Gazing from above

I'm sitting in the coffee house upstairs at the legendary Prairie Lights bookstore, gazing down at the folks meandering up and down Dubuque. I've just perused a good 18 feet of literary journals and reviews, some I've heard of but never held and others I've never known. A bunch of Reviews, all titularly tied to their origin - Virginia Quarterly, Michigan Quarterly, Massachusetts, Chicago. Others like Granta, Story Quarterly, Terminus, etc. Based on what I've seen in book shops in St. Louis and other places, I would never believe there were this many of these little engines, quietly dedicated to churning out Good Writing. They bring me comfort. I've ordered a decaf latte, although I'm not really in the mood. I just love the way the barista makes a fern leaf pattern in the foam on the surface. $3 doesn't seem too much to ask for that little pleasure.

I've got about half an hour to kill before today's class starts. I spent most of last night doing homework in my hotel room and, truly, loving it. I struggled through Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants for about the zillionth time in my life, no more enchanted by it than the first time. But my new eyes -- and new instructions -- have me searching for emotional beats, characters' objectives and understanding when those things change. Or trying to understand.

I have been, and am, a lazy writer, my friends. I've always taken ease with a sentence for granted, something of a genetic imprint in a family that valued a well-turned phrase above a group hike or team sport. But the more I peek back into the world of fiction, the more I'm overwhelmed by the work of it, the planning and plotting, the understanding, the knowledge, the scenes, the dialogue, the elements and tools.

It doesn't make me want to run, though. It makes me want to study it and study it until I know what the hell we're talking about.

Hanging out at the Holiday Inn, Coralville-style

Last year, I got my act together early enough to get a room at the Iowa House Hotel, which is located right in the Union in the center of campus. That meant I was on site for the whole week, a few minutes walk to the English-Philosophy building where classes are held and able to step out into downtown or retreat to my room at a moment's notice. This year, I'm staying at a Holiday Inn in Coralville, Iowa, which is just a piece down the road from downtown Iowa City. It makes for a very different experience. I don't feel as immersed in the whole thing as I did last time, not quite as connected. But for some reason, that feels okay and I'm pretty sure this is how things are supposed to be this time. Spending time by oneself, for a few days at a stretch, seems to me an incredible luxury at this stage in life. I don't mind driving away from campus, my time entirely mine, diving into a book over dinner alone and then coming back to my room, spreading books and folders over the bed and doing my homework.

I had worried, as I hinted before, that I had arrived here so stressed out and exhausted that it simply wouldn't be the right time to get creative. And while I haven't exactly hammered out a novel, I think indulging this part of me, remembering why I love writers and writing, is (of course) precisely what I needed.

In St. Louis, there are so many things that need to get done before we leave. So many things to worry about and consider. Arrangements, packing, planning. Here, it's just me and my room and my writing and I can stay in bed until noon doing my homework and writing on my laptop.

I think there's some truth, too, in the notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think sometimes you have to spend time apart from your partner in order to be able to miss them -- and to remember who you are all by yourself. Important things.

I'm enjoying my class, too. I remembered that one of the things I love most is watching how other people teach writing. That fascinates me, and makes me even more certain that that is what I'd like to do. Not instead of actual writing, but in addition to. If you can spread that passion, convey that power, it's an amazing thing.

It's 10:30 now and I've lazed around the hotel room long enough, drinking too much coffee. Next, I have to complete my homework and make copies before our 2 o'clock class. We're in class each day from 2 to about 5:30 and then set free for the evening. Last year, I made fast friends with some classmates and we wound up dining together each night. But his year, I feel perfectly okay -- not lonely or left out -- not doing that, but just selfishly spending time with myself. If I sit still long enough, I think I can actually feel myself repairing and refueling.

If it's Sunday, this must be Iowa City

I barely know where I am anymore. Not just in the existential sense, but also in terms of geography. It's been months since I lived anywhere "permanently" and it's wearing on me. This means I will not be tying my precious belongings up in a bandana at the end of a pole and living the hobo life after all. I spent the weekend in Louisville for my father's wedding. As my older brother pointed out, it's strange to attend the wedding of one's parents. We missed the first one, after all. But this was a good occasion, seeing my father happy again after the unbelievable bleakness following my mother's sudden death three years ago. And his new wife Marilyn is a lovely woman. I was, however, meant to be in Iowa for a weekend workshop on finishing fiction with Bret Anthony Johnston, an author whose collection of short stories, Corpus Christi, I really enjoy and recommend heartily. I was sorry to have missed that, but we rose instead early this morning and made the seven-and-change hour drive from Louisville to Iowa City.

It is, by nature, a somewhat bleak drive, miles and miles of indistinguishable flat land. And there's really only so many times you can glance at a corn field and chant, "Knee high by the fourth of July!" In fact, the number of times is precisely four. After that, it gets sad and a little creepy.

For much of the drive, gloomy dark skies and grey curtains of rain loomed ahead of us in the distance. The weekend in Louisville was emotional, on many levels, which challenged the already-fragile state I'm feeling as the stress of moving and leaving St. Louis builds. It seemed to me that the threatening skies were ominous and perhaps even personal. Thank goodness for Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins.

We arrived in Iowa City with enough time for an attempted nap before the orientation session and first class meeting. I was lead-headed and feeling funky and late to orientation, meaning I skipped the free meal and grabbed a seat at a table of strangers who had already introduced themselves and bonded over Caesar salad and iced tea.

I tried, half-heartedly, to make some small talk and to glance at the name tags hung around everyone's neck. But I felt depleted of energy and didn't have it in me to make momentary friends with people I'd never see again. Call me a spoil sport if you like.

Depending on your perspective, you may find it disheartening or encouraging to glance around the room on the first night of your Iowa Summer Writing Festival workshop and notice that the mean age is around 60. I have nothing against retired engineers expressing a lifetime of stifled prose or a housewife with overplucked eyebrows coddling her closet mystery writer. For some reason, it just struck me as more depressing than anything. Did I mention my mood?

After orientation, we had our first meeting of Elements of Scene & Dialogue with our teacher, Sands Hall. Even with my grumpiness, I was able to muster up some excitement for the topic, which seems like the perfect next step to build on what I learned in last semester's screenwriting class. And the class is a diverse group of varying age levels, expertise and goals, although it seems the serial mystery writers outnumber the rest of us. Maybe they outnumber us everywhere.

Class was out by about 9:15 and I met Chris, who had been entertaining himself at The Java House, a local coffee shop. The storms we had weathered on the way into town had left us with an unseasonably cool evening, 65 degrees or so. Last year, the heat in Iowa City was nearly unbearable, a relentless sun beating down the entire time.

It's interesting to see Iowa City compared to Ann Arbor, another college town, instead of St. Louis, which was my perspective last year. Granted, it is a Sunday night in summer, but the streets seemed practically abandoned here.

With one notable exception -- a film crew had cordoned off a street block behind the Capitol building, while shooting something called "Final Season." A pretty-boy PA in a baseball cap and a tan so deep his face looked dirty defensively barred us from setting foot in the area washed white with gigantic flood lights. It's okay. We weren't actually going that way, anyway. God love him for being thorough at his job.

Tomorrow, Chris heads off for a rather whirlwind Sharesleuth.com investigative trip, hitting New York, DC and Delaware in three days. I'll stay here and apply myself to improving my craft, reading and writing and remembering why I love this stuff in the first place.

Welcome to Illinois

Just outside Farmer City, Illinois on 54 I passed a series of four successive roadside signs, each springing forth from the bottom of a field and separated by 100 feet or so from each other. They read: A Lady Alone?

Deferrence Requires

More Than A Phone

Gunssavelives.com

Propaganda? Red state installation art? Redneck poetry? Hard to say.

My pal Wangmo

That entry title either sounds silly or dirty (or maybe both), but I promise you it's not. It's a reference to my friend Stephannie, who I met last year when she was working as the office manager for the Knight-Wallace Fellowship. Steph's a cool cat all around, a whiz-bang office manager, for sure but also a classically trained opera singer, music teacher and, you know, Buddhist priestess (I think that's the title, forgive me if I'm wrong) and translator of rare Tibetan texts. I know what you're thinking: yeah, who isn't?

Towards the end of the Fellowship (as you might have read here) Stephannie was given the opportunity to move to Tibet and work on translating some texts, teach English to the people there and learn a new Tibetan dialog. And so she went, packing up her Western life and Western culture and segueing into a whole different existence.

I've been getting so much out of reading her travel journal entries online (ain't technology grand?). And even if you don't know Stephannie (or Wangmo, as she's known there), there is so much to be gained by checking out her journals. It's an amazingly intimate glimpse into every day life in a world I can only imagine -- as well as a constant lesson in grace and gratitude. Check it out at http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Tibet/blog-59006.html.

If you're out there in some internet cafe in Tibet, Stephannie, know that you are admired and missed!

If a web site doesn't exist yet, how do we debate its ethics?

I think the breaking point came shortly after I tossed up a placeholder graphic for the sharesleuth.com site, which doesn't go live until next month. The next morning, according to CNN.com transcripts, the anchors were discussing the site and Soledad O'Brien asked what was up there. Someone told her there was just a placeholder and she, in true journalistic style, responded, "Weird." That was the moment at which the growing and overwhelming coverage about sharesleuth.com completely and totally freaked me out.

Between Thursday and Saturday of this week, all the big players -- Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, etc. -- either picked up the AP story about the launch of sharesleuth.com or wrote their own version of it. Many of them referred to it as Mark Cuban's site and almost none of them contacted Chris about it.

As a result, the blogosphere chatter picked up. Many sites started debating the ethics of the venture. A lot of assumptions have been made. Predictions have been put out there. And all of this before the site actually exists.

In the past, I've been part of the PR machine, writing press releases, pushing for media placements, trying to manipulate the media messages for the benefit of my company or clients. (For the record, I hated it.) And, as a sometime journalist, I've been the one getting the word out.

But being on the other side of it, being on team sharesleuth.com (as the unofficial support staff) and watching the world spin a message we have no control over is a whole new lesson in powerlessness. And I'm not just support staff. I'm Mrs. sharesleuth.com. I'm a fierce, loyal and protective wife married to a man who is the most good person I've ever met, a person whose unflinching ethics are a constant irritation. So seeing people question the ethics of this venture does not make me do as my wise husband does, which is shrug and say, "The site will speak for itself." It makes me want to find them and back over them with my car.

I also tend to bristle at mentions of sharesleuth.com as Mark Cuban's web site. Don't get me wrong. I'm intensely grateful to Mr. Cuban. None of this would be happening without his investment. But sharesleuth.com emerged from Chris' decades-long passion about uncovering stock fraud and corporate malfeasance. He devised the idea for the site and approached Cuban, based on his blog postings.

Cuban liked the idea, tossing in the notion that there would be a possibility for future joint ventures with his multimedia company HDNet, and agreed to step in as majority partner, generously putting behind the project enough money to allow Chris to take a huge risk, stepping away from the traditional journalism he's done for twenty years and tackle a brave new media model.

When you live with someone who has spent more of his own spare time uncovering stock fraud than just about anything else, you have a different spin on their intentions. For years, working for a paper that didn't have the space or the interest in letting him investigate such things, Chris rose early and did his own research for hours every day before coming to work. And very often he came home and spent a few more hours on it in the evening.

My husband believes in journalism. He believes that, even as the current newspaper model seems to be flailing, there's still a place for journalism in the public interest. He believes that good old-fashioned gumshoe reporting can uncover bad guys and he hopes that doing so will help bring an end to innocent people being victimized. He thrives on the thrill of the chase and is rarely as giddy as when he digs up a new scandal or a crucial fact. This is his passion.

Several blogs, however, have picked up mostly on Mark Cuban's disclosure that he may use information Chris uncovers to influence his own investment actions. They're already debating the ethics involved. What they don't know or say -- perhaps because few have contacted Chris to ask -- is that, while this is true, Cuban's investment holdings won't have any influence on which stories Chris chooses to cover. Chris is the editor. He's got a one-track mind, here, and if you took one look at our life, you'd know it ain't profit motive.

Maybe this all sounds like the ramblings of a defensive wife. But I'm also a proud wife, a woman who knows that you can say a lot of things about my husband but if you question his ethics, you're so far off the mark it's laughable.

For Chris, this is not that big a deal. He's quietly confident that when the site emerges people will see it for what it is -- not a major, glitzy operation equal to the hype it's already received, but one man's quest to bring down the bad guys through responsible and thorough journalism. Maybe some people will be expecting more. I'm not sure what more there is.

But if any of you bloggers or media members out there stumble upon this post, sent here erroneously by some Google search gone awry, I ask the same thing any PR maven or journalist would insist upon...If you have any questions about sharesleuth.com, talk to Chris. You'd be amazed how much information you can gain just by going to the source.

An oppossum walks into a house...

So here's how it went down. It's Wednesday night. Chris and I have returned from a nice summer eve's jaunt around the hood. We're relaxing on the couch, watching an episode of The Closer on my laptop when we hear this noise... It seems to be coming from the entertainment center. But that's weird, right? There are no doors on it. Every time we mute or pause the show, the noise stops.

Then, there it is again. Yep. It's coming from the entertainment center. Suddenly, it dawns on me. Check the drawers. By which I mean, Chris, check the drawers. I'm thinking maybe there's a mouse in there, rattling around a bit. Chris opens the drawer and immediately jumps back, slams it shut and starts laughing.

"There's a baby possum in our entertainment center," he says. A baby possum with 8,000 sharp little teeth it displayed the minute we opened the drawer.

Thus begging the bigger question: what now? We put a call into the local police department, who pass our number onto Animal Control. In the meantime, I surf the internet for valuable information about getting an oppossum out of one's entertainment center. It turns out that despite there being seven zillion web pages, there doesn't seem to be one addressing this specific topic.

Of course, as it's all going down, there's another question -- or series of questions -- emerging. Like, what the HELL? Or, how on EARTH did it get there? Inspector Carey declares, "It all makes sense now." What makes sense now? For a few days now, he's discovered small poo behind the toilet and assumed it was one of the cats freaking out. Plus, the cats have been going through a lot of food. And their water bowl has been turned over in the morning.

So, in other words, the oppossum has been living with us a while now. And why haven't the cats been freaking out? Because, my web research reveals, for some strange reason adult cats and oppossums have a thing going where they just kind of let each other be. I need to discuss this with my cats, because I don't have that "thing going."

Animal Control finally calls us and when I tell the woman on the phone that we have an oppossum in our entertainment center, she actually laughs. Out loud. For a while. When she stops, she suggests we try to get rid of it ourselves. "Open up the door. Then all you do is tie a string to the drawer and drag the drawer towards the front door and pull it outside."

Wow. That sounds so incredibly easy. And so unlikely. But she urges us to give it a shot and says she'll call back in a few minutes to see how it's going. I start to think that maybe we're just the world's biggest wusses and that if we were country folk, we'd open up the drawer, grab it by the tail and have it diced for stew before you can say, "Bob's your uncle."

But we're not country folk. Thus, we began to creat a Wall of Resistance in order to cut off any potential possum escape path between the drawer and the rest of the house. It consisted of: one coffee table, two plastic totes, one straw trash can, a plant and several cardboard boxes. Genius!

We haven't quite finished constructing our wall when the phone rings. It's Animal Control, checking back in. Turns out, they've had a change of heart. They'll come over and deal with the possum after all. We can relax. Relax? We just built a friggin' wall and there's a rodent in our furniture! People, we are ON FIRE!

Soon enough, two very kind and highly amused Animal Control officers come in holding a big pole with a loop on the end for grabbing all manner of fierce beasts. Lady Officer pops the drawer open and Guy Officer goes in for the possum, which suddenly seems to be smaller than I thought. He gets the loop around the possum and BAM...it jumps out of the drawer and behind the entertainment center.

Now, I'm not someone who likes to video tape things. I've never dreamed of capturing the strange moments of my life in the hopes that Bob Saget will one day pick me as the grand winner. But if I'd had a video camera, I'd have captured every moment of the comedy of errors that ensued as four adults tried to chase a baby possum around our living room for five minutes.

Eventually, the intruder was captured. Caught in the loop at the end of the pole, he was released into the yard and quickly scurried off, looking (truth be told) kind of cute and li'l. We thanked the Officers kindly and they rode off into the night, onto the next animal emergency.

The mystery of how the oppossum got into our house in the first place is still baffling us. We never leave the doors or the windows open, as the cats would get out. And we can only guess that maybe somewhere in the basement there's a hole that desperately needs plugged.

And in the meantime, no dark corner of this little home will go unexplored. By Chris. I mean by Chris.

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More Chris coverage

The AP's report (which includes some factual errors, it should be noted) about the Mark Cuban-Chris Carey venture heretoforthwith known as ShareSleuth.com begins thusly:

A newspaper reporter says Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is financing a new Web site that will investigate stock fraud and corporate wrongdoing.

Which kind of makes it sound like Chris is just making it up, doesn't it? Like the next line would read, maybe, "Christopher Carey also says that Cuban is going to buy him a giant castle and a trained monkey, plus all the candy he can eat for three months!"

The AP story has already been picked up and run on a number of news sites, including the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, ABC News, MSN Money, the Washington Post, Newsday, Forbes and Australia's The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Not bad coverage for a day's work, eh?

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Chris Carey hits the blogosphere

Here are a couple of links to stories about Chris' new venture, ShareSleuth.com. Groovy, eh? Talking Biz News Investigative biz journalism web site to start

PaidContent.org Mark Cuban invests in new investigative journalism site

Dirty, pretty things

A funny thing happens when you’ve been away from most of your belongings for eight months. You return home and discover that the vast majority of the things that you own – items you’ve gathered and collected over time, a set of objects you might once have thought defined you – were never missed during your absence. As I’ve gone through the simultaneous task of “reclaiming” our home from the previous renter – unpacking some boxes of stuff we’d tossed hastily in the basement – and begun packing for our move back to Ann Arbor in July, I’ve discovered that I own way too many things.

Most of them never crossed my mind while I was away. There are stacks of cookbooks, many with spines uncracked, I bought years ago and with good intentions. There are shelves of glass jars and containers in the basement, empty picture frames, old vases, candle holders and throw cushions.

Some of my stuff I love. These are the things I missed most and often when in Ann Arbor: my shelves of books, my entire yarn collection, my supplies for making mosaics, my own mattress and box spring, my arts and crafts glass lamps and the particular comfort of drinking coffee out of my own mugs. Which leaves piles of stuff, boxes and shelves of things, that never crossed my mind once while I was gone. I’m not one to quote fashion designers, but I read a brief interview with one (whose name I cannot, of course, remember) and was surprised to learn that he has very few items in his closet. In explanation, he said something about the true luxury in life being owning very few things.

I’m not a person who owns very few things. I’m not, truthfully, a person who wants to own very few things. I still require and desire a lot of stuff to meet my needs. I will not be moving to a sparse hut and living off the land anytime soon. I like my overstuffed armchair, come to think of it, and the cushy ottoman. I like my laptop computer and my digital camera and my eighty kinds of bubble bath. I like my CDs and my pieces of pottery and that square glass vase I got at Big Lots.

I do, however, want fewer things than I have at present. Perhaps the real issue is how I feel when I’m in the pursuit of things, when I’m in an acquiring mindset. It’s a slight hunger in me, the feeling like I’m trying to fill something inside me while emptying my bank account. It’s the false glory of something new and shiny and utterly unnecessary. Maybe it’s that I don’t like how much I like feeling that way.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting older and having a new couch no longer symbolizes some level of success in my life. Maybe it’s because the events of the past few months have taught me that life will take you different places, often on short notice, and I want to be able to follow it with the least amount of complication.

To that end, I’ve been relatively ruthless in my weeding through our belongings in the past couple of weeks. There’s a pile of clothes which, whether I like them or not, haven’t been worn in two years. The American Kidney Foundation will pick those up on Monday. There are several boxes filled with miscellaneous objects – everything from serving platters to a lap desk to a garlic press – that will either wind up in a yard sale (if we’re feeling insane) or being dropped off at Goodwill (more likely.)

I’ve even weeded through my books and been able to pull out 50, 75 that I can imagine living without. Chris has been equally tough on his CD collection because, yes, it looks pretty to have a ton of them but what’s the point if you haven’t pulled them from their cases in years?

Right now, our house is in total chaos. There are boxes and plastic bins everywhere, some sealed and ready to go, some half-filled, fate undetermined. It drives me crazy to walk from room to room and be reminded constantly of the conflicting feelings I have when it comes to acquiring, owning and parting with things. But it’s also a little exciting, because I know these boxes mean that something’s changing, that things are shifting. I know these say, we’re going somewhere.

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Cat, bag, you know the drill

I haven't blogged much lately. And it isn't because there's nothing going on. In fact, there's been so much going on the past couple of months, so much life-changing stuff that I could have filled pages. Problem was, I couldn't really talk about it. Not until today, when Chris officially tendered his resignation to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Since I'm not a very good secret-keeper, this will shock few of those who know us. But Chris has been offered what we believe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we've decided to leap. Chris is going to be president and editor of an online news organization dedicated to exposing stock fraud by bringing in-depth investigative pieces directly to the public via a blog. His partner in the venture, called Share Sleuth, is billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, HDNet, Landmark Theaters and a number of other ventures.

And we're going to be doing it in Ann Arbor.

Let me just say that neither of us intended to leave St. Louis. When we went off to Ann Arbor last September for the fellowship, I had to be pushed by my friends here, who assured me that a) I'd like it there and b) I'd be coming home soon. Both were true, but neither Chris or I could have anticipated any of this -- that this opportunity would toss itself down at his feet or that we'd strike a balance with a quality of life in Ann Arbor that's just more suited to where we are right now. It just feels right.

There are still some loose ends to tie up in terms of contracts, etc. but we're on track to head back to Ann Arbor by mid-July. It's a little sooner than we thought originally, but we wound up having to sign a lease on our Ann Arbor house starting July 1 and it seems silly to put it off any longer if we're paying rent.

Plus, we're both eager -- given this sort of strange limbo period -- to have some routine, some stability, some sense that we are actually going about our lives and not just waiting for them to happen. People keep asking me if we're moving permanently. We have no idea. A year ago, it never occurred to Chris or I that we would do anything other than return from the Fellowship and go about our lives here -- perhaps with renewed focus or shifted direction. But we could never have predicted the circumstances and events that led to the development of Share Sleuth, nor could we have anticipated that things would change so quickly.

Here's what hasn't changed: Chris' firm belief in the sanctity of journalism. In fact, if anything, this year strengthened his passion, his resolve to be a part of making and delivering news even in a world that values it less, filled with news organizations unsure how to stay afloat in an internet age.

Yes, the times they are a-changing and, among many problems facing newspapers, they simply don't have the room or the budget anymore for investigative pieces, which are Chris' passion. And his talent. So we're going to try out this new venture, give it a shot, live in the day and see what life delivers us.

I'll miss St. Louis, but I know this much: I've never felt so certain that we were doing the right thing, that we are simply following the indicators the universe has laid down before us. And if this time next year our compass is pointing in an entirely different direction, I know two things: I'll be game for it and, whatever it is, I'll be okay.

The Great New Wonderful

Word up, pals in the NYC, Boston and DC areas! My friend Matt Tauber (who wrote and directed "The Architect") also produced "The Great New Wonderful," which is being released June 23. That's the good news. The annoying news, for some of us, is that (for now, at least) it's only being released in those three cities. Billed as "a very funny and surprising movie about healing in post 9/11 New York," the movie features a truly impressive ensemble of actors, including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Stephen Colbert, Olympia Dukakis, Edie Falco and more.

You can also visit the movie's web site at http://wwww.greatbigwonderfulthemovie.com to watch a trailer, read an interview with director Danny Leiner and reviews of the film from its debut at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival.

Continuing education

There are certain things in life that, were my income substantially more fluid, I would not hesitate to pay another human being to do for me. These include cleaning the house, laundry and taxes. Then, there are a number of things that I wish I could do for myself instead of having to shell out cash to another human being. Things like changing my oil, installing a garbage disposal or, say, a new car stereo. On the short list above, I have learned (and since forgotten) how to change my own oil. I have thought about installing a garbage disposal but have an irrational fear that my hand will get eaten off somewhere in the process. And, as of yesterday, I am now a person who knows how to install a car stereo.

I should note that I did so largely unsupported by my usually supportive spouse, Chris, who was leaning heavily towards paying $50 plus parts to have the staff of Best Buy install it. But not me. I knew I could do this. I just wasn't sure how.

All I can say is, thank God for the internet. I probably wouldn't know how to use a fork if there weren't 2,000 web sites and Wikis giving me step-by-step instructions. Similarly, there are many sites that explain how to remove one car stereo and install another.

It gets a bit tricky though, when it comes to matching up the wire harnesses on your factory installed model with your new unit. Didn't that sound impressive? I said "wire harness." Fantastic! But after a few phone calls and trips to Auto Zone, Best Buy and Home Depot and a quick lesson on wire stripping from the ol' ball and chain, I succeeded.

By the end of the day, the stereo/CD player (the only salvagable part of the dearly departed Saturn) had replaced the faulty factory stereo/CD player in our new used 2002 Toyota Corolla. And it WORKS!

I get a strange thrill from doing this sort of thing. I'm very much not a handy person, so when I can accomplish something like this, something that involves wires and tools and a little grunting, I feel like I've been endowed some sort of super powers. I feel like I could fix anything. It scares Chris. He starts glancing protectively at all our major appliances when I get that gleam in my eye.

I'm pretty sure that the buffoons who provide you with "professional installation" of your car stereo at the big box stores probably do not jump up and down like little girls with every successful install. But I did. And Chris just looked at me.

"Aren't you excited?" I said. "Don't you want to know how to do things like this?" He shrugged.

"There are other things I'd like to know how to do more than install a car stereo," he said.

"Like what?" Track down white collar criminals? Single-handedly uncover huge stock fraud rings? Oh, wait. He already knows how to do that.

"Like install flooring."

"We already know how to install flooring," I said, pointing at the gleaming Pergo floors.

Chris just smiled and walked away. Which doesn't really mean anything. In fact, now that I've typed it, I understand that that none of the conversation really bears repeating. But it's too late for that, eh? Maybe my point is that it doesn't seem that he afforded the amount of respect and reverence to a person who knows how to install a car stereo.

But that's just kind of the cross I have to bear.

Already an oven

Man, it's hot in St. Louis. It's 94 degrees today, which seems extreme for May, even for here. The weather site says it's 53% humidity but I suspect there's a "1" missing from in front of that. I forgot how much I hate this heat. I awoke this morning to the thunk of our central air kicking on, having to compete with nature even at 6 in the morning to keep our house at a reasonable 75 degrees. I listened to the whir of the system and thought, "That is the sound of money draining out of our bank account." My stomach tightened.

Here we are, though. Gearing up for another St. Louis summer, testing our systems by dashing from the oppressive heat of the sidewalks into the subzero AC of restaurants, shops, offices and homes. It wears on your system. It makes me feel tired, no matter how much rest I get. I suit up to work out and step outside and have to use every ounce of will to get me into the car and to the gym.

Complain much? Me? Nah.

It's strange to be back, living in something of a limbo state. Not quite sure what the next phase of my career is going to look like. No freelance jobs at the moment. I've cleaned the kitchen for the last week, every day. Hey Shel, I think I'm a house wife.

Weird.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a special hour on Mike Wallace. At the end, Wallace himself introduced a section about his affinity for Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan (his alma mater) and the Knight-Wallace Fellowship.

Life in a Midwestern town

All evidence suggests that we are back in St. Louis. After a brief stop in Indianapolis -- where we were entertained all too briefly by the musical and dance stylings of my youngest nieces -- we made it back to the little blue house of love on Tuesday evening. And we were immediately struck with a case of the "now what?s" It's incredibly strange re-entering your home when it's been occupied by a renter for eight months. It smells of different people. The vibe is different. And furniture that had been arranged to someone else's priorities was immediately rearranged to my own comfortable memories.

Since my return, I've been feeling in limbo. Sometimes being in our little house seems so normal that I wonder if we ever really left. Sometimes I feel like we don't belong here anymore. And I have been ridiculously, insanely tired, seized by a complete exhaustion that could, of course, be a normal phase of my treatment for fibromyalgia. Or it could be, I suppose, the fall out from switching lives, from the emotional upheaval of our last few days in Ann Arbor.

It's been fantastic to see our friends again. Yesterday, we had dinner with a particularly favorite group of people and it was soul-healing to be around them. From the minute sweet Rachel bounded -- literally bounded -- across the parking lot to hug me to the familiar smiles I've missed to so much, it all felt really good. I've said it before and I'll say it again, among the things St. Louis seems to do best is the people.

Friday Chris and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. We've been married. For five years. In a row! What an amazing accomplishment that is.

Today is a beautiful, lazy Sunday. The windows are open, the birds are chirping. I alternate between cleaning and organizing for a while, then sinking into my overstuffed armchair to read or surf the 'net. Our house is full of light and the laminate floors we installed before leaving really class up the joint.

It would be easy to close our eyes and pretend we've never left here, except for the fact that we are, under the surface, greatly changed people for having spent an academic year with the Knight-Wallace Fellowship. I may look the same, but we stuffed about five years of lifetime experiences into those eight months and I met people who challenged me, changed my mind. I miss them. A lot.

It's hard to explain to anyone who wasn't there, what it's like to move somewhere new and have to form some sort of family and friendship out of 30-odd strangers. And it's hard to be back here where no one really knows our friends from That Life, so even though anecdotes or memories are constantly coming to mind, I stop short, realizing that the people I'm with here don't know the places or the people to which I'm referring.

It's probably time to get up off the chair again. There are still, nearly a week after our return, loose ends to put away, things we've acquired or simply can't remember where to put them. There's a fridge to fill and baseboards to scrub.

And then there's the cats who seem to have forgiven us for the trip down here. They seem to have forgotten it entirely. In fact, they seem to have forgotten everything entirely, curled as they are in the exact same spots they favored before we left St. Louis.

I read once that cats are attached to places and not to people, that they adapt more easily to familiar surroundings than they do to familiar people in strange surroundings.

As a human, it seems a particular curse to be attached to both, people and places. A curse, and also the greatest blessing of all.

Fort Wayne, Indiana

The bad news is that the alternator on the Saturn has gone for the fourth time in two years. This time, on our way back to St. Louis (via Indianapolis), complete with mewly cats in tow. The good news is that the Saturn service center has FREE Diet Coke. Chris and I are attempting to drink our $500 worth before the car is finished being repaired.

The cats hate us.

Packing & cleaning & grieving

It has rained for the past three days in Ann Arbor. Not warm, spring rain divided by bursts of sunlight and marked by the scent of fertile soil. But cold, chilly rain. Constant drizzle that never ceases, seeps into everything slowly and quietly, keeps the sky dark and gray at all hours. During these past few days, I've tried to immerse myself in the punishing task of packing and cleaning our rental house for our return to St. Louis tomorrow. I've also spent the time trying in vain to tune out the special tone of spam, commercials, retail displays and the general sense of pressure and guilt that settles upon the nation in the last few hours leading up to Mother's Day.

This is the third Mother's Day since my mother died. The first year was, as they said it would be, the worst. And last year was less worse. And so, this year, has been less worse again. But there is an undeniable strangeness in simply not being able to participate in this silly holiday. As I wrote in a column that first year, I simply no longer qualify as a person with a mother.

And that I have not yet been able to get used to. I miss my mother. And I miss having a mother. They are not the same thing.

From the time I was little, Mother's Day has been a day to acknowledge. From earnest but messy hand-made cards to a gaudy cut glass ashtray purchased with my own pocket money. No matter how sullen I grew through my teen years, even I could not deny that kudos were owed to the person who brought me into this world.

As a grown up -- depending on the phase of my life -- Mother's Day meant a phone call, a card, ridiculously expensive last-minute flowers or terrible guilt for not mustering up a phone call, a card or ridiculously expensive last-minute flowers.

But I had something to do for Mother's Day. Now I don't.

I tried just to think of my mother today, the person she was. But I'm not sure I'm far enough along in the healing process to be able to think of her without the dark shadow of her sudden death clouding my memories. I can't think of my mother most days (and certainly not this day) without sadness encroaching, without a slight nudge of anger in my belly and that last remaining nugget of incredulity. My mother's dead?

My friend N. lost her father very unexpectedly recently and I've come to the conclusion that it is -- despite what those who have anguished through the lingering death of a sick loved one -- the cruelest cut. There's an extra undercurrent of shock, a violence to the suddenness. I envy no one the loss of a parent, but the advantage of the time and opportunity a little warning affords seems undeniably precious to me.

It probably doesn't help that we're leaving this lovely place, that moving is a stressful time, that I'm going to miss my friends from the fellowship more than I can even bear to think about. It doesn't help that all my things are in boxes and even if I could name one thing that could bring me comfort, I probably couldn't find it anyway.

It does help, however, if in only the smallest way, that tomorrow morning we will head out towards St. Louis. We will stop in Indianapolis and hug my little nieces whose busy lives don't pause for such silly things as grief and self-pity. We will spend the night being fought over for affection and then, in the morning, before our novelty wears off, we will get in the car once again and point ourselves towards our tiny blue house in St. Louis. We will point ourselves home.