Because if I was a murderer...

So, on Saturday night I arrive home, only slightly worse for the drink, enter my living room, flick on the light switch and...nothing happens. On, off, on, off. Nothing.

Hmmm.

Thinking it unlikely that both bulbs have burnt out simultaneously, I fiddle with the lamps. Turns out both lamps have turned off and the lightbulbs have been unscrewed.

I freeze. Because I'm thinking, "if I was a murderer and waiting for someone to arrive home so I could kill her, the first thing I would do was make sure the lights didn't work. Then I could attack in the dark."

At this point, I proceeded to search the entire house. Mostly alone. With no weapon. After the basement, my friend joined me. Another tipsy girl. Also with no weapon. I think I figured confronting the killer and knowing he/she was there would be better than sitting around wondering.

We searched everywhere except the attic-- it seemed unlikely to me that a killer would have had the time to make it up to the attic, silently, and pull the ladder up behind him/her once he/she realized I had not arrived home alone.

My friend hung out for awhile, we watched part of A Knight's Tale, and then I was left alone to go to bed. Possibly with a killer in my house. I checked my bedroom, brushed my teeth and used the bathroom (after checking behind the shower curtain and in the bathroom closet, of course), checked my bedroom again, locked the door and went to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning to sunlight and reality...I was still only 85% sure that there was no killer in my house. What else could have happened to the lights, after all? I'd been the last one to leave the house that day and neither of my roommates had returned before I did.

The morning wore on and my desire to hide warred with my desire to pee/start working in my garden (not at the same time). Finally, I got up and unlocked the bedroom door. No one was waiting behind it, slasher knife raised and waiting. A good sign. I went about my morning routine, worked in the garden for a few hours, showered, and got dressed to go meet my family and see the world's worst dinner theater. I listened to my ipod as loudly as possible, to drown out the sound of my approaching doom (it seems I am more worried about the terrifying second before the murder than actually dying...nothing to fear but fear itself...I am so very wise).

I made it out of the house alive. At the world's worst dinner theater, I related my story to my family and my youngest sister said:

"Oh, yeah, my bad. Couldn't figure out how to turn your lights off yesterday. I messed them all up."

Reality- 1. Overactive Imagination- 0.

Literary Woes, I suppose

I am having a difficult time getting my hands on a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I find this frustrating. I need more than the scant amazon.com preview, which begins with this fascinating line:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. Never was this truth more plain that during the recent attacks at Netherfield Park.

And continues with such gems as:

“What an excellent father you have, girls!” said she, when the door was shut. “Such joys are scarce since the good Lord saw fit to shut the gates of Hell and doom the dead to walk amongst us. Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball.”


I am also showing a ridiculous lack of progress in my writing goals, for which I can only partially blame a certain friend and co-author (this is meant to be a shout-out, not passive-agressive linkage). I will not have Liar revised by the end of April. I will not have my chapters in Ntn completed. I have started a new novel but that, in itself, seems counterproductive as well.

At least I've figured out Paul Delaney. That's one writing goal out of the way.

The Writer's Almanac posted an interesting poem by June Beisch today, who I've never heard of before. It's called The Titanic. I like the flow, the rhyme scheme, the word play.

"All life, it seems, is the morning after
and love is the most beautiful of absolute disasters."

I'd really like to start writing poetry again. In another poem, Beisch sums up why I can't. Or why I don't.

"And poems are made
of love not made."

I really want to get a copy of this woman's work.

In flight accidents

British Airways. One of the most perfect airlines of all time. Good meals delivered in a timely fashion, individual movie screens on the seat in front of you, and they practically beg you to take their free wine.

The only problem? British Airways picks your seat for you upon check-in.

This is how I ended up in a window seat on the eight hour flight home from London tonight. For a normal person, a window seat isn't bad. A window seat can be a bit of a treat. For me, with my infinitesimally small bladder, a window seat is like a cruel joke. And it can be no better for the poor aisle-seater that has to keep hopping up and down for me.

I tried to change my seat online. I tried to change it via phone. I tried to change it in the airport-- twice. No dice.

So I took my window seat and hoped for the best. The girl next to me was quiet in a creepy sort of way, and reading a tiny paperback with titles in a language I couldn't recognize (but text in English). She got up to use the restroom after the first meal, and I darted up after, sprinted to the other bathroom and managed to make it back to my seat before she returned. Score. One uncomfortable scoot-by avoided.

She returned fifteen minutes later, covered in vomit stains. Then she proceeded to pass out, at which point I remembered the blue pills she'd taken with the meal.

So I watched Slumdog Millionaire and squirmed and tried not to think of the glass of wine, diet coke, and glass of orange juice I'd consumed (I get very dehydrated on planes...I have to drink the offered beverages. Plus I am coming down with a cold). Slumdog ended. I could hold it no longer. I gently tapped her shoulder and said a soft "Excuse me."

Nothing. Not a flinch. Not even a change in breathing pattern.

I tried again. Nope. I only got a response five minutes later when I worked up the never to violently shake her shoulder. She stumbled out of the seat groggily and I made it there and back and had to wake her up again to get back in (it was the middle of the afternoon also. Not many people were asleep).

I came back, watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (more boring than curious, I found) and every once in awhile checked my companion to make sure she was still breathing. After the longest movie EVER, I had to wake her again for another bathroom break. She then passed out for the remainder of the flight.

I had a fantastic time in England. I have probably forgotten one eighth of it already. Years in the future, I will probably forget the gardens at Blenheim Palace or my family's tea party at Fordham and Mason or middle sister and I convincing the youngest sister that Winston Churchill was a minor member of parliament and a famous songwriter (he wrote "Fly Me to the Moon," most famously covered by Frank Sinatra). I will probably always remember that I sat next to a girl who vomitted all over herself and couldn't get up to use the bathroom.

It's sad, sometimes, the way the human mind works.