In which I attend a birthday party and a mob murder ensues.

If you haven't wandered my profile, you may not know that I have (or had, I suppose) a photo blog. Yesterday, a friend of mine was lamenting that she missed doing photography and wanted a way to get back into it. I told her about my Project 365 and how much I'd enjoyed it.

And then I began reading through it from the beginning. I do this periodically and it never fails to please me--not because the photography is so great and how awesome am I? and all of that, but rather because it takes me back to those moments in time and reminds me of experiences I may otherwise have forgotten.

Sometimes it amuses me.

So here's a link to an early entry with an article that I'm actually unreasonably proud of writing. Murder, mayhem, and the lizard mob. Please to enjoy! (More bloggy bits of my current life to come in the near future).

http://project365lummox.blogspot.com/2009/05/day-fourteen.html

In which I enter a contest

If you've known me for long and we've talked about books, you'll probably know that one of my long-time favorite authors is Robin McKinley.

I've loved her work for a long time, but with Sunshine, I became obsessed (in the healthiest way possible). Reading that book was one of those epiphanies in life. It's difficult to explain, but that was a moment where I realized that it was possible to write in a voice like mine (though much, MUCH better, obvs), and still craft something amazing. She, Neil Gaiman, and Charles De Lint are the authors that have given me that feeling of possibility.

Since then, I caught up on her books I hadn't read, reread old favorites, and bought every new work she wrote. I also started following her blog, commented on entries, had a few conversations with her, and even announced my first fiction sale on there and got her personal congratulations (still one of the highlights of my life).

If you're looking for something good to read, try Sunshine, Spindle's End, Dragonhaven, or Pegasus, (though that last I recommend wholeheartedly, devotedly, but with a warning that it ends with heartbreaking abruptness and the second half isn't due out until next year).

And this month, she has a new release. SHADOWS is coming on September 26th! There's a contest on in which readers can Tweet, Facebook, or blog about it to enter a drawing for a signed copy. That's what I'm doing here!

http://tinyurl.com/RMcKSHADOWS
#RMcKSHADOWS 
http://robinmckinleysblog.com/contest/

Use any of those above and you can repost the same to share with fellow book lovers--and I highly recommend you do!

"I swear this is not a writing blog!"

I SWEAR. But it sure does look like it right now, and this post isn't exactly going to help.

Last night, a beautiful thing happened: I received an award for my writing. "One of the most important nights of your life...and you weren't even there!" my friend Debbie says. It's true. I was about eight hours away from the ceremony. It's all right, though; said friend ably accepted the award on my behalf.

This is not exactly the first thing I've won. I mean, I have two Associated Press awards and those mean a great deal, too. The reason this is such an amazing thing, though, is that this win was for my fiction. I wrote something from my mind and people liked it!

There is, to me, something so much more vulnerable about putting stories out there in the world, rather than articles or book cover copy or even blog posts. Those are all, to a large extent, rational things. They describe things many people encounter, or actual books that exist, or events that have really happened. Stories...they're possibilities. The worlds they describe aren't real, not even if I set them in the here and now. I hope they're believable enough that people feel at home there--but my muse and my imagination and my hands have collaborated to create something out of whole cloth. It's SO MUCH HARDER than writing non-fiction! And thereby, so much sweeter when it works. There's more at stake, somehow.

A few months ago, I heard that my old writers' group was sponsoring a very awesome writing contest. I felt no qualms about entering because I haven't been a member for years and the judging was all blind. In fact, many or most of the judges were people with no connection to the group at all. If my work got any recognition, I would know it deserved it.

And I won. No one was more surprised than I.

So last night was the big award ceremony. Nearly 200 people showed up, if Debbie's estimation was accurate. I was NOT one of those people, sad to say.

Here's the thing, here's my point. The coolest part of the night, to me (from my great distance), wasn't the check. It wasn't the number of people who listened to Debbie read my excerpt and told her after that they didn't want her to stop reading. It wasn't even the sparkling happiness of the group's founder at the success of what they'd accomplished (though I loved hearing that).

Nope. It was the woman who went up to Debbie and said in great earnestness, "That story you read? That could have been me," and then went on to explain how she'd given up painting many years ago because she didn't think she was good enough. Now, because of my story, she was inspired and is going to pick up her brushes again. She was going to try to create again.

BECAUSE OF MY STORY!

That was the very. best. thing.

Music of Memory

They say scent is the most evocative sense, bringing back emotions and memories more strongly and more immediately than any other. I don't dispute that (there's a whole "autumn smells" post on the back burner), but I think music can give smell a run for its money.

There are certain songs that, without fail, immediately drag me back into proximity of certain people. They could be -- and often are -- decades removed, but one bar of the song and I'm right back at that age. It's almost always a positive thing, though falling back into high school can be...complicated.

The most expansive example of this effect happens with any song on the entire Slippery When Wet album. A few years after it came out, I'd moved to Oshkosh and Mike Moxon drove me to school and around town a lot. He KNEW I hated that album (and I really, really did). But he also discovered, much to his amusement, that once I know a song, I can't NOT sing along. I mean, I may not even realize I'm singing. So he started playing it every time I got in his big orange-and-white Ford pickup...which was a lot. It's thanks to him I still remember the lyrics and he's the only reason I can think of Bon Jovi with any fondness.

Oshkosh is also the reason anything by George Michael reminds me of Chris Mueller. He and I had been to some random event at a Lutheran church and he was driving me home. This ride home was some kind of set up by our mothers, who (as far as I can figure out), both apparently thought it would be cute if we dated. He and I were under no such illusions...but neither of us was sure the other knew that. It was a very tense, very quiet ride home, with no sound but the radio. And then one song ended and the DJ said, "Next up, George Michael with 'I Want Your Sex.'" There was a moment of frozen panic during which time seemed to stop and my cheeks felt like they were reaching bonfire levels of blushing --and then Chris lunged for the radio to shut it off. He looked sideways at me, I looked at him...and we both burst out laughing. Tenseness over, friendship restored, and I got out of his car at my house without any awkwardness. We never did try dating, though.

Once upon a time, a boy made me two mix tapes, one of which had nothing but love songs on it. He claimed he chose them because he "thought they were songs you might like." One of the featured songs was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." When that song comes on (and I know it by heart, every lyric, every note, every pause), I don't think of Kevin Costner; I think of Jason. There are songs on there that I forget existed until they come over random store speakers or on the radio as I drive cross country and BAM! There I am, 15 and wistful and touched and deeply annoyed, all at the same time.

Collective Soul's "Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid" is freshman year of college in an album to me. I'd never heard of them, but Carl loaned me his copy, telling me I had to hear it. I didn't give it back for months.

Sophomore year was the year of Swedish electropop. Anything from Ace of Base takes me back to my dorm room, singing into hairbrushes with Janet and Jen. "I'm a turtle lying in a coffin, waiting for you!" and other classics of misheard lyrics that were way better than the original version, while we jumped around on the beds, dancing and laughing--this pastime was one of the best things about rooming together.

It's not limited to popular music, either. You pop in the Chess soundtrack, and I can HEAR Shonda singing it. She was obsessed and it didn't take her long to drag me into it. 

College is meant to expand your horizons--some of which you might have preferred to avoid. Example: Jen and country music. I hate it. She loved it. She was the only one with a car. So we all listened to it. Which is why, last year, driving into New Orleans after a long sleepless night, when Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" came on the radio, I surprised everyone in the car, including myself, by suddenly, rousingly, singing along. (See "Bon Jovi," "earworm," example above). 

Songs that make me smile by association still happen today. When "Bulletproof" by La Roux comes on, I automatically grin because BabyJosh's face pops up. But somehow, the links don't happen as often, or perhaps as deeply.

Maybe music connects most strongly when you're still trying to define the world as you fit into it, and that happens most as an adolescent or young adult? I don't know. Maybe I just did more stuff back then!

I wonder if there are songs that remind people of me?

"I want to be left alone," Garbo said

I recently heard an interview on NPR with an author who wrote a novel about a famous reclusive writer.

I found myself wondering if it's even possible to be a famous reclusive writer anymore? With book tours and required promotions like blogs and social media and all the things that are pushed on authors--heck, even NPR interviews--how can it be? A famous writer OR a reclusive writer, sure. But both? I can't see it happening. I can't see people leaving you alone to be so--people who like your work and want to tell you, much less your own agent or publisher.

Imagine Salinger on Twitter. Or Harper Lee embarking on a multi-city signing, having to smile at all the Boo Radley cosplayers in front of her table. Agents considering Proust's work purring derisively, "But Mr. Proust, what's your platform?" Could Emily Dickinson have written what she did if she were constantly being prodded to self-promote her poetry?  (Though, to be fair, poetry is probably in a different category and she wasn't popular in her lifetime).

Is it still possible? I don't know.

I kind of hope so, though. It's the kind of writer I'd like to be. Like Anne McCaffery on her Irish hidey-hole estate...only in my case, somewhere on the coast of New England, perhaps. (Not that I'd turn my nose up at Ireland or Scotland, but if I'm going to make the kind of money famous reclusive writers make in order to maintain their reclusivity, I'm getting ocean-front).

Besides, so much of my work depends on being able to interact with trees and listening to wind and water or staring into the face of the blue, blue sky or sussing out the tiny wildflowers that hide under bracken in the woods.  It involves knowing the insides of people's minds, not the brief, brisk, interactions that blur together.

I do want to write work that lasts, work that speaks to people and creates new, wandering pathways through their synapses. I want to craft things that bring tears to my readers' eyes or elicit unexpected belly laughs. And, yes, it would be wonderful to be able to do all of that and get paid for it well enough that I wouldn't HAVE to do anything else--but I'm not sure being famous is worth it.

Then again, I'm not sure being a recluse is, either.

Foster Fail

Yep.

I'm keeping her.

Her new name is Pavlova, after both the dancer and the dessert, but pronounced as the dessert is. Pav-LO-va.

She is rather like a meringue with toppings, yes?

Now that we've got that settled, perhaps I can get back to the rest of my life and start musing about in blog posts again.

Then kitten happened...

Sorry, sorry. For the three of you who come here, I've got a bunch of partial posts on the back burner. But I've gotten distracted by things like job interviews, life, shelter animals, and a fluffy kitten.

This fluffy kitten.

Background: for those of you who don't know, I've been volunteering at our local Humane Society since...oh, gosh, since March. Wow. I started as a dog walker, cat player-wither, and then a couple of months ago, I started writing profiles.

Since then I have met and said goodbye to several dogs I would rather have taken home with me, said a far-too-permanent goodbye to two dogs I loved deeply and instantaneously who each died of complications of illnesses (one of them this last week; I was there when he arrived at the shelter and I was with him in his final moments), given chin scratches to scores of cats and kittens (knowing it was too soon after Hamlet's loss to bring another home), and become a pet and/or volunteering pusher. "Come on; come with me just one time. No pressure!" 

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the above kitten was caught in a humane trap that had been set for another litter. They were in there, black and striped, and then there was this fuzzy, long-haired ragdoll kitten no one was expecting.

The shelter staff named her Buttercup, but Shrinking Violet might have been a better name. She was half feral, hissing and trying desperately to hide every time a hand came near her. She didn't try to bite or scratch, not once, but the power of that hiss kept most people away.

I'd picked her up a few times, and she always dissolved into purring. We think that's the ragdoll breeding. But you had to be willing to bypass the hissing and fear first.

On Friday night, I caved to the pressure of the great shelter folks (who are themselves pushers of the highest order, but in the nicest way), of her cuteness, and of my desire to see if I could get her to her best cat self. I brought her home to socialize in a non-threatening environment.

She spent most of Friday night hiding in the litter box. It has nice, tall sides and felt safe to her. She came out to eat food and to get forcibly cuddled (which she loved and hated, all at the same time), and then would slink back in to her safe place the instant something scary would happen--like, say, I moved one of my feet.

By today, Sunday, she's a different kitten. Oh, she still hisses and backs away EVERY TIME I come into her room. But it only takes me getting on my hands and knees now, and she runs TO me, rather than away. She purrs a real purr all the time, she twines about me, she's learned to play with toys, she uses the whole room to explore, rather than just sleeping curled up in the corner of the litter box, and she'll crawl up on my lap on her own. All this in just two days.

I still think the rest of the house is too much for her right now. She's working on owning her controlled environment. But if things keep going the way they have been, she's going to make someone a wonderful companion in the not-too-distant future.

I have been warned about foster-fails. You know, where you take someone home to "foster," and suddenly, you just have a new pet who never leaves, because you can't bear to give them back? So far, I've been holding out strong. Thinking of new names doesn't count; I'm a writer and namer, it's just what I do. Calling her baby doesn't count; that's just how you refer to wee animals. Being proud of her when she does things like a normal kitten instead of a feral baby doesn't count; that's pride in my work and hope for her future.

Right?

I'm not doomed yet. YET. Give me another week or two, though, and it might be too late.

Which is too bad, because now I've got a perfect room for fostering other kitters. Adopt the one or help the many?

In short, *flail*

Here. Have a video. Turn your head to the left and enjoy.

The Missing

There are people who come briefly or unexpectedly into my life, and there's an instant...something. A click, or a premonition, or just a recognition of vibrancy, perhaps. And I'm quickly convinced that I'll always know them, that they're worth knowing more, that they'll make my world a better place by being part of it.

And then...nothing. They're gone. We had one meeting or three or even a few months of friendship, but now I can't remember their name...or at least not enough of it to find them on the internet, now that that has become a thing.

Facebook, for all its problems, has helped some of that simply by placing connections between the people whose names I CAN remember and the people they remember, until I can track back to the person I'm looking for.

That's how I found the girl who was one of my two best friends in kindergarten (and I found Tytus, too), and who starred with me in a personalised Sesame Street book that is one of the few legacies I have from my dad. Betsy and Scott from 1st through 3rd grades are on there. And let's not forget the masses of awesome people from Oshkosh that have moved back onto my radar: Amie, Karin, Mike, Ben, Beth, etc., etc.--even Scott and Tim, the two boys that I adopted as my brothers, for reasons I can't quite remember (I still have the yellow bunny pillow Scott got me for Christmas one year). They're all within arm's reach again, even if the connection we once had has since been lost. It's good to know that they DO continue to exist and to have at least a small picture of what their lives are like.

But there are still people missing, people who aren't as easy to find. There are people whose names I didn't write down or can't pull out of the memory files or never knew in the first place.

There was a girl at a group that took place in a hospital meeting room in Oshkosh. I have no idea what I was there for, what the group was, or anything else that might give me a frame of reference. What I do remember is thinking, "Okay, you have something in common with these people, so say something to someone." I picked a girl who looked just about as shy as I was (e.g. veryveryvery), and decided for some reason to pass her a note. I think I might have told her I liked her hair or that she had a cool ring or asked her a question. I don't even know. What I do remember is that her face lit up, and when it came to the mingling portion of the night, we had a fun conversation and an effortless connection--and then I never went back. And I always regretted that--the friendship that might have been.

There was Saskia at choir camp. She had a killer voice, which, at choir camp, automatically makes you one of the cool kids. But Saskia would have been cool anywhere. She was exotic and vibrant and bold and awesome. I'm not sure she and I would ever have been extremely close friends, but I always suspected she'd end up doing amazing things, and I'd love to know if my instinct was right.

Theatre camp was the week after choir camp, so I stayed the weekend, while most of the other campers went home. And in those two days, I found one of the soul-friends of my life. I think her name was Rebecca. We had so many things in common, and we talked about everything... which is to say, mostly books we both loved and what that said about personality and philosophy and all the things that stem from that when you realize you've found someone whose brain works like yours in a world in which you didn't know that was possible (this is also how Tailyn and I ended up as friends years later). But on Sunday, my world back home imploded. Everything had changed abruptly and catastrophically, and in the flurry of trying to get back there, Rebecca and I never remembered to exchange information. And there that friendship went, a casualty of greater tragedies.

Then there was Catherine. I never actually knew her last name, though we were friends for years. She and I were penpals--actual pen-and-ink paper letter writers. I have been digging around in my memory to try to figure out how that ever started and I can't remember. Did we meet on the internet? Was there some sort of pen-pal advertising network? I honestly don't know. I was in my 20s when we started writing to each other, so it was a somewhat atypical pen-pal relationship. We might go for months without writing each other, and then suddenly get the impulse--and discover that the other person was a week away from moving to a new address. This happened two or three times for each of us. The last I heard from her, she was in Texas, working at a children's bookstore, and having an amazing time. Sadly, that's the last letter I got. That little psychic bell of impending move warning never went off again, at least not in time to track each other down. And we'd decided not to reveal last names, at least in part to revel in our shared first name, so I've no way of knowing where she is now.

I mourn the possibilities that these and other encounters represent. Sometimes, I feel like my life is lessened by their loss, the "what could have been."

But maybe not. Maybe they're out there, occasionally wondering what happened to me, grateful they encountered me right when I was needed, reminding them that connection is always possible. Maybe it was just as useful to them that there was someone else who saw life in similar colors.

Brevity, it turns out, does not make for smaller friendships, only shorter ones. There's a comfort in that.