That Eccentric Lady

So I was walking to work Friday morning in the dark, but trying to edit anyway as I walked...

I get the impression quirky becomes eccentric at about 30

See, this is what I do... I walk and read. Or I walk and edit. I have just gotten in the habit. I walk the same way all the time and it isn't that I have to pay much attention. But this time of year, I can only actually see what I'm looking at under the street light.

So I pass a man and his dog, and he says, “this time of year must be hard for you. You can't see.”

True.

But who the heck is HE?

I'll tell you who he is... somebody I must pass ALL the time and never see because my nose is in my book or my editing.

More and more I meet people who tell me they see me, know who I am... are well aware of me... and I've never seen them before. It's a strange feeling to be 'that lady'. I mean I'm sure I'm only infamous on the couple streets I walk, but infamous I seem to be. Ah well.

There HAVE been some 'Only in Ann Arbor' moments... near crashes with OTHER people walking and reading. That is sort of a trip. We seem to all think we are the only ones.

Designed by Joris Ammerlaan

In Other News

I had a very productive weekend. I got Book 4, Fight or Flight, to Leanne for copyediting. (And LOOK at my spectacular cover!!!) I got Travel Plans to my first readers... and Book 6, The New Normal, is sitting at about 16000 words (I had 10,000 written from the original book I did). Oddly, the writing is EASIER when less is previously written than when I was having to UN-write or change to a different PoV... Sid and Theo are off on an adventure... by themselves for a time, so I can't use ANY of their stuff for anybody else... in fact a lot of it I won't use at all... I wrote this during a WriMo and the road trip has far more details than it needs...

My goal on this project is to write Book 6, and then go through ALL the rest of what I've written (some 200 more pages) and change THAT to appropriate PoVs before November. That will make it easier to, as a NaNoWriMo Rebel, keep track of my new words written (much easier than if I am both writing and editing).

Any of you guys doing NaNoWriMo? Remember, you are ALL cordially invited to join BuNoWriMo on Facebook for a little more personal interaction—we all encourage each other TWICE a year (during NaNoWriMo in November and BuNoWriMo in June). You can also join Writing Sprints R Us if you like to write in sprints. Several of us sprint at least a couple times a week... we sprint EDIT as well as sprint write—just nice to have a buddy to yell GO with, to keep you focused for an hour.


In OTHER OTHER News...

My basement, while not clean and pleasant, is cleaner and pleasanter than it has been since the water problems in July... I worked hard this weekend...


I hope I am now back to being able to do some blog visiting, and to blog 3 days a week. The grant doesn't go in until Tuesday, but we are pretty much there. I did some long days last week. Now it is just polishing...

Pinch Me

Yes, I attended one (well two) of these...

This is where life gets surreal... where a tart becomes a mom of a COLLEGE student, even while believing she is barely out of college herself and remembering such freshman shenanigans as stealing the pallets we used to prop out twin beds in the air (thereby increasing floor space drastically), to Crisco Twister in the hallway, to the midguided Everclear Party... I refuse to name names (except when I periodically blackmail my friend Joann—the worldly Portland gal across the hall, who, it turns out may have been more cultured, but not more experienced, than yours truly... only so much to do in a small town, after all) in hope that nobody names me. Ah yes... these skeletons are STILL dancing. I love them, in fact. But Do I really want my daughter creating her own?

I've written the check... she is registered... I went to orientation last night. She is going to a community college for two years and so living at home. In a way this is SUPER nice. It is a lot cheaper and I think community colleges do a much better job of teaching kids to be college students. Four-year schools it is more a 'dive in and sink or swim' deal. And my daughter could use the floaties at first. She is more artistic than academic.

Wait... Is this Phi-Psi's?

That said, when I think about those dorm years especially, but my sorority years too... I loved the group living. And I loved what leaving home did for me being able to 'create myself from scratch'--the contrast of high school me to college me is very parallel to real life me versus Tart Me. In a new place you can try on things and be a little outrageous in a way that old (or professional) environments don't really allow. I want my daughter to GET that fresh start. Not that she NEEDS it—her self here is fabulous. But I think it is liberating to do—I think we learn something about ourselves when we venture out.


In more violent Surreal News

Weird stuff in Ann Arbor. Know how I live in a place with the safety of the 50s, culture of the 70s and lifestyle of the present? Well reality has struck this week, and too close to home. A 25 year old medical student who lived a BLOCK from my office... like RIGHT THERE, was found dead in his apartment “under suspicious circumstances.”

Maybe it is the murder writer in me, but doesn't that mean they suspect homicide? I mean if it were a drug overdose (something POSSIBLE for a medical student because they DO have some access) they'd just SAY that—looks like an overdose... right? But they aren't releasing information. It's sad. Clearly he was bright. I'm sure he had a promising future. AND FOR PETE'S SAKE THIS IS ANN ARBOR! Homicides aren't supposed to happen here....nearly never do.

And then closer to HOME... Armed bank robbery 4 blocks from my house. Holy crap! Did somebody forget to tell us that when Detroit declared bankruptcy, they also decided to migrate west?


And then the Physical Part

My boss has this great new job... which means I have this great new job (same pay, twice the responsibility—all that—but seriously, I love the WORK we will be doing)--but what that MEANS is we will be moving office soon. And so I've spent the better part of this week sorting what needs to be shredded, ordinary recycled, and packed... lugging boxes of paper. Every day this week I've FILLED a 'confidential' bin (the shredding) that is 4' X 2.5' X 2.5' FULL of paper. EVERY. DAY. In fact on Wednesday my boss came in and made her niece steal a second bin from down the hall and we filled that, too. [note: my boss is not a thief so much as a diva... a FABULOUS diva... but when she wants something, she wants it NOW]


Bonus for reading to the end...

FRUITFLY DEATH... we are having a bad fruitfly year and my buddy Jackie told me this... mix apple cider vinegar with dish soap... put it in tiny bowls... fruitflies can't resist... It TOTALLY works. I put 3 in various places in our house and have killed like 47,000 fruitflies.


Reality hitting anybody else where it hurts?

As Lunatics Descend...

You know how there are these REALLY COOL events you anticipate and are thrilled to attend... and then you move to the city where they happen and the novelty wears off really fast and you suddenly are ANNOYED at the existence of said event? Yeah, that.

It happened to me in Portland... about the 4th year of Rose Festival I began totally avoiding downtown when it was there. It was crowded and the grass got wrecked and smelled faintly of sewage (sometime strongly of sewage). I mean sure the ships were still cool. And there were sometimes great bands. But mostly it was the same old food and a LOT of extra people.

Self-identified 'stupid art' (though it amuses me)

That happened to me about our third year in Ann Arbor with Art Fair.

I mean I love Art almost as much as the next guy... I'd probably love it as much or MORE, had my own art skills not seized around kindergarten. And there is a LOT of art...

Admittedly, some of it is STUPID art. And MUCH of it is pretentious art (hello, please pay $500 for this lamp I made from this branch). But really, there is also a lot of COOL art. Seriously—wicked cool. My neighbor has a ton of it—tiki statues and bobbing birds by her pool. Fairies and other friendly creatures inside. I love the stuff. And I know her well enough to know she isn't paying the $500 per piece prices.

But what BUGS ME is the VOLUME of people and the interruption of life. Ann Arbor's city limits can hold about 100,000 people. A football game brings that many extra... art fair? 300,000 in attendance... our city QUADRUPLES its volume for five days.

And unlike those happy beer-drinking, cheering football folks, these people are a mixed bag... I mean SURE, a ton of them are cool artsy folks. But a lot of them are annoying rich people with too much time on their hands and way too many of them are even MORE annoying pretentious people with superiority complexes who think they know Ann Arbor because they descend on it for 36 hours each year.

You know how I like Ann Arbor? Free of Art Fair Patrons and free of college students. There. I said it. I like college towns with no college kids. You get all the joys of a college town with none of the annoyance.

True story. I've lived in four cities, three of them college towns, and other than my time in high school that I was trying to SOCIALIZE with college kids, I always prefer them student-free...

Maybe it's my anti-social tendencies. I'm not normally a person to get too worked up by a hassle. But honestly... I don't MIND football days. There is a fun contagion (and money to be made). This repulsion is art fair specific. I wish I could get into it, but mostly it just means I have to reroute all week to avoid the darned thing. Maybe though, I will look at it this way. What an excuse to stay home and write.


To give you a little perspective:

This map is downtown Ann Arbor and central camplus. ALL the colored lines are normally streets you can drive on and are completely blocked for artfair. Purple is 'downtown' and while I know a downtown that is functionally 3 blocks by 4 sounds small and lame... this is ALL of downtown. Red is campus. And then the 'trolley' (aka city and campus buses moving in an off route so THOSE streets go a lot slower, too) So seriously... there is only really ONE route north and south through town and the primary east west 'part of downtown' is blocked (though going east/west Huron is a bigger street—but MAIN STREET? Yup. Main Street.

Liberty--the red part near campus

<------  Liberty is part of my daily commute—ALL of it. I walk it from 7th, which is several blocks west of where the map starts all the way to the end every morning. Now Art Fair isn't open yet when I walk to work, so there IS a little fun with walking up the middle of the street and having several intersections blocked so there is no need to wait for a light. End of the day though... there are so many people I can't read while I walk (you ALL know how I hate THAT) but worse, I can't even walk at a pace I like. I'm a speedy walker and HATE going slow.

All this fun arrives tomorrow... *sigh*

Anything you know you should think is fun that annoys you? Do you have any local 'claims to fame'? How do you feel about swarms of sweaty bodies in 100 degree heat?

Wolverine Opens Wide!

So my regular readers know I am a Microbrew Enthusiast. And most of you know I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Today there is a special event for Ann Arbor Microbrew Enthusiasts, and I would be remiss if I didn't give it its due, but more importantly still, one of the primary entrepreneurs is a fellow writer, Liz Crowe. who has guested HERE!--You KNOW HER! She was a guest in September when she had a short story released, and has since had Breathless Press INSIST on printing her whole book. (We should all be so lucky, ne?)

So today I am talking a little about good beer, drinking locally, and my own newest local watering hole.


Drink Locally

The Germans were early beer purists, and while in most domains, purity is a negative for me, where beer is concerned, they have a point. Beer should have Barley, Hops, Yeast, and Water. Nothing else. Ever.

You know what it REALLY should never have? Rice. Corn. Fermaldahyde. All three of those ingredients are found in Budweiser. (no wonder it tastes like crap, ne?) In fact preservatives will ALWAYS mess with beer flavor. In Ireland, I am a big fan of Guiness. Locally? Not so much—you see, shipping so far requires preservatives... same with Heineken or Becks. GREAT BEER... if you drink it where it's made... In reality, every effort should be made to drink beer brewed close enough to you that preservatives are NOT NECESSARY. You won't be sorry. In fact... if you think you don't LIKE beer, you might be shocked that what you really don't like is all that extra crap.

When I was a beer pusher (aka: microbrewery waitress) I maintained that anyone who thought they didn't like beer, hadn't really tried to find the kind that suited them, as there was a brew for everyone.


So anyway... Moving from Oregon to Michigan was a little culture shock in 2000, but Michigan is coming into its own, microbrew-wise. I find New Holland Brewings Mad Hatter and Poet Stout two of the best micros I've had ANYWHERE...VERY locally (the way it should be) Arbor Brewing does an impressive job with Red Snapper (a red bitter—my favorite) and Sacred Cow (an IPA and close second).

Enter Wolverine...

You need a brief beer lesson here... TECHNICALLY... the above stuff is all ALE. Ales are brewed HOT and TOP fermented. This is a faster process and more feasible for small batches because you can brew a batch every few days in the same vats. BEER is COLD fermented—which happens at the BOTTOM and takes longer. It is a different sort of product. BUT...

There is a misconception...

Because so much nationally brewed CRAP is technically BEER, people think beer is less strong and less varied—not necessarily so... only nationally distributed BIG HOUSE crap is less varied and weak. In reality, the same range exists for both forms...

Why am I telling you? Because Wolverine is the first Microbrewery I've seen making BEER instead of ALE... and the two I tried when I went to the 'exclusive invite only because I'm special' party *shifty* were no less complex than any ales I've ever had. I drank a glass of 'emOATable' (an oat ale that was dark and oaty like an oatmeal stout, not quite so heavy, but delightful) and the 'insolent mink IPA'--a play on Wolverines and varmints... minks being a pungent sort, as IPAs are, because of their hops. The brews were very good. The range was good. And I LOVE having a microbrewery that is walkable not just for ME (I will walk anywhere) but for my husband or beer loving neighbors.

Why am I telling you all TODAY?

Tonight is their public Grand Opening!

Tonight, beginning at 7 pm is $1 off beers (they are normally open earlier but have a VIP event). There is free pizza until 9:00. It is at 2019 W. Stadium in Ann Arbor (behind Big George's Appliances and the bike shop). Head down and check it out! Normally they open in the afternoon, but today you need to let them get ready for the PARTY.  Ann Arborites, I strongly recommend it! Visitors, be sure to check it out next time you are in town.

And Congrats to the Beer Wench!

Walk With Me

So, I will just confess right off that the eating this week was the big giant SUCK. Between HEALTH stress, MONEY stress, JOB stress... EDITING HELL... The eating right just didn't happen. But I thought maybe I'd share with you a piece of what I did RIGHT.


Take my Saturday walk with me...

First, we step out the door and see that in Michigan, Fall has begun... pretty, yes? I like the stuff that goes so extremely—where the green and red cohabitate...

THIS is the largest Bur Oak in North America, or that is the rumor. It really is GIANT. And sort of magical.

Also in Wurster Park is a wall of yellow flowers taller than me. I like them. They make me happy. (any flowers taller than me make me happy.) After that, I walk down Cat Street (where there are lots of cats *shifty* and then I turn past Jefferson Market (of the Cupcake Fairy Fame) and turn up NUT street.

This I just liked...

And then there is EVIDENCE that it is still CONSTRUCTION (the season that falls opposite winter in Michigan... those are the ONLY two seasons...

And turn the corner to a VERY STRANGE phenomenon, which I left large so you could sort of grasp it. There is this... I'm not sure if it is a store, exactly... gallery? There is a building with WIRE art... there is a whole wire PERSON on a bench... wire HEADS atop a... I'm not sure what it is, but it might be an electrical access something or other—a big metal box next to the sidewalk... with WIRE HEADS ON IT... but since I was partially photographing bugs, I took one of the wall of wire insects... Freaky, eh? Freakier even than a WHOLE CITY willing to install fairy doors? Well... only in that the bugs are less attractive...

And there are people with the wherewithal and means to put mosaic tiles into the sidewalk so there is a permanent hopscotch... There is ALSO a sidewalk with beautiful inlaid blue glass... I think this comes about because when the city requires you to replace sidewalk, they let YOU shop around for the contractor, so if cost doesn't matter, then why NOT do something whimsical...



AND THEN WE REACH THE INNUENDO FEST... FOR REALS...

I arrive at Hiscock... follow it a ways...

Pass the pretty, new little townhouses that play host to a woodchuck family (wish they'd been out—they're very cute)

And what do you know... Hiscock reaches SUMMIT...

But when it crosses Summit, it becomes Wildt.

Did you CATCH THAT... I follow Hiscock to Summit, but after that it becomes Wildt... yeah, somebody is innuendo happy... I think Hiscock is a name. I think SUMMIT was probably honestly named... but Wildt, I am pretty darned sure was somebody's idea of a good joke...

I think I will save the rest of the walk for next week, as that is a lot of pictures already, and it is hard to surpass the innuendo climax I just covered, ne?

The Deuce Gets Mooned

I should probably explain 'The Deuce' first. See, I live in a big town fulla GEEKS (of which I am proudly one) and Ann Arbor gets shortened to A² (A Squared) all the time—it's extremely convenient for things like the corner of envelopes or writing somebody directions. Well the local teens have just ignored the 'A' thing altogether and have focused on the TWO and so Ann Arbor becomes the Deuce.

I know you've heard me talk about reality never coming here before, but SURReality seems to make a show now and again, as it did with whip guy and the chicken people. Well this week we've had a big dose of it.

You may KNOW that Sunday and Monday were this months full moon night—if you were a werewolf, I'm not sure if your third night transforming would have been Saturday or last night, but I am VERY clear about the two... Let me e'splain.



Mental Health Central

I'm going to be a little obtuse here, for the sake of privacy, but one of my daughter's friends had a mental health crisis this week and chose HER to reach out to. She in turn reached out to me and I made a call to the mom who had actually just been pulled in by the teen, so all's well that ends well, but it was a sort of scary event.

What I DO want to share, that I can't emphasize strongly enough, is that while some teens really DO need medication for very REAL mental health issues, the warning about teens and anti-depressants—and suicidal thoughts and tendencies, need to be taken VERY seriously. A teen who needs them is a teen who ALREADY HAS some issues, but no matter HOW STABLE they seem, no matter HOW MUCH things appear to have been improved, they need monitoring, communication, and a support system.

This is NOT her first friend this has happened with. It's REAL. Resort to meds only after behavioral and cognitive things have been tried, and then WATCH CAREFULLY and open up lines of trust.

Nuff said.



Crime Spree

Then, Monday night, my son and his friend come home for dinner at about six, leave their bikes (son actually rides MY bike, as he kept blowing out his Scwinn brakes) in the front yard and come in to eat. Twenty minutes later, my bike is gone. Somebody walked up into our front yard in BROAD FREAKING DAYLIGHT and stole my bike! This is Ann Arbor—things like this don't HAPPEN here!

And worse...

I went downtown around seven o'clock to pick up my daughter who'd been hanging out with friends and on the way home, three houses from home, she points out a 'tussle' of some sort. “What do you think is going on there?”

There is a struggle, a fight of some sort—physical, and it looks like the bigger person is trying to choke the smaller one. My car gets closer, as we have to drive right by, and I stop and yell, “Hey, do you need help over there?”

The pair break apart a little, the woman jerks free, stumbles a little (pretty sure she's high), and the guy says, “It's none of your business.”

I respond, “You can't just assault somebody. I'm calling the police,” as the girl stumbles off down the street.

I get home, call the police, describe what I saw. Hubby, who'd been talking to the neighbor thinks I've called about the bike, “sheesh, no—I called about the ASSAULT IN PROGRESS. I totally FORGOT about the bike.”

So hubby proceeds to do his Gladys Kravtiz thing, walks around talking to neighbors, warning the little old ladies to keep their garages closed (for the bike thief) and asks a couple questions. He found two OTHER people who'd witnessed this assault and CALLED the police, plus a young woman who saw but hadn't been sure what to do. The assault moved down the street a little (in the construction lane of what normally is one of the Deuce's busiest streets- and the police took 30 freaking minutes to arrive—had the been even ten minutes earlier, it still would have been going on.

So I'm ANNOYED at the slow response—that girl could have been raped or dead by the time they got there. I SUSPECT they thought the people would disappear into the woods and be hard to find, but WORRY that it sounded like a domestic dispute and they figured it would work itself out. Hello, NO!

I know there are people who might think a woman on drugs gets what she deserves, but I happen to think people who think that deserve a little time in a jail cell with a big guy named Bubba. Nobody deserves violence. Ever.

So that was OUR little excitement. Anybody else have any full moon stories to report?

Stranger than Fiction

So I was power walking this morning, thinking about Schrodinger's Cat (I'm serious—come back tomorrow if you don't believe me). I get about ¾ of a mile from home and hear this 'crack!' or maybe it was a 'pop!' but hearing it over Greenday means it wasn't like... you know, a branch snapping or something, so I take out one head phone and listen. I hear it again. If I were a betting woman, which I'm not really—I prefer sure things-- I would have pegged it as a b-b gun or caps like my kids get for the 4th of July. I am alert though, because when I lived in Portland one morning, I actually saw someone shoot a gun—same time of morning from down the block, just like this seemed to be. That was LOUDER and I actually SAW the orange flash as it fired (I went around the block that time too).

You see BOTH TIMES I had to get PAST the spot of the action... anyway... caps seemed like teenagers, so I started up the block. I see a person—but from clear down the block, right? Then I hear yelling... okay, equation changes. I am brave enough to walk by a teen throwing caps, no matter how inappropriate at 5 a.m. I am NOT brave enough to walk into the middle of a confrontation. I turned around and went another block over.

I get up the block and see someone walking. He's banging a stick on the ground (or so it looks from a distance) and then he starts talking, so I slow down. I'm in shadow a little from the trees. I turn off my music and watch, and he goes past the street I'm on, so I keep walking. He gets maybe 20 feet up the street as I am approaching and a car comes along. He starts cracking what I now realize is a WHIP, yelling 'get out of my face!'  (sadly, nothing like THIS man)

The car (not apparently realizing this guy is INSANE) slows, but keeps coming, so the guy steps in front of the car and WHIPS IT. “Get out of my FACE!”

I scuttle quickly, but try to be as quiet and subtle as I can, across the street and HURRY up the next. The car, I see, pulls over (hopefully calling 9-1-1, because I don't HAVE a phone) and the guy back-tracks. He yells up the street I'm on, “get out of my face!” but by that point I am almost to the next block (very short blocks at this point, so I don't feel SAFE, but when I cross the next street I crest a hill, so will be out of vision, plus it's a slightly BUSIER street (though busy at 5 a.m. in Ann Arbor is relative) but I figure putting some distance and obstacles between me and this nut is a GOOD idea.

Now what would make a person behave this way? In my mind there are two answers, possibly working in conjunction. Schizophrenia or drugs. I know it's Delusional Thursday, but people who aren't ACTUALLY insane wait for a reasonable hour to begin their shenanigans. And to reassure you, I had NOT yet begun my delusions for the day.


But you know what? I did some character plotting (and wrote a prologue) last night for a story (read:  novel) I've been thinking about... and I HAVE a schizophrenic person in it... I am going to FREAKING USE the scene I just experienced! Ha! So THERE! Take that, crazy person who scared the crap out of me! You will make me famous! (okay, so maybe now the delusions have begun).

That said, y'all were RIGHT that writing would help pull me out of my funk. And the diaspora of looking at a true LUNATIC makes the nut I'm married to seem relatively harmless by comparison. HIS only delusions are the things he thinks I ought to be doing that I don't care to do. He is also behaving better though, too, so that helps.

Prologue is only 4 pages, but it feels good to have the set up going. My MC is a little chatty, which might be a challenge, as this will be my first book told from first person (she's making me). I think it will be fun to write though. I DO need to do some research on... you know... nuts... (hopefully I don't have to experience them all—not sure I want to deal with THAT, but universal forces can be strange that way).

Only Ann Arbor

My power walk this morning had a little more excitement than normal and it has me pondering this stranger than fiction city I live in. I mean any city has an occasional Ambulance or Firetruck (saw three of the former, one of the latter—though I suspect of the three Ambulances, really I saw the same one twice) but that is run of the mill city stuff (even if it is sort of jarring in a city that really isn't very big—I'm actually more comfortable spotting the LifeFlyte helicopters that come in to UM from all over the state). But today, in a span of forty five minutes, I noted some singularly Ann Arborisms.

The Popular Fairies

Somebody had delivered flowers to the Liberty Street Fairies. Oh, they get food offerings all the time, so I've always known they are among the best liked (possibly in contest with the Rock Fairies at the Arc who receive guitar pics and ticket stubs), but these little miniature bouquets of real flowers were pretty darned precious. I've long suspected this door houses female fairies (they leave a trail of glitter that sometimes includes pink, is really my key cue—since any old fairy can like a piece of eggroll now and again). But the flowers reinforce that. I hope they wake up soon and get those flowers in water, or they are going to start to wilt.

Invasion of the Chicken People

On Second... not even downtown or near a 'real' business where it might be seen as something promotional (there is a University building there, but it is stuffy offices) there was a group of five 'people'. I am using the term people loosely because two of the people had heads covered in yellow feathers (completely covered) and had orange beaks. One of the chicken people wore sun glasses—I suppose the other might have, but was looking the other direction. With the chicken people was a woman with a short skirt and really funky patterned tights... she looked a little like she belonged in an alternative band, and two non-descript men. All of the 'people people' (as opposed to the chicken people) I would guess were in their late 20s give or take.

Two explanations came to mind:

Option 1: Jefferson Market has been shipped a case of Canary Cremes. This seems extremely plausible except that these chicken people did not seem at all distressed by their state, but I am not sure I could distinguish chicken people from canary people, so it is still possible.

Option 2: The Chicken Lady finally found someone with whom to reproduce. This seems more likely—we are, after all, only 4 hours from Toronto, where she was last known to be trying her seduction attempts... that was only the early 90s, but I don't really know how chicken people age, so these two might have been only in their teens.

If these explanations fail, it's I suppose it might be something to do with the camera they had ready for poses. It wouldn't be the first album cover shoot I've walked past on a Power Walking Saturday.

It is strange, I think, to live somewhere I see things that I couldn't possibly put in a book, unless it was a REALLY SILLY book, and then people would just think I was, well... being silly.