Portlandia affectionately refers to it as Vantucky.

Not saying Vancouver WA is much more than a hick outpost across the border from Portland, but you folks might want to check your facts - it was actually established first.

I just spent a glorious hour reading the terrifying stories someone linked to on reddit about all the creepy shit a Search and Rescue officer supposedly encountered during his career. And I suddenly remembered something that used to scare the piddle out of me. And I’m gonna talk about it here because it stands a…

I don’t believe in ghosts, or an afterlife really. I’m more of a reincarnation kind of gal. However, there are a couple of things that have happened that give me pause.

I can believe that. I read a book about ghosts once that posited a theory as to why certain traumatic events in certain places create ghosts. The story involved a violent murder that took place near a stream. Somehow the constant kinetic flow of energy of the running water trapped the violent energy of the murder. And…

Not to mention Best Buy parking lots.

I once gave a tarot reading that was as close to “evil” as possible, but the readee (a then roommate) was the very next day found out as a thief, a check forger, a full blown very selfish junkie, a backstabber in the meanest, most venal way and more or less the human embodiment of the banality of evil. And then her…

UGH I just moved into my first NYC apartment on my own. Most of these scary stories are unsettling, but don’t stick with me, but I know I’ll remember yours the next time I hear footsteps in my apartment...

lol, I’m an artist. (pretty pictures, lol)

This reminded me of my most terrifying camping trip ever. We were camping near Pacific City on the Oregon coast years ago and noticed there had recently been bear sightings. There was a mother and 2 cubs so everyone was told to keep food in their vehicles and to put garbage in the locked cans. My girlfriend, now wife,…

Not a phone story, but a couple years ago, I had a friend die very young and very suddenly of a stroke. He and I were involved, and maybe would have had something more serious if he had lived locally, but he lived across the country in my other friend’s hometown. We had met, hit it off, and he flew home, but we made…

Haha! I refuse to have anything to do with them now or anything like it. My mom got some spirit box thing or something and she kept asking me to use it with her and I refused. She used it one night and woke up with a bruise the size of a thumbprint in the middle of her forehead. I was like MOM IM NOT COMING OVER IF…

Thank you. We have some things that were either given to us by friends or family members, mostly wooden pieces, like crosses or braided palms. Who knows if it helps, I can’t say. Though I can say that when I wear or carry my (since deceased) MIL’s wooden cross, my son begins saying some wacky things - like,

I used to work in a very remote town, while living in my hometown 30 miles away. I was 20 and my Dad had just secured me my very first car to make the commute, it was a mid 1990’s Thunderbird with oxidizing paint, leaked every fluid I put into it, and had shitty gas mileage. Needless to say I was in love.

I got a message like that on an answering machine (back in the day) from a relative who killed themselves. Very staticky but definitely her voice - only she wasn’t screaming, she just sounded confused and kept asking for me. Came home from work and there it was.

Picture messages would pop up on my phone for a month or so after my husband died. A picture of a guitar would pop up(husband was a musician) and freak me out. After a while it stopped happening. There is just so much we don’t understand.

AND my second one. This was the most terrifying night of my life:

A dear friend died of natural causes a few years ago, leaving behind three daughters. The middle daughter started using her mom's phone since she didn't have one, and on her birthday she got a voicemail that was just the sound of a party - talking, laughing, glasses clinking, but only women's voices. She's convinced…

Here is a story that I have not shared before because honestly- it creeps me the fuck out. I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t like the things it implies about the nature of the universe we inhabit, and it fills me with existential dread. It also happens to involve a friend’s suicide, so it’s not the easiest thing…

Great story! I’m not saying or implying that this was the cause for you, but your highs and lows sound a lot like what I experienced when I was using one particular anabolic steroid in college. The one I used was a blend of several different testosterones, so perhaps your body reacted to the increased activity with a…