Boat Facts

I came out here to get a picture with me and Woody, for book cover purposes. Out here is my niece’s house in the woods on the near side of one of those terrifying bridges that take you to Cape Cod. I say things like that assuming everyone knows those two bridges. But I am from Amarillo and know better. But I’ll come here or say I’m coming up here and people give me Cape Cod facts like half my family doesn’t live here. And I feel like that’s the more insulting way to go about it. Or maybe I’m just an asshole who gets insulted when people act like I’m from Amarillo, right after I told you I’m from Amarillo. So I say shittier things like, I have lived in the fucking Alps, Kyle. Don’t explain frozen lakes to me.

Back to pictures. I keep wanting to call it a headshot, but it’s not really. Woody has to be in it. Back when I needed a headshot last time, my niece was dating a guy named Karl. We like Karl. We’ve liked Karl since we first met him, at one of my sister’s weddings. I like him even more since the pandemic, when my dog was dying and he mentioned, just sort of quietly one night out by the fire where we’d go when we weren’t allowed to socialize indoors, he said he’d buried his childhood dog in the woods back there. In case I wasn’t sure what to do. I could do that. So when it was time, I texted my niece. She said Karl had already dug the grave.