It's been a long time since we went on a ghosthunt.

The fab GF and our Pal have done several. Enough to be featured on a Discovery Channel kids' show easily debunking some true believers by replicating their "ghost" evidence and explaining what caused the phenomenon.

I am the skeptic. The fab GF is also a skeptic, but wants to believe in ghosts, while the Pal sides with the fab GF because it's funnier when they gang up on me. Those are the internal workings of our organization, The Bureau of Occult Occurences---B.O.O.

We have a woefully outdated website, a logo, and t-shirts. And we have equipment: non-contact thermometers (with and without a laser), decibel meters, video and still cameras, hidden microphones. And walkie-talkies.

Yes, walkie-talkies. We even have handles---the Pal used to have the handle "Polar Bear" back when CBs were in, so we have updated it to "Bipolar Bear." The fab GF is "Bladder Bear" as she has to pee all the time. And I am called, "Hey, You." As in, "Hey, You, get the Rice Krispie Treats."

This is a common command as Rice Krispie Treats are the official food of adventure and a ghosthunt is always an adventure. With lots of laughing. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life as on Ghostapalooza I.

We've been talking about another ghosthunt---after the house is done. The last big one we did, I hauled in seventeen cases of equipment. Seventeen. It was insane. I can do it now with a lot less gear, but why? Gear is fun. I like messing with it and getting it to work and the flashing lights and crap. I really do.

But that's not my favorite part. My favorite part---the most interesting part---are the ghost stories. They're like a roller coaster in that a complete stranger will tell you a ghost story and will try to get you to share that fear or sorrow. The shared moment is what matters, not the reality of ghosts (most of the time). And most people will go to any length to achieve that recognition as they embellish the tales they've heard or the weird experiences they've had.

B.O.O. collects ghost stories and we have a book shelf full of books about local hauntings written by local writers. But when we investigate a place, we interview like cops and set out to show how certain events could have happened or why a place seems creepy or any other number of things. And then if we find a place is not haunted, we give out a certificate that reads: "Officially Not Haunted."

A friend of mine and I have discussed writing a county ghost story collection. I'd like to do that as it really interests me, but see, there's no money in being a skeptic.

Just as there's no money in being a literary novelist if you don't hit one out of the park. I have a great deal more to say about this topic and ironically, it is related to the supernatural, as ghosts are, in that the career and calling I once thought was dead and gone has clawed its way to the surface, brushed the dirt off it's clothes, and started annoying me with ideas and impulses to tell stories.

But enough of that for now.

It is the season to brood. The veneer between civilization and savagery is easily scratched, but the veil between life and death is even thinner. I ponder my lost ones. "Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken..." Death does not change the love I feel for them, or the grief that will come when I have lost my true love.

Between leaving and being left, being left is worse. In those three o'clock in the morning moments I have thought I would take being left to protect my darling from that pain. But am I strong enough to withstand that loss? Even now the idea of it briefly crushes my chest right above my heart. The inside of my arms ache with the thought that at some time, I will never again hold that lovely laughing girl.

It is the season to brood. Well, at least there's Halloween candy. And Rice Krispie Treats. And laughing so hard you actually get dizzy. And work. And love.

Yes, there's all that. Inadequate, maybe, but if it's what you have, then it's what you have. So welcome your ghosts. And make 'em some Rice Krispie Treats. Or at least crack open that bag of Fun Size candy bars and quit pretending you bought them for the trick-or-treaters.