Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Won't You Be My Neighbor, Part II

So this morning I get an email from a friend of mine with the subject line, "Bullet-proof vest?" Apparently there was a shooting near my neighborhood last night, culminating in a high-speed chase down city streets and onto Highway 41 with a flipped-over squad car and everything. Color me oblivious! I guess living across the street from drug dealers for 2 years has really desensitized me to such commotion. But really, this is actually major headline news for my smallish city. In my neck of the woods, the big news is usually something like, "Shoppers Buy Hard-to-Find Items Online!" (This was a real newspaper headline in the city in which I work. You can't make this stuff up.) So, the faintest whiff of criminal activity sets the city abuzz with morbid excitement.

But I don't have time to think about this too much, because I've got to write the equivalent of twelve 50-page research papers (worth over $8 million bucks) between now and June 1st. Yes, this is my day job and I will be gibbering like a loon by Memorial Weekend. I will probably also look and smell like a homeless person, so if you see a filthy, wild-eyed woman talking to herself in the aisles of Target sometime this May, that's probably me. It's definitely me if there are puppy pee pads and bags of birdseed in the cart.

Grant writing is not for the faint of heart--I've known writers who ended up in the hospital with panic attacks during "deadline crunch time" (aka ALL BLOODY SPRING), and last year I had chest pains for FOUR FRICKING WEEKS STRAIGHT after working on a project with one of Satan's minions. He'll probably end up in a book someday. Which is the kind of vengeful, glee-filled thinking that makes dealing with chronic brownstars so much fun.

Tootles, cyberpals.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:41 PM

    I thought you were weaning yourself off those puppy pee pads =)

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  2. That would be one resolution broken. How long will it take to break the rest? Stay tuned!

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  3. You will soon be a famous author and you'll be able to lose the day job. I'm just putting it out to the universe for you!

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  4. Aww, Stefanie, you are too kind! Hey, I'm reading a new book you might like: Everybody into the Pool by Beth Lisick. Funny, funny stuff.

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  5. Ah, I remembere the days of my old apartment that was above a one-bedroom apartment that I swear housed at least four people...all presumed drug dealers considering the type of people that hung out there. Funny how we do desensitize ourselves to it. I thought nothing of banging on their door to tell them to move their "guest's" car whenever someone parked in my space. In all my 5'2" glory, I'm sure I was really threatening. ;-)

    Hang in there with the "day job" and congrats on the first book coming out!

    Christina

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