Just in case you ever need to become fully awake at 3 a.m., allow me to share my method:

1. Have a small child awake shrieking from some sort of Nightmare Extravaganza with SurroundSound.
2. Stumble into his room and spend quite a long time calming and reassuring him. When he’s finally asleep, lurch back to bed.
3. Juuust as your eyes are beginning to close, hear him crying hysterically and begging for you.
4. When you stagger back into his room, have him look up at you with wide, terror-filled eyes and whisper despairingly, “Mommy…she’s out.”

I can guarantee that having a bucket of ice water dumped over your head will awaken you no more thoroughly.* With the hair on my neck standing straight up, I asked him who, exactly, was out.** “She” turned out to be one of his stuffed bears (he has a mommy bear and a baby bear), whose head was poking out from under his covers instead of being completely buried the way that he prefers. The rest of the hysteria was just leftover nightmare droppings. I had no problem sitting for a while and keeping him company; lord knows I wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon.

(Also, why does even the most mundane sentence sound a hundred times creepier when uttered by a small child?)

Children. An endless source of entertainment. Also terror.


*I don’t believe in ghosts, except at 3 o’clock in the morning, when I totally believe in them.

**And they’re probably those Japanese ghosts with pale skin and long hair and Big Goddamn Fangs. Not that I’m projecting.

The site “The Best Pictures Always Lack Color” is a tad short on descriptive text, but it seems to be a site devoted to black-and-white photography. Whatever, I love this image.

(via The Presurfer)

Why do so many divination techniques sound like a cat hacking up a hairball? Just asking.

Anyway, similar to bluffing your way through the Tarot, astragalomancy is an extremely easy way to come over looking all mystical and premonition-having.

This term has been conscripted to mean divination with dice, but it originally referred to “throwing the bones;” the knucklebones of a sheep most usually. If you don’t happen to have some of those laying around, you can use oxtail bones from the supermarket (oxtails are super-yummy when braised; eat ’em and save the bones) or any other bones that strike your fancy. You need four bones (or, really, non-bony objects. Get creative!) with these properties:

• One that’s large, or at least larger than the others. This will represent strength and a promise of good fortune.


• One that’s long. This will indicate that the outcome will take a while to come to fruition.


• One that’s damaged. This will caution that care must be taken, as all is not well.


• One that’s small. This will indicate that the outcome will not have much substance to it–it will be low-energy and lightweight.

Now the technique: Hold the bones in your right hand, ask your question, and scatter them before you. The bone that falls nearest to you gives the answer.

How easy is that? It’s like “Divination for Dummies.”

You could do ten readings on your coffee break. Although I suppose your boss might ask why you were carrying oxtails around in your purse. Better think up an answer first.

Somewhere on the Masthead has an interesting grouping of past blog posts entitled “October Moments.” Like that author, October is my favorite time of the year, doubly so now that I live in an area where Autumn is an actual, noticeable season. (I grew up in Southern California, which has two seasons: Hot, and Not Quite As Hot. I now live in Northern Virginia, where leaves actually turn color, the weather gets brisk, and a full moon seen through starkly bare branches looks awesome.)

I’ve had a love affair with October for as long as I can remember, and I’ve had a few October Moments of my own. I may relate them here someday, but for now, what are yours?