Don't Call it a Comeback

Reading is for suckers.  Click "play" on the Largely the Truth logo below to have the article read to you in my dulcet tones:

It's been almost a year since my last post and you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd run out of steam. In fact there have been times in the last 9 months where I've thought that myself: thought I'd become one of those past-it types you see in coffee shops, the ones wearing skinny jeans and hoping no one notices they're twenty years older than the girl they're hitting on.

Then I snap back to reality and remember that since I never had "it" in the first place there's no way it can have passed me by. Sure, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops but only because there are fewer TVs there than in bars. I certainly don't use them as pickup joints - if I ever tried my lovely wife would tear a hole through the fabric of space and time and boil my testicles with her heat vision.

So where in the hell have I been? It's simple - last year I set two goals for myself: bench press 300 pounds and write a book. Not at the same time.  These goals, along with life and my first steady job after 4 years of temping, have eaten all the time I once devoted to making up dirty limericks about restaurants.

My first goal seemed easy enough at first - I've always worked out regularly so my being a plus-sized man is due to beastly eating habits rather than a sedentary lifestyle. As such, I thought getting my maximum bench press from where it sat at 255lbs would be a lead pipe cinch. For hubris, this statement ranks up there with Napoleon's commentary on the English prior to Waterloo: "Deez nuts, Wellington.*"

*Rough translation

Numerous shoulder problems, including a rotator cuff strain, followed by a bout with the worst cold I've ever had - almost three week recovery time and this from a guy who rarely gets sick - held me back until mid-November. In fact, the only reason I was able to get back on track was thanks to the cruel, capable hands of chiropractor Simon Pearson at Fix Healthcare and a lot of stretching.

Since then I've returned to my regular three-day gym rotation - one day weighted vest cardio (which is as miserable as it sounds) one day weights, one day rest - and battered my way back up the weight stack. Now my max bench press sits at 280 pounds and 300 finally feels within reach. My unofficial goal of leg-pressing 1000 pounds is still some 280 pounds away.

As for my second goal - writing a book? That's proved much harder than shifting weights because there is no iron-handed doctor who can beat the kinks out of your creative process.

Thankfully I'm not trying to write fiction, which would no doubt result in some half-baked dystopian polemic riddled with dick jokes. Instead, my book is non-fiction, has no dick jokes and concerns a subject near and dear to my heart - ghost stories.

"Now wait a moment, you handsome bastard," you say. "How can you write a non-fiction book about something that doesn't exist? It would be like writing the history of the unicorn or Rush Limbaugh's common sense."

The answer is a lot more straightforward than you may expect: whether or not they're real, people believe in ghosts. They believe they have seen them, touched them, spoken to them, been comforted by and frightened by them. Does that mean what they experienced was a real event proving the existence of a plane beyond our own? No. Does that mean they were either dreaming or tripping absolute balls? No. What it means is something strange has happened to them and while the high-minded science types out there may scoff, the numbers of people who report experiences such as these may surprise you.

Hell, some of the things that have happened since starting the project have surprised me.

Ghost have fascinated me since I was a kid, partially because of a few strange experiences of my own - buy me a coffee sometime and I'll tell you - and partially because my hometown of Revelstoke was rife with them.

My mother, for one, used to tell stories about the house she grew up in. About footsteps in the night, electronics going haywire for no reason and doors opening and closing on their own.

So, in May last year I got the idea of starting to collect these stories for my own amusement. That idea quickly grew into another - write a book about the ghosts of Revelstoke, interviewing locals, tourists and former residents to shake out the lesser known history of my isolated hometown.

It was unlikely to hit the New York Times bestseller list but I figured it would fit a small publisher just fine – someone like Heritage Publications or any of those other companies who sell books on those circular racks in gas stations. 

Since then I've made a few research trips back home - on one of which I was interviewed by radio station StokeFM - conducted hours of interviews and done more research than I care to admit. It’s taken a long time to get this far and there have been moments of great doubt.  Something along the lines of, “I’m a grown man and I’m calling at a total stranger’s house to ask if they’ve seen a headless man drift across their lounge.  Maybe I should have gone to college.” 

But I’ve stuck at it and, at the moment, find myself sitting on about 75 pages worth of draft material and beginning preparations for another trip to the 'Stoke in April.

Do I believe in ghosts now? I believe there's something happening around us that we don't understand, and it both fascinates and frightens the hell out of me. I can’t tell you whether it's grandpa's ghost or magnetic interference fucking with our brains but I can tell you that researching and writing about it is addictive as hell.

So that's what I've been up to, internet. I haven’t reached either of my goals but they’re closer than they were 9 months ago.  Maybe close enough I can slowly return to this blogging business.