Back Jacket Copy

You know, I could write jacket copy all day for anyone but me. Writing my own, which I want to be tempting and engaging and enticing, which I guess, is the same as tempting, has been incredibly anxiety-producing. Like squeezing out a turd when you’re constipated. I have an idea of where I want to end up and I know what all goes into it, but getting what I want through me and out in a productive manner has not been easy.

Here’s what I’ve got.

No one knows for sure why Nashville has so many ghosts. Is it because the place has been inhabited for thirteen thousand years? Or perhaps because the Devil keeps a summer home here?

Whatever the reason, this is the kind of place where the living and the dead often linger too long in each others’ company. Babies long dead cry in church parking lots, where they are comforted by current parishioners.  A friendly neighbor cooks breakfast even after his body is under ground. And something stalks and preys on the living in the old tunnels underneath the downtown.  In tales that range from spine-tingling to heart-breaking, A City of Ghosts offers up an alternative, haunted history of Nashville.

I think that’s pretty good. I’d be tempted to read it.

The Butcher Sums It Up

At dinner tonight, I was telling the Butcher about the whole McWherter stands with Arizona thing and he said, “So, I guess that’s just a race I don’t vote in.”

I’m also thinking it’s time we just accept that no one has any idea how to bring jobs to Tennessee. That’s why they’re talking about cutting government even further, as if it’s not already dangerously hobbled. That’s why they’re talking about going after illegal immigrants. If they thought they could bring jobs, they’d know the tax revenue was going to be there to fund the state. If they thought they could bring jobs, they wouldn’t have to scapegoat illegal immigrants at the expense of the Constitution.

But they’re preaching those two things–cut the government and bash the illegal immigrants–because they have nothing else to offer.

None of them.

Questions Mike McWherter Now Owes Voters Answers To

Well. Wow. That’s interesting. It brings up some questions, though.

So, Mike, what other parts of the Constitution do you have issue with? Should gun lovers also be worried? Or is it just Section 8 of Article One? If we don’t recognize the constitutional authority of the federal government to make rules regarding immigration and not the states, are there other things we can ignore the Feds on? You know, we’re in dire financial straits as a state. Maybe we should decide Tennessee doesn’t recognize the embargo with Cuba and start trading with them. What do you think, Mike? Could we sign a treaty with Spain when you’re governor? Declare war against Alabama? I believe Tennessee has really suffered for not having a Navy. Could we count on you to institute one? Are you ashamed of being an American? Is that why you chose today to flip off the Constitution?

You’ve already shown your tail to gay people. And the people of Memphis. And now immigrants and the Constitution. Who’s next? Single mothers? Non-Christians?

Is there any traditionally liberal constituency you’re not going to dick over?

I’m just wondering.

I Would Like to Punch My Bookshelves

I tried to strike a deal with the dog that she would just bite whosoever looks at the bookshelves too closely once they’re in the house but she’s all “Biting? But you can’t get belly rubs from people you bite!” Which just goes to show Mrs. Wigglebottom’s sore lack of knowledge of fetish communities. I don’t even have to look on the internet and I can guess there are whole groups devoted to giving belly rubs to people who bite you.

Anyway, the bookshelves look like they were stained in a horrible chemical accident. Seriously, like they will wake up this morning, look in the mirror, scream “NOooooo!” and then become super villains.

And they are all rough. They were smooth when the stain went on and now they are like “Oh, hi, let us stab you with our prickles,” which is also why I suspect they are about to become super villains.

Because I suck at staining. And I dumped varnish all over my hand last night and I tried to wash it off, but it wouldn’t come. So I was pissed and I wanted to punch my bookshelves, but they also were sticky and I didn’t want to stick to them. So the Butcher came home with our food and I tried to just eat dinner and feel sorry for my sticky self, but I was literally sticking to everything–the fork, the cardboard container the fried rice came in, the bits of papertowel which clung to me like I was the ass of that cartoon bear in the Charmin commercial, my can of Diet Dr Pepper, which I had to have the Butcher open for me, even my own fingers were stuck together.

And that’s when the Butcher informed me that vegetable oil would unstick me. And it did. And so I finished the bookshelves, which look terrible and are prickly, but I don’t even care, damn it. In a hundred years, let someone say “You know, I think if I sanded these in a way the person who stained these clearly was inept at, and then just painted them, they’d be very nice.”

I don’t even care.