American Science: Chapter 4 - C 6 H 12 O 6

Thunder Mountain showed back up about that time with the drinks and my Funyuns.

“What’d I miss?” he asked, sitting down and sliding my can of Fresca over to me.

“Not much,” Homicide said, taking a sip of his coffee. “Hey man,” he grimaced “What the hell? You know I don’t take sugar.”

“Aw, I forgot. You want me to go get you another one?”

“No, I’ll go get it myself,” he said as he got up and headed toward the door. “You carry on with your story, honey. I won’t be long.”

“No problem.” I looked at Thunder Mountain. “So, Michael had to go to his first Boy Scout meeting the night he moved in next door to me. Little did he know that he and the Boy Scouts were going to get on like a house on fire. Two years later, he was on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout.”

“What’s so special about that?” he asked.

“It’s the highest achievement a Boy Scout can attain,” Homicide said, as he walked in holding a fresh cup of coffee. “Only four percent of Boy Scouts ever achieve this rank and it usually takes years to get get there. The fact that he was on his way in only two years is pretty impressive.”

“Exactly.” I said. “So, he was a model Boy Scout. It turns out that scouting was his parents’ worst nightmare. It was full of science and technology type merit badges, including the Chemistry merit badge and the Atomic Energy merit badge, both of which he more or less could’ve earned in his sleep. For someone as adept at chemistry as he was, the requirements were a joke. He had been performing complicated experiments for years and they wanted him to do some lame brain experiment with an onion. It was kid’s stuff.

As for the Atomic Energy badge, that was a joke as well. They wanted him to build a model of a reactor. He thought he could do them one better.”

“Is that where the idea for the reactor came from?”

“Maybe initially. It was a long time coming, I think. You see, he was really good at the scouting stuff, but it wasn’t always so good to him. He caught a lot of flack for being a Boy Scout.”

Homicide leaned in. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that kids can be cruel. Michael was really proud of all the things that he was doing in the Boy Scouts. For the first time in a really long time, he felt like he had a place where he belonged. He wanted to share that. He made the mistake of being too enthusiastic about it, I guess. One time, he did a speech at school about what it meant to him to be a Boy Scout. The kids in the class, mostly the other boys, were so heartless about it - they wouldn’t let him live it down. He even wore his uniform to school that day, so the teasing was incessant.”

“Sounds rough.” Thunder Mountain mused.

“It was hard on him, but I guess the benefits of being a Boy Scout outweighed the costs for him and he stayed the course. Maybe it was sheer will and determination, but he wasn’t going to let the kids at school dissuade him from the one place he felt like he could be himself - the one place where people weren’t looking at him like he had three heads when he starting going on about science and chemistry.

It wasn’t only that though. Michael was surprisingly good at leading the younger boys. He was very good natured and the younger boys just loved him. They thought he was so cool, which was awesome for him, since no one his own age thought anything of the sort.

Back to the reactor though, I don’t know that in the end it was all about the Atomic Energy badge. It may have begun there, but there were more things going on than just a boy wanting a merit badge.

“What do you mean?” asked Homicide.

“Well, for one thing, Michael Spaulding is probably the kindest, most altruistic person I’ve ever known. I think that once he got the idea in his head that he could build a nuclear reactor, delusions of grandeur took over. Then it was a breeder reactor. Then he was going to help the community with his reactor. Then he was going to help the whole world with it. But underneath all that, I think that he was just interested in finally proving to his parents that he could do more than blow things up. They never really got over the whole fireworks thing and even though his grandmother was supportive, his mom and dad would have loved nothing better than to have seen him leave chemistry behind him for good and instead foster a love of biology or astrophysics. They wanted a doctor for a son and got a mad scientist instead.”

“What makes you think this?” Thunder Mountain asked.

“Just little things. I’d see literature from pre-med schools in his room. ‘What’s that?’ I’d ask.

‘Oh, just something my parents dropped off,” he would say. Then, “How many hospitals do you think we could run with one reactor?’

You know, little things”

“So, what did he actually do to get the Atomic Energy Merit Badge?” Homicide asked.

“Well, there are several requirements to get any badge. I’m sad to say that I know all of this just from hanging around him for as long as I have. For that particular one, hmm, what all did he have to do? He built the model nuclear reactor, which like I said, was kind of a joke considering. Umm, he had to build a 3D model of an element from the periodic table - he chose Uranium. I helped with that one.

Uh, gosh, I don’t remember everything, it’s very involved, but he did all of it like it was Mickey Mouse stuff. It just wasn’t an issue. He had a harder time earning his swimming merit badge to be honest. Couldn’t manage the backstroke for the longest time. Worked at it all summer one year until he finally got the hang of it. I swear we all had fungus growing in our ears from spending so much time in Lake Stella that summer.”

“Why didn’t you all just go to the YMCA if Michael was the pool boy?” asked Thunder Mountain.

I looked at him incredulously. “I’m not the type of person who gets a YMCA membership.”

“What does that mean?”

“You want me to spell it out for you? My family is too poor.”

“I though the YMCA had need based scholarships.”

“Yeah, well we’re just poor enough to not be able to afford it and just well off enough to not qualify for need based assistance. That sort of thing is based on TANF eligibility, which we don’t receive.”

“You’re awfully articulate for a 15 year old.”

“I have to be. Anyway, I thought you guys were the FBI, not HRS and that we were talking about my relationship with Michael Spaulding, not my socioeconomic status.”

“Okay, sorry. Please, continue.”

“Like I was saying, getting the Atomic Energy badge for Michael, was a cake walk, but as far as the Boy Scouts went, it was a big deal. Apparently, he was the only person in a several hundred mile radius who had even attempted the thing, much less gotten it, so he was kind of a big deal in the Boy Scouts afterward. That didn’t interest him though. He was interested in whether or not he could actually build the real thing. The model had been easy enough after all. And it wasn’t like he didn’t already have a little bit of radioactive material he could work with.

For reasons I will never understand, he got it into his head some years ago that he wanted to collect a sample of every element of the periodic table. I mean, every last one. Even the highly unstable ones. Even the radioactive ones. At one point he had a can with a lump of sodium in it. Do you know what happens when sodium meets air? Kaboom! So, in his quest for the elements, he’s managed to amass more than a little radium, some thorium, and a little bit of yellow ore, otherwise known as uranium ore. This was enough to get started with the process anyway."

“Where does a 17 year old kid get radium?” asked Thunder Mountain.

“Well you know where we got things later on, but as for what he had to begin with? For starters, he was probably 13 or 14 when he first started collecting the stuff and he got it from scraping the paint off of old clock faces. You’ve perhaps heard of the Radium Girls?”

Thunder Mountain gave a perplexed look. Homicide decided to chime in.

“Radium Girls: factory painters from the late 1910s, early 1920s who contracted radium poisoning from licking the paintbrushes they used to paint the faces of clocks with luminescent radium paint.”

“Exactly. You can still find some of these clocks in antique stores. Michael would buy them and scrape the paint off into a little jar.”

“Sounds dangerous.” Thunder Mountain said.

“He always used a mask, but yeah, it probably wasn’t the brightest idea.”

“What about the thorium?”

“Camping lantern mantles.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they’re coated with it or something, so he’d process the stuff back out until it was pure thorium.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. A lot of fire? He wouldn’t really let me be around when he was working on that sort of stuff.”

“What about the uranium ore?”

“You’d be surprised what you can buy through a mail order catalog. Why are you guys so worried about this stuff anyway? He obtained all that stuff completely legally. On the up and up. Anyone, anywhere, any day of the week could do what he did, if they had the know how and the wherewithal.”

“Jalisco, is it just me, or do you find that notion particularly disturbing?”

“Most people wouldn’t want to, Martin.”

American Science: Chapter 4 - C 6 H 12 O 6

Thunder Mountain showed back up about that time with the drinks and my Funyuns.

“What’d I miss?” he asked, sitting down and sliding my can of Fresca over to me.

“Not much,” Homicide said, taking a sip of his coffee. “Hey man,” he grimaced “What the hell? You know I don’t take sugar.”

“Aw, I forgot. You want me to go get you another one?”

“No, I’ll go get it myself,” he said as he got up and headed toward the door. “You carry on with your story, honey. I won’t be long.”

“No problem.” I looked at Thunder Mountain. “So, Michael had to go to his first Boy Scout meeting the night he moved in next door to me. Little did he know that he and the Boy Scouts were going to get on like a house on fire. Two years later, he was on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout.”

“What’s so special about that?” he asked.

“It’s the highest achievement a Boy Scout can attain,” Homicide said, as he walked in holding a fresh cup of coffee. “Only four percent of Boy Scouts ever achieve this rank and it usually takes years to get get there. The fact that he was on his way in only two years is pretty impressive.”

“Exactly.” I said. “So, he was a model Boy Scout. It turns out that scouting was his parents’ worst nightmare. It was full of science and technology type merit badges, including the Chemistry merit badge and the Atomic Energy merit badge, both of which he more or less could’ve earned in his sleep. For someone as adept at chemistry as he was, the requirements were a joke. He had been performing complicated experiments for years and they wanted him to do some lame brain experiment with an onion. It was kid’s stuff.

As for the Atomic Energy badge, that was a joke as well. They wanted him to build a model of a reactor. He thought he could do them one better.”

“Is that where the idea for the reactor came from?”

“Maybe initially. It was a long time coming, I think. You see, he was really good at the scouting stuff, but it wasn’t always so good to him. He caught a lot of flack for being a Boy Scout.”

Homicide leaned in. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that kids can be cruel. Michael was really proud of all the things that he was doing in the Boy Scouts. For the first time in a really long time, he felt like he had a place where he belonged. He wanted to share that. He made the mistake of being too enthusiastic about it, I guess. One time, he did a speech at school about what it meant to him to be a Boy Scout. The kids in the class, mostly the other boys, were so heartless about it - they wouldn’t let him live it down. He even wore his uniform to school that day, so the teasing was incessant.”

“Sounds rough.” Thunder Mountain mused.

“It was hard on him, but I guess the benefits of being a Boy Scout outweighed the costs for him and he stayed the course. Maybe it was sheer will and determination, but he wasn’t going to let the kids at school dissuade him from the one place he felt like he could be himself - the one place where people weren’t looking at him like he had three heads when he starting going on about science and chemistry.

It wasn’t only that though. Michael was surprisingly good at leading the younger boys. He was very good natured and the younger boys just loved him. They thought he was so cool, which was awesome for him, since no one his own age thought anything of the sort.

Back to the reactor though, I don’t know that in the end it was all about the Atomic Energy badge. It may have begun there, but there were more things going on than just a boy wanting a merit badge.

“What do you mean?” asked Homicide.

“Well, for one thing, Michael Spaulding is probably the kindest, most altruistic person I’ve ever known. I think that once he got the idea in his head that he could build a nuclear reactor, delusions of grandeur took over. Then it was a breeder reactor. Then he was going to help the community with his reactor. Then he was going to help the whole world with it. But underneath all that, I think that he was just interested in finally proving to his parents that he could do more than blow things up. They never really got over the whole fireworks thing and even though his grandmother was supportive, his mom and dad would have loved nothing better than to have seen him leave chemistry behind him for good and instead foster a love of biology or astrophysics. They wanted a doctor for a son and got a mad scientist instead.”

“What makes you think this?” Thunder Mountain asked.

“Just little things. I’d see literature from pre-med schools in his room. ‘What’s that?’ I’d ask.

‘Oh, just something my parents dropped off,” he would say. Then, “How many hospitals do you think we could run with one reactor?’

You know, little things”

“So, what did he actually do to get the Atomic Energy Merit Badge?” Homicide asked.

“Well, there are several requirements to get any badge. I’m sad to say that I know all of this just from hanging around him for as long as I have. For that particular one, hmm, what all did he have to do? He built the model nuclear reactor, which like I said, was kind of a joke considering. Umm, he had to build a 3D model of an element from the periodic table - he chose Uranium. I helped with that one.

Uh, gosh, I don’t remember everything, it’s very involved, but he did all of it like it was Mickey Mouse stuff. It just wasn’t an issue. He had a harder time earning his swimming merit badge to be honest. Couldn’t manage the backstroke for the longest time. Worked at it all summer one year until he finally got the hang of it. I swear we all had fungus growing in our ears from spending so much time in Lake Stella that summer.”

“Why didn’t you all just go to the YMCA if Michael was the pool boy?” asked Thunder Mountain.

I looked at him incredulously. “I’m not the type of person who gets a YMCA membership.”

“What does that mean?”

“You want me to spell it out for you? My family is too poor.”

“I though the YMCA had need based scholarships.”

“Yeah, well we’re just poor enough to not be able to afford it and just well off enough to not qualify for need based assistance. That sort of thing is based on TANF eligibility, which we don’t receive.”

“You’re awfully articulate for a 15 year old.”

“I have to be. Anyway, I thought you guys were the FBI, not HRS and that we were talking about my relationship with Michael Spaulding, not my socioeconomic status.”

“Okay, sorry. Please, continue.”

“Like I was saying, getting the Atomic Energy badge for Michael, was a cake walk, but as far as the Boy Scouts went, it was a big deal. Apparently, he was the only person in a several hundred mile radius who had even attempted the thing, much less gotten it, so he was kind of a big deal in the Boy Scouts afterward. That didn’t interest him though. He was interested in whether or not he could actually build the real thing. The model had been easy enough after all. And it wasn’t like he didn’t already have a little bit of radioactive material he could work with.

For reasons I will never understand, he got it into his head some years ago that he wanted to collect a sample of every element of the periodic table. I mean, every last one. Even the highly unstable ones. Even the radioactive ones. At one point he had a can with a lump of sodium in it. Do you know what happens when sodium meets air? Kaboom! So, in his quest for the elements, he’s managed to amass more than a little radium, some thorium, and a little bit of yellow ore, otherwise known as uranium ore. This was enough to get started with the process anyway."

“Where does a 17 year old kid get radium?” asked Thunder Mountain.

“Well you know where we got things later on, but as for what he had to begin with? For starters, he was probably 13 or 14 when he first started collecting the stuff and he got it from scraping the paint off of old clock faces. You’ve perhaps heard of the Radium Girls?”

Thunder Mountain gave a perplexed look. Homicide decided to chime in.

“Radium Girls: factory painters from the late 1910s, early 1920s who contracted radium poisoning from licking the paintbrushes they used to paint the faces of clocks with luminescent radium paint.”

“Exactly. You can still find some of these clocks in antique stores. Michael would buy them and scrape the paint off into a little jar.”

“Sounds dangerous.” Thunder Mountain said.

“He always used a mask, but yeah, it probably wasn’t the brightest idea.”

“What about the thorium?”

“Camping lantern mantles.”

“What?”

“Yeah, they’re coated with it or something, so he’d process the stuff back out until it was pure thorium.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. A lot of fire? He wouldn’t really let me be around when he was working on that sort of stuff.”

“What about the uranium ore?”

“You’d be surprised what you can buy through a mail order catalog. Why are you guys so worried about this stuff anyway? He obtained all that stuff completely legally. On the up and up. Anyone, anywhere, any day of the week could do what he did, if they had the know how and the wherewithal.”

“Jalisco, is it just me, or do you find that notion particularly disturbing?”

“Most people wouldn’t want to, Martin.”

American Science: Chapter 3 - C 12 H 22 O 11

“So, after the debacle with the fireworks, Michael was sent to live with Grandma Stewart in Crescent City, which as you guy probably know isn’t all that far from Fruitland. It’s not like he had to change schools or anything, and really he was probably in a better position overall. He was in town instead of out in the sticks, he was closer to school, to the store, and to friends, if he’d had any.”

“He wasn’t very popular then?” asked Homicide.

“Well, no. I mean, he had friends, but not anyone that he was really close with. He didn’t have people over on the weekends, you know. That could have been because no one wanted to drive all the way out to Fruitland though. Sure, there were a few kids in Mount Royal that he hung out with, but even they weren’t very close. It was a convenience thing more than anything else. He was sort of a loner - more interested in his experiments than in forming relationships with people.

Anyway, when he moved in with Grandma Stewart, his parents also told him that he was going to join the Boy Scouts and get a job. They thought that this would keep him too busy to get into trouble with his experiments. Part of the reason he was sent to live with Grandma was the fact that Crescent City was closer to the jobs and she could drive him to work until he was old enough to drive. They had hoped that he would get a job at the Miller’s Supermarket, but the manager was still a little sore about the whole ammonia incident, so instead he wound up being the pool boy at both the YMCA and the KOA Kampground. This was right up his alley as he was able to use his chemistry know how with the pool chemicals. He was really good at it too. The pools were never so clean as when Michael worked on them.

The day he moved into Grandma Stewart’s, my cousin Diane, my brother Stephen, and I were all hanging out on the porch of our trailer next door. The houses were up on this hill that overlook the lake - probably the only high ground in Crescent City, right next to the fernery and the Magnolia crop that belongs to Mr. Newbold - but you all knew that. Why am I telling you that? You can see the lake from our porches.

We were sitting on the porch looking for something to do when we saw Michael moving all this stuff out of his Grandma’s car into the garage. He was hauling box after box of clanking glass and eventually curiosity got the better of me and I had to pop over and introduce myself. I was only 12 at the time and rather precocious. Stephen and Diane went with me.
I was the first to peek my head around the side of the open garage door. Michael was inside setting up his lab/bedroom.

‘Hi! Can we come in?’

He looked up, startled and nearly dropped a box of beakers. ‘Uh, hi. Sure. I guess. Who are you?’

‘I’m Marlene,’ I said, extending my hand, ‘and this is my brother Stephen. We live next door.’

‘Stephen? Aren’t you Mr. Behm’s T.A.?’

‘Yeah,’ Stephen replied, ‘How’d you know that?’

‘I’ve seen you around.’ Michael said as he began un-boxing the beakers and setting them on a shelf.

Just then, Diane butted herself in front of Stephen and myself ‘And I’m Diane,’ she said, glaring at me. ‘Thanks for introducing me Marlene.’

‘I was getting to it.’ I said.

Michael looked like a deer caught in headlights as Diane batted her eyes at him. ‘Um,’ he swallowed.
‘It’s nice to meet you too.’

‘Oh, the pleasure is, all mine.’

Now, it should be noted that despite the fact that Michael was at this time a fully fledged Chemistry geek, he was not an altogether unattractive one. He was a little gangly, and little lanky, but he was what adults would call conventionally handsome. Blonde hair, parted to the side, blue eyes, average height, nice smile. If it weren’t for his awkward manner, most girls would have been all over this guy.

Diane, however was not most girls. She laughed as she flipped her frosted, Rachel cut hair over her shoulder and said in a chirpy voice “I haven’t seen you around before.”

Michael swallowed. ‘That’s funny. I go to Crescent City. I’m going into the 10th grade.’

‘Oh, wow! I’m going into the 9th! Maybe I’ll see you around next year!’ Diane shrieked.

‘Wow, that is cool,’ Stephen said, rolling his eyes ‘we’re all going to go to school together. How fun.’

‘Yeah, I’ll be starting 7th grade out there in the fall too.’ I said.

“Wait,” Thunder Mountain interrupted. “What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you remember?” Homicide replied. “They have a Junior/Senior High School. It goes from the
Seventh to the Twelfth grade.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Noth that that matters. Get on with the story.”

“Let the girl take her time, we don’t have anywhere better to be, Martin.”

“Okay, Jalisco, but you know, at some point, we ought to break for dinner.”

‘‘Jalisco’ I thought. ‘Maybe ‘Martin’ is Thunder Mountain’s last name.’

Homicide shifted in his seat. “It’s only 4 o’clock.”

“I know man, but I got low blood sugar.”

“Go grab a Coke or something then.”

“Alright, you want anything?” Thunder Mountain said, as he got up and started to walk toward the door.

“Hmmm . . . Maybe a coffee if they have any. How about you, sweetheart? You want anything?”

I looked up at Thunder Mountain. “I would love a Fresca.”

“She wants a Fresca.” Thunder Mountain scoffed.

“Don’t worry” I said. “I know they have them in the soda machine, and if not, they have them in the package store at the Parker House next door. Actually, if you’re gonna go over there, a bag of Funyuns would be great too.”

“Funyuns?”

“Yeah,” I said, digging around in my pocket. “Here’s five bucks. That ought to cover it.”

“Okay.” Thunder Mountain said as he grabbed the money from my hand. “I’ll be back.”

And with that Thunder Mountain was gone. I looked at Homicide.

“Should we wait for him to get back?”

“Nah, I’m recording all of this for posterity. You can go ahead.”

“Where was I?”

“You were telling Michael that you were going to be starting 7th grade in the fall.”

“Oh, right. So, we were all going to be going to school together, and yet somehow, no one was acquainted with one another yet.

‘Well, this just won’t do,’ I said. ‘You’re our neighbor now.’

I was the kind of kid that was always trying to make connections. I was the matchmaker of the group. I thought that we would all be the best of friends like one of those groups you read about in books that go on adventures together and solve mysteries together or something. I guess in some ways it sort of turned out like that, except it way more like a trio cum duo instead of a group. Diane was never really involved except to try and get into Michael’s pants.

‘What sorts of things are you into Michael?’ I asked.

‘Um, science?’ he replied, while absentmindedly opening a box of lab supplies.

‘Oh really? What kind of science?’I asked, as I began to put the supplies on the shelf next to him.

‘Chemistry?’he said, handing me jars of chemicals out of the box.

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘By the way, where to you want these bottles?’

Michael pointed to a shelf above my head. ‘There.’

‘Ah.’ I said, placing them where he wanted them. ‘Stephen here is really into chemistry as well. Aren’t you Stephen?’

‘Well, yeah.’ Stephen said, looking down at the floor.

‘See!’ I exclaimed. “Common ground. Friends!’

Michael stopped unpacking and looked at Stephen. ‘What is your primary area of research?’

‘Analytical chemistry. You?’

‘Some analytical chemistry, but primarily nuclear chemistry. What are your plans?’

‘Pharmacology. Yours?’

‘Nuclear physics.’

‘I figured. Are you looking at any schools?’

‘Michigan State.’

‘I’ve heard that their program is up and coming. I’m thinking of Stetson for my undergrad since I feel like I have a pretty good chance of landing a good scholarship and then Emory of UF for my graduate degree.’

‘Not a bad plan.’

Diane was so irritated the entire time this exchange was going on. She couldn’t stand for things to not be all about her. Suddenly, instead of the focus being shifted to her, if shifted to me.

‘What about you, Marlene,’ Michael asked. ‘What are you into?’

I laughed. ‘I’m not much of a science buff. I’m into religions. I want to go to Stetson for Religious Studies.’

‘Really. That’s interesting. I don’t know a whole lot about religions. I mean, I go to church with my family, but I don’t really think about it a lot outside of that.’

‘My faith is very important to me. I want to be a light unto the world.’ I said. At this Diane rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe you’ll go to church with us some time?’

‘Maybe.’ Michael replied.

‘Maybe in the meantime, you’ll let us show you around town? Take you on a walking tour?’Diane said.

‘Yeah, that’s a great idea,’ I agreed.

‘Well, it’s not like I’m new around here. I’m just sort of new to living here. I only moved from Fruitland.’

‘Still, it’s different when you live here full time,’ I said.

Michael looked at me and smiled. It was the first time I saw him smile and I was charmed. ‘I’d love to, really, but I have someplace I have to be very soon and I can’t be late. Can I take a rain check?

I smiled back at him. ‘Sure. There’s plenty of time. We have all summer.’

‘Thanks,’ he said as he continued to unpack another box and assemble his lab.

American Science: Chapter 2 - Ba Cl 2

While I’m sure that it all really began a long time before this, for me it began on Memorial Day, 1995 or, as others fondly remember it: “The Day Michael Spaulding nearly burned down Mount Royal.

“What’s Mount Royal?” asked Homicide.

“What’s Mount Royal? How long have you been skulking around here following us, and you haven’t figured that out yet?”

“We’ve been a little pre-occupied with some precocious teenagers.”

I smiled. “Fair enough. Mount Royal is a subdivision out in Fruitland. It’s where Michael grew up with his mom and dad. Mount Royal is so called because smack dab in the middle of it is an Native American burial mound of the same name. This is protected land - so it makes for a really weird setting. You have all these fancy homes, some of which have airplane hangers attached as this community has it’s own runway, and then there’s this burial mound with a fence around it. Sometimes the Native Americans go out there and perform ceremonies on the mound, and at some point in the past several years there was a big archaeological dig out there. 

Anyway, that’s where Michael grew up. His parents are both dentists in Jacksonville and they own a plane. His dad has his pilot’s license, so they fly to work every day. Somehow, that makes more sense than driving. Never made much sense to me, but then again, my family’s income hovers right around the poverty line.

I digress, it was Memorial Day, 1995 and Michael had been working on some new fireworks for the fireworks display that evening. Michael had already been experimenting with chemistry for years at this point. He received some children’s book of chemistry experiments for Christmas one year when he was around eight or nine years old and the thing captured his imagination to such an extent that chemistry became his whole life from that point forward. 

At first, his parents were thrilled. They thought they were going to have another doctor in the family, or maybe a pharmacist, but it wasn’t long before things began to get completely out of control. Michael was mixing any and everything he could to test for a reaction and damn the consequences. One time, his grandmother told me, he accidentally made mustard gas in the toilet while doing chores and the whole house had to be evacuated. He thought that mixing bleach and Windex would just make a stronger cleanser, never thinking for a moment that Windex’s main ingredient was ammonia. After that he got really meticulous about reading labels. 

Another time there was  chemical spill in the supermarket. A whole pallet of ammonia spilled in the aisle. While they were evacuating the store, our intrepid chemist runs to the other end of the place and sprints back with a bottle of The Works and pours it on the mess. A huge white cloud forms. The store manage is irate and bans Michael from the store. Later, come to find out, that’s exactly what should have been done, as the poison control hotline later confirmed. 

So, like I said, Michael was making some homemade fireworks for the community celebration of Memorial Day. There were a few families in the neighborhood who would all get together and have a barbecue and set of some fireworks and sparklers and whatnot for the kids. Maybe they’d have a slip and slide as well. I wouldn’t know. I was never invited. Michael thought he would make some really big and bright fireworks for this celebration. Some fireworks that were going to put the store bought ones to shame. He worked all day mixing this and that together in his little lab and packing the powder into different rockets. He added different metals to make different colors. 

Well, he decided that he wanted to make a green firework. Green is hard to make, you see. It required barium chloride, which is really unstable at room temperature, so it has to be combined with chlorinated rubber to be used in the firework.”

“How did a kid even get all this stuff?” Thunder Mountain asked.

“Man, I don’t know. His parents didn’t know how to say ‘no’ I guess. It’s not like you can’t just order this stuff from a chemistry supply company. People do experiments I guess. Short answer? No idea. Anyway, he’s got all this barium chloride in this firework which was not combined with enough chlorinated rubber. He’s packed all these fireworks with this stuff, and they’re in a pile with all the other fireworks. Suddenly, they all start going off at once, and they’re all on the ground. They shoot off in all directions. Toward houses, toward people, toward trees. It’s chaos. Total pandemonium. No one knows what’s happening, or why, but somehow everyone is pretty sure that it’s Michael’s fault. 

The fire department and the police are called and eventually it becomes clear what happened. Michael feels bad and he apologizes over and over and over, but no one is having it. This was the last straw. His parents are finished with his shenanigans, he’s going to live with his grandmother in town where she can keep a better eye on him. They blame themselves because they work so far out of town, but it’s not like they can close up their practice in Jacksonville and work in Crescent City, you know? It’s not like they’re rich or something, right? It’s not like they have options.

And that’s how Michael ended up living next door to me.”

Homecide shifted in his chair. “What do you mean ‘This was the last straw?’ Other than the mustard gas and the good deed at the grocery store, what else had he done?”

“Allegedly, his mother was terrified that he was going to blow up the house when they weren’t home. She claimed that the carpet in his room was full of holes from his experiments and that he’s caused the house to shake on more than one occasion from an explosion in his lab.”

“You don’t sound like you’re buying it.”

“His mother and I don’t get on.”

“Ah.”

American Science: Chapter 1 - C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2

I was cold and I was ready to go home. I hadn’t really done anything to be here anyway.

“Can’t I go home?” I asked.

“You’re an accessory, Ms. Taylor. We could have you for aiding and abetting.” This was said by the younger agent. He was big and stern, with dark skin, dark eyes, and a dark disposition. His body seemed to take up the whole room and the light from the overhead lamp shined off his shaved head. He was a mountain of a man, his voice, like thunder.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t know.”

“Tell us how it all began, Ms. Taylor.”

Tell them how it all began. Where would I even start? How had I wound up in an interrogation room with a cup of watered down coffee in front of me and two FBI agents asking me how it all began. I was a kid when it all began. I didn’t know what I was doing. We were all just kids. How were we supposed to know what we were getting ourselves into?

“I think it all started before I was ever in the picture,”

“Tell us about it,” said the agent who reminded me of that one cop from Homicide: Life on the Streets. The one that had the bar. “Ms. Taylor, we have nothing but time.”

I sat there in a surly slouch for longer than I should have. I didn’t want to talk to Homicide and Thunder Mountain. I wanted to go home. I wanted to know what happened to Michael. I wondered if I talked whether they would tell me what had happened to him or not.

“Where’s Michael?”

Homicide smiled at me. “All in due time, Ms. Taylor. First, we want to hear your story. We want to know how you and Mr. Spaulding came to be acquainted. It’s not every day that two enterprising teenagers set out to cause an international incident by building a nuclear reactor in their garage.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Homicide smiled. “Oh, but you did. Why don’t you cut the charade and just tell us about it. I promise you, it’ll be better for you in the long run if you do.”

I began to wonder what choice I had. These guys were the FBI and they meant business. Anyway, it wasn’t like I hadn’t already eluded them for so long. It was about time that I get caught. The jig ought to finally be up. It was just a shame that I couldn’t have given Michael a chance to get away. I had no problem taking the fall for him.

Thunder Mountain was pacing the corner, when he suddenly burst out with “Are you going to talk or not?”

“Now Martin,” said Homicide, “there’s no need to rush the young lady. Let her take her time. These things need to be organic you know. We can’t pry it out of her. She’s got to want to talk. We can wait. All. Day. Long.”

Martin. I did not expect that to be Thunder Mountain’s name. I wondered what Homicide’s name was. I imagined that I would learn that too before I left that tiny room in the Crescent City Police Department. I began to wonder where the rest of the local cops were. They couldn’t have been happy to have to let the Feds muscle in on their turf. I’m sure that Officer Maycomb and Officer Isley were just chomping at the bit for the opportunity to interrogate little old me, not to mention Chief Duchennes.

Well, joke’s on them. They missed their chance. All those months Michael and I were zipping around town with radioactive materials right under their noses and they were none the wiser. One little traffic stop and it would have all been over. Alas, they were too busy doing whatever small town cops do. Not hassling the likes of hardened uranium thieves, that’s for sure.

So, maybe I did deserve to be there. I was an FBI eluding, uranium stealing, criminal - and for what? I don’t even know. I don’t know who I even am anymore. I used to have things so figured out. Then he had to nearly burn down Mount Royal and come skulking into my life dragging all that fabulous lab equipment behind him and things we just never going to be the same again.
I looked up at Homicide and Thunder Mountain.

“Alright boys, I’ll talk.”

Happy Halloween!

Tonight, we eat candy, and tomorrow, we begin writing American Science!

Off we go-a Trick-or-Treating!

In Memory of Lou Reed

Jenny said when she was just about five years old 

You know, my parents are gonna be the death of us all

Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars --

Well, you know, it ain't gonna help me at all

Then one fine mornin' she tuns on a New York station

She doesn't believe what she hears at all

She started dancin' to that fine fine music

You know her life was saved by Rock & Roll

Expect the Unexpected

When I was in school I was convinced that I wasn't going to need any math or science because I was going to be a writer. The only subjects that interested me and were therefore of any practical use to me were English, history, humanities, art, and maybe speech or psychology. Science and math were for the birds. Who needed em? I was really bad at them too, so it stood to reason that my lack of aptitude meant that that a STEM career just wasn't in the cards for me. I went round and round with teachers trying to get the to explain to me when I was ever going to need the things they were trying to teach me "in the real world." I was certain that the answer was "never."

Also, this was 100% not a thing. (Source)

Oh, how wrong I was. As much as I disliked science and math as a student I find myself enthralled by it now. I don't know when or how it happened, but one day I found myself looking at science like it was magic that came from Narnia itself - especially chemistry, a subject that I was particularly bad at. I'm also quite fond, as you may have guessed, of nuclear physics, entomology, and quantum theory. I like writing about these things. The problem lies in the fact that since I was such a lousy student I end up having to teach myself about these subjects all over again, just so that I can write about them convincingly. And every time this happens I curse my younger self.

Sound advice.

If only I'd studied harder as a young person. If only I hadn't been so arrogant and full of myself. If only I had learned these things for the sake of learning rather than for practical reasons; then I wouldn't find myself in this mess. The writing would just flow out of me and I wouldn't have to hold up the process to figure out just what exactly critical mass is anyway. That's not the case though. Here I am, 30 years old, and giving myself a crash course in chemistry and nuclear physics. The truth is you never know what you're going to need to know, or even want to know when you get out into the real world. I never thought that I would ever need to know what a mole was once I finished high school. Joke's on me, brother.

Dominoes

Last night j^C, That Sprout, and I went to the Halloween party at the office at the apartment complex. There was a Chinese woman there whom I wound up talking to for a little bit. Jake ended up talking to her more than I did because they could talk in Chinese. On the way home from the party I asked Jake what they had talked about and if her husband was in the Army. He said. "No, he does something with atomic energy."

Say what?

I didn't think much more about this until this morning when I googled "Augusta Atomic Energy" and found out about the Savannah River Site nuclear reservation in Aiken, SC. I have a stockpile of plutonium and depleted uranium in my back yard and no one told me about it. This would be no big thing if I had known about it before I started the whole "American Science" thing, but finding out about it now feels a little uncanny. And my neighbor is a nuclear engineer? It's like dominoes falling.

Nice place for a picnic, right? (Source)

So, I did a little research on the place and I found that they have a Citizen's Advisory Board. I thought "I used to be on a board. (It was actually a commission, but whatever.) I should put in an application. Maybe it'll be useful to writing." So, I called the number that was listed on the website and asked a few questions.

At first the man on the phone told me that they weren't taking any new board members until 2018, but then he found out that I was under 65, a military spouse, and a resident of Columbia County and suddenly there was about to be an opening and I needed to submit my application as soon as possible. So, I did. Now, I wait. And I wonder, is my participation on the board in order to learn more about nuclear things to write about (i.e. research) a conflict of interest? I suppose if I find myself on the board I'll just have to ask.

In the meantime, I'm still counting down the days until I can start my novel and waiting patiently for it to be December when I can tour the Savannah River Site. That's right, they do tours and I'm taking one. I'll have to figure out how I'm going to get That Sprout picked up from school on time that day, but that should be the only thing standing between me and the inner sanctum.

Don't judge me. (Source)

There's a part of me that's wondering why I'm doing all this. There's another part of me that feels like I'm just doing what I'm being led to do. The dominoes all seem to fall to this. Then, there's a third part of me that feels like it's some sort of candle I'm burning; some grande gesture I'm making - some attempt to know someone I know I'll never know. Deep down I know this answer has the most truth to it and I wonder what it is about this man that has me so possessed.

Why is it that the other boy geniuses who built reactors don't elicit nearly the same response from me? Is it because Duran Duran wrote a song about him? Is it his youthful exuberance? His reckless abandon? Is it the fact that he tried or the fact that he failed that captures my imagination? What is it about this story that captivates me?

My heart is too unstable. (Source)

A Brief History Lesson

I have so much that I want to talk about, but it's all best kept under my hat for now. So instead . . .

I give you:

A BRIEF HISTORY LESSON!

On this day in 1966 the world gained The Velvet Underground's seminal debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico.

Proof of Lou Reed's genius. As if you needed one. (Source)

On this day in 1984 the world lost Edith Massey, AKA The Egg Lady.

Miss Edie, The Egg Lady (Source)

On this day in 2006 the world gained My Chemical Romance's album The Black Parade.

Will you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned? (Source)

I can't believe it's been 10 years since The Black Parade came out. I can't believe it's been 50 years since The Velvet Underground and Nico either. Yet, somehow I can believe Edith Massey has been gone for 32 years. I guess music is timeless.

I haven't got a whole lot to say right now, but I've been trying to keep up with the blog leading up to NaNoWriMo. I don't know why really. I'm beginning to question whether or not I'll even post the thing on here at all. It seems like a foolhardy venture at this juncture.

I'm still waiting for my piece in Post Road Magazine to come out. Any day now. I wait with bated breath. They said it would be late October. Well, this is October and it's getting late. I'm getting anxious. I want to see my piece in black and white. I'm ready.

That's about all I have for today. Maybe I'll have something more compelling tomorrow.

Halloween Wreath

I feel like I forgot to show you all my Halloween Wreath, so here it is since I feel like garbage and I can't think of anything to write tonight. I drove back from Pensacola today and that's about it, other than hacking up a lung. There is something else that I'd like to talk about that happened tonight, but I don't think that it's my place to talk about that right now. Maybe later.

Kitty!

 Seriously, though. This is a pretty nice wreath.

Another angle, kitty!

Touchdowns and Meltdowns

Today was UWF's Homecoming Football Game against Shorter University.

Let;s Go, Argos!

It was a slaughter. We beat them 30-0. It was sad, really. I had fun though. My face is as red as a lobster, but I had fun. I wish I could say that I forgot about The Boy Scout for a little while, but that would be a lie. I'm in full on writing mode right now and I spent most of the game, and if fact most of the day thinking about my story and trying to work out plot points. That's not to say that I wasn't present. I was. Sort of. I can be in two places at once, right?

After the game, Shelley and I went to McGuire's for a late lunch and I had an Irish Wake. I hadn't had one of those in years and if I'm being honest, that was about all I was interested in having. I ordered a Ruben and some bean soup, but none of that was interesting to me. I was all about the Irish Wake. It made me feel a little better considering that I am hacking up a lunch at the moment. I seem to have caught a cough from That Sprout. I'm not real thrilled about this development as NaNoWriMo comes bearing down on me, but what am I going to do? It is what it is.

After McGuire's Shelley and I came back to the hotel. She's been taking a nap and I've been doing some research for the novel. I decided that my character needed to steal some uranium 235 from the military (NAS Jax?), but that won't do because the only Naval things that are nuclear are aircraft carriers. Back to the drawing board on that one. However, I did discover that breeder reactors, the type that The Boy Scout was trying to make, are prone to exploding. This is useful, since I wanted to make a boom. The question now becomes "How big is the boom?"

I also need to think of some other reckless things for my character to do in the meantime, I need minor plot points. One thing that I really want to work in, and I don't know why - is the way that it feels the first time a girl touches a boy in a button front shirt and tie. Also, chloroform, because Mr. Hahn definitely made chloroform. It might be useful in his procuring the uranium.

Meanwhile, I am very tired and I am tired of coughing. I miss j^C, That Sprout, and The Beans. I will be very glad to be home tomorrow as much as I miss Pensacola and I was glad to be here this weekend. It's just not the same without them. I will be very happy to be back in Augusta with my little family, despite the fact that I hate Augusta. A lot. Like, so much.

The Duality of "Playing with Uranium"

As I continue to grieve Mr. Hahn I have begun to think about my own personal fascination with the element uranium. Regular blog readers will know that I have dubbed myself UraniumJ here on the blog. This is indirectly a result of Mr. Hahn's garden shed reactor. It is directly a result of Duran Duran's song "Playing with Uranium" which was inspired by Mr. Hahn and his garden shed reactor. This is my second favorite song by Duran Duran (my #1 favorite is and always will be "Ordinary World"). When I decided to get a Duran Duran tattoo, it was of a uranium symbol because of the song.

My tattoo.

For many years I thought the song was nothing more than a very clever metaphor dreamed up by Simon LeBon. It wasn't until fairly recently - within the past four years I would say - that I discovered the origins of the song were rooted in fact. When I was a Deep Fellow I wanted to use the song as an example of metaphor, so I began researching it and I found out that it wasn't a metaphor at all. This was when I first learned of David Hahn. I didn't give him or his story very much thought at the time. I was mostly disappointed by the fact that this great metaphor was in fact literal.

Still, the element Uranium remained fascinating. I had also begun collecting Vaseline glass, a subset of depression glass that was manufactured with uranium to produce a vibrant green color that glows under a black light. I thought about buying a sample of Uranium on Amazon - sealed in lead of course. I always picked locked number 92 at the gym because that was Uranium's atomic number. At the time, I thought all of this was just an homage to Duran Duran, but I think now that there was more to it than that.

My Jeanette cake plate. My pride and joy. (Source)

Like the god Shiva, uranium has a dualistic nature - it is the creator and the destroyer. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is a god of the modern age, but maybe you could. Uranium - and any radioactive element for that matter has the ability to create vast amounts of energy for the greater good, as in nuclear power plants; energy that is mostly clean and safe with the capacity to power thousands, even millions of homes for infinitely longer than smog producing coal. With Taylor Wilson's plans for nuclear fission reactors we could possibly create clean nuclear energy from nuclear waste itself. This is the very definition of creation.

But Uranium, and all radioactive elements have the power to destroy - and destroy they do. Most if not all of the pioneers of nuclear research died horrible and gruesome deaths from radiation exposure. The Radium Girls, who painted watch faces with Radium paint were so irradiated when they died that 60 years later their graves still set Geiger counters off. The doctors who pioneered the use of X-rays lost limbs to cancers or died in the early days of the technology. And let's not forget about the accidents that can happen when creating nuclear energy, such as were experienced in Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. All that creation does sometime come at a price.

 Then there was the Manhattan Project and everything that came after. It takes a grapefruit sized amount of Uranium 235 weighing 118 pounds to build a nuclear bomb. It only takes a golfball sized amount of Plutonium weighing 24 pounds (which is created from Uranium 238) to achieve the same thing. According to the United Nations, one nuclear bomb exploded in one major city could kill hundreds of thousands of people. We know this to be true as we are the only nation on the planet to have used an atomic bomb against another nation. With Uranium and the advent of The Bomb, we are become Death.

"Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." J. Robert Oppenheimer (Source)

And so perhaps, this is the fascination of "Playing with Uranium" for me - of the song, and the element itself. There is a duality to it, a creation aspect and the possibility for destruction. With the song, the metaphor still exists and there is the chance that when one is "Playing with Uranium" one might "reinvent the human race" and create something wonderful - a relationship perhaps? Or "it" could "blow up in [one's] face" leaving one to pick up the pieces of the broken relationship "on the other side." It works on two levels.

Then, of course, there remains the fact that the song is in fact about David Hahn, whom I am still mourning and whom I am planning on writing a book based on. He too embodies this dualism. He was so enraptured by the good that atomic energy could do for the world that he was blind to the harm it could do to him, his environment, his relationships, and potentially his entire community. He was himself the god of creation and destruction, and I think if I am to write anything poignant, this must be my theme. I only hope that I am able to do him justice and honor his memory in what I create. We will all do well to remember that this is a character inspired by David Hahn. This character is not actaully David Hahn. I only wish that he were here to give final approval of whatever I come up with.

Shiva dances in the flames to kill the demon and recreate the world. (Source)

The Boy Scout Had a Name

I don't even know how to begin this.

I wrote the day before yesterday about writing a letter to The Boy Scout. I didn't want to mention his name because I didn't want to call undue attention to him. He was a minor celebrity at one point in time and there was a book written about him. I figured if I had any hope of him writing me back that I had better keep a low profile. I also tend to give everyone I mention on this blog an alias in order to preserve their anonymity. I feel like it's the ethical thing to do, especially if the people I write about didn't ask to be written about.

The Boy Scout's name is David Hahn. Otherwise known as "The Radioactive Boy Scout," David Hahn built a nuclear reactor in his mother's garden shed when he was 17. This incredible story was covered by Ken Silverstein for Harper's Magazine in 1998 which was later turned into a book of the same name in 2004. Something of a chemistry prodigy, David Hahn fascinated me from the moment I learned of him. His story not only inspired Ken Silverstein, it also inspired Duran Duran's song "Playing with Uranium," one of my personal favorites. I've been researching his life and work in earnest since September 25th of this year in preparation of NaNoWriMo so you can imagine my excitement at getting in contact with the man himself.

The book that made David Hahn a minor celebrity.

I found out last night that David Hahn died 3 days after my NaNoWriMo idea was conceived. I spent an hour and a half crying over his death after I found out. I went through all sorts of emotions - namely guilt and sadness. I'm sure there's nothing I could have done to have saved him, but there's always that chance that if only I'd had my idea sooner - if only I'd reached out sooner. I don't know how he died, for all I know he was hit by a bus so this train of thought makes not rational sense, but this is how my brain works. It's a very narcissistic way of thinking and I know it.

More realistically I'm just very, very sad. I meant what I said the other day about wanting a connection. I feel this strange sense of loss for something I never had. I've invested myself quite a bit in this man as I've been researching his life for NaNoWriMo and I feel like I knew him. I feel a kinship to him that I don't know how to explain. There's something of a sameness between us, I believe, only now I'll never know for sure. I'll never know if we could have been friends, and for better or worse, I'll never know what he would have thought of my NaNoWriMo.

Aside from these selfish reasons for sadness, I'm sad because David Hahn seemed to have led a very lonely and sad life. I don't know a whole lot about his life after 2004, but what I do know seems rather bleak. He was a very talented person with the potential to do great and wonderful things, but the circumstances of his life hindered him in the pursuit of his dreams. He was an unlikely genius - a mad scientist perhaps - but a kind and gentle one with only the best of intentions. Though foolhardy and reckless, he achieved things as teenager in his back yard that college educated scientists in laboratories slave over for years. He was a diamond in the rough.

I don't know how he left this world, but I am sad that he had to leave it so soon. His birthday would have been next Sunday; he would have been 40 years old. All I can do now is promise to do my best to honor and respect his memory as move forward with my NaNoWriMo project and hope that I succeed in my endeavor. The first step of that is completing NaNoWriMo, which starts in 11 days. I can't let him down. This is about more than Duran Duran now.

I can't find a photo of Mr. Hahn that doesn't have some sort of proprietary restrictions so instead, here's a picture of the Atomic Energy merit badge he earned as a Boy Scout. This began his journey of atomic exploration and I like to think he continued to be very proud of it.

Criminal

I forgot to mention yesterday that I've been breaking the law.

And not in the manner of Judas Rockin' Priest, either. (Source)

Yes, I have become a hardened criminal. I know not right from wrong. I am beyond redemption. Incarceration or annihilation are the only options for a criminal such as I.

What have I been doing you ask?

Apparently, this road that I go down on the way home from picking That Sprout up from school is closed from 3:15 to 4:15 Monday through Friday. Because the children. Okay, fine, whatever. There was a sign. I never saw the sign, but I was wrong and I shouldn't have been using the road during that time. Got it. The residents of this idyllic little street flagged me down and let me know of my error and all was resolved.

Oh wait. No. That didn't happen. That's right. It was the crossing guard who did it because that's his job. To keep the kids safe and to inform ignorant motorists such as myself of the traffic laws.

Wait. No. That didn't happen either . . .

Oh yeah, now I remember what happened!

Someone called the cops on me.

Ekk! It's the fuzz! (Source)

So there I was, going about my usual afternoon routine of taking this street to get home when who should I find laying in wait for me but a Sheriff's Deputy. I wasn't sure at that point what the deal was, so I waited for him to approach the car. It was at that point that he told me that the road was closed during that time and it dawned on me what happened.

"So they called the cops on me?"

"Well, it wasn't necessarily you, ma'am."

Sure it was, because I just moved here and I'm the only driver to ignorant to know that the stupid road is closed.

And here I thought Molly-Gator was the only criminal in the family.

Now, I'm not mad at the cop. He was nice and he was just doing his job. I'm mad at all those people who I saw standing out in the street who never bothered to try and tell me I was doing something wrong and then called the cops on me. And the crossing guard! Oh, the crossing guard! There was one morning when I was sitting in my car next to that guy for like five minutes because the traffic was so heavy and he never once offered to get out of his cozy little truck, tap on my window, and politely say, "Excuse me madam, I'm not sure if you're aware, but this road is closed during this time for the safety of the children walking over to the school." And I would have gasped and said "My lands! I had no idea! I'm so sorry, you won't see me here again." And that would have been that.

"Who, me?"

But confrontation is hard and scary when everyone you encounter could potentially be packing heat, so it was easier just to call the heat on me I suppose. What a bunch of cowards. And they all had Trump/Pence signs in their yards. They lack the courage of their convictions. As for me, my only regret is the choice words I uttered within hearing distance of my child as I carefully backed my car all the way back up the street since I dared not try and turn around in one of these fine Christians' yards. When I got to the end of the street, I finally saw the sign, and yes it was there, but it wasn't the most obvious sign I ever saw, and coming from the direction I was coming from, it wasn't like I was going to see it unless I was looking for it. I was positioned so that you'd really only notice it if you were looking at it head on.

No matter. Today I went on a quest to find a new way to get home after school and avoid turning left. I wound up getting lost in there, I never found the right hand turn I was looking for, and every house I saw seemed to have a Trump/Pence sign prominently displayed on the lawn. I've never seen such horrifying Halloween decorations. There's a part of me that really doesn't want that take That Sprout trick-or-treating because I don't want to see just how many of these houses there are. But I'll go and maybe this will be the first Halloween in many years where I'm actually afraid.

Searching

My 11th grade English teacher says she remembers me as "always searching." Ha! If she only knew. It started again on Friday night with The Boy Scout. I don't know why. I decided that I just had to let him know that my NaNoWriMo was inspired by him and come hell or high water I was going to find his address. It didn't take me long, maybe twenty minutes of searching. I can find just about anything that I set my mind to. You just have to know where and how to look. If it can be found, I can find it. The rest of my evening was spent writing Him a letter. I even sought out the envelope and stamp. It was signed, sealed, and ready to be delivered before I ever went to bed. This should have been my first indication that something was wrong.

Signed, sealed, delivered! I'm . . . yours?

Saturday afternoon I mailed the letter with the approval of Mojo Jojo. The rest of the weekend was spent with family, but by Monday afternoon I began having "sender's remorse." So, what did I do? I went home and started googling an old rock star acquaintance. It began as "Hey, I wonder if his band is touring, I sure would like to see them." Then it became, "I wonder if he remembers me. We used to joke that we were cousins." Soon it was "Hey, wouldn't it be awesome if I wrote something about him? But what's my angle?" At this point, I still had a noble and admirable goal: creating legitimate work for myself in the hope of getting published. It was when I started thinking about the angle that things went awry. "What if I could prove we were related? That would make an interesting essay."

It's merely 24 hours later and I have made an Underwood Family Tree more intricate than any I have seen up to this point, all in the hope of proving that my old friend Ron and I are related. We share a last name after all. It's possible. Highly unlikely, but possible. 

Cousins?

"Why the hell am I doing this?" is the question I find myself asking as I realize that I have spent every spare moment on this project since last night. "What am I searching for?" The question is, what am I ever searching for? This isn't the first time something like this has happened, and odds are, it won't be the last. I've spent hours upon hours and even days at a time looking for long lost friends, ex-boyfriends, military records, celebrity phone numbers, and arbitrary historical facts. I search for things and I find them. It's what I do; but it's never enough. At the moment, I'm looking for a connection between Ron and myself - but then what? I'll start looking for some sort of meaning in that connection. I'll start wondering what we have in common. Is there some essential sameness that we share? Who are my people? What are they like? 

My father's mother. I wonder if she was a searcher to.

Since my dad died when I was 12 I've never really known anyone else who shared his blood. Save for some notable exceptions, I haven't felt much kinship with my mother's side of the family either. I often have this feeling of being un-tethered and adrift in the world and while it's liberating in many ways, in others it's quite unpleasant. So, what if Ron isn't related to me? Then what? Maybe that's not so bad either - if we were to find that sameness were still there. The same goes for The Boy Scout, All I'm really looking for is some semblance of sameness between us that we might be two balloons that drift together for a bit before popping. This is what I crave the most - connection to a soul who speaks the same language I do. They are so rare and hard to find that when I think I have seen that spark in someone I can't help feeling optimistic. 

Of course, there's always the chance that I'm manic right now and that instead of merely searching for connection in an uncaring world I'm simply making trouble because I'm geared fer't. I can't help thinking that I haven't done anything destructive though. I've been creative. I've been writing. I've been making a family tree. I've been making CDs. I've been volunteering. (Yeah, I totally volunteered at That Sprout's school twice already this week, and I've got another 2 hours ahead of me tomorrow.) I might be manic, but if I am, I'm putting the energy to good use. Better that I should be searching for meaningful connections when my meds stop working than carnal ones. 

"Meaning is not found in things but in between them." Norman O Brown
For what it's worth, my Uncle Lavern had a son named Ron. Could be related to my Ron.

I bet you're wondering what it is about these two that fascinate me so much and make me crave some kind of a connection, aren't you? Well, with The Boy Scout, it's the NaNoWriMo thing. I think we could jive on an intellectual level and talk about things that I can't talk about with anyone else. I crave stimulating conversations and Mojo Jojo and j^C can only be put upon so much. They do have lives and I get lonely and bored. I need mental stimulation. As to Ron, that really does have to do with a craving for family. I really do hope we are related. He's a really nice guy and it would be nice to find that I'm related to someone that is close to my age and who has similar thoughts and interests as me. Like I said, I don't have any family on my dad's side, so it would be really neat to acquire a cousin, and I think it would make for a very interesting story. That being said, I would like to add that I love and cherish the family I already have, namely j^C, That Sprout, Mojo Jojo, Captain Tesla, Merlisser, and the family I share blood with whom I don't have cute blog names for. You are all wonderful. :-D

NaNoWriMo Approacheth

This is the face of a writer on a mission.

I went to the library today to renew some books I had checked out and I thought to inquire as to whether or not they would be holding any events for NaNoWriMo. Evidently, they will not. All of the events for NaNoWriMo will be held at the Headquarters Library in Augusta. Call me lazy, but I don't really feel like schlepping all the way to Augusta for some Write-In at the library. Of course, I know that I should because this is how I'm going to meet people and get involved in the community, but there's a part of me that's thinking "Why can't I just be the Evans/Martinez Municipal Liason and hold Write-Ins at the library here?" I can't do that because I already have too much on my plate right now and once I add writing a novel to all that there's just not going to be time for me to be a Municipal Liason as well. I did it once, and while I wasn't bad at it, I don't think I'm up for it again at the moment. Maybe someday, but not today, Cobblepot. Not today.

Tonight I made my NaNoWriMo Playlist. This proved to be quite an arduous process, for you see I was working from CDs and some of them were unlabeled mixed CDs. Some of them were in my car. Most of them were in these huge CD wallets that hold hundreds of CDs that I had to painstakingly look through to find what I was looking for. Then, there were 5 CDs that I just couldn't find, so I had to download those songs. This process wound up taking several hours, but when it was all said and done I had a playlist I was happy with. At least, I think I'm happy with it. I'm going to listen to it for a while and see if I need to make any adjustments to it before NaNoWriMo begins. At the moment I feel like last year's playlist was stronger, but maybe that's just nostalgia. On the bright side, I just found out that the NaNoWriMo CD Swap is happening again this year so I am super prepared for that. All I have to do is burn my CDs and mail them out as soon as I get the addresses. In fact, I can be super efficient and burn them now and have them in the envelopes so that all I have to do is address them when the time comes. I'm not playing this year.

I've been working on my plot for about a month now as well. The idea came to me on my way to Valdosta for a UWF footbal game. Since I'll be driving to Pensacola on Friday for Homecoming, maybe I'll have time to think up some major plot points. I've also got some major character decisions to make, but as it stands, I have several pages of notes to work with, which is a lot more than I usually start with. As such, I think the benefits I reap this year will be many. I can "begin with the end in mind" as they say. I'm really excited about my idea. I think it's going to be a lot of fun to write and I think that I'm going to be able to make some really big points with it. You know, those "thinky" sorts of things that I'm so fond of. My only concerns are that my plot is cliche and/or unbelievable I suppose that's something that can be worked out in post though. As last year, I will be posting here daily to let you all see my progress. All two of you.