Hansel, my brother, where are you now?

When I think of the road that has finally gotten me to the Gingerbread Cottage, I kind of can't believe I'm even here. With the exceptions of the summers on the road, I think about the last two years in South Central, and I can't believe I made it out. Or made it out alive, I should say. It was a two-year fight, and one that almost bested me, really, because it wasn't the upfront, honest fight of hero vs. villain. It wasn't a Wild West shootout with the White Hats against the Black Hats. South Central almost beat me because there wasn't a clear opponent at all; the opponent was the entire space--geographical, yes, but political, social, psychic. And that ain' a fair fight. It was like living inside the genre of literary naturalism where the environment is actively trying to beat you down...and really, in which the environment always wins. (That's naturalism for ya.)

So instead of duking it out with a clear-cut opponent, it was like fighting phantoms--impossible to see, but I knew they were there. Because they were there. So I spent nearly every day fighting the appalling working conditions, fighting the vague but pervasive disapproval of the town (um, and of the region), fighting the overwhelming isolation, fighting the rumor and innuendo about the only young, single female professor on campus, fighting the stifling restrictions I placed on my own personality due to the social pressures of the town. That's so much fighting, you know? So much resistance. It can wear a girl out after a while.

Home Invasion

Holy crap, yo.

The monsters of the forest are invading the Gingerbread Cottage. And while a SuperHero, I deal exclusively in human (or corporate) villains. So I am thrown. Here's the scoop:

Early, early this morning--3am, to be exact--just when I was thinking of shuffling off to bed, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. At first I think it's just the shadows from the blades of the ceiling fan, but there's an energy about the shadow, an insistence, you know...a charge. Like the feeling you get when someone is staring at you--you suddenly realize you're not alone. So I lift my head to fully look, and I saw that this was not a shadow at all, but a big-ass bat frantically circling the living room at top speed. 3 am. A big-ass bat. Holy crap.

The Shield of Individuality

I'll start with a little note: it's looking like the newest posts are all going to be In The Now for a little while, since there has been some talk (not by me) of turning The Year of Living Electronically into a book. As I was told, "You do not give that story away for free." So we'll see what happens with it, but until then, I'm keeping the South Central Diaries off the InterWebs.

And back to The Now...

Right. So, all my sweet, sweet babies know that I have now officially moved to Rust City, a mid-sized, industrial city in the Midwest--a political center with its fair share of sketch, a city with more grime than glitter. And I show up in Rust City in a bit of a frenzy and more than a little disorganized. I had less than a week to pack up my place in South Central and hit the road, so I arrived here with a giant-ass moving truck full of stuff, yes, but without having forwarded my mail, or cancelling my TV, or setting up up things like a phone or the internet at the new headquarters.

Where this leaves me is driving around in a new city that is about 114 times the size of South Central, trying to find a place with free WiFi. The closest place? Panera Bread. This makes me crabby on a number of levels, but sometimes a girl has to swallow her pride in exchange for free access to the InterWebs. So here's me, minding my own business, plundering the free WiFi in the frinkin' Panera Bread in Rust City and trying to suck up all the air conditioning I can before returning to the stifling humidity outside.

In the Now: ...reunited...?

Yeah, so, getting temporarily captured by that trickster The Raven was really only the start of it that weekend, you know, when the Genius Patrol got back together. There were other...incidents, let's say...that stood out as Moments That Are Now Officially "Stories"--ones that not only will I be reminded of later, but that the others will tell about me--to each other, to new folks I introduce them to or that they introduce me to--as examples, you know, of what happens when one is around me. So the events at Das Bier Boot (and the colorful text message documentation of it): story. The encounter with the security guard regarding my ID while waiting in line to get into the only late-night liquor store in A Town Near You: story. The unexpected demand for bunting, followed my my immediate extraction of eight yards of red-and-white striped seersucker from my car: story. As I was told repeatedly that weekend: "It's always a story when we go out with you."

And my line of thinking is, well sure, but isn't it always a story when you go out with any SuperHero? And since everyone in the Genius Patrol is a SuperHero, shouldn't that make the events of this weekend, in fact, your basic, daily events? When you think about it, heroes are constantly on a Mission; they are constantly operating on a level if not above than at least other than "normal", mundane, daily existence. We are maintaining the front of a "normal", mundane, daily existence to give us the freedom to pursue our ultimate super-human goals: to champion the underdog; to spread the love; to get your girls' backs; to demand justice for the pink-collar worker. Each SuperHero has her own mission, but whatever it is, fighting for that goal takes you places you wouldn't otherwise go in life, right? It requires bravery and acts of derring-do. It requires steadfast determination and commitment to your calling, no matter what the cost. It requires venturing into the seedy underbelly of your current city or even into the lair of The Raven. Being a SuperHero automatically creates a life that goes far beyond, you know, mowing the lawn and getting groceries and reading the newspaper and discussing the best place to get sushi. The adventurous life is the necessary by-product of the Mission.

Isn't it?

In the Now: Genius Patrol--REUNITED!!!!

With the Genius Patrol, it always starts like this:

"Hey Lulu, do you remember the time you..."

And what inevitably follows is a long, embarrassing story that may involve any--or more likely, a combination of--the following: random nudity; falling down; mistaken identity; wheelchairs; knee pads; swearing like a sailor in the most inappropriate setting possible; hysterical laughter that turns into shrieks of abject terror; sweet-talking bartenders, security guards, or police; knocking over large tables of glassware; getting physically trapped in unusual spaces; strange animal encounters; drive-by catcalls by homeless men on bicycles; make-out parties; corset-related injuries; shopping for bull emasculators; stumbling out of vehicles like a loaded rock star; road trips that end up in the exact place you do not want to end up; flirtations with fire-eaters at fetish clubs; strangers who offer to give me lavender bubble baths; people falling off bluffs; kidnapping by bank robbers; and so on, and so on, and so on.

It's always like that. And not without reason, I suppose.