directions. We were looking for planes.

Wherever they were, they were not commercial airliners. They were not that kind of plane. These planes ripped the sky open. The echoes of these planes between the townhouses cracked and crackled.

At the end of the driveway, an old couple in purple and green sweats had been walking by, but they stopped now, they shielded their eyes, and they pointed.

Angela was the first one of us to spot the planes, there, in that small crack of sky between this townhouse right here and that townhouse right there.

She said, “Mom, are those planes here to drop a bomb on our house?”

I looked up. They were fighter planes. I do not know what kind. The loud kind, I suppose. They were flying in formation, circling downtown Houston. This meant, in effect, that the planes were circling my house.

I said, “No, Angela.”

I said, “I’d say these are probably ours.”

The planes had circled around now. I could see them heading south again, in the small crack of sky between this tree right here and that townhouse right there.

Angela’s eyes grew wide as she turned to find another crack of sky, anticipating where the planes would turn up next. She said, “Those are yours and Belloq’s?”

She seemed a little impressed.

I picked up my tape dispenser, went back to wrapping presents. I said, “No, they are ours. They are America’s.”

Angela looked down. “America’s?”

“Yes, America’s. The military. You know, like Great Uncle Mac?”  I gave her a mock salute, which she did not return.

The planes were circling north again, coming in closer now than before, so they were visible for longer this time over the top of the townhouse right there.

Angela stared up at the planes again, she squared her jaw, and she looked back over at me. She said, “Are you SURE they’re not going to drop a bomb on our house?”

I folded the end of the sheet of wrapping paper over and taped it almost perfectly, but I did not reply again.

Everything is Covered with Shit

To my daughter, Rachel, who renounced her love of pedicures after seeing a news report about staph and feces in the soak tubs:

Everything is covered with shit, Rachel!

Door handles. Elevator buttons. Handrails. The towel you just used to dry your hands.

Fresh fruit in the grocery store and your neighbor’s dog and the keys on the computer you’re using at this very moment.

They’re all covered in shit. So get used to it. Make your peace.

Anything Could Happen (Part 3)

(This is Part 3 of my story. Reading Part 1 and Part 2 first would be helpful. Not essential, but helpful.)

Did I mention that I got my kids back?

Anything Could Happen (Part 1)

“Be just. And if you can’t be just, be arbitrary.”  - William S. Burroughs

“Some might say that I’m lost / But I have no destination.”– Arrington de Dionyso

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I went to that party because of how a dart landed.

Life sure has changed since I stopped trying to make decisions for myself. Since I turned everything over to the gods of chance.

Time was, I’d spend hours, days, even weeks agonizing over a decision. Weighing the pros and the cons, all possible repercussions and permutations, unseen tangents, the hurricanes caused by the butterfly’s wings.  You know…

But no more.

Pictures from a Wedding

My daughter came by the other day to see me where I work, and she brought with her some pictures from a wedding.

I was thrilled to see her, but it turned out the wedding was my ex-wife and twin brother’s, to each other, and it had happened the week before. I had not known anything about the wedding – hadn’t heard so much as a peep that it was going to occur – and this was apparently not by accident.

“Mom and Anthony thought you’d hijack things if you knew,” my daughter – whose name is Rachel – said to me.

What a thing for her to say! What a thing for people to think!

Now, the truth is, I probably would have at least considered hijacking the wedding. Safe to say I’d’ve given it some thought. The truth is, I’m reasonably positive I might have even started making concrete plans regarding how one might go about hijacking a wedding. After all, the prospect of hijacking a wedding is almost too rife with possibilities, if you ask me…

But it still hurts.

Plus, I hadn’t realized I was becoming so predictable.

Nostradamus 2013

I remember Great-Great-Grandma Moses was ninety years older than my brother and me.

Ninety years older, down to the very day, in fact.

I remember she’d been born the same year as J. Edgar Hoover, as Buster Keaton, as Jack Dempsey and as Babe Ruth, and although she did not know any of those people (so far as I know she didn’t, anyway), it made me feel somehow connected to them to know her.

Connected to the past. To history.

I introduced my Great-Great-Grandma Moses, born in the same year that Friedrich Engels died, to the music of Nirvana, and we went to see Jurassic Park together and then made jokes all the way home about how she had seen real dinosaurs in her day.

I remember that when I knew Great-Great-Grandma Moses, she was living at my great-grandparents’ house. When I say “living,”  I mean that she kept her stuff there and occasionally stopped by for a few hours to eat or to sleep.

I remember she would disappear for weeks on end and then pop up completely unannounced, sauntering in the door like some Time Lord back from exploring all space and time. Even then, you did not know whether she planned to stay for dinner until she took off her wig and shook it out.

The wig-shaking. This would be the sign that she was going to stay for a little while.

I remember that my Great-Great-Grandma Moses’ room was notable for only two reasons. First, she had three enormous console televisions – you know, the old kind that were like real wooden furniture but took five minutes to warm up? – and at 11 am, when she was home, she’d switch on all three at the same time so she could catch up on her “stories.”

Her “stories,” of course, were soap operas, and they aired on all three networks all day long back in those days. I remember that Great-Great-Grandma Moses did not have TV remotes for any of her televisions, and that she’d stand there in front of the three enormous consoles, turning the volume of each up or down by hand as she detected something important happening on the screen.

I remember that Great-Great-Grandma Moses would do this for four hours a day.

The second notable thing about Great-Great-Grandma Moses’ room was the newspapers. And no, it’s not what you might think, these were not newspapers with some historical value, not items from her childhood or from places she visited in her mysterious intermittent travels. No, these were “Weekly World News”  and other junk rags from the check-out aisle of the local grocery store, announcing Satan’s return to Earth or the capture of Bigfoot (again).

I never saw my great-great grandma reading any of these papers, but there were always piles of them in her room and they were always the very latest issues.

“Demon Boy Found in Cave in Brazil!”

“Earth Caught in Crossfire of Thousand-Year Intergalactic War!”

“Marilyn Monroe Alive and Well and in Indonesia!”

These were incredibly exciting stories to a nine-year old. Or to a ninety-nine-year old, apparently, as the case might be.

I remember these newspapers were always best right around New Year’s, because that’s when they’d publish their predictions for the upcoming year. Prophesies of Jesus Christ’s return in April. Of Armageddon in May. Of Nostradamus proved correct yet again in June and of Madonna giving birth to Josef Stalin’s love child in July. (I know: That timeline seems off to me, too. I mean, Madonna is still around two months after Armageddon?)

I remember I always wanted to keep track of these newspaper predictions to see what their accuracy rate was, but… I was only nine when Great-Great-Grandma Moses disappeared, and nine-year olds don’t plan that far ahead.

We never knew what had happened to Great-Great-Grandma Moses. One day, she simply stopped coming back to my great-grandparents’ house. We left her room just the way it was when she disappeared, changed the sheets on the bed every week and kept the latest issue of “Weekly World News”  on the nightstand.

But she never came back and we never heard from her again.

We never heard from her again, that is, until this past Sunday night.

That’s the night Great-Great-Grandma Moses – one hundred and seventeen years old by my calculations and not looking a day over one-oh-five – came bounding in the door of the flophouse where I currently stay.

She walked in.

She looked around.

She took off her wig and she shook it out.

Then she dropped the latest issue of “Weekly World News”  on a coffee table, grabbed a remote control, and flipped over to something called the Soap Opera Channel, which I had not previously even known existed.

This past Sunday night, my Great-Great-Grandma Moses caught up on her stories.

Then she left.

But here is the thing, and it’s the only reason I am bothering to tell you about all of this Great-Great-Grandma Moses business at all: When she left the flophouse this past Sunday night, Great-Great-Grandma Moses forgot left behind her latest issue of “Weekly World News.” 

It was the special year-end issue with predictions and prophesies for the next twelve months, and this is what the big headline across the top read:

“NOSTRADAMUS FOR 2013: KATY GETS HER KIDS BACK!”

Yes, you heard it here first, folks, and if you doubt that headline, well, then you might as well kick my one hundred seventeen year old great-great-grandma in the gut.

2013 will be the year I get my kids back.

2013 will be the year I get my kids back.

I feel it is only right that I give them the opportunity to remember their own Great-Great-Great-Grandma Moses stories someday. So let’s get going on this thing, shall we? We’re already fourteen hours in and I am growing impatient…

Blog #55 Has No Title

Maybe I oughta try and do things the easy way. I’m not saying all of the time, mind you. That would either drive me insane or turn me into an old woman or both. But I could still, you know… simplify my living a little.

And here I am thinking specifically of this blog. I read an awful lot of other folks’ blogs. Probably more than any one person ought to read, really. But when I’m reading this awful lot of blogs, I notice that most of your really good bloggers don’t play Hide the Ball. Readers know exactly what they are getting and they get it and then they come back to get more of it the next day.

What they are getting is news on a narrowly-defined topic or from a specific point of view. Or it’s funny cartoons. Or maybe it’s pictures or snippets of music. There are all kinds! A lot of the blogs are fantastic and they are short and they are sweet and they are to the point… and as different from my blog as it is possible to get.

For me, simple is hard. Oh, I have been trying, you know, writing music reviews and top ten lists and once, even trying (and failing) to write a one-sentence blog post.

Today, I try for simple.

Today, I answer some reader emails and post pictures.

That’s all! Really!

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Dear Katy:

you fucking queers make me sick. you are a waist [sic?]of skin and blood. why don’t you and Dana go find husbands and live the right way?

[Unsigned]

Is that you, Grandma Pearl?

If it is, I am about to make you very happy. Dana and I have found ourselves husbands!

Here are some pictures, taken through the years, of our husbands together. Maybe you can hang them up in your living room. The pictures, I mean. Not our husbands.

Say hi to Papa from me and the kids!

Love, 

Katy

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Katy, is this blog supposed to be a short fiction blog or a LGBT blog or a music blog or a politics blog?

Sincerely,

A reader

Dear Reader:

No. No, it’s not.

Love,

Katy

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Dear Katy, are you a mother to your kids? It looks like you are doing drugs and living in the gutter when you should be taking care of them?

Do you take care of them?

P.S. I am Frank

Dear Frank:

I do the best I can, though admittedly with somewhat mixed results.

Love,

Katy

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Katy:

What is your position on abortion?

Dear Anonymous Emailer:

This is an excellent question, and I can see why you would think of asking me!

I believe abortion should be legal if we as a society can manage to make it a fairer fight. In Texas, we always say that fetuses are people, so I believe they should really have the right to bear arms. You know, like the rest of us.

If you respected gun rights and could still find a doctor willing to abort a fetus that is armed with a .38, then I say give it a go.

Love,

Katy

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Katy, are you are a glass half full or glass half empty kind of girl?

Just wondering.

from a fan

Dear fan:

In either case, you have a low viscosity liquid poured into what is probably a very high viscosity liquid (the glass), and both are mostly made up of empty space anyway, and they have probably been brought together on my table because I fell for an advertising campaign on behalf of the liquid or the glass or both.

Yeah... I’m that kind of girl. Sorry. (To tell you the truth, though, I try and stick with bottles.)

Love,

Katy

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Katy, I think You smelly Lesbian bitches should be deported.

Is that you again, Grandma Pearl?

I told you about the time we tried to deport ourselves to Canada, didn’t I?

We couldn’t swim across the falls.

Love,

Katy

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If you have something you want to ask me, send it to katydidknot@gmail.com and maybe I will answer your question next time I do a picture post blog.

Except you, Grandma Pearl. If that was you, then you have better grammar than I remember from when I was a kid, but you are still a bit too angry. 

Afraid of the Dark

I was born afraid of the dark.

I have always been afraid of the dark.

There was no “before”. Never a comforting night. Even before I was born, I remember. I swear it is true. I remember. And though they say to me, “Impossible!” I remember. There I was, floating, not even a proper person yet to speak of, but already there was fear. There was fear and there was the generalized stickiness of the womb.

But I did not fear that part. The generalized stickiness, I mean. For I have never been afraid of stickiness. Not one bit. So it is true I can take pride in that much, at least.