I’m not insane.  I’m a normal person, just like you. Ok, so maybe I’m not normal.  Me and my hyperbole.  But still. I’m sane. I’m sane, and  I have a ghost living in my house.

I’m not one to easily believe in such things, but sometimes some powerful truth reaches out and grabs you no matter how practical a person you are.  During my divorce, I moved into this house in 2006 with my son who was then under three years old.  Shortly after I got a dog.  After a while, we added some fish.  Now?  We’ve added Nancy the ghost.

Not long after I moved in, I heard some odd noises in the house, and they scared the bejeebers out of me. I cannot recall the full context, but I believe I heard someone other than my son calling “Mommy”.   It was so odd, and so scary, that I blocked out the specifics. Being a person of relatively sound mind,  I chalked it up to being in a new house under very new circumstances. I talked myself into believing I was just on edge, which was understandable under the circumstances. It was an unfamiliar old house, I was on my own with a young child for the first time, and I was going through a divorce.  Clearly, a life in transition.

There had been rumors about ghosts living in this house from before I moved in, but I wasn’t sure I could sign onto that.  I began to question my reticence  when a neighbor came in to let my dog out while I was at work, and her daughter saw an old woman at the top of the stairs.  The woman was gone by the time the child’s mother got to the landing to look.

Then one night about a year after I moved in, my boyfriend at the time, Andrew, and I were in bed.  I heard an erie, high pitched, girlish voice say “MOMMY” from the room adjoining my bedroom.  Then I heard it again.   It was long and drawn out, like:  ”MOOOOMMMMY”. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at full attention.

The room where it came from is not near my son’s room, and the voice was not my son’s.  I turned quickly to look at Andrew, and he nodded and said, “I heard it too”.  My first thought was that it had to be my son, “how could it not be my son?” I thought as my mind raced for an explanation.  I got up out of bed to investigate.

Barefoot, I walked across the wide wood planks of my second floor landing to my son’s room, where the door was ajar as always. He was fast asleep.  It wasn’t him.  If he had spoken from his bed, the voice would have come from the other wall of my bedroom. The high pitched, almost creepy voice came from inside the adjoining room of the master bedroom.

Confused, I turned from my son’s room to walk back and was then facing the staircase down to the first level.  I then saw that the baby gate was not up.  Since I’d moved in I’d been putting a baby gate at the top at night, just in case my son got up in the middle of the night. I didn’t want him to accidentally fall down the stairs in a sleepy moment.  I fixed the gate, and wondered if that had been the reason for the disturbance.

I broke up with Andrew quite a while ago, and I’ve been with Dan now for over a year.   I’d warned Dan about this odd stuff in my house.  He was very kind to not call me the cookoo bird that I know he thought I was when I told him.  The ghost then saw to it that he knew I was not nuts, at least not about this.

A few weeks ago we were both in bed sleeping when Dan heard “MOOOOOOMMMMY”.  He says it woke him.  He was groggy, so he thought maybe it was my son, or maybe he had dreamed it.  Just when he was about to go back to sleep, he heard it again, loud and clear.  This time, he was certain it was not my son.  I never heard it, because I was fast asleep.

I mentioned this to my neighbor, who is apparently a medium and spiritual guide.  She offered to come over and see what she could pick up.  From her visit, we learned that this ghost dislikes my dining room.  There was a disturbance whenever she walked into the dining room.  I spend a lot of time in the dining room on the computer writing and facebooking, and sometimes working.  Tina looked at me and said “What do you do in here? She hates it here”.  Then Tina moved to the kitchen.  She said the kitchen was a place the ghost liked.  She liked the fish.  She wanted me to know the white fish was not named Cindy (my son named our boy beta fish Cindy.  The ghost, rightfully so, thought this was absurd).  She also wanted me to know that she liked our playroom, but that she wished she could have a toy of her own.  ”All the toys are boy toys”, she said.

Tina says that this ghost is a young girl of about 10.  She likes to be called Nancy, although we suspect this is not her real name.  She did not come with the house.  She was drawn to the house because of us.  We were already here when she arrived.  Tina communicated with the ghost a bit, who asked if she could please show me when she was around more often.  She also told us that my son, who is now 6, has no idea she’s here, and that she’d never scare him.  She wouldn’t promise, however, that he’d never see her, which was a bit disturbing.

Nancy did not want to tell us who she belonged to.  Initially she admitted that she came from someone Tina and I “both knew”.  Questions to figure out the identity were met with some anxiety.  The chain tina carries to sense these spirits began to twirl quickly.  Time to switch subjects.

Tina explained that Nancy was saying she liked our house because there was so much here that she never got to have.  She felt like she never got to have a mom, and she never got to have all those toys.  She liked being here, because she felt on some level, that I was like her mom.

Tina said that Nancy wanted me to know that she thought if I’d paid better attention, I’d have noticed her more often.  She told Tina that if I would just listen, then I’d know she was there.  Then, she told Tina to tell me that she only wakes us for a purpose.  She then explained, through Tina, that Adam had been having a nightmare the night she woke Dan, and she had wanted me to go to him.

Nancy also clarified that it had not been her at the top of the stairs when my neighbor’s child saw an old woman.  Nancy explained that while she is the only consistent entity here, sometimes “others come and go”.

Fantastic.

After talking extensively with Tina about the things she sensed from Nancy, it was finally time for the night to draw to a close.  Tina walked up the block to her house, and I was jittery all night.  Since then I haven’t really seen or heard anything else, although there have been episodes where I’ve smelled a super sweet smell of candy and vanilla in the dining room when I’m writing.

I’ve put a little pink VW bug in the play room, which has since gone missing. I don’t know if the children moved it, or if Nancy did.  The dog is sometimes hesitant to enter the playroom, and sometimes needs coaxing to go out through there to get to the yard.

I’m not sure what I believe about all this.  I can tell you that I do believe something is happening here in this house.  I have a pretty strong sense that whatever it is, it’s not malevolent.  What it is, exactly, I cannot say.

During the last snow storm I sent an email to Tina, asking if she thought perhaps Nancy might like to help shovel.  Apparently, the answer was no.  Oh well.  Can’t blame a girl for trying.

Angie Jackson was the first to do what we all knew was inevitable in the age of social media and exhibitionism: she tweeted her abortion live on Twitter.  From the Daily News:

In an attempt to “demystify” abortion, the 27-year-old shared her experience on Twitter, YouTube and her personal blog.

“I’m doing this so other women know, ‘Hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was.’ It’s just not that bad,” Jackson said on her YouTube video.

According to Jackson, she has received a negative response.  From an interview with the woefully misnamed website (for this story) Frisky:

A lot of them are sort of these throwaway statements in the comments of conservative blog and things like that. “Someone should put a bullet in her,” or “If the whore can’t keep her legs closed …” People have threatened to call Child Protective Services and take [my son] away from me because [of the abortion]. They’re either calling me a killer or calling me a monster, which is their right, but … I think we need to say quality of life matters. I don’t think an embryo gets to trump the life of my live son. I see this as risking my life.

New photos were released from both the NYPD and ABC News of aerial views of the burning and collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

When I look at these photos, I think about how people all over my country who only saw it from their television screens now use it in a way many New Yorkers disagree with, including myself.

Click either image to see more at the BBC.

Right now everywhere in political circles the recently-deceased John Murtha is being toasted by friend and former foe alike.  He was a man’s man and a politician’s politician.  It was hard not to like the character he cut.

That said, I don’t miss the King of Pork Congressman Murtha, who felt no shame in the game that earned him his moniker; the white elephant of waste that is the $200 million John Murtha airport his true legacy.

Liberals sort of fell for Murtha when he became anti-war because he was continually trumpeted in the media as a real “hawk”.  He’s still loved for that.

However, Murtha’s ‘grasp at the swill for my constituents because it’s my Constitutional duty’ style of politics were foolish before and ruinous now that the country’s economic outlook is so dire.  If we don’t start capping people like Richard Shelby at the knees, as we should have done to Murtha, our entire standard of living is threatened.  We simply can’t afford to spend this way anymore, nor allow our government to be run so ineffectually.  The war, tax-cut and high spending policies of the last ten years have hurt this country’s finances greatly, and we haven’t woken up to the economic reality yet.  Our leaders won’t tell us how bad it is because they are all too much like Congressman Murtha, or Senator Shelby, and because the cold hard truth of it all does not get them re-elected.

But a toast to John Murtha the man, may he rest in peace.

New York Times obituary.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Actor Justin Mentell, known for his role in US television drama Boston Legal, died February 1st in a road accident in rural Wisconsin.  He was aged 27.

Iowa County Sheriff’s Department, who confirmed the death, stated that Mentell was driving without wearing a seatbelt when he crashed his 4 X 4 vehicle into two trees placed on an embankment. He was killed in the collision at 0300 local time.

One of the roles that Justin Mentell played was Garrett Wells in Boston Legal in 2005 and in 2006. William Shatner, who also appeared in the programme, paid tribute to the actor on his Twitter page on Wednesday. He wrote: “I’m deeply saddened to hear about Justin Mentell. There’s no telling how far up the ladder he may have climbed. My sympathies to his family.”

Source: Wikinews

Photo of Justin taken by me for the Creative Commons at the premiere of Palo Alto in April 2007.

Are children murdering more these days?  Yesterday I was wandering around Google News and happened across several headlines that jumped out at me:

11-year old Set Mom on Fire in Dispute Over Cigarettes, Police say – Samantha Watts and her 15-year-old boyfriend allegedly set her mother on fire after an argument over whether Samantha stole her mom’s cigarettes (ugh).

14-year old Admits Killing Parents in Dispute Over Chores – John Caudle, 14, didn’t want to do his chores, so he took his parent’s .22 caliber pistol, shot his mother, hid in the laundry room, and then shot his stepdad.  Then he spent the night playing video games.

Police: Son Asked Friend to Kill Parents – According to police, Timothy Chester had gotten into an argument with his parents. He left the home, but later returned with his friend, Victor Veliz, and they allegedly shot and stabbed them.  According to police, Timothy Chester said the plan was to not only kill his parents, but his sister and brother-in-law as well as Veliz’s family.

Teen who killed adopted mom with hammer sentenced to 16 years – “People always ask me why I did it,” said Heather D’Aoust, who at 14 hit her mother in the head almost 15 times with a claw hammer,  “Honestly, I don’t even know myself.”

Edlington child torturers: we attacked because we were bored – Two young brothers, ages 10 and 11, inflicted numerous injuries on two children during a sadistic 90-minute orgy of violence, torture and sexual abuse that began because they were bored and there was “nothing to do”, a court heard today.

In his perennial effort to trash God’s reputation on Earth, Pat Robertson blamed him for the heartrending devastation in Haiti by saying the Caribbean country was suffering from the pact they made with Ol’ Scratch.

Turns out, the Devil wasn’t so pleased himself with this (ostensibly, God will sort out Robertson at a later date). Thank you Lily Coyle of Minneapolis for your pitch-perfect piece in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll.

You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

The swine flu that is now an epidemic in the United States is likely traced back to a farm in North Carolina, and its first appearance in Mexico occurred near farms owned by Smithfield Foods.   We inject dairy cows with so many hormones that women who drink regular milk are three times more likely to have twins than women who drink organic.  The pollution from factory meat growing farms accounts for a fifth of greenhouse gases; that’s more than cars.

All of this occurs while 96% of Americans believe animals deserve some legal protection from harm.  We like animals.  It doesn’t matter our politics nor our backgrounds, we all agree that animals shouldn’t suffer.

These two ideas, the need to fix and protect the environment and the desire to not have animals suffer, was the common ground that Jonathan Safran Foer sought in his new book Eating Animals.  Tonight at the Union Square Barnes & Noble he read from it, discussed those statistics above and took questions.  His desire, he said, was to highlight the consensus we have on the environment and animal suffering to find ways to make better choices.

Foer has received a good deal of media attention for re-writing Fast Food Nation and Making Kind Choices, but that’s not a criticism.  It’s Foer’s own take, and every new voice that reaches new minds gets more of society thinking about what we are doing with factory farm meat growing.

We don’t think about its effects on our health, and we don’t think about how it’s hurting our environment.  Add Foer to the growing chorus of people who say: when will the mainstream media report this issue?

The images on this post are licensed Creative Commons 3.0 attribution; re-use is permitted but please link back to this post with credit.

Here is how people died this week:

1. Comic-Con Founder Shel Dorf Dies at Age 76 (ABC News)
2. Man dies of self-inflicted gunshot wound at Taylorsville gun range (Salt Lake Tribune)
3. Kentucky Man Dies While Scuba Diving in Florida (Fox News)
4. Lake County teen dies of complications from swine flu (Chicago Daily Herald)
5. Marine in own car dies after hitting Humvee (San Diego Tribune)
6. Marine from San Antonio dies in Afghanistan (Houston Chronicle)
7. Westmoreland County man dies after mobile home falls on him (Tribune Review)
8. Pioneering Loch Ness Monster researcher dies (STV.TV)
9. Lou Filippo dies at 83; boxing hall of famer played ring judge in ‘Rocky II’ (LA Times)
10. Man dies after pet dog bite (London Telegraph)

Jim Carroll, author of the Basketball Diaries, which was made into a 1995 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has died of a heart attack at the age of 60.  I last saw Jim in 2007, when he posed for me at the Brooklyn Book Festival in a photo that was instantly unpopular with his fans, as his emaciated appearance started rumors that something was terribly wrong with the iconic poet raconteur.

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The photo above was the best out of a series of three that I took at the 2007 Brooklyn Book Festival (the 2009 festival ironically occurred just yesterday).  Carroll was fascinating. He had a wide variety of notes and things he had written that he wanted to talk about, but he was part of a panel and he ran out of time, never really having given much of a presentation.

As he fumbled through a complicated series of notes and papers, he refused to give up the microphone.  After begging him to give it up, the festival cut Carroll’s mic, which upset him immensely.   I will never forget fellow panelist Joe Meno staring, sitting next to a towering Halloween Jack of a Carroll, gesturing wildly, as he protested for more time (photo below).  The whole thing had been a wash.

On September 20, 2007, I wrote the following on Wikinews:

One of the featured panels on “soon-to-be-published works of groundbreaking authors” that included Jim Carroll, The Women of Brewster Place author Gloria Naylor and playwright and music journalist Joe Meno, ran into problems. The panel was the final program and started half an hour late. Naylor failed to show, reportedly due to a death in the family. In the middle of Carroll’s presentation he was asked to stop speaking so they could close the courtroom where the event was held in the Borough Hall. Carroll was visibly upset. He asked the audience if they wanted to hear one song, to which they enthusiastically cheered until the festival organizers cut off his microphone to keep to a schedule that required they vacate the premises by a certain time.

Jim Carroll in 2005 - the image that replaced the 2007 one above, out of fan request.

Here is an accurate, detailed re-telling of that day.

I approached Jim in the atrium of Brooklyn Borough Hall and asked if I could take a few shots of him for Wikipedia, and he was happy to do so.  Unfortunately, his appearance and expressions were not flattering, despite a few polite suggestions.  It was as if he was fine with my photographing, but not present for the activity.

This image was instantly unpopular with Carroll’s fans. I received e-mails through MySpace and Gmail begging me to take it off his Wikipedia page because his fans were concerned that he looked terrible. The photo above started rumors that Carroll was again using drugs; whereas his fans protested that he had just been sick the week before, which was why he looked so gaunt.

At their request, I removed it from his Wikipedia article after the 2005 image to the right was made available on December 3, 2007.  The New York Times obituary is here.

UPDATE:  According to Ron Silliman’s blog, the 2007 Brooklyn Book Festival was Carroll’s second-to-last public appearance, the last being the 2008 Poetry Project New Year’s Marathon.