My neighbor squinted at me the other day and said “I imagine you’re the kind of guy that has a surprisingly diverse range of friends.”

I had never thought about it, but it turns out he’s right.  I count among my good friends poets, ghost hunters, deer hunters, feminists, nurses and doctors, veterans, deputy sheriffs, theologians, spelunkers, agricultural scientists, trappers, painters, entrepreneurs, Scrabble players, chefs, composers, deadbeats, gardeners, sculptors, mystics, mechanics, mathematicians, hospital and university administrators, lawyers, heretics, middle managers, novelists, editors, publishers, conservatives and progressives, statists and libertarians, junkies, clerics, politicians, teachers, subversives, filmmakers, board gamers, video gamers, MBAs, moral majoritarians, libertines, classicists, autodidacts, fishermen, critics, band leaders, photographers, dancers, farmers, handymen, engineers, hackers, exercise freaks, punk rockers, dentists, inventors, executives, ukelele players, wealth managers, depressives, athletes, coaches, finance geeks, cartoonists, firearms instructors, secret agents (maybe), and even cat owners, to name a few.

Probably you all do, too.  I hope so.  These people have all enriched my life.  One of my aspirations is at the end of my life to have a list of such descriptors as long as the one above that would all apply to me.

This came up in conversation because last week I was at Paracon West, a paranormal convention held in Salt Lake City and in part organized by my friend Russ Cook.  Which is to say, I was hanging out with some of the ghost hunters.  I’m posting late because I’ve been busy with work since the con, but here are a few photos.  You can see my booth (staffed by novelist S.A. Butler in the photo), next to the Zombie Nation table (inimitable Kelli and Carter Reid, presiding).  Craig Nybo, who himself probably accounts for ten of my above categories, warms up on bass for our event — he and Carter and I staged an interactive rock opera about zombies.  It was short, ragged at the edges, and well-received.  I don’t have any photos because I was playing guitar the entire time, but with a little luck I’ll be able to photograph the event in the future.  We’re hoping to do it again for SLC ComicCon in a couple of months.

One more photo.  One of the psychics at the con (yep), found himself the repeated victim of practical jokes played by the ghosts (I swear).  Here is his table, levitated up by poltergeists on top of another table.  This is what you missed — if you like ghost stories, jokes, and rock and roll, think about coming to Paracon West 2.

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