I grew up on the mean streets of Hugoton, Kansas, where the only traffic light in town went to flashing red at dusk. Alright, the streets weren't exactly mean. They were gravel and named after presidents. Not even all the presidents, because Hugoton at the time was only ten blocks by ten blocks.

When I was little my family often accused me of being a storyteller, which is a polite way in Kansas of calling someone a liar. Later I found out it really doesn't matter whether something's true, as long as it's a good story. The first story I ever wrote in kindergarten was a thinly veiled autobiography about a family of aliens. In the story's illustrations my older sister looked suspiciously like the Great Gazoo from the Flintstones.

For several years, I thought Jesus was my grandmother's invisible friend. After all, the girl next door had invisible friends. Although my grandmother didn't invite Jesus to tea parties or claim that he was sitting in the chair you wanted to sit in, she did talk to him. He never talked back and you couldn't see him, just like the girl next door's invisible friends. How was I supposed to know? Then I found out that a lot of people had the same invisible friend named Jesus. It didn't bode well for me in a conservative town.

I was lucky I never got burned at the stake, although my biology homework did get torched over a bunsen burner, after I gave my class presentation on evolution. I didn't so much drop out of high school to go to college as I ran away to escape the torments of prom and church youth groups. At least at college no one minded that I was an unsaved heathen, likely to suffer the torments of Hell after a wasted life of debauchery and sin. That actually sounded pretty attractive after so many years in Hugoton.

Somewhere in there, I got a BA in English, a BA in French Literature, and an MA in Writing. (Yes, that strange, elusive beast: the MA in Writing. A cousin to the MFA, but requiring a longer period of indentured intellectual servitude.) Faced with the terrifying prospect of a PhD or reality, I chose reality.

At any rate, I chose to take a teaching job in Japan. I came home and wasted what were probably the prime years of my life fondling an erect silicone penis in front of high school students and prisoners. Such is the existence of sexuality educator. After that there was no choice but to marry. Well, it was that or turn into the crazy cat lady. I moved to Florida and married a Marine, who later turned into a college student. Two degrees later and a move back to Kansas, he remains a college student, although he does occasionally make reference to some future "job."

As for me, I'm hiding in plain sight. My thinly veiled autobiography would still be about aliens, and I've mastered the one skill that every writer-in-hiding needs: slack. The work for the day is done, the computer is there, so what am I stealing? My own time.