A Rare Gringo Sighting

When last we spoke, I was going on six weeks of having lost my job and was ~500 pages deep into writing my first novel. I wrote about visiting family in Memphis, TN, about road trips to Savannah, GA and Hilton Head Island, SC, and about hikes taken along the Blue Ridge National Parkway, NC. Though less than a year has passed since that post, it seems like yesterday and ages ago at the same time.

Here is a lengthy entry about what I’ve been up to since then:

The Novel

Have you ever written a novel? It is a daunting task, and I’m two years in at this point. There is sooo much to consider. First, there’s the story itself, and whether it’s been done before. If it has, what sets your story apart from others with similar plots? Does the writing style fit the genre? Have you double-checked for accuracy any references to historical events, or considered the shelf life of pop culture mentions? Then, there’re the characters, and whether they are walking clichés or original creations. The former is okay if you’re paying homage or, by story’s end, transcending those stereotypes. The latter, of course, is better, but let’s also be sure these characters speak in a manner consistent with their age, education, class status, and other factors. Are they necessarily woke? (A story set in the antebellum south, or in a turn-of-the-century Welsh mining town, say, probably wouldn’t be “woke” based on standards of those times and places, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t write it or opt not to come up with believable female and/or POC characters.) Once your first draft is finished, how long have you let it marinate before giving it a re-read? (I waited over a month on mine, and edited/re-wrote it at least 12 times since then. It is leagues better now than it was one year ago.) And all of this should come before you search for a publisher, format it for publishing, invest in marketing, etc.

Two years in, my novel is finished, barring one last re-read and edit of a clunky sub-chapter, or scene. Editors and critics often say “less is more,” and while I’ve chopped 30+ pages of prose that was redundant, overly wordy, or simply not necessary, the thing somehow got longer. I have since laid it out for a 6” x 9” hardcover format and am at 745 pages. Yikes! At this point it is what it is, methinks, and one thing I promise my readers is they won’t be able to claim they finished the darn thing without knowing enough about its major characters. I also promise there won’t be any typos on the first page, but I make no such promises for pages 2-745. Typos are a writer’s metaphorical white whale, and while they’re the bane of my existence (typos, and bird shit on my car), I’ve resigned myself to knowing that whenever this is officially published – before Christmas is my ultimate goal – the finished product will almost certainly have a few missing or misused words. No misspellings, though. 😉

What is it about, you ask? Oh, just the usual time travel from one time and place to another time and place, with characters, most of them teenagers steeped in ’80s pop culture and struggling with mental illness, something common today but taboo during the novel’s primary setting of 1987. Alas, it’s complicated, probably more than it needs to be.

What is it called? Funny enough, the hardest thing for most writers to come with is a good title. I currently like the very tongue-in-cheek “My Friends Time Traveled and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt,” but the short and apropos “Displacement” might work better for web searches. What do you think, Loyal Reader?

The Job Scene

I told myself after getting laid off last fall that I wouldn’t get jaded, and that I’d look at this as an opportunity, not a setback. Having since heard rumors from former colleagues of (unsubstantiated) process changes there that make little sense from where I sit, it sounds like I’ll end up better off in the long term. That being said, those of you who know me well will surely agree when I fess up to having an enormous chip on my shoulder. Some days, that chip weighs pretty heavy, and when it does I think the muckety-mucks in charge won’t get a clue until it’s too late. Most of the time, however, I think some variation of “I hope they know what they’re doing” and “It’s not your problem anymore, gringo,” and sleep just fine at night.

I was fortunate to be offered a bit of freelance editing work following my layoff, and it paid the bills rather nicely for a few months. The work slowed down dramatically once a major project deadline was met, and I opted instead to work on my novel full-time until it was published…

…with one exception.

Travel

In last December’s post, I blogged about having lost my wanderlust. I am pleased to announce that with the passage of time and the reduction in COVID overreactions, my wanderlust has returned!

I haven’t checked any new countries off my list, but I did satisfy three travel urges: to visit Fall Creek Falls, in Middle Tennessee, to see friends and relatives in and around Chicago, and to make my first return trip in six years to Mexico City. Visiting these places as separate trips would be quite costly, so I packed them all into a single, mega-trip. Still expensive, but hey…

The itinerary: Drive to Fall Creek Falls State Park (three hours by car), home to the tallest waterfall in Tennessee along with several other cascades and an enormous, pristine lake. I had been there once before, but this time, knowing I didn’t have to hurry back to be at work the next day, I was able to take my time, dining at the park’s renovated restaurant, walking along the lakeshore, and hiking to the bottom of the titular falls. The falls, little more than a trickle during my first visit, were roaring today, so it was a worthwhile hike, even if my knees doth protest.

From there, I headed north into Kentucky for a day of Lincoln stuff – his birthplace home in Hodgenville, KY. The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site is built on a hillside roughly 12 miles east of Interstate 65. The cabin in which he was born no longer exists, but a replica built to scale is housed inside a marble monument atop the hill, as seen in the picture below:

The town of Hodgenville itself is quaint and worth a stopover for an hour or two. I visited the interesting Lincoln Museum and enjoyed ice cream at a creamery across the street.  An annex to the NPS site some 15 miles away is Lincoln’s Boyhood Home at Knob Creek. Lincoln lived here for six years after his parents lost their Hodgenville home, also known as Sinking Spring Farm, in a land dispute (IIRC). The reconstructed cabin was closed during my visit, but I enjoyed the three-mile round-trip hike to an overlook in the hills above the property. This was in mid-April, and the weather was perfect.

It was late when I completed my hike, so I bypassed the nearby winery town of Bardstown and spent two nights outside Kentucky’s biggest city, Louisville, instead. I spent the day in between exploring Louisville, and saw a surprising lot in that very long day. Downtown Louisville sits just south of the Ohio River and has a Museum Row filled with lots of interesting places, many of which are dedicated to current or former distilleries along Central Kentucky’s famed Bourbon Trail. My destinations were sports-related. South of downtown, the childhood home of Muhammad Ali sits on a quiet residential street, unassuming if not for the placard out front. Main Street – the aforementioned Museum Row – is home to the Louisville Slugger Factory. I picked up a present for my father and a couple of wooden maple nubs sawed off the ends of baseball bats for myself; every visitor gets a courtesy mini-bat. Neat place!

A short walk west from here took me to the moving “Say Their Names” mural dedicated to Breonna Taylor, the Black woman killed by Louisville Police in a misguided drug raid in March 2020. The mural also features George Floyd (killed in Minneapolis in May 2020), and Travis Nagdy (killed in Louisville in November 2020), among others. In researching the names for this article, my blood boiled when I read that protesters attempted to paint over this mural in July 2021, just weeks after another mural honoring Taylor was defaced. The “Say Their Names” mural’s artist, Whitney Holbourn, was able to repair the damage, but the very notion of someone defacing such a memorial reminds me of the phrase popularized in the 1950s, “This is why we can’t have nice things.” Breonna…George…Travis…may you Rest in Power.

There is no shortage of attractions walking east along Main Street from the Louisville Slugger Factory, including the Louisville Slugger Walk of Fame, The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, and – two blocks north of Main Street, the memorable Muhammad Ali Center. Visitor can learn about Ali’s life and legacy – his fights, sure – most of them available for viewing inside – but also his philanthropy, his moral conscience as an anti-war activist, and his gold medal at the 1956 Rome Olympics, bookended with his appearance at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where he lit the cauldron, visibly shaking from his devastating Parkinson’s Disease affliction.

I would like to think that any enlightenment found in visiting the Muhammad Ali Center trumps the city’s unfortunate reputation for violence. In addition to the Breonna Taylor and Travis Nagdy shootings, the city was plagued, just a few days before my visit, with the Old National Bank tragedy, in which five people were killed in a mass shooting by a former bank employee. My stroll along Main Street to the attractive, red brick Louisville Slugger Field inadvertently took me past the bank, the entrance to which was blocked by police caution tape and by moving floral memorials left by the community. I snapped a few pictures, as did other passersby, but I won’t post them here.

To be fair, I felt safe in Louisville. Its riverfront setting and bridges reminded me of Little Rock, AR, a similar city of roughly the same size, and I was delighted to learn that I could walk across the Big Four Bridge, a former railroad bridge spanning the Ohio River and connecting Louisville, KY with the riverside town of Jeffersonville, IN. It was almost 10 p.m. by the time I re-crossed the bridge and made it to my car. I drove back to my hotel, sunburnt and knackered.

The next morning, I continued north. I could have made a cursory stop at Churchill Downs in southern Louisville for a tour of the Kentucky Derby racetrack, but horse racing doesn’t particularly interest me and I certainly had no desire to visit after 12 horses perished there over a short period of time. Churchill Downs suspended horse racing for a few months, but I was dismayed to read that they plan on resuming horse racing in September. All but two of the deaths have since been attributed to leg injuries, but I can’t help but think this could have been avoided, and I find it hard to believe no one has been prosecuted. Poor Louisville – this vibrant city has been living under a dark cloud since 2020. It deserves better.

I passed through Indiana, one of the duller United States (yeah I said it, and fuck you, Mike Pence!), and made great time until I reached the Skyway, that notorious stretch of Interstates 90/94 connecting NW Indiana with Chicago. All other Chicagoland tollways allow drivers to pay tolls online, but not the Skyway. If you don’t have an iPass, bring lots and lots of cash; you can expect at least three gated, unmanned tollbooths over this 7.8-mile stretch, and none of the card readers liked me. It was only a matter of luck that I had enough greenbacks to get through – this with a full bladder and after an hour of waiting for drivers in front of me to do the same. Alas, my GPS routed me via the Skyway instead of the less-trafficked I-80. Still and all, I arrived to my lodging in the NW Chicago burbs safely. My host: my long-time friend and former travel buddy Miles, who makes a shitload more money than I do and who has the kind of house I can only dream of owning. I hadn’t hung out with him in ten years, and it was good to see him and his charming family again. (I told his girls, who didn’t remember me, that I was their long-lost uncle and that I was moving into their basement. They were suitably mortified…although we later bonded over simulated fart sounds from their Alexa device.)

I lazed by Miles’s pool when the weather allowed; one day the temperature was 85 degrees while another day it was 33 degrees and snowing! I visited relatives in the western suburbs, include an uncle who just turned 89 (I think) and who I last saw when visiting the area in 2011. I spent a lovely day with him and his extended family at The Morton Arboretum, where the magnolias and tulips were at peak bloom, as you’ll see below. The next day, I had coffee with a former coworker whom I had never met outside the virtual space. I made sure to hit up a few of my favorite Chicagoland eateries, including Bob Chinn’s Crab House and – on no fewer than four separate occasions – Portillo’s!

I drove into the city three separate days. The first time was via Sheridan Road through the scenic North Shore. This excursion was to fact-check for geographic accuracy a couple locations featured in my novel; seeing them fresh and in person is always better than seeing them via Google Earth or by memory from the last time I took the drive, circa 2000. I did stop off at a few places along the way – the “Home Alone” house in Winnetka, the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, and Lighthouse Beach in Evanston. While the main façade of the “Home Alone” house remains unchanged, the detached garage has been moved and there is no circular driveway for pizza delivery drivers. The Bahá’í Temple’s striking architecture is comprised of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic elements, and I learned that this is the only temple located in the U.S., where just ~177,000 of the religion’s six million followers reside. It was threatening to snow when I arrived at Lighthouse Beach, so the sand was deserted and I didn’t linger long. The adjacent Grosse Pointe Light Station was a new discovery for me. See photos of the “Home Alone” house, Bahá’í Temple, and Lighthouse Beach below:

My other trips into the city were to check out points of interest a bit out of the way from the usual tourist circle. The first visit, on the extreme southern end of the city, was to the Pullman National Historical Park, one of the newest NPS sites, inaugurated during the Obama administration. The site commemorates work done, post-Civil War, to build Pullman passenger rail cars. Engineer George Pullman hired freed Black slaves, among others, to build sleeper cars, but his name has since fallen into disrepute when it was revealed that the houses he built near the grounds for workers to live in charged rents these same workers couldn’t afford to pay. In principle, this isn’t much different than today’s practice of paying waitresses less than minimum wage and forcing them to rely on tips. How are such things strictly legal? That being said, the sense of community fostered by Pullman residents was something we seldom see anymore, and while there’s little left of the factory buildings today, the neighborhood itself is a delight to explore. You can reach the site via public transportation on the 111^th Street Metra Electric stop, and – a rarity for Chicago – there is ample parking on the grounds. Admission is free.

My other visit was to the National Museum of Mexican Art. Located in the Pilsen neighborhood, this museum houses a superb collection of art by Mexicans and Mexican Americans. This was a nice complement to my trip to Mexico itself (more on that later), and as a museum nut I’m ashamed I had never heard of its existence until last year. Some 18,000 pieces are housed in the museum’s collection, and its curators sponsor cultural events throughout the city. For example, they are hosting a Selena tribute concert in Millennium Park on August 24^th. As for the collection, it features not just paintings, but religious art and sculpted Día de Muertos figures as well. My favorite museum piece, “My Funerals,” by Alejandro Romero of Tabasco, is below. There isn’t much in the way of public parking (I lucked into a space on the street), but the museum is within walking distance of the Damen Pink Line “L” stop. After your visit, be sure to check out the colorful murals adorning homes in the neighborhood; most of them can be found along South Wolcott Avenue. Like Pullman NHO, admission is free but donations are encouraged.

Down Mexico Way

¡Viva México! Many years have passed since I was able to find cheap airfare to Mexico City (MEX) from Knoxville (TYS). For all that Knoxville has to offer, nary a single airline has a hub here, which means a plane change is guaranteed. Chicago is a common layover destination en route to Mexico City, with airfares priced anywhere from $100-$300 cheaper. With Miles needing to borrow my car while his own vehicle was serviced, it worked out perfectly for me to fly to MEX direct from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD). In late April I set off for three weeks of tacos and nostalgia (a great band name!) in my favorite city in the world.

I shall attempt to be brief, as the Mexico portion of my trip merits a blog entry or two of its own, but in a nutshell, I wanted to see how the city has changed since my last visit, and of course to see old friends and visit favorite haunts. I want to give shout-outs to my friends Rosalina and Jorge for picking me up from the airport, offering laundry service, and even giving me a place to stay for a few nights. It was good to see them both, as well as my friends Bill, whose blog, Travels of a Retired Teacher, documents his Mexico City travels, and who recently married his long-time partner; Mario, who survived long COVID and who became a new father; and the intelligent, luminous Monroy, who overcame a traumatic head injury from last year and who only grew more lovely. <swoon>

Has Mexico City changed? Yes…and no. Most of its mass transit options have been unified under a single transit card, meaning you can now save time at the taquillas (ticket booths) except when topping off your balance, and meaning you don’t have to carry around so much loose change. Additionally, a new gondola/teleférico network called the Cablebús has been erected in a few sections of the city to offer easier connection via public transport to hard-to-reach hilltop barrios such as Cuautepec and Tlalpexco, each of which reside several kilometers north of the nearest metro station, Indios Verdes. The Cablebús uses the same transit card system, and while care should be taken exploring the neighborhoods serviced by it, the ride is an absolute delight.

The other major change occurred shortly after the country’s current president, Andrés Mañuel López Obrador, or AMLO, took office in 2018. Rather than stay in the presidential residence at Los Pinos (the pines), as is the tradition, he decided to “give it back to the people,” and had the multi-building complex turned into a museum and cultural center, free to the public. He now resides in the Palacio Nacional, which occupies the entire eastern flank of the city’s Zócalo, or main plaza. This creates its own set of problems in that several Zócalo metro station exits are now shuttered, and the surrounding streets a maze of police barricades, but I digress. The Los Pinos complex is impressive indeed. I counted no fewer than five museum buildings, plus an auditorium, an aqueduct, and some lovely gardens. It took two days for me to see everything.

On the other hand, Mexico City is the same as it’s always been, a teeming mass of chaos and beauty. The metro is as crowded as ever, worse even, and some streets are so crowded with pedestrians it’s hard to imagine that a pandemic shut everything down just three years ago. There was an earthquake during the first night of my visit, just as there were four temblors (quakes) during the last six weeks of my 2014 CDMX residency. The traffic is horrendous, although that’s hardly new news. Drug-infested hovels with corrugated metal roofs and just enough electricity for residents to charge their cell phones coexist beside highway turnpikes, as seen in the picture below. (I probably shouldn’t have been walking here, but I am, as my ex-girlfriend would say, muy terco – very stubborn.) On a more delightful note, sellers of Oaxaca-style tamales still ply the streets by bicycle, roving knife sharpers still announce their presence by whistle, and pick-up trucks still collect used mattresses, refrigerators, and scrap iron by blasting the iconic “Se compran…colchones” recording on a loop.

And then there’s that smell. If you’ve ever been to Mexico City, you know what I mean. As my friend Rosalina drove me from the airport to my hotel, I rolled down my window to take in the sights and smells, and the stench hit me like a ton of bricks. “Ahhh,” I said, breathing deep, “I’m home.”

In addition to the Los Pinos complex, I did visit several attractions and neighborhoods that were new to me. I left the city for a few days as well, visiting the pueblo mágico (magic town) of Tepotzotlán and the nearby Arcos del Sitio (official name: Xalpa Aqueduct), an imposing aqueduct dating back to colonial times, and I spent four great days in Querétaro, my favorite mid-sized Mexican city. I had been to QRO before, but this time it served as a base to check out another pueblo mágico, Bernal, home to the awesome, Rock of Gibraltar-esque Peña de Bernal. I had neither the gear nor the time for a proper roped ascent to the true summit, but a class-3 hiking trail took me three-fourths of the way. I was amazed to find fixed cables for two particularly steep sections, and astonished to find food vendors greeting me at the hike’s high point. I wouldn’t want to be descending the slick, porphyritic rock during a thunderstorm, especially not with a basket of botanas (snacks) strapped to my back.  

The suburb of Corregidora, really just an outlying Querétaro neighborhood, is home to another impressive site, the pre-Colombian pyramid of El Cerrito. A formidable pyramid, similar to the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacán only smaller, is built atop a small hill, or cerrito, and topped with a colonial-era fortin (fort) that was never completed. Access to the pyramid itself is prohibited, but the surrounding desert botanical garden on the grounds offers impressive views and lots of regional flora as well, include maguey plants and obsidian rock.

My visit to Tepotzotlán was a very long daytrip by bus from the paradero near Metro El Rosario. As for Querétaro, I spent four nights at Kuku Ruku, a boutique hostel/hotel on the outskirts of the Centro Histórico. Nice place; my four-bed dorm included a balcony, and the hostel was just one block from the Alameda Hidalgo park. The front desk staff was pretty useless, however.

I will conclude this section on Mexico City and environs by saying I had a wonderful time. I also – for the first time in countless visits and a little less than two years of CDMX residency – felt my age catching up to me. For one thing, the city was enduring an oppressive heat wave during my visit, the likes of which I had never experienced. For another thing, I got sandal blisters that caused excruciating pain and slowed me down. For another thing still, I rolled my ankle towards the end of my stay – my fault, as I didn’t watch where I was walking – and the pain lingered for two weeks. Finally, I underestimated the potency of chili peppers in the local cuisine, and should’ve eased in over several days instead of starting with a 9 out of 10 on the salsa picante scale on my first day. You can fill in the blanks from there. All of this being said, I’m sure I’ll make the same mistake next time. Some people never learn. 😊

Heading Home

I spent a few more days with Miles after flying back to ORD. I’d like to say I just rested my ankle, but alas, no. On a nostalgia kick, I went to Six Flags Great America, where I spent a small fortune in admission, parking ($36.00!), and third-rate concessions. Having not visited since 1999, I enjoyed the newer coasters as much as classics such as the American Eagle, but the park has lost some of its magic and lort, those older coasters have gotten rougher with age.

I hiked around the one-of-a-kind Volo Bog on my bum ankle (I told you I’ll never learn!) before taking the long way back to Tennessee – via Decatur and Springfield, IL. My Decatur stopover was brief, just dinner with old friends and a quick visit to my alma mater, which is barely recognizable today. Every fraternity house, residence hall, and off-campus apartment I lived in, save one, has been razed. However, the smell of soy, that Decatur staple, still lingers.

A 40-minute drive took me to the state capital, Springfield, where I spent two busy days visiting more Lincoln-related sites. The Lincoln Home National Historic Site comprises several blocks in downtown Springfield. Here, a grid of historic homes have been preserved and the streets passing them closed to vehicle traffic. The house in which Lincoln lived as an adult before being elected president can be visited on a guided tour, which I shared with a school group. There is no fee to visit the site or tour the home, but the gated parking lot costs a reasonable $2.00/hour.

If you enjoy urban walking, as I do, know that the Old and New State Capitol buildings are within reasonable walking distance. So are the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices, where Honest Abe and his junior partner, William H. Herndon, practiced law after the state capital was moved from Vandalia to Springfield. I didn’t look into whether you can tour the inside. Not tired yet? A few short blocks will take you to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, an impressive place that spans two city blocks. Dioramas, buskers in period attire, and videos combine to tell Lincoln’s story, and if a visit here doesn’t convince you he was our greatest president, nothing will. (I know, I know, he’s cancelled due to his complicated relationship with Native Americans…sigh.)

The remaining Lincoln sites are further afield and require a car. The first, on the outskirts of town, is the sprawling Oak Ridge Cemetery. The thing to do is visit Lincoln’s tomb. Be sure to rub his nose on the bust outside the mausoleum, where he is entombed along with wife Mary Todd and sons Edward, William, and Tad (Thomas). His fourth son, Robert, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery to honor his enlistment as a Union Army captain during the Civil War. Interestingly, I learned that Robert, who later became a lawyer, served as general counsel for the aforementioned Pullman Company. It seems that as regards Illinois National Parks, everything is connected.

I suspect most tourists to Oak Ridge Cemetery visit Lincoln’s tomb, then quickly leave. I recommend lingering; there is a peaceful beauty here that invites thoughtful wandering and encourages photography. Be respectful, of course, and be sure to check out the military memorials near the J. David Jones Parkway entrance (see photos below).

I had never heard of the final Lincoln site in the area until chatting with a ranger at Lincoln Home NHS. Lincoln’s New Salem, 20 miles out of town in the absolute middle of nowhere (no offense to the residents of nearby Peterson, IL), is an open-air museum on a forested hillside along the Sangamon River. It was at New Salem, a village with 23 buildings, most of them log cabins, that Honest Abe became interested in politics after serving as postmaster. All but one of the buildings you see today have been reconstructed in the original style and over their original foundations. Most of them are open for you to peer inside; costumed docents are veritable fonts of knowledge. Additionally, a small museum houses period artifacts and features placards about the difficulties navigating the nearby river by steamer. Like the Lincoln Home itself, admission is free. Bring bug spray.

With that, I was on my way home. Ankle pain was setting in after all that ill-advised walking, and I had to bail on a friend’s invite to stop off for a visit in Cincinnati (and a side trip to Kings Island Amusement Park, of course) along the way. By now, six weeks in, I was downright exhausted, and the drive took forever. Traffic got heavy about an hour outside of Nashville and never let up for the remainder of the drive. It was just north of Nashville that a semi passed and kicked up a rock, which left a sizable crack in my windshield. Ugh. Things could’ve been worse, I know, but still…

What’s Next

Still reading? Blog entries of this length are why I seldom post anymore, and probably a barometer of why my novel is so long. Thanks for reading this far; I’m almost finished, I swear!

My top priority is to publish my novel. I have re-read it twice since getting back from vacation, looking mostly for typos but finding several continuity errors instead. I have addressed all of those save one, and found a young illustrator of immense talent to design the book jacket. I know I’ll need to read the book at least one more time, not only to triple-check for errors but also to make sure any corrections to the continuity gaffes are themselves devoid of gaffes. Note to any aspiring authors: It is imperative to read your work at least a dozen times before considering it finished. Do not skip this step, perhaps the most vital of all.

Since I plan on self-publishing, I will need all the marketing help I can get. I have watched hours upon hours of videos on the subject; I can expect to make a book trailer, to open family-friendly author accounts on such sites as Goodreads and Amazon, and to create writer accounts for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and MySpace. Okay, that last one was a joke. That being said, I’m sure there are other social media sites I can’t even think of; my brain is full, apologies. I will want to sign up for book fairs and festivals, to donate copies to libraries, and to do public readings and podcasts should there be enough interest.  I will want to follow up the hardcover publication with e-book and paperback versions. Finally, lest I put the cart before the course, I will want to send ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) to book nerds in exchange for honest reviews prior to the official launch. As to that last point, I’d like to thank beta readers Nan, Jorge, and Tessa, who provided honest feedback of what worked and what didn’t, and to apologize to them for the typos and gaffes I should’ve caught before reaching out to them.   

I need to find a new job, too. The ideal scenario finds me having the financial security to hold off until my book is published, and to find something outside the dreadful call center industry, but that may be wishful thinking on both counts. I hope to squeeze in a few seasonal hikes in the Smokies or along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I hope to meet up with friends in Cincinnati and Cleveland before summer’s end. I will be taking my dad to Charlotte later this month for his 81^st birthday; we’ll be seeing the Charlotte Knights, the AAA affiliate of our beloved Chicago White Sox, take on the Memphis Redbirds, the AAA affiliate of the crosstown Chicago Cubs.

______________________________

So as the saying goes, that’s all the news that’s fit to print. Traveling to Chicago and abroad gave me my groove back, and writing helped me feel, after my job loss, that I haven’t spent the last two years of my life in vain. Wish me luck as I finalize my novel. Let me know which title you prefer…and thanks!