skrawl

I'm having fun playing with Picmonkey to edit photos. This was a chalk graffiti drawing on a utility pole with about a half dozen effects. Kid in a candy store and such.
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I had a scare this week.
What does that mean? It's skirting what I mean to say, which is that I got scared this week. Seriously frightened, in my apartment, alone, in the middle of the night. I took steps the next day to be safer and I dug up the weapon my sisters got me a few years ago.
My friends have similar fears, I found, in conversations since. One, who just moved into a house, has thoughts of how easy it would be for an intruder to get in. We talked, laughingly serious, about buying baseball bats.
Another, at home alone some nights with a child, worries some, and props a bottle up by the door as an early warning system.
We all walk around juggling fear and bravery and strategies inside us, I guess. Not so far removed from our ancestors, huddled around the fire for warmth and safety, fingers twitching near a trusty stick, just in case.

road trippin

In my travels last week, I drove nearly 900 miles. Most of the driving was on Interstate 70, a well-engineered four-lane highway (and then some, closer to Denver). I fueled up on bubble gum and coffee and once I set the cruise control, did not tap the brakes for hours. The radio options out on the plains are interesting: all I found were turn-or-burn preachers, the ag report, or country music stations. It was good thinking time.
Tumbleweeds blew across the highway, rolling, hesitating, then sweeping on. The sky seemed bigger, without the Northwest's abundance of hills and mountains and trees. Another good bit of driving I did over county highways, well-maintained and nearly empty of traffic other than farm trucks and other beefy vehicles. I took my time, in no hurry and enjoying time with my grandmother and the late fall sunshine.
Streets near where my aunt and uncle live seemed unusually wide--were they designed for storm runoff? Bigger vehicles? But, there were hardly any cars!

On a brisk morning run I came across a flattened tumbleweed and snapped a photo for a possible future tattoo.

PNW--Wild West--Midwest and back

I've been on the road some. It was nice to leave the bubble and nice to return to it.
In the interim, I visited aunts and uncles and cousins and our matriarch, met a new baby and a new husband, drove nearly a thousand miles over the prairie, hung out with a 93 year old and a 5 year old, visited one of the oldest African American settlements in the Midwest, haggled for antiques within shouting distance of the mausoleum at the Garden of Eden, mourned with the locals when the Royals lost the World Series, drank Coors Light and Most Wanted bourbon and Lb's wheat ale and in general had a pretty good time.
The photos are from a road trip reflection in my uncle's seatback, a bathroom wall made of bottles, and a snapshot of a very important box.

While I was there a family heirloom came back to us, a wooden box that Dusty nailed together and sent back to his sweetheart while he was stationed in Italy during the Second World War. In it he enclosed a necklace from Rome, his Good Conduct medal, and the mushiest love letter this side of a Nicholas Sparks novel. The necklace came apart and is being restrung and we had to dampen the fragile letter to flatten it enough to slide it into an acid-free sleeve, but the trio of gifts is still with family and all together, which in these weird times is comforting and sweet.

as seen by me

I work in a fairly elderly building--think sub-basements and alcoves and an elevator with a counterbalance and brass fittings. Today I waited outside a conference room as the previous meeting ran long, staring through pebbled glass at whoever was inside. The occupants emerged, flailing and flushed (faculty for sure) but I didn't mind: the view was so cool!
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My story "Free Ride" was accepted for publication next year (!) so I went online to withdraw it from the other places I'd sent it. Boy looking at Submittable is an exercise in humility. For the 2 stories I've had accepted via the online submission tool over the past few years, I've received 70 rejections. A 1:35 ratio basically.
Good to remember.
Good to be grateful for the yes's and the constructive no's.

superchill

Hey y'all I'll be reading at Babeland next week as part of Seattle's Lit Crawl. More info here and here.
Thanks to Jane Hodges and Your Impossible Voice for the opportunity. Come hang out! It will be a funtastic night.

sunruf

Some pictures from around town. The top one is a little graffiti picture scratched into the Plexiglas on the bus. The second is the view from a friend's sunroof on a stormy afternoon.
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Where have I been? Already launched into October and I dunno what's what. I'll carve out time later in the week. That's what it is lately. Carving out time, as though it were obtuse and resistant and needs the attention of a knife.

fresh pop corn

These cool kids have a new video out today.
Peep it! The storyline is corny but the beats are oh so worth it.
My pals and I keep thinking Ayron is going to blow up big. Soon. Soon enough. In the meantime, AJ and the Way are one of Seattle's best kept secrets (their album release at Neumo's with Sir Mix-a-lot might be one of my favorite shows ever).