Damn, we're a good looking bunch

As promised, some photos of the KWF Class of '06 mini-reunion that took place here in Ann Arbor last weekend. For those of you who made it, we miss you already. For those of you who didn't, we talked about you.

Our first night we met up at Grizzly Peak, only there are no pics of that since I forgot my camera. We had fun, though. I promise! Even if it wasn't caught on film. The next night, the venue was Casey's for burgers and gigantic onion rings. That's Kim, above, for those who don't know. We blame this entire reunion on her, since she was hell bent on coming all the way to the states from Sydney to see Obama get elected. We didn't disappoint. Good job, nation! See how happy she looks?

Graham came from Boston and Vanessa drove from Chicago before she heads to DC for grad school in public policy. Yay!

Vanessa gets some lovin' from Sweet Tony, who made the trek from Pittsburgh, and Steve, who was in the states doing election coverage for the BBC and made a stop in Ann Arbor before heading back to London.

Kim had to make amends here to her husband Gerard for succumbing to Tony's charms. You're only human, Kim. Don't blame yourself!

You'd never guess these ladies are stuffed full of burritos. They look so... so... glamorous. That's Kim, Rainey and Vanessa at Big 10 Cantina. (If it seems like all we did was eat, it's because it's pretty much true.)

I seriously have no idea what Gerard and Graham are doing here. Only Tony seems to know there's a picture happening! (Check out more snaps, if you like, in my Flickr set.)

Happy NaNoWriMo

Okay, so technically NaNoWriMo started 12 days ago, but I've always been a little slow to the draw. What does it all mean, you ask? Why, it's National Novel Writing Month, silly! An amazing annual event where people pledge online to produce a full first-draft of a novel during the month of November. Every year, I think about doing it, and every year I chicken and/or flake out. This year is no exception. However, the friends I know who are participating in NaNoWriMo -- brave souls all -- are at least serving as grand inspiration. If they, and countless others, can commit to being this dedicated for a month, then so can I. Sort of.

You might remember me babbling on a few months ago about how I'd started writing my first novel. Or maybe you didn't notice because I was too shy about it to speak above a whisper. Well, I started off on a pretty good roll. I hit the ground running. I knocked out 90 pages in no time. And then I ran out of gas.

Part of it was due to some physical stuff that sidelined me for nearly three months, leaving me with barely enough energy to bathe, let alone focus on anything. That part probably couldn't have been helped. However, I also made the mistake of reading, re-reading and editing major portions of the first few chapters instead of just barrelling through and finishing the entire first draft. I got hung up on details, I got overly critical of and relentlessly negative about what I'd produced instead of -- and, yes, it makes me want to puke when I say this -- nurturing it.

So I did what any self-respecting first-time novelist would do in that situation: I just stopped writing. I was catatonic. If I knew where the story was heading, I couldn't come up with the words to get me there. If I came up with a sentence, I didn't know where it was all heading. Fortunately, even in the midst of this madness -- which kept me up nights worrying about not writing -- I never packed it in mentally. I just couldn't shake the story or the narrator and I suppose I knew on some level that I'd return to it at some point. I just wasn't sure it would be in this lifetime. That's where NaNoWriMo came in. I couldn't fathom the idea of starting -- and completing -- a whole new novel, from scratch. But I could certainly use it as inspiration to commit to some daily writing of my own.

I've been shooting for 500 words a day. I figure if it worked for Hemingway, it might be good enough for me. And so far it has been. I also thought it might do me some good on the accountability tip to at least write about that commitment here on my blog. I figure the more people I tell, the better chance I have of actually following through.

So there you have it. I'm writing a novel. Or trying to. I'm committing to 500 words a day. Not good words. Not even words that make sense. Not even words I'll necessarily keep. Just 500 words, at least, that keep the project in motion. As my good friend Margaret often says, "The universe rewards forward progress." I think that applies here too. I just want to finish a first draft so I can be freed up to worry about the details, rewriting and editing.

I'm also leaning heavily on this quote by author E.L. Doctorow about the process of writing a novel: "It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

I'm counting on it.

Reunited. Yes, it felt so good.

Haven't posted in days. Loads of excuses. Been busy. Been tired. Even been writing. And now I've a stupid cold. But I figured that in my current position -- under a blanket on the couch, in front of a roaring fire, with a pot of peppermint tea and my laptop -- I should at least get something up here. This past weekend, we had a mini-reunion of some of our classmates from the '06 Knight-Wallace Fellowship. Or pals Kim and Gerard came to the states from Sydney, Australia just to be here for the election. (They were lucky enough to learn of Obama's victory while in The Daily Show audience -- and celebrated afterwards at the show's star-studded party.) They were spending the bulk of their trip in Boston with our friends Graham and Raney, so the foursome headed back to Ann Arbor for a little nostalgia-fest.

As it happens, our classmate Steve was traveling through Detroit on his way home from London after doing some election coverage for the BBC. We convinced fellow Fellows Tony and Vanessa to come from Pittsburgh and Chicago, respectively. With Fara, John, Birgit and Chris already in town -- and Jamie and Amy just over in Ferndale -- it made for quite a gang, lots of comings and goings, combos of folk from Thursday through Monday.

What we did was largely what we did during our Fellowship year: ate too much, drank too much, talked about journalism, politics and everything else and a lot of late nights. We shared stories, a ridiculous amount of laughter and even, apparently, some germs. So you'll just have to wait until the next post for a few photos of our jollarity. Can you stand it? Can you wait that long? Yeah, I know. But try.

Obama

"putting this in God's hands...the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4."-- Sarah Palin, October 22, 2008

Well, then.

It was nearly 70 degrees in Ann Arbor today. The most beautiful, sunny fall day. Breezes and rays of light illuminating the trees. Almost like something really, really good was on the horizon.

I just drove my friend Sarah home after a small but raucous election-watching bash at my place. At nearly 1 in the morning midweek, the Ann Arbor roads were practically empty. In stark contrast to the TV crowds cheering and yelling in Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, everything I passed looked quiet and peaceful. Almost like the world was unaware that an incredible change was underway.

The sky right now is packed with a million, zillion stars, every constellation you can imagine out there on full display. Glorious. Almost like if God was up there, he or she was thinking that this would be a stellar way to celebrate that the right thing for America was done.

The time is now

It's today. By which I mean it's Tuesday. Not just any Tuesday. It's that Tuesday. Are you nervous? Are you excited? I feel it in my toes, the sense that we're participating in history. That years from now, we'll be able to tell people exactly where we were the night America finally elected its first African-American president, the night the tides changed. Or, perhaps, where we were the night the evil powers that be stole the biggest election in history and people took to the streets rioting.

I'm just that cynical.

My husband keeps walking around with a wee bit of a swagger, the walk of a man who got in and out of the booth at the elementary school nice and early. He keeps saying things like, "It's in the bag." While I have to admit that I have hope -- especially since I read this morning that Karl Rove, Republican evil incarnate, has predicted an Obama landslide -- I also fear the power of jinx.

How's a girl supposed to get anything done today, I ask you?

What are you doing for Halloween?

People have been asking me this for the past couple of weeks and I have to say, for the most part, I don't understand the question. I'm a grown up. Without children. Who doesn't drink. What on earth would I be doing on Halloween? It strikes me largely as a holiday for kids and drunken young adults to dress up and annoy the shit out of normal folk. But now I have an answer to the question and a rather cool one at that! I'll be attending a showing of The Phantom of the Opera at the Michigan Theater. Not the screechy Andrew Lloyd Weber Broadway crapfest, but the original 1925 Lon Chaney silent film. The theater's organist will be playing the soundtrack live and -- get this -- my friend Maggie Grady will be singing the heroine's arias live, along with the film.

How cool is that? Very. Suitably Halloween-y for a grown up. And no costume required. If you're in Ann Arbor, you should totally go.

The election!!!!

It's less than a week away. Can you stand it? Can you even stand it?

I'm old

Next month, the weekend after Thanksgiving, my 20 year high school reunion is slated to take place in Louisville. Let me repeat that so that shock can sink in: twenty years. Consequently, there has been a flurry of recent activity via email and, of all places, Facebook as members of my high school class seek out one another and send missives and messages about The Big Event. If you know me at all, you can probably safely guess that I'm not going. Logistics aside -- it's a long trip and we have family slated to come here to Michigan for turkey day and blah blah blah -- I'm just not the reunion-y type. I don't even watch TV shows where people reunite. Truth be told, I didn't love high school and I'm wildly suspicious of anyone who did. I mean, you meet those people for whom high school was the best years of their lives and I can't help but think they've done something wrong since then. At the very least, college should have been way better if for no other reason than lack of parental supervision and access to greater quantity and/or quality of drugs.

As much as I like to play that tiny violin, high school probably wasn't as torturous and lonely and miserable as I like to make it out. It's possible -- nay, probable -- that I had some fun, I had some friends. How bad can the years be when you first get high, smoke menthol cigarettes until you vomit or drink Bacardi 151 until you pass out? Good times.

In fact, I'm finding that I probably had more friends than I remember or maybe than I realized at the time. (Although I think time blurs all that and when you can't really remember people from high school, you all just act like you were friends even if they kicked your head in and stuffed you in a locker every afternoon.) I do think that there is a necessary and natural selection process that occurs post-graduation. You stay in touch with the people who meant the most to you or, if nothing else, with whom you spent the greatest number of Friday nights, and if you fade out of each other's lives, then Darwin would approve. After all, the odds that we as under-developed teen social blobs would know enough about ourselves and the world, let alone those around us, to form life long friendships are pretty slim.

That's not to say that I'm absent any curiosity about what happened to this person or that. But technology has changed the stakes in that game. If you really want to know what happened to a classmate, a quick Google search can often answer your question and, if you're so inclined, put you in touch. And the brilliant part is you never actually have to talk to them if you don't want to. So you can find out if that asshole from home room was nailed for insider trading but you don't have to feign civility over coffee. That's brilliant!

Now Facebook -- which I am sheepish to admit I enjoy immensely -- has added a whole new dimension. You can easily find classmates, "friend" them and sort of keep tabs on them without actually having in-depth conversations. It's deeply impersonal and completely superficial in the best way possible. It's often just the right amount of curiosity-quenching contact you want with someone you haven't seen in a coupla decades.

I've enjoyed exchanging messages with a few folk on Facebook, people I hadn't talked to since graduation. But it seems to me that we're sort of all caught up now, aren't we? I mean, we know where we are, what we're doing, all the major facts, etc. Which strikes me as the right level of information for relationships that exist squarely in the past. I'm not sure I see the point in taking it a step further. Yeah, yeah. I'm a curmudgeon.

I wonder sometimes if I'd had a happier high school experience, would I be more gung-ho about attending reunions like these? Maybe. All I know is that I'm finding ways to satisfy my curiosity without getting up fromm my desk. I'm not too crazy about that part of my past anyway and I really, really like my present. So I figure I'll just hang out here for now.

Obama in St. Louis

I just have to say how thrilled at and proud of  St. Louis I am right now, after an estimated 100,000 Obama supporters turned out for a rally downtown Saturday. (Check out the photograph in this Post-Dispatch story -- the sea of people with the court house in the background is truly breathtaking.) It's said to be his biggest crowd in the midwest to date. What a lovely thing.

And while we're on the topic, I'm still blown away by Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama yesterday blew me away. This is Bush's former secretary of state, people. A vocal and staunch Republican. If he's willing to publicly acknowledge just how bad McCain would be for this nation, then I remain perplexed and stunned that anyone is still considering voting for that scary, sickly, cranky old man and his folksy frightening cohort.

All cultured and stuff

I just spent two evenings in a row at the lovely Hill Auditorium here in Ann Arbor. I don't take nearly enough advantage of the fact that there is a constant stream of cultural events here in and around the university, but I think I've done my share this week. Wednesday night, I went to see my friend Maggie -- who is a senior voice performance major -- sing in a chorale concert. Truth be told, I saw half the show -- the half that she was in! -- because the peeps I went with and I decided to get enchiladas at Sabor Latino during the orchestral part and pop in after intermission. For someone who was raised on classical music, I have to say I'm not good at sitting listening to an orchestra. I need something to look at. Like a book or knitting.

We sat right up in the front section for the chorale performance, which was basically a half hour mass. Beautiful, but again, probably five or ten minutes of mass is plenty for this heathen.

The next night we returned to Hill -- in much further away seats, mind you -- to see David Sedaris read. He decided not to read from his new book, but to treat us to some new and unpublished work which was, as would be expected, fantastic and very funny. I love the insider-y feeling of hearing his new stuff, especially that still in progress.

I love the fact that the pulls a little notebook out of his pocket and jots down notes, which I imagine are about what works and what doesn't, for when he (by his own admission) goes back to his hotel room and reworks the pieces. It makes the audience feel like part of the writing process, which is nice. I've been feeling lately just how lonely and isolating the writing process can be and I imagine letting other people in has to alleviate some of that.

I also love that Sedaris is so generous with his time after the readings to meet with his fans. I've seen him several times and I haven't ever lined up to have him sign a book or have a minute of chat with him but I've watched him do it. And it's amazing how accessible he is, how real he is with people, how much he appreciates his readers. If I ever get any readers, I'm gonna appreciate the HELL out of them too.

I made a pie! I made a pie!

Yeah, maybe not that big a deal to you, but it is my First Pie Ever. (Actually, my first two pies ever, as I doubled up on the recipe.)

That's right.

Made them -- with help from my faithful assistant Sarah -- using the Ida Reds we picked yesterday at the fruit farm. I used Martha Stewart's pate brisee recipe for the crust and it turns out pie crust is pretty easy to make, so I don't know what everyone's always belly-achin' about. I used Martha's old fashioned apple pie recipe too, only I went Euro and left out the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves and relied on just sugar and some lemon for flavor.

I forgot to take a pic before people dug in, so the shot above is what was left at evening's end. Still pretty, no? And tasted pretty good, too. Not too tart and not too sweet, not laden with cloying spices. And I don't know that I'll become a piemaker or anything, but if anyone has tips for a pie crust that's just a tad flakier, I'd be willing to listen.

Adventures in Apple Pickin'

For some reason we're having unbelievably warm weather here in Ann Arbor -- I'm talkin' high 70s. Thank you global warming! So when my friend Jason suggested we head to one of the local orchards for a little apple pickin' yesterday, I was all for it. Or, you know, what passes for all for it for me.

We headed to Wasem Fruit Farm in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor's neighboring city as our friend Zak the Apparent Orchard Authority said it was the best. (This being Michigan, the area's got several orchards and cider mills to choose from. Howzat for variety?)

It was bright, beautiful and sunny, perfect for frolicking among the perfect rows of trees, sampling different kinds of apples and filling up our 1/2 bushel bags. I'm a tart apple kind of gal, and since it's not yet time for Granny Smiths yet, we stuck mostly with Ida Reds, a suitably tart, crisp substitute.

And lest I be accused of sticking with the healthy fare, it's worth noting that Wasem also offers up some of the freshest, bestest donuts you'll ever have in your life. We sampled a big bag full of blueberry, apple, pumpkin and plain donuts with your choice of vanilla icing, maple icing or no icing. They put most donuts to shame, I tell you. (Sorry no pics, but we ate them too fast, washing them down with fresh-pressed cider -- while constantly dodging and weaving to avoid the onslaught of bees that were every bit as confused about the weather as we were.)

A few more snaps of the day:

Jason offering up his forbidden fruit while Zak does God-knows-what in the background.

Zak on his ladder.

Sarah, lovin' her some caramel apple action.

Jason 'n Jon.

Zak, Sarah and Chris -- the blond orchard babes.

Jason 'n Sarah.

More photos for the so-inclined here on my Flickr page.

Random Notes

Blogging I've been struggling with Wordpress, my blogging software, as of late. Seems whenever there's an upgrade -- or just randomly -- I lose the ability to log in and write blog entries. Seems renaming the old plug ins folder (through FTP access to the server) and creating a new, empty plug ins folder does the trick. I mention it here on the off chance any of you have encountered the same problem and are ready to pull your hair out.

Reading

I rarely read Maureen Dowd, but I have to say that her October 4 column in the New York Times hits on two things I despise passionately: Sarah Palin and bad grammar.

On the book front, I'm digging into author Jennifer Traig's second memoir of sorts, "Well Enough Alone." It's an often very funny glimpse at hyponchondria as a historical phenomenon and its impact on her own life. (In a strange, small-world turn of events, it seems Traig is married to an acquaintance of mine and has recently moved to Ann Arbor. Hoping I'll get to meet her soon.)

Skipping

Yesterday, I had the opportunity -- and free tickets -- to see Bruce Springsteen perform a live acoustic set at an Obama rally at Eastern Michigan University. While I thought it would be a cool thing to witness, the truth is -- as much as it borders on blasphemy among many of my pals -- I'm just not that into Springsteen. I appreciate the dude as a member of the prole. I admire his unabashed use of politics in his music, including the oft misunderstood and misappropriated "Born in the USA." (Why do both parties use this song at their conventions without listening to the lyrics and realizing it's ironic?)

However, I had much on my plate and the chilly, grey day didn't help convince me to trek over and brave the crowds in the middle of a work day to see him. Will I regret it? Maybe. But I got my work done and slept fine last night, so really, it can't have been that erroneous a choice.

Watching

We just got in the first DVD of the last season of Slings & Arrows, which we've been enjoying for the past few months. It's still sitting in its Netflix wrapper, unopened, as we're painfully aware we're about to embark on the last six episodes of the show. Then it's over. Done. We'll have to move on. And I'll miss it. Good stuff.

Fortunately, I have everything else to distract me. And I do mean everything else. Over the summer, we bit the bullet and got satellite cable, which came with DVR. Which -- will all due respect to electricity and penecillin and the like -- is the best thing every invented. Or, if you're keeping track of how much TV it means I'm watching, perhaps the worst.

The new seasons of shows are starting and that means the episodes are lining up in my DVR like good little soldiers, waiting until I feel like watching them. And fast-forwarding over the commercials. Oh, Dr. House and your ridiculously improbable cases, how good it is to have you back! Californication and Dexter, yay! Boston Legal, Law & Order SVU, Dirty Sexy Money, The Office, Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies, how I've missed you! And while I'd never confess in a public forum to watching such ludicrous brain-cell-stealers as Gossip Girl and the new 90210, well, I'm not saying I'm not watching them either.

In fact, what am I doing typing this when I could be watching TV?

Six things I love about fall*

1. Leaves. Orangey and red and crunchy and on the ground waiting for you to shuffle through them. There's a school down the block from us and when the kids get out at 3 o'clock I can hear them shuffling through leaves just outside my office window. So even if I'm inside, I can HEAR fall. 2. Bright sunny days with a crisp chill in the air. Turns out Michigan excels at this. (It puts on a good spring, too, but this is it's time to shine.)

3. Sweaters and general bundling-up-ness. The aforementioned should be worn, preferably, with your comfiest jeans and maybe some old boots you've been dying to drag out of storage.

4. Soups and stews. I'm not the world's best cook, but it's hard to go wrong tossing a hodge-podge of produce together and making something warm and hearty. It impresses people disproportionately.

5. Knitting. Sure, I dabble a little in knitting all year round, but fall's when the weight and texture of the yarns really catch my eye again and the idea of hauling around a big, wooly project doesn't seem like insanity.

6. Taking pictures. I enjoy it year-round, but trying to capture the brilliant hues of autumn is one of my very favorite things. Even if all my shots come out looking like Audobon Society calendars. Whatever.

*In case you were wondering.

I might be back

Assuming it isn't too late, that is. Assuming you haven't abandoned ship given the eons since the last post. An explanation may be in order with a content warning for those who are tired of hearing me belly-aching about health problems. I've spent the past 7 weeks or so undergoing a battery of tests -- from EKGs to blood work, etc. -- to try to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. Why I've been exhausted all the time, with little no energy for anything, including writing (which includes, of course, this blog.) Why my heart's been doing some wonky antics. Why my metabolism seems to have ground to a halt, causing me to gain weight even when doing everything in my power to achieve the opposite effect. And why I have this baffling, first-time painful cystic acne on my chin, which will simply not go away.

What my doc has settled on is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a metabolic disorder that can account for all my symptoms. That means I've started new meds which will hopefully help resolve all those symptoms and, at the very least, will regulate my metabolism.

I've only been on the meds a few days so my upswing in mood and energy is likely not attributable to that. Part of it is probably the relief in feeling like I have an answer and a course of treatment. But the other part is a factor in my health that I keep trying to ignore: sugar.

I've blogged about my struggles with sugar in the past. I love it. I have what can only be described as an addictive relationship to it. And it makes me feel like crap. It affects my mood, my concentration, my energy level, my sleeping patterns. But I keep going back to the trough and trying it again.

The truth is that I really don't want to refined sugar to be the answer to my problems. I'm being a bit of a toddler about it, stamping my feet and crossing my arms. But I guess I needed to feel as bad and frustrated as I did the past month or so in order to try to make a change again. And it helps. I don't feel 100% by any means just by cutting out added sugar in my diet, but I feel a lot less despondent, I have some energy -- enough to get back to the gym (albeit to work out very lamely) and to other things like, well, writing and blogging.

So I guess we'll see how long it takes for me to forget about it again. In the meantime, I'm blogging! I'm blogging!

Good mail day

Today, I received a catalog called -- I kid you not -- "Pecans, Plain & Fancy." Is that not the funniest thing you've ever heard? No. Must be me. Been laughing for hours over it. This one's a keeper.

Yes, we can...not see you, Obama

So here was our logic: given the small turnout Obama got in Toledo yesterday, and given the fact that it was Labor Day weekend, and the fact that the gates opened at 8:30, we figured we'd be okay arriving in downtown Detroit around 7:45 or 8 am. We were wrong. Sure, there were complicating factors that may have swelled the crowd -- the annual Labor Day Parade, the last day of the Detroit International Jazz Festival and a Tigers game.

But still.

At no point did we imagine that we -- me, Chris, our friend Maggie and her friend Sarah -- would take our places in line at 8:30 and would patiently snake our way around downtown buildings in the beating sun until nearly 11 am only to get nowhere near the entrance gates. And only to experience the entire breakdown of the crowd system after a volunteer told us that they simply didn't have enough volunteers to control the crowd anymore.

The mood, at first, was pretty exhilirating. It's an exciting time, obviously, in politics and we were buoyed by the notion of getting to see Barack Obama in person, if he only seemed a speck in the distance. The crowd was enormous and the mood pretty good, overall. But the whole thing seemed strangely uncoordinated. Given how many people were lining up and given how the line was looping around downtown, we commented repeatedly that it was a miracle that people were behaving in such an orderly fashion.

However, by nearly 11 am -- the time at which Obama was scheduled to speak -- we were nowhere near the front of the line and it was pretty evident that we weren't going to get inside. It was as though most of the crowd realized it at the same time and there was a pretty big rush to volley for positions in front of a big screen and that was as good as it got for us.

We were hot, tired and thirsty and we waited until nearly 11:30 for Obama to take the stage following brief introductory comments by local labor leaders. It was still thrilling to see him on the screen and to know that he was somewhere, you know, over there. Obviously, today's speech was supposed to focus on labor and unions and Obama did make a few remarks about supporting the American worker. Then he said that while he had planned a political speech, today was not the day for political speeches, given Hurrican Gustav's approach to the Gulf Coast. Instead, he asked us to share a moment of silence and to remember the spirit of giving and togetherness and all that good stuff.

The AP says it was a ten minute speech, but only if you count the pauses for applause, some intro banter and the moment of silence. I think it was closer to five. Which, if you had rolled out of bed at 7, as I did, and waited for three and a half hours, could be a bit of a disappointment. Or if you had been in line since 5 am, which many of those who did get into Hart Plaza did.

And it was over. Just like that. The majority of the crowd seemed to be pushing their way over to the Jazz Festival. Some were headed to the Tigers game. Others, like us, were done for and just wanted to get home and hydrated. Am I glad I went? I suppose I am. It's just not what I thought it was going to be. Maybe I was ridiculously naive in thinking I'd catch a glimpse of the man I believe will be our next president.

I will say that it was a particular kind of thrill to be among those throngs of people of all different ethnicities, ages, etc. And there was a lot of -- dare I say it -- hope floating around the joint. If those people are willing to come out and shuffle along in line for hours on end, then surely they'll all make it to the polls to vote. In which case, I guess we'll be seeing a whole lot of change, which will more than make up for not seeing Obama in person.