Freak Magnet

Belize Bound

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:09:20 -0800

This is hilarious (says the snobby editor).

++++++++++++

In the wee hours of December 26, I'll be winging my way southward to Belize for an 8-day trip.

The planned route.

I still have to pack but I have a pretty extensive list of what I'm bringing, what I need to buy (neosporin, extra batteries), and what I still need to do (photocopy my passport). Thankfully, I'm taking tomorrow off because I also have to finish buying crap for my brothers and sister-in-laws' Christmas stockings (yeah, I don't know why we still do this but I volunteered last year to take it over for the adults. My mom is buying stuff for the kids' stockings). I've tried to get useful if weird stuff for them: Zombie Scrub for one of the boys, nautical cookie cutters for Gloria, space invaders-shaped ice cube trays for someone (okay...maybe that's not terribly useful). Maybe I'll go up to Mud and Metal tomorrow to see what else I can find.

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Blurbs

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:49:04 -0800

Ann Rule, the well-known, best-selling true-crime author, has agreed to read the proofs of our serial killer book and possibly (depending on what she thinks of it obviously) provide us with a blurb for the back cover! Amazing! When my boss brought up the idea of contacting Rule, I (inwardly) rolled my eyes and thought "yeah, right. In a million years that'll happen." Ha! Shows what I know. My boss emailed her at 5 pm on Thursday and had an answer the next morning. Same thing with this guy, who I suggested as a potential blurb-er after reading that he was a professor (the academics, they stick together). I've read a couple of his books and just ordered this one, which looks like something I'd enjoy.

++++++++++++

MJ posted this on Facebook or Twitter or whatever a while back and I neglected to check out. She reminded me of it Friday at lunch. Too funny! I especially liked the definition of a university press

UNIVERSITY PRESS: A business predicated on obtaining materials from scholars without compensating them in order to sell the same materials at high prices to scholars.

It's funny 'cause it's true

So, yeah, we got some snow. And as is typical for the Baltimore/DC-area, people lost their damn minds. I walked into a supermarket Friday night (stupid, yes, but I really didn't have anything in the house), saw the enormous lines and watched one woman having a complete screaming meltdown at a cashier, and turned around and walked out. I figured I could survive on what I could scrounge up at the Ridgley Mini-mart (where I was the only customer).

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Annapolis Serial Killer

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:52:44 -0800

I'm currently working on a true crime book about a deaf serial killer who lived in Annapolis in the 80s. He was a big, charming, good-looking guy who had an eye for the (hearing) ladies. Who he would then stalk when they realized what a controlling freak he was and tried to dump his ass. He also set fire to houses, slashed tires, stole money and property, killed family pets, and threatened cops with an axe. And he killed three people, including one poor guy whose job he was hired for the next day. Mind-boggling.

Anyway, we only had one photo for the book, which we were using on the cover. How can you have a true crime book without any photos? I emailed the local paper's managing editor and she dug up three photos of the guy. Which was good but not great. I double-checked with my boss about possible photos and she insisted there weren't any. Until she came across a bunch of xeroxes the authors had sent a long time ago of all the visual material for the book. Hallelujah! I emailed them and asked them to send me the hard copies of everything they had.

I received that package yesterday. A lot of good stuff--photos of two of the victims, photos of some of the investigators, drawings of evidence from the investigation, the murderer's initialed Miranda warning...and several crime scene photos of the second murder. Which we will not be using because, good lord, they are hard to look at.

Not for my co-worker V. though. She is a devout Baptist but, man, does she like her guts and gore. We often talk about horror movies and if I come across a particularly brutal novel, I'll pass it on to her (she loved, loved, loved Karin Slaughter's most recent book Undone. Slaughter's books always seem to begin with the most violent, shocking situations imaginable). Anyway, she was standing next to me when I came across the crime scene photos.

Me: "Good god, the authors are right. We can't use these."

V.: "What?! You have to use them!"

Me: "No way! No one wants to look at these! *I* don't want to look at them. We are not using them."

(The victim was beaten to death with an axe handle.)

V. (clucking her tongue disapprovingly): "A crying shame is what that is. A crying shame."

Yes, that's how all the big publishing decisions get made...at least at our press.

Anyway, kudos to everyone out there who has to deal with traumatic stuff like that every day. I really don't know how you do it.

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Grief and fruitcake

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:47:20 -0800

One of my authors stopped by the office today. She had just returned from her Fulbright semester in Italy. She'd heard about my father and had brought me a panforte margherita (Italian fruitcake) from Siena, which was exceedingly sweet of her. She's lost both of her parents--in August, before she left and before he died, she'd given me a pep (?) talk in her typically blunt way: "It sucks. It really, really sucks but you get through it. You live through it and then you're on the other end of it." So we talked about his death a bit this afternoon and she said "A year. That's how long it takes. After a year, from my experience anyways, you'll be okay with it."

We'll see. I'm not looking forward to Christmas terribly much though we did give my brother Dan Dad's "Christmas pants" (these horrible plaid polyester pants he wore every Christmas to annoy the rest of us) as a birthday gift a few weeks ago. Will he actually wear them? I have my doubts.

Dad sailing

One of Dan's friends snipped this photo of Dad from the online video memorial (love the second photo--Dad is holding the Human Torch comic book but I'm not sure what's going on with what he's wearing. The third photo freaks me out because I had no idea my Aunt Nancy and I looked so much alike as kids) and had it blown up and matted. I need to stop thinking of my brothers' childhood friends as the annoying doofuses they were back then and realize that, some of them at least, have grown into thoughtful, intelligent adults (some of them, unfortunately, have not changed much. More on that later).

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New acquisition

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:57:51 -0800

I am now the proud owner of a 2005 RAV-4 AWD, a compact SUV but a SUV all the same. My mom and I spent several hours at the MVA yesterday getting the title and tags switched to my name and getting my father's car titled in her name. I have to admit it's a bit weird, not having a car for 10 years or so, to suddenly be driving again. I got a little freaked out by this idiot on 97 who was weaving in and out of traffic that I decided to take Ritchie Highway into Baltimore (not the best decision ever made but...well, I'll adjust to idiotic driving again, I'm sure). However, going to the grocery store and not having it take 3 hours? Absolutely wonderful.

Of course, I did have to park the car in my neighborhood and walk over to the parking authority to get my residential parking permit. Is midday traffic in downtown Baltimore always that insane?

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I never thought we'd be...

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:02:08 -0800

I never thought we'd be the type of family who would refer to an urn of ashes by name. And yet, here I was, a day after my father's funeral, reading over my mom's list of what to pack for our trip down to the Outer Banks and right after "beach towels" and "fishing rods" was "Jim."

And bring him we did. I was somehow responsible for wedging the box (the urn we chose doesn't look like a traditional urn--it's a wooden box with a sailboat etched into the front) behind the front seats. I'd periodically look back to make sure he was still where he should be; once, after my mother braked suddenly I found one of the coolers upside down and dripping all over the urn. I kept quiet about it, not wanting to upset my mom, and hastily brushed off all the water.

He sat on the breakfast bar, front turned toward the ocean the entire time we were down there. Colin and Karen had made the arrangements for the house--a giant four-story oceanfront "cottage" with a pool and a hot tub in Avon, a section of Hatteras where you can drive on the beach.

It was a good idea, I think, though hard at times. We'd started going down to the Outer Banks every year in 1973 and it was strange to be there without Dad.

Okay, sorta with him. Only not. I'm not really sure how I feel about all this urn-as-dad stuff. Or dad-as-urn. And, I don't know if the larger public will think this is creepy but my brothers and I all got keepsake urns (smaller urns that contain part of the ashes). I think we all initially acted badly to it when the funeral director suggested it but then my sister-in-law jumped in (the one whose mom died last year and who, unfortunately, has had some skirmishes with her step-father about some of her mother's possessions. People! Write a will!) and said "I know it sounds weird right now but you'll probably regret it later if you don't." So now I have a black pewter (surprisingly heavy) heart, which, if I think too much about it, makes my head hurt. Hopefully it will bring some comfort in the future.

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The Great Gun Hunt

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:36:41 -0800

"Do you have any use for an unregistered gun?"

"What?!" I stared at my mother, momentarily confused, wondering exactly when we had joined the Mob.

"I'm just saying, if you want it, take it with you."

"I don't want it! Jesus, I turned down a taser from Colin because they're illegal in Baltimore. What makes you think I want to walk around with an unregistered gun without a permit?"

I think all of this was coming up because I (stupidly) told my mom that two people had been held up on my block in the past few weeks by teenagers with guns. And then this fourteen-year-old was shot in the stomach by police a few blocks up after he tried to rob a med student (actually I wonder if it wasn't the same group of kids. Things have been quiet ever since he got shot).

"Where is it, by the way?"

The gun was my grandfather's. After her mother died, my mom gave most of my granddad's extensive gun collection to one of her cousins, who was himself a gun collector. But she kept a few to herself: a shotgun, several rifles, and a handgun. Years ago, my brothers spirited away the shotgun and rifles but had left the handgun behind.

"Well, it's not in your father's closet."

We had cleaned out my dad's closet a few weeks before and it definitely had not been in there. Though I did find the title to his first boat and the invoice for my birth. Weird.

"It might be in the filing cabinet downstairs."

"Well, I'm going to go check. If there's a gun in the house, you should know where it is."

That's reasonable, right?

Well, it wasn't in there, though I did find a ton of ancient-looking ammunition--shotgun shells and bullets, which unnerved me. I mean, I know it's not going to blow up on its own but...still.

"If it's not in there, I'm sure he hid it in his woodshop."

Grrrrrrreaaaaaaaaaaat. I walked over and stared helplessly at his room. I think the man had every tool known in the universe and he never, EVER, threw out leftover paint or solvents or, well, anything. I half-heartedly opened a few drawers but didn't find much except for a Club (the thing to lock your steering wheel. Which is good since I am giving my mother a lot of money [to me] for her car and am planning to park it on the streets of Charm City) so I gave up. It just seemed hopeless. On the other hand, there seemed little chance that my nephew or nieces would happen upon it (my main concern in finding the gun) since they are not allowed to hang out in my dad's woodshop, which has plenty of equally dangerous things in it.

"I bet Dan would know," my mother said after I admitted defeat and immediately got the phone to call. He was on his way to BWI to pick up his sole crew member for a boat delivery from Annapolis to Charleston. And, yes, of course, he knew where it was.

"It's in a secret drawer he built into his work bench. You have to take the first drawer completely out and then you'll see it. And so why the sudden interest in the gun?"

"Well," I said primly, "I just wanted to make sure any dangerous weapons are secured before your children come over to Mom's house. You know, I was playing hide and seek with your kids on Wednesday and came across a rifle on the floor in one of your closets."

Dan started laughing. "That's a pellet gun, Deirdre [the dumbass was implied]. That's Granddad's old pellet gun!"

Oh. Well, whatever.

And he apparently knew what he was talking about because sure enough, behind the front drawers of one of my dad's workbenches were two concealed drawers: one containing not one but two handguns, a long-barreled 22 pistol and a much smaller "ladies" gun (according to my mother). The other drawer held a pistol cleaning kit and more old ammo.

So. Mystery solved. And I went home on the light rail, gunless.

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Part I. The Hospital

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:20:58 -0800

I was walking home from a local coffeeshop, trying to figure out how else to kill some time before the coronary care unit opened for visiting hours when my phone rang.

"He's crashing." It was my sister-in-law, the former ER nurse, the former EMT, the former firefighter. She sounded not quite panicked but somewhere on the verge. "Look, we're in the car on the way to pick up your mom. Can you get over there?"

The day before my dad had been taken by helicopter from the Annapolis hospital to Johns Hopkins for cardiac surgery. We had met with with the surgeon that evening--he'd been cautiously optimistic. "Ideally, we should have done this a few months ago. He would've had a better chance of recovery but we'll do some tests and let you know if we can do the surgery tomorrow."

And now he was crashing? What did that even mean, I wondered as I ran over to the Hilton and caught a cab to the hospital.

Once I got to the coronary care unit, I was waved in (not a good sign. It was 11:30 in the morning and visiting hours didn't start until after 12:30). The nurses had me put on a gown, gloves, and a mask (the mask was something new--the gown and gloves were sorta old hat by then).

Over the summer, I'd watched my father grow grayer and smaller and weaker and had gotten somewhat used to it. Walking into the hospital room, I stifled a gasp (thank god for the mask, I guess). He'd apparently heard me talking to the nurses and was turned to me, one arm outstretched. His left eye was almost completely rolled back in his head, while the other focused on me.

"Hey, Dad," I said softly as I sat down next to his bed. I took the outstretched hand in my own. "Deirdre, where am I?" he asked (the night before he'd asked my mom where she was staying--he thought we were in New York City). "You're not in Berlin," one of the nurses said. To me, "he thought he was in Germany this morning."

"Baltimore, Dad. You're in Hopkins." He stared incomprehendingly at me. And then he looked pissed off. I realized he couldn't understand me because of the mask (my father was very hard of hearing and refused to wear his hearing aid in the hospital).

I waited until the nurse left to push down the mask so he could read my lips. "When are they going to prep me for surgery? I just want to get this show on the road!"

"I don't know. The boys and mom and Karen are on their way in. They should be here shortly. I know the doctor wants to talk to us first. Why don't you just close your eyes and rest until they get here?" He nodded and shut his eyes for a few minutes.

About 15 minutes later, my brother Dan was at the door gowning up. "Hey Dad, Dan's here. He must've been working on the boat." (The boat my brother works on is docked over near Hanover Street bridge.) I have to admit I was hugely relieved that he was here. My big, capable, in control baby brother. He sat on the other side of the bed and took Dad's other hand. I can't remember what we talked about, boats probably or some problem Dan was having with the new owner.

Shortly after that, the rest of the family arrived. The doctor swooped in before everyone could get outfitted and asked to speak with all of us in another room. Odd. Usually the doctors just spoke to us in Dad's room. But we dutifully filed after him out into the waiting area.

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Rest in peace, Daddy...

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:21:11 -0800

Rest in peace, Daddy.

Dad

I don't know why I do these things to myself but I've been reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which chronicles the year after her husband died. But I found these quotes to particularly speak to me:

"The death of a parent...despite our preparation, indeed despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean's bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections."

"Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehension that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life."

Everyone I've spoken to who has been through something similar has mentioned these waves to me and they're absolutely right. I'll be walking along, thinking of something completely unconnected, and then a sound or a smell will trigger a memory of him and I'll start bawling. I've invested in some huge sun glasses in order to cry in public without looking too crazy.

And people have been exceptionally kind. I've received cards and letters from people I haven't seen in ages and some from people who I've never met in person (mostly freelancers).

My mom has been doing as well as can be expected. She's in Charlotte right now, visiting her best friend. Last weekend was the first weekend since August that I spent at my own house. I'd been going down and helping her get her financial stuff in order and go through his belongings.

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And then....

nobody@vox.com(deirdre) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:24:49 -0700

Just got off the phone with my youngest brother (the calm one) who is very agitated about this whole trip to the beach. He talked to my mom this morning and found out my dad had a really bad day yesterday (fever, extremely low blood pressure at dialysis, shaking, wheezing). Then he talked to my other brother (who picked up my dad from dialysis last night) who thinks Dad might have pneumonia. The two of them want to meet with me tonight, decide a plan of action, and then go over to our parents' house as a united front. Somehow I don't think I'm going to be leaving for the beach tomorrow.

Update: Apparently my dad's cardiologist got wind of the trip and called to tell them he thought traveling now would be a very bad thing. He's trying to get my dad in to see the cardiac surgeon at Hopkins ASAP. So we're bagging the trip (well, Dan told me to wait to cancel my kayak/beach wheelchair rentals until this evening after they've heard whether or not they'll be meeting with the surgeon sometime soon).

Another Update: My brother Dan just called--he and my mom are taking my dad over to the ER. Apparently Dad has become very, very weak. Just cancelled the rentals, the hotel reservations, and the petsitter. Keep us in your thoughts.

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