All in the family

No, my family doesn't know I'm a vampire. They're all the way back in the midwest, anyway, and I think my mom would take it kind of hard. Keeping them in the dark is actually pretty easy. I was 29 when I bit it, only going home for the occasional Christmas for the last couple years. Yes, it is dicey explaining why I only come by at night, but I was always a little eccentric. Mostly, they think I'm going through a phase.

My aunt Gloria is the only one who suspects something, and basically, she thinks I'm a heroin addict. This is only awkward because she was a heroin addict (she lived in New York in the seventies, and she's always going on about how she saw the Velvet Underground play, and how Andy Warhol was going to put an avocado on their album cover until he saw her fellating a banana. It gets better. According to my aunt, it was going to be the Velvet Underground and Gloria until that bi-yatch Nico stepped in. Yes, pathological liar, I know). Aunt Gloria doesn't shoot up anymore, but she is always on something. Whenever I come home, she goes through my stuff just to see if I'm holding.

So I don't carry cash when I go home for the holidays, and that's pretty much that.

My friend Lisa, on the other hand, has it much worse. Her life is like a bad eighties sitcom. She's Chinese-American (which is great, ancient culture blah blah blah), but her family is huge and super tightknit. Even worse, they're practically in the same county, over in Arcadia, so there's a proximity problem. They're very loving and very social, which is terrible if you have a secret to hide.

They have these weekly mah-jongg parties that Lisa is expected to attend. And it's not that they're nosy--but what do you talk about during a five-hour mah-jongg party: where are you working, are you eating well, are you seeing anyone special? Danger! Danger! Her current line is that she's trying to make partner at her law firm, so she's working day and night. This seems to be working, and luckily, mah-jongg seems to be a late-night scene.

It's actually a fun game, kind of like bridge. Last time Lisa brought me over, her grandma absolutely destroyed me. It was like, welcome foreigner, let us teach you our ways. And then wham! I was out a hundred bucks. I had to waylay a gas station attendant on the way back home. I usually attack only when I'm hungry, but we needed to fill up. Blame grandma for taking my gas money. It was a long way back to LA.