Blackbottom Paranormal

I don't know when I discovered as a kid that East Lake Park is usually empty in the wee hours of Sunday mornings. Like a great many things in life, I find it to be best without people. There's something peaceful, even in this messed up enema insertion point of Tennessee, about a still pond with an errant swan slumming it with us ghetto folk under the same moon that all the rich fucks have to share with the rest of us.   The walk is vastly different from when I was a kid walking to school. I'm not constantly looking in every direction for possible attackers, but nearly every corner is replete with the memory of a fight or tense encounter with one or more of our local cast of crackheads. It's like walking through a mile and a half of the should'ves, could'ves, and why-didn't-yous that plague me in the shower. The brilliant comebacks that my brain took a few years to generate. The punches I regret throwing, and those I regret not throwing.   I was in the middle...

Angie's house is on a corner lot on 50th across from a patch of woods that is weirdly a square block of "Don't Go In There."   When we were kids, my brothers and I would make any excuse to play in any woods or creeks, except these. This one block was our Black Forest and none of us knew why, but we instinctively knew: with these woods, thou lot shalt not fuck. I'm almost 40 now and I have no idea what's in there, nor do I have designs on finding out. Having devoted too much writing to this entirely already, I will unceremoniously move on. Pretend there's a halfway decent transition here if you don't mind.   The engine idled in Angie's driveway longer than I should have allowed it to. Bo looked a question at me and I dragged my cigarette.   "Strap down or nah?" I asked, unclipping one shoulder of my overalls.   "You really want Angie seein' yer tiddies? It's chilly out there, too."   "Point." I replaced the stra...

Tomorrow we perform an Indiana Jones-style Jax Plushie switcheroo while Angie almost certainly has a go at some grabassing.   The things we do for kids.        

Lizzy's been back a few days. She brought some plans from Other Matt re: what he hopes is a correction on the formula for the fucky putty so we can find Weasel and try to open a better-controlled portal with fewer inverted humans and peoplesplosions. It's sweet he wants to see us again, but for my money, he just wants more Lupi's.   We had some coffee this morning before she went back to school and immediately after she got on the bus, the BBP Google Voice account told me I had a voicemail.   I cannot describe accurately, in word or deed, the degree to which I fucking detest voicemail. Text me if I don't answer. Honestly, I'd rather be paged, like it's the early 90s and I'm trying to convince everyone I'm a cool nerd.   I digress, but one more time: fuck voicemails. Moving on.   "Hey! This is Angie over on 50th. My 8-year-old has this doll--"   There's probably more to the voicemail but I hung up. I don't want any Chucky action around h...

So I was hanging out with John Ross shortly after Lizzy went missing and he said he saw her. He was confused because he knew she was from *this* dimension rather than Over There, and I'm proud of her for going there to even check. This is just one reason I'm happy to have her on the team, even if she wasn't my kid.   Apparently, she DID follow Other Matt to his dimension (I think she thought she was going where I, Matt, went, and she went where he, Other Matt, went instead and Shit Got Different) and she went to the gooseshit-laden analog of the John Ross House. She said there's literally no difference except that the grocery store nearby is called Bi-Lo, which interestingly is what it was called when I was but a wee lad.   John Ross hisownself is physically stuck at that location except Samhain, but he can access that house in any dimension. This… sucks. But I know she’s alive and safe.   Side note - the entire planet is careening through space in a corkscrew spiral pa...

Well, I think I’m in the wrong universe right now.   When we went Lupi’s a few days ago, I followed other Matt to his universe… and I may or may not have gotten lost a bit…   I’ve actually learned more than I thought I would about my dad. I’ve learned that his dad is a dick and that his mom is a little racist.   Other Matt is very annoyed, mostly because he now has a thirteen year old mischief maker that can’t find her way back home constantly following him around. I can’t really blame him.   Oh, I also almost set a hotel on fire. Other Matt and I were trying to find an affordable place to stay for a bit, and since the receptionist was being an asshole, I set the bathroom on fire. So far, I haven’t gotten caught.   Let’s hope that I get home soon so that the cops don’t find us. Here’s your report-ly meme!