Seriously, people. What's with the heat?

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I've done all this bragging about how cool it is here. And I've hauled all my belongings Northward. And yet it's a toasty 82 degrees here in Ann Arbor today. On Monday, we're scheduled for a high of 91.

What gives?

Yes, yes, it's still a good nine degrees cooler here today than St. Louis. And, yes, the saving grace is that by nightfall it will slip into the 60s and our giant whole house fan will cause our new digs to take a deep, cool breath.

But really. It doesn't do wonders for my organizing and unpacking energy.

Sometimes all it takes

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...is the tiniest sign. Maybe it's a silent deal you make, pleading with the universe to find that one elusive CD. Bargaining your luck against retail reality and the forces that be when - there it is. Right in front of you, and suddenly what you need to do is perfectly clear. Or maybe you're at the grocery store, dizzy from days of waiting and wondering and packing and organizing. Too restless to just be here, to let all the anticipation ebb. Then, there it is, the song piped in from the Muzak Gods: life in a northern town.

And that's all the sign you need to know what you've already known for ages, somewhere deep enough inside you that you'd almost forgotten: that this is where you belong, right now.

Take it easy on yourself.

The Big Day has arrived

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It's unlike me to be up even a moment before I have to, especially on a grey and rainy morning designed for sleeping late. But it's moving day and the anticipation has been building for months now and I'm so ready to begin the next phase of our adventure in Ann Arbor. Granted, it's tough to leave St. Louis. This little two-month layover has been one big reminder of how many great friends and fantastic people we know here. That's pretty tough to break away from. But the moving van is packed to the gills and there's no turning back now.

Not that I'd want to. It's tough to explain to all the great folk we're leaving behind, but it's their support and friendship that makes it possible to break away, to try something new and to know that you're going to be okay.

So...to the open road! Michigan, here we come.

Perhaps the best $15 I've ever spent

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Among the piles of belongings we are discarding is a folder about eight inches thick, packed with credit card statements dating as far back as 1999. Because technology makes it possible for me to access most of this data (should I ever need a reminder of my overspending) electronically, I decided to get rid of most of the paperwork. But technology is a double-edged sword. It giveth and it screweth. Thus, I have a rich fear of identity thieves trolling landfills or recycling centers for access to my credit card information and, in turn, my meager credit balances.

To be extra cautious, we purchased a low-end paper shredder for about $15 at Target. It is, I must say, a magnificent machine. There is something I cannot quite explain, something unspeakably rewarding about watching it eat and destroy one's financial history. It's not just mental release, it's an immensely sensory satisfaction in feeding in a sheet of paper and watching the teeth shred it into strips.

Fantastic!

Of course, the downside of a low-end shredder is that its motor overheats quite easily and it automatically shuts itself down after I've stuffed a couple inches worth of history in its gob. It's torturous to have to unplug it and wait for it to return to room temperature before continuing.

Chris did point out that it probably wasn't designed for shredding large volumes of paper at one time. I suppose that those with giant quantities of paper to shred quickly probably have the financial incentive (and enough at stake) to invest in a more sophisticated model.

But my little machine, my new best friend, has been cooling overnight. So I'm off to introduce it to a little stack I like to call "Discover Card, 1999."

Comments? Please visit the forums and join the chatter!

Moving is not fun

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I should know. In my relatively short time on earth, I have lived in Glasgow, Boston/Newton, Glasgow (again), Louisville, St. Louis, London (if you count one semester during college), St. Louis (again), Asheville, St. Louis (yup...again), Indianapolis, St. Louis (seriously, people...) and our little stint in Ann Arbor last fall. And, of course, I have lived in numerous residences here in St. Louis, so if you add it all up I have packed and lugged my belongings around a fair piece. And I still hate it.

Even though we are making a concerted effort to cut down on the amount of crap we own and, therefore are required to take to Michigan with us, it still leaves a BUNCH. And while I'm trying to work my way judiciously through the detritus of my past, it's hard not to get blind-sided by memories at each and every turn.

Tonight, I came across a box Chris had dragged up from the basement containing the last of my tape collection. Tapes! Those wonderful little gadgets, tracks rolling between two wheels inside the plastic shell. Talk about a trip down memory lane. With acquisitions dating from high school through college and, maybe, just a little beyond, it's fascinating to revisit who you were and who you still are through music.

I pulled out my De La Soul tape (Three Feet High and Rising) and listened to the first few numbers, memories flooding back. A mix tape yielded a little Smiths, some Sugarcubes, the Pixies and 10,000 Maniacs. The Darling Buds and Yo La Tengo wouldn't even play, the tape itself refusing to roll along the tracks.

Paul Westerberg. The Connell's Boylan Heights inside a cracked shelf. A handful of REM, 24-7 Spyz (really?), Poi Dog Pondering, Mary's Danish, Roxy Music, The Sundays, Peter Gabriel, Fine Young Cannibals, Echo & the Bunnymen. And buried in an unmarked tape case, stuffed in the back of the box - Carly Simon's Greatest Hits.

There! I've said it!

I'm not proud. But there it is, a huge chunk of my past, told in soundtrack form, a pile of plastic and tiny reels. All the music I loved, plus music I tried to love for a boy or a friend or a boyfriend. The guilty pleasures, the mix tapes with whole sections in the middle taped over.

What a trip, man. What a trip.

I'd like to say I was brave and pared down the collection, knowing full well that the music I love from that era I now possess on CD or in mp3 format. I did, in fact, toss the ones that wouldn't play anymore and the ones I just didn't care for much in the first place.

But the rest of them? They went right back in the box. Which went right back in the living room, back to where I discovered it earlier tonight. There's a chance I'll take a look at them in fresher light and decide to let them take their place on that landfill out there with my name on it.

There's also a chance that I'll discreetly tape up the box, stick it inside another and move it with me again, its contents practically intact.

At this point, I'd say the odds are about even.

Gazing from above

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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

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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

in

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

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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

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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?

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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...

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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.

---------------------------- Comments? Please post' em here. Thanks!

More Chris coverage

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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?

Please visit to comment. Thanks!

Dirty, pretty things

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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

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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

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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.

TGNW June 23rd