Don’t say it – don’t even think it.

This couple knew the All Souls Procession makes a great date/Ryn Gargulinski

I know, I know – all my blogs today, from the weapon as décor collection to the five death updates – have not been very cheery, perhaps.

I was going to even it out with a happy, snappy dating post. But the topic on my list is a phenomenal weekend date which just so happens to include more death: Tucson’s annual All Souls Procession.

Sigh.

Really – I did not plan this.

And I promise the All Souls Procession does NOT fill attendees and participants with gloom and doom but it is rather a celebration and honoring of our dearly departed.

Get into the fray and rhythm and you may even find yourself in the midst, quite rightly, of a spiritual experience.

Thousands of folks dress up to pay tribute to their dearly departed loved ones, both animal and human, or even a dead concept or entity.

This year’s procession will include a major death in the community over the past year that is dear to many of our hearts: the print edition of the Tucson Citizen newspaper. A gaggle of former staff will be dressed and marching to mark and mourn its passing. People I still miss daily for their humorous banter and awesome ideas.

Just one of the many fabulous puppets/Ryn Gargulinski

Tons of puppets, skeletons, skeleton puppets, floats and even pets dressed up always add another fine dimension to the festivities.

You’ll also be drawn in by the hordes of performers and the grand finale urn burn at the Franklin Street Docks, at the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Stone Avenue.

Even if you don’t have a date, feel free to go solo to the procession – you are going to meet a lot of interesting folks.

The procession starts to gather at 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 at Epic Café, corner of Fourth Avenue and University Boulevard.

Many Mouths One Stomach, the organization we can thank for pulling this together every year, asks participants register at the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Fourth Street. The procession begins at 6 p.m.

See AllSoulsProcession.org for a full map of the route, more information and details on other highlights of the All Souls Procession Weekend.

See – that wasn’t so horrible, was it?

What do you think?

Will you be attending the All Souls Procession?

Are you a regular or have you never been?

What’s always your highlight?

Would the All Souls Procession make a fine first date? Why or why not?

Even if they don’t lurk in your oleander or boil your pet rabbit, stalkers are nothing to take lightly.

Stalkers try to eat you alive/Ryn Gargulinski

They come in many shapes, sizes and seemingly even species, but generally fall into three categories:

1. The total stranger. This is someone you don’t even know exists who is madly obsessed with you for whatever reasons are running through his head. He will do things like shoot the president to get your attention.

2. The disgruntled ex. This dude didn’t like that you broke up with him and refuses to take no for an answer. He can be one of the most dangerous as, since you shared a relationship, he knows your habits, your hobbies, where you work, where you live and how much you love your pet cat.

3. The friend who is secretly bedeviled by you. This category is growing in popularity, unfortunately, with a larger percentage of acquaintance stalkers than ever before. It could be because there are a larger number of wackos who don’t even make it into the disgruntled ex category. The bedeviled friend could be someone you casually drink coffee with who ends up shooting you in the head if you take a vacation or accidentally miss your regular coffee shop meeting.

You never know what these people are thinking. But you can engage in some methods to defend yourself.

Stalkers are often two-faced/Ryn Gargulinski

Change your habits – and your locks. Switch routes on the way to work, get a new phone number, delete the e-mail account that the stalker stuffs full of garbage. Invest in deadbolts and, if he ever had the key, change your locks.

Write everything down. Keep a running diary of all of the stalker’s attempts to contact you. Hang-up calls count. If he leaves phone messages, like my idiot stalker did, take the answering machine tape to the police precinct so cops have evidence of his lunacy. Yes, even keep the dead birds he stuffs in your mailbox.

Make friends with detectives. Take all your evidence down to the nearest police station and explain the situation. File a harassment report, get a restraining order or take any other legal action you can to get it on record that you are being harangued. Make sure to bring photos of the guy, if you have them, and also post the photos at work and other places to warn others to beware if he comes lurking around.

Move. If you can, just get the heck out of Dodge. I know, it’s unfair you have to rearrange your life for some schmuckle who won’t let you be, but it’s wise to get as far away from this person as possible. If you become inaccessible, he may give up or move on to another victim.

Watch out in dark alleys/Ryn Gargulinski

What do you think?

Have you ever been a stalker or been stalked?

How did you deal with it?

Feeding your date is one of the joys of getting to know each other. You find out if she can’t stand butter on her rice or if he knows how to barbecue a chicken.

Barbecue yum/Photo Ryn Gargulinski

You also get a peek in their pantry to see if it is stocked with exotic spices – or Wonder white bread and multiple cans of corned beef hash.

While I cannot top AZMouse’s two previous food stories of being fed SPAM casserole and SpaghettiO’s on dates, I can share some of the best – and worst – meals that have been prepared for me.

Best:

Barbecue chicken – Yes, my date could barbecue a chicken. It may have taken more than an hour and forced me to raid his pantry of Saltines, but it was dang good chicken.

Jalepeno grilled cheese – Spicy, tasty, crisp and easy. Grilled cheese is always a safe bet, especially if you’re ingenious and can make it without butter.

Delicately sauteed chicken and shrimp served atop a bed of al dente basil bowtie pasta drizzled with a mushroom sauce and served with a side of crisp salad – No further details necessary.

Worst:

Anal man’s stir fry – This horribly anal man I once dated, who was so obsessive he used to iron his jeans, needed some lessons in stir fry. It’s one of my favorite meals, provided it’s done right. This means a mixture of spices whipped up with a subtle blend of scrumptious sauce.

He thought it meant dousing chopped chicken and vegetables in enough soy sauce to flood the Stone Avenue underpass. The white rice floated like maggots in a greasy brown soup. It was so horrible I actually started crying at the table because I was so hungry and it was the only thing he had to eat.

To make matters even worse, he had followed me around with a broom when I helped him chop vegetables. Stinkin’ anal man.

Cupcake yuck/Ryn Gargulinski

Other worsts:

In addition to salty ocean stir fry, you can gross out your date with a few other food options. Please never offer your date any of the following: raw eggs; goat’s head soup; stale cinnamon buns; smashed cupcakes; Rome apples; supermarket brand peanuts; Gefilte fish; or Gummi Worms.

Never tried:

One recipe that may intrigue those daters in the throes of a serious relationship is the infamous Engagement Chicken. Supposedly this dish is so magically delicious that the person to whom you feed it will drop down on one knee and ask for your hand in marriage.

I checked out the recipe for the heck of it, and it looks kind of bland. You basically bake a chicken seasoned with lemon juice, salt and pepper and hope for the best.

At least it didn’t contain three bottles of soy sauce. And it didn’t say a peep about butter.

What do you think?

What’s the best meal you’ve fed or been fed? The worst?

Any surefire recipes to share?

Any major don’ts?

Before we delve into this tantalizing topic, we have to ask a single question: do affairs ever NOT go bad?

Cheating on or being cheated on by your significant other ends with hurt feelings, mistrust, breakups, breakdowns and sometimes even worse.

Some prime examples include:

Illustration Ryn Gargulinski

Steve McNair – This noted pro football quarterback and seemingly “all-American guy” was having a clandestine affair his wife didn’t even know about – until his girlfriend allegedly decided to put four bullets in him before turning the gun on herself.

While the double deaths have not been “officially” deemed a murder-suicide at the hands of a, shall we say, unhappy mistress, police say they are not seeking any suspects. Wonder why not.

Brad Pitt – This noted actor and ex-husband of Jennifer Aniston was playing around with Mr. and Mrs. Smith costar Angelina Jolie on camera and off, leading to a divorce from Aniston and marriage to Jolie. While no one is dead from this hookup, we hear Pitt is already possibly wanting to play around with other costars, at least according to the crappy tabloids I like to read, although he’s now saddled with a wife and 502 kids adopted from faraway countries. A rumor has also recently circulated that he had a secret hookup with Aniston in a hotel room.

This affair has also compelled me to keep checking updates on Aniston to see if a. she’s had a nervous breakdown; b. found someone better than that big, goofy dude she first dated following the divorce; or c. see if she finally got a new haircut. You know how annoying it is to be compelled to follow Jennifer Aniston news?

Midget wrestlers and fake prostitutes – This sad tale tells of two Mexican midget wrestlers who were found drugged to death in a seedy hotel after being seen in the company of two hookers. The prostitutes, however, were not really prostitutes but a couple of thieves who specialize in drugging people to rob their money.

While there is no report of the midget wrestlers actually being in relationships with anyone, going to a prostitute is quite often a sign of cheating. Even if they weren’t cheating, hooking up with a hooker is just gross. Perhaps ironically, one of the wrestlers went by the name “La Parkita,” which means “Little Death” and performed in a skeleton costume. The other guy was known as “Espectrito Jr.,” for which no translation was provided, although it could mean “Little Bike Path.”

What affairs do you know of that wrecked homes, lives and careers?

Do you know of any with happy endings?

What’s the craziest things you’ve heard of people doing to hide an affair?

Dates can help either make or break a relationship – especially that ominous first date, which should be filled with fun, frivolity and some compelling conversation.

Take your date to a cemetery?/Ryn Gargulinski

One way to get all that is to break the traditional bounds and go for something unusual. Never mind the boring old bar or a traditional trek to the movies, try a first date that’s a bit freaky and you’ll really have some fun.

Freaky but fun date ideas:

Bone collecting –
Get yourself a garbage bag, an ATV to trek to remote desert areas and a good eye for blanched white cow parts and you’re set. Bone collecting is a very creative and interesting way to spend an afternoon, as long as you don’t go for bones that still have meat attached.
Conversation topics it creates: cattle, livestock, ants, buzzards, disease, dissection, what the heck you’ll do with the bones once you get them home.

Future artwork/Ryn Gargulinski

Cemetery hopping –
While this may, at a glance, seem morbid, it is actually fine to spend time honoring the dearly departed. Visiting a cemetery can mix a dash of history with a lot of culture as you observe how different folks chose to memorialize their dead.
Conversation topics it creates: life, death, mortality, belief or non-belief in an afterlife, family background, reincarnation, debate about who you were in a former life, if people can really come back as goats.

Ruins/Ryn Gargulinski

Ruin hunting –
Ruin hunting can be as elaborate as trekking to the Casa Grande Ruins for a three hour tour or simply scouring through an abandoned house that has a prominent “No Trespassing” sign. Ruin hunting, especially when you are defying a trespassing sign, gives you a rush of being in a secret, off-limits place that can be dangerous. The danger is enhanced when the abandoned house has a mere shard of a ceiling kept in place by a single nail and could topple and crush you at any moment.
Conversation topics it creates: ruins trigger the imagination – who lived here, why, what did they do for fun, how did they die, is the place haunted, did they keep any pets and did the pets wear tutus.

I was lucky enough to have an amazing first date that included all of the above. Yes, it was also an amazingly long first date, but with all those thrills it seemed like a millisecond.

Treasure amongst the ruins/Ryn Gargulinski

What do you think?

What was the finest date place you’ve been?

The worst?

Were any of your date destinations freaky or unusual?

Do tell!

We’ve all fantasized about the best revenge for a guy or gal caught cheating on us: blowing off their heads with a shotgun.

While few of us, at least those of us not currently in prison, have followed through with this fantasy, Tucsonan Mark Sadler did.

Blood on church steps that are really rose petals/Photo Ryn Gargulinski

At least on paper. He turned the trauma and drama of his nasty divorce and his self-awakening that followed into his debut novel: Blood on His Hands (Infinity Press, 2009).

Sadler neither disclosed if his ex-wife had been cheating on him nor if he owned a shotgun, but he did answer one question quite ominously. When asked if he had a dog, he replied, “Not anymore.”

No, I honestly don’t think Sadler killed his dog, although he does admit, “I tried to murder myself but could not.”

“I went through a rather nasty divorce about seven years ago; one that makes you question whether you want to live or not,” Sadler said. “The stress was so great that one day I just packed it all in and disappeared; no one knew where I was. I was completely isolated. I reappeared a week or so later (hauling) a 60-pound pack on the Appalachian Trail.

“The journey that my protagonist takes is loosely based upon my own journey and I experienced an awakening of the spirit on the journey once I got on the Appalachian Trail. I wanted to write about my hiking experiences but so many people have written their personal journey on the Appalachian Trail that I wanted to take a unique angle so I dressed it up as a murder mystery.”

He picked a murder mystery over, say, a romance novel, as he enjoys the thriller aspect of the genre. He also enjoyed creating characters more colorful than the Scarlet, Peacock and Mustard we get in the game of Clue.

His main players are Oklahoma redneck Mike Renton, the dude that blows away his cheating wife; the wife Bonnie; and Bonnie’s lover, Ian Walker, a New Zealand private investigator.

Sadler explains in his press release:

Northern Georgia’s Appalachian Trail has long been rumored to have healing powers and in this tale of redemption and repentance Renton discovers for himself that more than just ‘trail magic’ exists on his journey of despair.

Blood on His Hands leads us from wanton desperation to the promise of a new life no matter the cost.

Not a bad start for a debut novel. Unless, of course, you happen to be the cheating wife.

I first met Sadler at Tucson’s Limelight Poetry Reading where I heard excerpts of the novel. Good stuff. I also heard him mention “his wife” so we know he’s remarried despite previous pain. We also know he’s working on his next book as he recently took a ride-along with a local sheriff’s department.

Mark Sadler/submitted photo

Catch Sadler reading from his novel July 11 and signing books Aug. 1:
Clues Unlimited, 3146 East Fort Lowell, at 2 p.m. on July 11
Mostly Books, 6208 E. Speedway Blvd, at 1 p.m. on Aug. 1
You can also join his fan club on Facebook.

One more thing we know: writing is a great way to purge relationship, or any other, pain.

My ex-boyfriend-turned-stalker experience ended up as a chapbook and CD entitled “How I Almost Married a Psychopath.” Another failed relationship turned into another series of poems, including a heartbreaking lament about how he moved out and took all the silverware.

Have you used writing, singing or another art form to get over a bad breakup?
What’s the best revenge you exacted on a cheating or otherwise crappy mate?