Month 5 of the Year 30

Plan A did not materialize this month but I had a couple of incidental “firsts” that will pinch hit for Plan A.

Early this month I participated in a book signing. I wrote in February about South Carolina People and Places and, following its publication this month, the four of us (authors and illustrator) autographed copies at the university bookstore. It was such a neat experience; I’ve wanted all my life to autograph my book so it’s pretty cool to have that dream realized. Two things are necessary when autographing: having a cool signature and a pithy comment. Well, seeing that my handwriting peaked when I was around 14 so that my signature looks like a bubbly teenage girl’s (and I have the pink floral cell phone to match) and that weeks later, I’m still waiting on a pithy remark to come to mind, I suppose I failed the two requirements for an effective autograph. Hopefully, I will work on this before I write and publish the next great American epic…

My second “first” this month is a little embarrassing because it makes me realize that my firsts are other people’s twentieths; there’s still so many things in life I’ve never done, but I hope to have many more years in which to experience them.

The day after the book signing, I flew on an airplane by myself for the first time (without friends or family accompanying). Flying is always a bit nerve-wracking to me; for some reason, the abundance of external stimuli at the airport overwhelms me: the voices over the intercom, the hordes of passengers scurrying by, the multiple gates, zones, and lines. Everyone else seems to know exactly what they’re doing while I walk around doe-eyed, trying not to look as clueless as I feel.

Even so, I planned my solo trip to Tampa to visit my sister this month. Upon arriving at Charlotte-Douglas and printing my ticket, flustered, I asked the agent, “What do I do next?” Now I had already been tutored by others as to what to do next, but I suppose I needed confirmation. A mere twenty feet away was step #2: the security checkpoint. There I benefited from watching and imitating other passengers as they removed shoes, liquids, and dignity, and passed it on through the x-ray machine. Sure, I’d done all that before, but it had been four years so I was a little rusty.

Once I’d finally made it in one piece on board the plane, my next concern was being able to pick up my heavy carry-on and stow it in the overhead compartment. I prayed: “Lord, please let there be a strong man nearby who will pick up my bag for me.” Sure enough, when I came to my seat, there was a tall, strapping Marine seated next to me who kindly placed my bag overhead. No big deal. You know, it’s the most miniscule details that get me worked up—but the possibility of crashing—I didn’t worry about that at all. (I noticed my obsession with details again when I spoke at my old school last week; before speaking, I fixated on the microphone and whether I would be able to adjust it to the right height when I was onstage. I wasn’t.)

Well, the flight was lovely—said Marine and I talked and talked almost the whole flight (I had forgotten to unpack my novel due to my anxiety to get that bag stored). As we landed, I got a little nervous again about those nitpicky details. I was a little overwhelmed about finding my way to baggage claim because my sister had provided such vague directives as “take the shuttle” and “ride the escalator.” What shuttle where? Which escalator? Her response to my fears was something like: “Elisabeth, young children and the blind fly alone; you can do this.”

Finally, we landed. When I fly, my ears fill with screaming pressure and it usually takes a few hours after the flight for them to clear (and yes, I chew gum the entire flight). The first time it happened, my sister and I had landed in France. We had not slept all night and we were trying to navigate a foreign airport laden with bags, and I was partially deaf. I would ask Allison if I was shouting, but it turns out I was whispering. The pain and semi-deafness persisted so long, I wondered if I’d gone deaf in Paris…you know how your mind imagines the worst in those situations. (I hadn’t.)

Anyway, I arrived in Tampa partially deaf, smiling sweetly and nodding when I didn’t understand what the Marine or the other seat partner was saying. Perhaps that was dishonest or plain stupid, but it seemed the thing to do at the time.

My kind Marine friend collected my bag for me and I pretty much followed him like a puppy dog off the plane and around the airport. Indeed there was a shuttle, but it was not quite so intimidating now. I don’t usually advocate following strange men around but these were desperate circumstances and he seemed reliable. Case in point, he eventually pointed me in a different direction from the one in which he was going, and I found myself in baggage claim greeting my sister.

I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily an expert flyer now; on the way back, I had Allison tell me twice where to go and what to do to get myself from Tampa to Charlotte, but I’m sure if I flew more often, I would conquer it before long. I can see myself now, striding through the airport with the self-assured gait of the frequent (thirty year-old) flyer.

Month 4 of the Year 30

               This month requires an embarrassing confession. Up until this month, I had never run a mile in my life. Not that this has really weighed me down or hindered me so far as I can tell, but it does seem a little ridiculous that I haven’t done it. For one, I’ve just never been really interested in running as a hobby. For two, I don’t think my body is equipped to run distances. And for three, I’ve always had a voice inside my head when I run that says, “I’m gonna have a heart attack, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna stop running now.”

                Not that I’ve always possessed such a three-pronged rationale. Some of my childhood memories involve me running barefoot down the rows of my dad’s garden. The soft, cool soil felt indescribably delicious beneath my feet. I can remember my dad saying I ran like a deer, and I believed him.

                Kids aren’t as kind as your dad, however. I played baseball and softball for years, and I remember one of my little teammates telling me that her mom said that I ran SOOO slow…and this was when I was running as fast as I could! I suppose I got the slow gene. While my dad, sister, brother, and sister-in-law have participated in long-distance races and I trust are/were fast enough runners, my other brother earned the nickname “Speedy” by his coach for his leisurely running pace. The same coach nicknamed me “Speedy, Jr.”

                Okay, so playing sports taught me that I resembled a turtle more than a deer. Playing baseball also showed me how incredibly flat my feet were. During third and fourth grade, I played baseball with boys which meant that I had to play in the outfield. Our practice field was strewn with rocks and my poor feet could feel the rocks through my shoes. The pain I had in my feet and legs led to my getting orthotics especially molded for my feet, and these really helped. As any girl knows, however, being told to wear “supportive shoes” is the death knell to footware fashion. For a few years, I call them my “awkward years,” I wore awful high-top Reebok shoes. They were supportive, alright, and ugly as homemade sin. They came in black or white and I alternated between those colors over the years. What preteen girl really has a chance, I ask, when she wears black high-top shoes to middle school, rain or shine, summer and winter. My mom would probably say I developed character by wearing those shoes, and, at any rate, my feet were well-supported. (Thankfully, I ventured away from wearing orthotics and high tops in high school and so far, I’ve been okay. Hopefully I can avoid them until I’m 80.)

                Which somehow leads me back to running—that is what I was going to write about this month, wasn’t it? Earlier this year, my super-energetic friend Kristina proposed that, for my year 30, I participate in a mud run event, which would involve running three miles and doing some insane number of obstacles while covered with mud. People actually PAY to do this type of thing. The mud part didn’t bother me; it was the amount of running that made me turn it down. Even so, I decided that I would try running for really the first time in my life on my own. So, with my I-pod cranked up to drown out my labored breathing, I started running. And, for the first time in my life, I ran a mile this month. Not to brag, but I’ve actually built up to 1.1 miles, but who’s counting? I’ve even thought about working up to a whopping 1.5 miles, but my hips are usually screaming at me by mile 0.8 so we’ll have to see about that one.

                Month 4 represents a great personal victory--I did something I thought I couldn’t do.

BOOK SIGNING!! May 5th from 4:00-5:30 p.m. Winthrop University Bookstore

Blonde Nite Pics

Month 3 of the Year 30

                This month I will not ask you to indulge me in a history of my hair because that would be both a brief and a dull recital. I am one of those people who has worn basically the same hair style since 8^th grade. Before 8^th grade, I had a long jet black mane that cascaded to my waist. Not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, my hair was actually very awkward-looking in photographs. I had lank, limp bangs which I tried to model after my idol, D.J. Tanner from Full House. If her bangs one season were fluffy and sprayed, so were mine; if hers were growing out and arched to the side in the next season, so were mine. At least then I had a hair plan and standard. Since then, for well-nigh seventeen years, I’ve pretty much worn my hair parted on the same side, bang-less, somewhere between ear and shoulder-length. Ne’ery a perm, ne’ery a rebellious purple dye job. Always sensible. Okay, so I’ve told my hairstory after all.

                It will come as no surprise that when I considered changing my hair for the year 30, I was too conservative to consider it seriously for long. Bangs get on my nerves. Color is expensive (except for the highlights Revlon and my friend Deana give me once a year). But despite my fears, I needed to do something drastic, something crazy--and for me this was going blonde. For such a measure, I needed a gutsy brunette friend who would go the distance with me. I thought I’d found the perfect friend for this in a girl I’ll call “Cassie.” So last year I started hinting at the possibility of us dying our hair blonde in 2011 and the first time I mentioned it, Cassie seemed game. However, every month thereafter she came to me with: “Um, Elisabeth, I don’t think I can go blonde…” Excuses. The boyfriend wouldn’t like it. Her “hairdresser” didn’t approve. 

                Mind you, I was mostly bluffing anyway since I was too poor, too practical, and too scared to permanently dye my hair blonde. Then Carriel, after church one night, suggested that being blonde need not be permanent; we could wear a blonde wig for a day. Bingo! After procuring two costume wigs from professors at my university (evidently faculty parties are the real parties on campus), we set a date for our blonde transformation.

                When we met at Cassie’s on the 18^th we assumed blonde personas along with our blonde hair (terribly stereotypical, I know). I was Krissi, the earnest one, intent on discovering whether fate had dealt her a cruel turn by making her brunette. Cassie was Candy, the spacey sidekick who was merely along for the ride.

                Our two greatest challenges were our natural timidity and our desire not to look like “women of the night.” The nature of the wigs—long, brassy, and very obviously fake—combined with our heavy makeup did not assuage the latter concern. As for our timidity, we overcame it…somewhat.

                Our first stop as Krissi and Candy was at a friend’s house, where we hemmed, hawed, and blushed. A little disorganized about where exactly we would go from there, and inhibited ever so slightly by Cassie, er, Candy’s timorousness, we opted for a gallery crawl in North Charlotte. We envisioned walking down a busy street, ducking into a coffee shop, and talking to people. Instead, with me at the wheel, we wound up at some dark shopping center/square where, nevertheless, we steeled ourselves under our blondeness and went to face the world.

                As we approached the square, passersby definitely did double takes but our goal was to act as natural as possible. And I mean, did I mention how ridiculous we looked? Cassie’s wig was white-blonde, crimped, a little tangled in places, and bushy. My long yellow hair kept shedding but more importantly, the part or seam was very apparent running along my forehead and through the part. Moreover, sometimes our brown ponytails peeped out under the blonde in back.

                At this point in the night, in this darkened shopping center not exactly bustling with people, we would feel like we had accomplished our objective (to see if life was more fun as a blonde? Or merely to discover if we possessed chutzpah?) if we could walk ourselves into a crowded coffee shop and order coffee without running away. That became our objective. Our first foray was unsuccessful. The coffee shop contained nice people with normal hair and we just couldn’t force ourselves to walk in. “Let’s just keep walking,” we said.

                Next door was a convenience store/deli where the people didn’t look quite as nice and their hair wasn’t quite as normal, so we felt more comfortable about entering. We walked in, all smiles, nodding like dignitaries to a few wondering women while we made our way to the candy aisle. Determined to buy something, Candy grabbed a pack of M&Ms and we checked out. The cashier, obviously not ‘merican, carried on a normal conversation with us but I couldn’t tell you what he said since we were still jumpy. The wigs didn’t phase him at all. Now that I think about it though, it was a little strange that he directed us to a “very nice” place out back. We, unthinking, heeded him—and it was nice, but not that nice.

                As ostensibly we were enjoying taking pictures “out back,” inwardly we were ratcheting up the courage to face the coffee shop people. “Okay, we are going to make our way back around the building, walk in the door, go right up to the cashier and order coffee.” Didn’t seem like a difficult plan.

                And we did it. We met a few more questioning stares before entering the shop but we did it. Candy may have been fighting the giggles, but she managed to slink right up to the counter and tremulously ask for a latte. We smiled and talked as naturally as possible to the cashier, but he knew something was up with us (I wonder how?). Finally, with a knowing smile, he said, “You’ll have to give me the number of your hair stylist.” Our cover was blown.

                What we were impressed by at the coffee shop was that no one cared much about our ridiculous wigs. Candy and I became more like psychologists than thrill-seekers, hypothesizing what people were thinking when they would glance our way curiously but then absorb themselves in their coffee or cake. We asked a lady nearby to take our picture and she did so gladly without blinking an eye. Some gazed longer than others, sure. The bottom line is that I think most people remember what their mamas told them: staring is rude.

                After awhile, the hot, itchy wigs became one with our scalps and for my part, Krissi took over. She was a fun girl, as was Candy. We were finally at home with our blondeness. Leaving the shop and driving away, we shared deep personal stories with one another and didn’t even notice that we were wearing faux hair all the while. After a couple more stops, including a McDonalds drive-thru, we had to retire our wigs for the night and reenter the atmosphere of being a brunette once more.

                Do blondes have more fun? Probably. I’m just glad they let us share their experience for one brief night.

Addendum to Month 2

I just had to add to my post from earlier today. I just met a teacher who has used a test copy of our S.C. book with her fifth graders. She actually hugged me and told me how much her students LOVED it; it was quite overwhelming to meet a fan :) To the printers tomorrow!

Month 2 of the Year 30

           One month into my blog and I am already on the brink of missing my own deadline! As promised, February has been a busy month and a difficult one for scheduling something new and exciting to try. I’ll leave exciting for another month but I do have a “first” to announce this month: I’ve had the privilege this month to prepare my first book for publication! As a grad assistant, I’ve been able to work for a professor who writes educational children’s coloring books and a year ago he offered me the opportunity to help research and write a book about people and places in South Carolina. But before I say more about this book, I wanted to reflect on my past thirty years (gulp) as a writer.

            I have been writing ever since I was a little girl; it has always come naturally to me. Some days as a kid when time was abundant, I would just say, “I feel like writing a book today,” and I would sit down and in a few hours dash off a story. When the writing bug stopped biting, I would staple the pages together, slap on a title, and voila, a book was born.

            Some stories were better than others. For example, my sister and I co-wrote a book entitled, “What ever happened to Bugs Bunny, Tweety, and the Gang?” in which we imagined the lives of the Bugs Bunny characters after their show went off the air (did that show ever go off the air?). A few got married and were happy, but most met tragic, untimely ends and died alone. Not Valentines Day reading.

            The majority of my books were pre-teen fiction mirroring the fluff I then read. I did a couple of spin-offs of the Babysitters’ Club. Then I created a series called the “Friends Forever Club” about seven best friends who were teen girls. I wrote seven novellas, one book about each girl (hmmm…sounds nothing like the Babysitters’ Club). These books were not burdened with a plot for the most part; they mostly consisted of descriptions of what the girls were wearing and cat fights between the girls who were supposedly “friends forever.” The last book in the series (about Faith) actually had a plot, which showed my growth perhaps as a writer, but it was never completed. Poor Faith was kidnapped for unexplained reasons by two stock criminal characters named Lefty and Red…but no worries, she was going to escape, eventually.

            These were books I wrote for fun, but of course I wrote stories for school assignments as well that were slightly less silly and which had to have plots and conclusions. It always amazed me in school when I’d be recognized for something I’d written since it came so naturally. I remember in elementary school writing a witty little conversation between clothes hanging in a closet, and it was published in some sort of anthology. In sixth grade I wrote a story about a Japanese girl named Shing Ho and suddenly I was whisked off to a young writer’s conference in the state capital. There I met other kids who took themselves and their writing very seriously; it was not the place for a girl who wrote failed kidnapping stories, if you know what I mean.

            In my teen years, I finally learned from those conference kids and became a little more serious about my writing though I think I lost some of my naivete and joy. I was more self-conscious and critical, always finding fault with stories that now read to me like Sunday school lessons. I knew that to write a good story I had to have plot, conflict, AND resolution--sigh. During my teen years, I took a stab at journalism and wrote a monthly article titled, “Kids’ Korner” (it was very important to me that “corner” be spelled with a ‘k’) for my church’s newsletter. I did book reviews, interviews, and I can’t remember what else. Sadly, with my increasing frustration at not being able to produce the kind of literature that could stand the test of time (or that could at least have a decent plot and three-dimensional characters) I stopped writing as much. Of course, I was also getting older and busier…and perhaps more mercenary. For as a college senior I entered two contests—one political science essay contest and the university literary anthology contest—merely for the financial rewards. Amazingly, I won first place in both, and the honor is now more important to me than the money was then.

            Since college, however, I haven’t really written much creatively. Perhaps I peaked with Shing Ho in sixth grade. I wrote and illustrated books for each of my nieces and nephews, which was fun, and which was perhaps my only real preparation for my current project.

            Ah, a satisfying segue.

            Now that I’m back in school, I am doing more academic than creative writing, but I’ve also had the aforementioned privilege of collaboratively writing South Carolina People and Places. It has been really neat to watch the process unfold, from working with others to create lists of possible people and places to include, to researching and writing individual pages, to finding pictures our illustrator could use, to discussing with another GA how to lay out and organize the book. I remember our excitement in deciding that the book should be laid out as a tour of the state through all of its regions. Gradually, all 64 pages have emerged, pictures have been drawn, activity pages have been fashioned, cover designs and graphics have been selected, countless edits have been made, and educators have filled the back cover with endorsements. We’ve even begun the marketing side of the process—collecting information about places in the state that might be interested in selling it. I feel really pleased with how South Carolina People and Places has turned out, and I’m thrilled that tomorrow, March 1^st, my first book goes to the printer!!