Sooooo, I’ve been waking up with these weird wounds lately. Nothing traumatic, except perhaps it bothers me that I can’t figure out how I’m getting them when I was completely sober the night before and don’t remember anything that happened during the night to take a piece of skin off of some part of my body. Last week, I woke up to find a small slice on my upper arm. It was as if I’d done it with a fingernail, which I guess would be possible if I had long fingernails. It’s healing now, but it’s still strange.

This morning, I woke up to see a flap of skin hanging off of one of my fingers. And not like dry, hangnail-area skin, either. I mean between my first and second knuckle, and even though it’s not a major injury, it still it hurts like a motherfucker, like four papercuts at once. And I can’t remember anything that happened in my sleep that might have contributed to it.

I’ve checked the furniture for bedbugs and the cats for fleas and found nothing, so obviously this leaves a vengeful ghost that is trying to mutilate me while I sleep. Which I prefer to bedbugs, honestly, so I guess we’re just going to have to live with one another.

When I think about all of the time I spent preoccupied with ghosts and demons and other scary shit as a child, I’m a little surprised that the thought of a vengeful ghost harming me in my sleep affects me so little (and, um, in case you were wondering, yeah, I kind of did consider it seriously for about four and a half seconds). I wish I knew why I was so scared of this stuff when I was a kid, because it’s not like I was scared of fantastical stuff in lieu of being scared of real life stuff. I was scared of real like stuff; back then, I assumed every car accident was fatal, I was briefly obsessed with that disease Bob Saget’s sister had where you turn to stone from the inside-out, and I had an entire survival plan laid out in case there was ever a war in St. Louis and I had to go into hiding.

No, really. I’m serious.

So I was scared of plenty of things when I was a kid, including some relatively adult worries. Now my fears are almost all adult (save for flying on airplanes, and I can’t help it that I just start weeping during takeoff) and the idea of a malicious spirit flaying off pieces of my body while I sleep is kind of…meh. I’m sure she – because you know it’d be a “she” – has a valid reason for doing it.

What an appropriate topic for Halloween, then, which I know isn’t until next week but I’m going to a party with Courtney tonight. Costumes are required, something I’d usually balk at but I’ve figured out a way to dress like an old lady (and I love dressing like an old lady to the point where I am writing this while wearing what I call my Dorothy Zbornak Sweater Cape!), not buy a single thing, and, if it all goes according to plan, only have photos taken from the waist down.

Yep. While other girls are buying slutty Big Bird costumes or breaking out the yearly Day of the Dead facepaint, I’m going to a party dressed as Nanny from the Muppet Babies. And I’m going to be drinking far more comfortably than they will.

Jealous?