life

Ghost Hunting in Cape May

June 4, 2024June 3, 2024 J.Leave a comment

Hello (and a relaxed and happy Pride Month to all of my fellow LGBT+ people)!

I am freshly returned from a brief trip to Cape May, NJ. My Handsome Assistant and I wanted to take some time to be near a beach for a bit, and managed to time things so we would a) have nice weather, but also b) be there during the “off season” when accommodations are generally a lot cheaper and easier to get. Fortunately for us, the stars aligned and we got a very nice room in the Angel of the Sea bed and breakfast.

(And when they say “and breakfast,” they mean it. You want breakfast? There’s fresh fruit, fancy breads, and three different entrées to pick from. Feeling snacky? There’s tea and pastries in the afternoon. Want to relax in the evening? There is wine and mountains of charcuterie. Even after you check out, you’re invited to return later that day to enjoy the amenities.)

A view of a pink Victorian house at night. It has "gingerbread" details and a scalloped roof and is lit with strings of cafe lights.

The Angel of the Sea even comes with its own ghosts. It’s a very old building that was actually kind of… cut in half and transported to its current location. As a result, parts of it aren’t very accessible — think the narrow hallways and steep staircases you get with historic buildings — but are super haunted. As many as four ghosts have been reported to make an appearance there. There’re electrical shenanigans, shaking beds, and mysterious phantom coughs.

A photo of a picture on a wall. It's a very old, oval photograph of a sad-looking woman, in an ornate gilt frame. — Our room even had a complimentary Grandma.

I brought my ghost box, figuring it’d be interesting to mess around with during our downtime. I wasn’t able to get much on the scanner, but we also didn’t experience anything out-of-the-ordinary in our particular room, either.

We did meet a gentleman named Gary who was there with his wife. Gary was a lot of fun — always enthusiastic and down for a conversation, where he’d flit from subject to subject like a hummingbird. We talked about all kinds of things every time we ran into each other: history, haunted places, music, life, death, rehab, and more. He told us a story about someone close to him passing away. Even though this person appeared to have flatlined, they turned their head, looked into the empty doorway of their hospital room, and asked, “Which way do I go?” before they passed.

Even if you don’t find a ghost in your hotel room, places like this are generally home to absolute treasure troves of fun and interesting paranormal stuff. You’ve just got to know where to look.
(Antique stores. The answer is antique stores.)

I have made the weird and occasionally embarrassing habit of going into antique stores, finding someone who works there, and straight-up asking them, “If you had to guess, what object here would you say is the most likely to be haunted and/or carry some kind of terrible curse?”

Idk. A sheep maybe? It has bright pink eyes and its mouth gapes open in a silent scream.

A small portrait mug of a sinister looking man in a top hat.

A ceramic statue of a deranged looking clown riding on a displeased pig.

Several antique and vintage dolls, including Raggedy Anns and Andys.

A plastic perfume bottle top of a woman, possibly a bride. The plastic is yellow with age, giving her a blank-eyed stare.

(If I had to guess, it would be any one of these things. Did you know the original Annabelle doll was a Raggedy Ann? Fun!)

As it turns out, antique stores are usually not super busy and are full of dead people’s stuff. I have yet to meet an antique store employee who has not jumped right in to talking about the weird stuff that goes on there at night. Some are more skeptical, but most of them will eagerly tell you about all of the things they’ve seen or heard.

For example, Antiques Emporia is home to the ghost of a little girl. She rearranges things at night and opens the packaging of vintage toys.

Capt. Scraps in Ocean City has even been the subject of a professional paranormal investigation. Multiple customers, on several separate occasions, have reported the sense that there was something there. Eventually, an associate of one of the owners brought in a full team with EMF readers, scanners, and the works. While investigating, they were able to decipher the words “Henry. Fire. Dog.” It was later discovered that a local antiques dealer named Henry had lost his shop, his dog, and his life in a terrible fire. Some of his paintings ended up at Capt. Scraps, and Henry decided to come along with them!

A painting of a black-eyed woman in a large hat. The background is indistinct and abstract, and the colors are very bright. There's a large red flower in the foreground. — I don’t know if this was one of his paintings, specifically, but something about it really struck me and I had to get a picture of it.

This store also has its share of shadow people, odd phenomena on security cameras, and the general “sense” of a ghostly presence. It’s a really neat shop.

So, while I wasn’t able to get any recordings or paranormal experiences of my own, I did come away with lots of stories.

We also found a lot of shops that were right up our alley. Good Scents has a ton of local art and jewelry, candles, soaps, and incense. (We picked up some soaps, massage oil, and a box of “smokeless” Hinoki cypress Japanese incense.) Best of all, it’s quality stuff — not the kind of smells that immediately make my throat puffy and make me feel like someone is driving nails into my face.

They also had one of those boards that you can draw on with water. Usually, you use them to write little notes or affirmations. Because I am a giant obnoxious child, I used it to draw a rushed, ersatz Dickbutt. (Don’t worry, I didn’t leave him there for impressionable childs to see. I drew over it.)

Guardian's storefront. There is a chain of copper bells and a wooden image of an angel on the front door.

Guardian is another delightful place to stop if you enjoy metaphysical shops. It’s small, but well-stocked. It has some tarot and oracle decks I hadn’t seen anywhere else, and a very nice selection of books. (I picked up one that I can’t wait to review here.) When we checked out, the proprietor had us choose cards from an oracle deck — we read the affirmations and she had us keep the cards as a little bit of positivity.

We also went on a bit of a hunt for vegan cupcakes. We’d managed to find plenty of meat-, egg-, and dairy-free meal options for me, and tons of fresh seafood for my Handsome Assistant at places like The Mad Batter (like their seitan hot wings and vegan tostadas) and Good Earth (which had an amazing cauliflower steak with chimichurri), so finding vegan restaurants in Cape May wasn’t a problem at all.

The outside packaging of Fruition's Gay Bar. It's primarily purple and depicts several anthropomorphic animals: a bear in drag, a deer bartender in a rainbow scarf, and a small beaver dressed as Rosie the Riveter.

My Handsome Assistant also brought me some fancy chocolates, like the Gay Bar. It’s pretty much an Old Fashioned cocktail in chocolate bar form, and it was delightful. I’ve had boozy chocolate before, but mostly just those little chocolate bottles filled with rum. Nothing really cocktail-inspired and uniquely flavorful like this.

We did eventually find Chocolate Face, a bakery that had vegan cupcakes. The chocolate ones were even oat- and nut-free, so they ticked all of my “weird dietary issues” boxes. This was about twenty minutes from where we were staying, so we decided to poke around at a couple of neat looking shops we’d seen on the map.

And buddy, we were not prepared.

Just look at this idyllic-ass nonsense.

A photo of tiny cottages surrounded by brick paths and immaculate gardens. Lanterns hang from a large tree in the foreground, and the buildings are surrounded by flowers. — Don’t mind Longcat. He is protecting a stranger’s identity.

I thought it was going to be a couple of strip-mall type shops clustered around a parking lot. I was so wonderfully wrong. It was Woodland Village.

It was like… I don’t know. Little fairy cottages. Pricey goods, but not of the cheap, souvenir variety. All of this stuff was high-end. Handmade art and sculpture. Handmade clothing with vegetable-dyed fabrics. Handmade gemstone jewelry. Fine gemstone specimens. Handmade incense. Upscale men’s clothing. Teas. Perfumes. Spices.

Another view of Woodland Village, showing a gazebo, brick pathways lined with flowers and trees, an old-fashioned wheelbarrow full of plants, a set of wooden Adirondak chairs, and a shop in the background.

In Red Door Gallery, I wanted to show my Handsome Assistant a pour-over coffee funnel in a beautiful, glazed ceramic. While I reached for it, I clumsily knocked over a small sculpture of a sheep. We thought he was okay, but, sadly, one of his ears was knocked off in the fall.

Obviously, I was going to bring him home and fix him.

Once we’d finished shopping, we brought our purchases (mostly handmade cat toys for the dummy squad back home). I set the small, broken figure on the counter.

“He was a casualty of the fall, but it’s okay. I can repair him. I have the technology.”

“You… really don’t have to do that,” the proprietor said.

As it turns out, she was the artist who made the little figures. She didn’t want us to buy him just because he was broken, and insisted we pick out a whole one instead. I thought they were cute anyhow, so I did — even though I felt bad about the little sheep with his broken ear.

“Can you fix the broken one?” My Handsome Assistant asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she explained. She said she’d likely end up throwing him away.

My Handsome Assistant came over and whispered to me.

“Okay, would you really rather have the broken one, or the other one?”

“I mean… They’re both very cute, but I am going to feel terrible if the broken one ends up in the trash.”

A pair of small, polymer clay sheep in front of a blue glass bottle and a needlefelted Amanita muscaria.

Sure enough, he went back to the cash register and asked if, since the broken one was likely to be tossed anyhow, we could have it.

So, a bit of glue and patience later, I now have two small clay sheep in my kitchen, and a partner who is very understanding of all of my strange bullshit.

We also stopped in Summer Studio Avalon, which I probably could’ve spent all day in. It was just filled with gorgeous, handmade things. (I got a rutilated quartz, moonstone, and pyrite bracelet, some incense, and a pair of flowy teal pants that I am probably going to live in from now on.) There was beautiful embroidery, handmade incense, artwork, accessories, sculptures, crystals, all kinds of the exact sort of things I could happily spend an inordinate of time looking at and/or smelling. The proprietor was also very nice — we got caught up in a conversation about writing things, painting, and the fact that rainbow moonstone isn’t actually a moonstone and is more like a white labradorite.

A photo of a store display. There are perfumes, flower crowns, pressed flowers, books, and clothing.

We also stopped in Northeast Man, mostly for my Handsome Assistant. I found some really nice shirts and a solid cologne (Duke Cannon’s Bourbon, which he bought and I have been sneaking from him because it smells excellent and is the exact way I want to smell forever), but everything fit me in a less “mysteriously androgynous” way and more in a “fourth grader wearing their dad’s shirt” way. Most of the things there weren’t quite my Handsome Assistant’s aesthetic — more “Boat Dad” than “Office Druid” — but there were some really nice, high-quality pieces that suited him very well.

Since the Angel of the Sea is about a half a block from the ocean, we spent some time doing sunset beach walks. The weather was gorgeous, and the slanting golden light made the crests of the waves seem to glow. We also came upon a very large (and extremely deceased) horseshoe crab, which my Handsome Assistant had never encountered before. (He’s from a landlocked state, so his experience with wild marine life is somewhat limited.)

We also kept an eye out for trash, like we always do. There really wasn’t much — I think we picked up two cellophane wrappers and a water bottle, all told. It was very clean, especially compared to some beaches and hiking trails we’ve been on.

The intact shell of a large horseshoe crab on the sand.

Fortunately for my Handsome Assistant, we did stop at the Nature Center of Cape May. We watched gulls and ospreys overhead, listened to the songbirds on the balcony, and admired the large, live horseshoe crabs in the marine lab.

Am I disappointed that we didn’t find any ghosts ourselves? Not really. It would’ve been interesting, but I’m fully satisfied with the experience that we had. Even during the tail end of its “off” season, Cape May was a lot of fun. Woodland Village was great, the abundance of antique stores (and antique store ghost stories) was awesome, the food was fantastic, and the beach was beautiful.

A person sitting at a white wicker table on a balcony. They're wearing sunglasses and a blue grey tanktop with a wing motif. They're smiling. In the background, the sea is visible.

An image of a person with a green bandana and black tanktop. They're smiling. In the background, there's a tall, Victorian spire lit with cafe lights.

Back into the woods.

April 22, 2022April 21, 2022 J.Leave a comment

it’s a rly good deal tho, I texted.

My phone buzzed a second later.
I’m literally about to get on a plane right now, he’d sent back.

This back and forth happened a few more times, before he finally agreed that a couple hundred dollars off a four-day vacation was, in fact, a very good deal.

This all started when my partner realized how much vacation time he had left over at the end of last year. It doesn’t roll over and he can’t cash it in, so it was pretty much just kind of wasted. Ever the supportive devil on his shoulder, I urged him to make sure he takes all of the paid time off he could this year, especially if it was just going to evaporate if he didn’t.

“Your job’s able to offer you this because of the value created by your labor. It’s not a free perk or a fun bonus, it’s literally something you’ve earned. If you can’t get the equivalent value in your paycheck, you should take whatever you’re offered. You’re basically giving up part of your salary otherwise.”

(I also have the same attitude toward expensed meals, fitness equipment, and other benefits. Just because it isn’t money doesn’t mean it isn’t compensation, friends!)

And this is how, on a shuttle immediately before boarding a plane, my partner prayed that his phone’s battery and internet would hold out long enough for him to book a four day stay in a Getaway cabin. It was a scramble to schedule everything before the sale ended or his phone gave out, and he succeeded with almost no time to spare.

A sign on a cabin that says "Getaway Shirley."

We’ve stayed in a Getaway tiny cabin before, so I knew this’d be a good deal for us. Last time was during winter, so I was pretty excited to experience the area when it was a bit warmer and greener. That part of Virginia isn’t exactly in full bloom just yet, but was still beautiful — especially if you’re a weirdo like me who experiences aesthetic arrest from the sight of, like, an extremely good mossy log.

Interior of an apothecary shop, with shelves full of incense, candles, herbs, and remedies. — Image from Visit Waynesboro.

When we weren’t walking in the woods, taking pictures, trying to identify plants, or “catch and release” mushroom hunting, we were reading or writing. One day was a bit too chilly and rainy to do much outside, so we went for a drive down Skyline to Waynesboro, VA. There’s a fantastic apothecary there called PYRAMID, with some really wonderful locally made candles, incense, artwork, jewelry, herbs, teas, remedies, and curios.

The environment of the cabin was just as relaxing as last time. There was a very beautiful patch of violets right near our fire pit (I picked a few for pressing), and we were tucked far enough away in the trees to have privacy but just close enough to other cabins to not feel completely isolated. Along the stream in the woods, Christmas ferns were sending up tons of spiraling fiddleheads. The moss was verdant and bright green, and the lack of leaves on the trees was more than made up for by the abundance of lichen and mushrooms on the ground. The weather was cool, alternating between sun and a light, silky drizzle that made everything seem fresher and brighter. Though the trail we took was relatively short, it took us a while as we kept stopping to get down, snap pictures, sketch, or identify something.

A fallen tree covered with turkey tail mushrooms.

Slightly uncurled Christmas fern fiddleheads.

A small stream running through a forest.

Tightly-curled Christmas fern fiddleheads.

An underside view of the soft gills of a cream-colored mushroom.

We packed well this time around, though we brought way too much food for the two of us. Pasta, salmon, shrimp, steak, cinnamon rolls, ingredients for s’mores… He cooked the meat and fish over the fire, and made some of the most amazing, crispy salmon I’d ever had. It was simple — just fish cooked in the cabin-provided olive oil, salt, and pepper — but the texture and subtly smoky flavor were perfect. We had it with lentil pasta all’arrabiata, and I’ve been craving campfire cooked salmon and pasta ever since.

A close-up view of the inside of a violet flower.

(We did run out of salad greens at one point, which got me wondering how I’d scrape together some from the surrounding landscape if I had to — there were violets, dandelion greens, and the pink flowers of redbud trees… Christmas ferns can be eaten the same as ostrich ferns, so fiddleheads too. Fortunately, I did not become responsible for foraging for our vegetables, because I did not want to play “Fuck Around and Find Out: Salad Edition.”)

Coming back took a bit, mostly because we’d scheduled things so we still had a day or so between going home and going back to work. It meant that we were able to visit all of the pottery shops, antique stores, and farm stands that we passed along the way. We ended up coming home with coffee beans, copper sculptures, and a cypress knee(!!!) that we hadn’t originally intended to, so I’d say our sidequesting was a success.

J's partner sitting outdoors, eating a plate of pasta and salad.

Here ’til the crow flies and the flies crow,

life

Isolation Vacation

December 21, 2020December 20, 2020 J.Leave a comment

As it turns out, there’s a buttload more to working from home than setting up a desk.

I think neither my partner nor I would’ve been able to predict the effects it had: worse sleep hygiene, confused cats, a general air of unease, a much harder time separating work and life, working an extra three hours or so a day. The trouble is, if you have to work from home, you don’t get much choice in the matter — you either have a separate space for an office and the kind of mental walls that help you keep your work life and home life separate, or you’re kind of boned.

So we engineered a way to take a vacation in the most low-risk, isolated way possible.

Getaway offers tiny cabins a little less than two hours outside of D.C. It worked out perfect for us — we booked and paid for the cabin online a few months in advance (they fill up quick), picked up some extra provisions during our last grocery trip, filled up on gas when we normally would anyhow, and made the trip without having to stop. Checking in was completely contactless, too. We received a text with the lock code, keyed it in to the number pad on the door, and stepped into a very comfy, charming one-room cabin.

It was pretty much perfect. There was a spacious bathroom at one end, with a large shower and accessibility bars. At the other, there was a big, marshmallowy queen sized bed under an enormous window that looked out onto the woods. The cabin also had a pretty well-equipped kitchen, with a two burner stove, sink, pots, pans, silverware, and dishes. (There was even a bowl for traveling dogs.)

It snowed pretty heavily, which kept us from really taking advantage of the trails or the fire pit. Even so, it was really wonderful being able to snuggle up in bed with a cup of tea and some pancakes, under that huge window, and watch the snow through the trees. The night sky was gorgeous, too — I stayed up late both nights to stargaze.

It was just cozy, you know? Peaceful. Idyllic. No work emails, no calls, no wifi to answer them even if we wanted to. Just the creaking of the trees in the wind, snow, and the stars at night.

It turned out to be a great atmosphere for brainstorming, too. My S.O. and I did some storyboarding, and he wrote a really awesome short story (that will hopefully go up somewhere in the future). I had about a thousand ideas, but didn’t really get into writing or making art while I was there — I took a few notes and made some sketches, but I didn’t want to lose too much time trancing out in a creativity fugue like usual.

Even the way home was pretty. It rained after it snowed, and the nighttime temperature drop made the water freeze around all of the bare trees until it looked like they were covered in diamonds. The sky was blue, and the sun glittered through the trees’ ice-covered claws until even an ordinary road next to a set of power lines looked like something out of Narnia.

Everything was so bright and pretty, in fact, and we felt so refreshed, that we didn’t really want to go home right away. Stopping somewhere populated wasn’t really an option, but that’s okay.

There’re always roadside attractions.

We’re both kind of suckers for them (by which I mean that, if there’s a World’s Largest Something between here and California, we’ve probably stopped by). The biggest windchime? Been there, rang it, had a slice of pie. My S.O. had barely opened his mouth to say he wished there was something cool on the way home before I had a list of things that were a) large, b) unpopulated, and c) at least slightly ridiculous.

And that’s how we found a giant nutcracker. (Well, mostly the head.)

He used to be a paving company’s tar silo. When a paint company bought the property, they painted it and converted it to this fellow. Honestly, the setting had a pretty unique sense of melancholy — there he was, with the approaching clouds just beginning to gray the sky, strewn with unlit Christmas lights, staring unblinkingly out at a McDonald’s across the street.
It felt very Lynchian, though I’ll be damned if I can explain how.

Our appetites whetted by the urge to see more huge things, we next drove back to D.C. to find an actual giant.

Fortunately, it being the middle of the week, during a pandemic, and also December, the place was pretty much deserted. Several areas were closed off, so I wasn’t able to get closer to the sculptures themselves, but the image was still very striking. There he was, this metal titan struggling up from the beach sand, face twisted in anguished effort.
Then, in the background, a lazily turning Ferris wheel.

I don’t know if any of you have played Kenshi, but there’s one particular area that gives me a similar feeling. There’s just something about massive metal hands clawing vainly at the sky that’s so damn eerie. When it’s juxtaposed against a beach and a carnival ride, it’s surreal as hell. I love it.

Now we’re home, snuggled up with two cats who had Many Things to Say about our absence. If you’re reading this the day it was posted, it’s the winter solstice. Keep your eyes peeled tonight for the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and have a happy Yule.