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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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