Where the hell have I been?

In hell.
But thanks for stopping by!
Oh, and how I've missed you so.

So anyway, nothing has been up really but a landslide of bone-crushing, soul-stealing zombiework that will not go to its grave and rest peacefully. So while I stretch my aching, broken back here in on the side of a rotten swamp log, as I sharpen my machete to hack the rest of the week into the desecrated, bloodsoaked ground where it belongs, I thought I'd sit here and let the acid kick in.

There.

Much better.

Oh, come on. I don't do acid. (Anymore.) I never did. (Much.) It's just me talking shit. (Dude.) It's the Radiohead, I swear.



What have I done in the past two or three weeks that I can talk about without incurring a lawsuit...Oh I know: Not much, just sent my DNA in to that National Geographic Genographic Project.

Oh, you care. You know you do.

So far, I've tracked my own personal mouth-scrapings (EW GROSS!! Oh well, it's for science, children, so let's snap out of it) have been processed into a batch (wake up, you know you care), the DNA strands have been isolated (I'm good with isolation) and are now sitting in a lab somewhere in Texas awaiting execution.

Oh, I'm sorry, I was thinking of George Bush for a second.

No, they are sitting in a lab somewhere in Texas, waiting for analysis. No wait - Arizona.

Yeah yeah, it's cool so far, but I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping by now they'd have contacted me with an urgent message from The Government, just to let me know my batch confirmed that I was from a galaxy far, far away and that I was, in fact, an alien.

But no. Probably just mostly Romanian.

(Plus, it's an anonymous testing. So take that, Government.)

That's what someone told me once, based on my name. Romanian. How can you really tell by a name? I'm sure my surname was a long German name with "-huffers" and "-heimers" on it, and they abbreviated it at the Ellis Island check-in desk and pronounced it and spelled it all wrong like they do now and have all my life.

On second thought, maybe not since I don't look the German type at all. My dad's side of the family could pass for it though since all the babies born on his side of the family, including my dad, look like Charlie Brown.

Then there's my mother with the long, black hair and the dark eyes that could send me into a cosmic trance at her will. She never had to lay one finger on me - the penetrating stare was enough. She got that magical trait from her mom. I know this because I remember the perspective of being 5 years old, short, and trying to get my maternal grandmother's attention when she was busy frying something at the stove. I remember the light bulb switch on in my head: "Reach up and smack her on the ass. That'll get her attention." So, I did. And then, all I remember was The Black Eyed Look downward into my eyes. Then everything went black, and I don't remember anything else until I was 12.

I do know my greatgreatgreatgreat (? who knows, I get lost) grandfather on my mother's side was a Downing straight from Ireland because it said so on his tombstone. Died in the late 1700s. Started the first Catholic church in the state. Then the Baptists came along and took over like Catholicism never existed. That's it, that's all I know. I'm fairly sure my great-great grandmother was a Choctaw Indian because my grandfather looked like Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) but with that straight, white man hair.

And I'm fairly certain she must've been because when I asked him about it, he'd look at me like I had just exhumed a body and offered him a meaty chunk to eat. God, I loved my grandfather, but that's the Deep South for you. My mom delighted in the fact that she'd heard about my great-great grandmother, and how she'd sit on the porch and chew tobacco and The Family wouldn't speak of her at all. I'm serious, that really is the Deep South for you, especially in the 1940's. I look nothing like my grandfather, and unfortunately, I just can't have that much unknown Native American blood left to me since I could get a sunburn from the moonlight.

But I do love the moonlight more than anything else in the world. It's the gypsy talking. Or werewolf.

But you know, the Romanian connection would absolutely explain my fascination with the local gypsies and my desire to cast impotency spells on the masses, and give stink-eyes to everyone around me on a bad day. If only I could do my hair up that big, that high like the modern Midsouth gypsy and wear that strapless bra with the sparkly tank top. You think I am joking, but I can assure you, I have plenty of freak in my bloodline. Something pulls me toward the two-headed goats at the carnival. Hard. And it's absolutely fine with me.

I have no idea where most of my ancestors came from, but I'm fairly sure they were doing all the driving while someone else was gripping the dashboard and another was barking directions from the backseat. I honestly hope I find out what culminated in my gnarled family weeping willow tree that drives me into a frenzy of showtunes by Judy Garland while steeping myself in a 40 ounce can of malt liquor.

So the in the next step,

"DNA ANALYSIS AND QUALITY CONTROL:
The samples are transferred into PCR amplification plates for testing using a robotic liquid handling station. The appropriate chemicals are added to the samples to amplify the targeted regions of the DNA for testing. The samples are heated and cooled in a thermal cycler in order to run the PCR amplification. The PCR amplification products are loaded into the capillary electrophoresis machine and the products are sorted by size and color. A laboratory staff member uses a computer program to assign scores to the samples. The computer generated scores are then reviewed by two additional laboratory staff members to produce finalized data."

Zzzzzzz...

Sorry. That was bulletpoint boring. Point is, in this last step, they will be able to tell me where the hell my kind of DNA started out, so they say. So maybe I'll finally have some clue as to what my exact problem is based on my encoded hardwiring.

My prediction: I'm sure I am really all of the above plus more. Thank God.

Oh man, I have to go now. The rabid nutria with chronic halitosis are chewing on my ankles. Again. But I meant to tell you about the documentary I watched the other night, "In the Realms of the Unreal" - a revitalizing dose of the hidden, channeled creativity of Mr. Henry Darger. If you can get past Dakota Fanning's adenoid problem during the narration, you'll probably like it, too. While I was watching it, I caught glimpses and traces of this guy swirling through all of the amazing people I love to talking to, running like a long ribbon of that mostly harmless, creatively powerful insanity twisting through the center of us all once I saw my own reflection in his cut-up, newspaper-clipped fantasyworld mind.

But hey. I'm not into seven little sisters with penises though. If that's what you're thinking once you see it. Think that about me, and, boy, I'll give you the hairy eye because deep down, I'm fairly certain I know how.

Oh, it's just the acid talking. (Probably.)