Humbledore's Army

Okay, for those of you who have ever played and/or seen muggle quidditch, this is most likely a totally pointless article for you to read. However, if you’ve been totally dying to read more of my intense wit and witticisms, then you can suffer through it anyway.

My first introduction to muggle quidditch was this fall when I opened my morning paper (I feel like I am the last specimen of my age group to actually subscribe to print), and I saw my best friend Sunni Ryan. Sunni and I went to middle school together and got into loads of trouble (ha, as if, we wish we were that cool), and I missed the heck out of her. So imagine my delight when I see her riding a broomstick with a humongous smile on her face and a headline of “Quidditch Catches on Like Magic.” I had never even heard of such a thing in actuality, but I’ve been a total Potter nerd since I read the first book at age 4.

Sunni and I went to an intercollegiate match that day between State, Duke, ECU, and UNC-CH. Afterwards, I went to nearly every one of Sunni’s games.

The basic gist of the article was to explain how Quidditch for Muggles (non-magic folk) has spread across the globe. The International Quidditch Association (or IQA), has helped found 400 college and 300 high school teams already. 45 states in the country host quidditch teams.

Furthermore, the Quidditch World Cup isn’t just for wizards and witches anymore. The fourth annual was hosted this year in New York with 757 athletes representing 46 teams.

It’s been a goal at my school for a while now to form a team.

The principal of our school is Dr. Thomas Humble. Not only does his name remarkably resemble the famous Albus Dumbledore of the Harry Potter series, he also looks like him, sans lengthy beard. As such, punny nerds as we are, we have named our principal Humbledore.

So Humbledore isn’t a fan of having yet another club at Raleigh Charter, so we have formed an impromptu group with a tentative name of Humbledore’s Army. It makes sense, seeing as we’re a misfit troop of kids hosting an under-the-table association not approved of by the administration.

For you muggles who don’t know how ground quidditch is played, I have spared you your confusion and I shall list the rules as follows.

There are 7 people per quidditch team.  There are 2 beaters, one keeper, and 3 chasers, and a seeker. There’s also the snitch, but technically he/she isn’t part of the team. Everyone but the snitch must run around the duration of the game holding  the handle of a broomstick that they’re holding between their legs. It’s incredibly hard to do so and to perform the tasks mentioned below:

So let’s start with the beaters.

Beaters have dodge balls (bludgers), and their job is pretty much to beat the crap out of anyone they possibly can. Once hit by a bludger, the player hit has to drop the ball (if he or she is carrying one), and run around the goal post in order to reenter the game.

Got it? Good.

Then there are chasers. The chasers have a soccer ball (the quaffle), and they pass it back and forth down the field to try to pass it through a goal post (hula hoops sprayed gold attached to posts of varying lengths). A goal wins the team 10 points. However, if hit by a bludger, they must drop the quaffle.

Moving on. Keep up.

Keepers guard the goal posts to make sure chasers don’t score. Pretty simple.

Then there’s my favorite.

The golden snitch and the seekers.

Each team has a seeker who runs like heck to catch the snitch. In the book, a snitch is a little golden ball with tiny wings that flutters around the field for a seeker to catch. Obviously, seeing as it’s hard to green screen that sort of thing on a regular basis, ground quidditch uses a person. The snitch dresses in yellow and hangs a sock with a tennis ball inside off the back of his/her pants. The snitch is released first thing in the game when all other players have their eyes closed. Once out of sight, the game begins and the seekers take off after the snitch.

The snitch has no rules or boundaries. I have seen them:

·      Get into a car and drive away

·      Spray silly string in someone’s face

·      Hide in a bathroom the whole game

·      Duck under a refreshment table and dump a water bottle on someone who dares try to approach.

·      Slap someone across the face

Needless to say, I totally want to be snitch.

If the snitch is caught (by pulling off the sock), then the game ends and the seeker wins 30 points for the team. The goal is to know when to catch the snitch, because if one team has 50 points and your team has 10 and the seeker catches the snitch, then the team only gets 40 points and pretty much forfeits the game.

It’s a test of skill, agility, and ability to run around for an indefinite period of time with a broomstick between your legs looking like a complete dork. 

Ask Me

As previously mentioned, I'm taking a writing workshop at North Carolina State University. My first class is poetry, which I've discovered is probably not my area of expertise. The class is brilliant, and every time someone reads a poem, it kind of sort of makes me want to ditch my notebook, Ginny Weasley possessed by Tom Riddle style, in an abandoned girl's lavatory, only Moaning Myrtle wouldn't find it and give it to Harry and Ron and what have you.
But, I'm in it, and I'm working on improving.
We have fun prompts, which the other day was one in which we were given various first lines from poems, and I chose the excerpt from "Ask Me" by William Stafford. I didn't see the piece in its entirety until after I finished, but this is what I came up with:

Sometime when the river is ice ask me

What it is like to wait for you,

As cold and stubborn

And resolute and arbitrary,

And reckless, 

And just plain stupid

As frozen water.

In response I will laugh

And you will melt,

Same way you always do. 

And your lukewarm banks will nourish

Fresh birthed daffodils. 

And I will feel victorious at having broke you down.

But then I realize the patch of river where I stood

Is lost

And so, I continue to drown. 

I think I love you.

Wing Girl Chapter IV

Hey guys, I've been a little less than dutiful at posting frequently over the summer. Luckily, however, I haven't forgotten to keep writing. I'm at a workshop now at NC State for young writers. Yesterday, I read the first chapter of Wing Girl, the novel I've been kind of sort of working on. I didn't get to chapters two and three, but I got a lot of positive feedback on the first portion from the brother Doug, of previous socialite prom queen, Nina. The encouragement persuaded me to post just a little more, and so Doug is back with more from his recent chaotic new lifestyle. Enjoy, maybe?

IV

Doug

I stumble over a stray high-heeled shoe on my way through the door. I drop the bag of groceries in my left hand. Hoping it isn’t the one with the container of eggs, I shout up the stairs in the general direction of my vegetable of a sister. “Nina!”

It was fun the first few days having a roommate. It felt more grownup to be forced in tight arrangements with someone you grew up with when it was your own home instead of when you were young and you had no choice. Lately, however, it had become simply a nuisance.

It’s gotten to the point where I dread returning home, afraid of the catastrophe that waits for me in every square foot. A bra is slung over the wooden backing of a chair, a still vaguely water sodden towel thrown half-hazardly on the carpet, dirty dishes are stacked nearly a foot high by the kitchen sink, and coffee grounds litter the floor, leaving a perfect trail from the freezer to the espresso machine. Even Liza Jane is avoiding the newest addition to our home.

I haven’t heard so much as a creak from the floor above, so either Nina is still asleep, or she had gone out already. A glance at the clock reading 5 makes me doubt the latter.

I climb the wooden stairway and march down the hallway straight to Nina’s room. It’s far worse of a disaster zone than the downstairs. It’s like Nina was a bomb, and the littering of her belongings on the first floor is merely the shrapnel of the aftermath.

The piling of clothes on the bed stirs. I reach towards a corner of cotton sheet gasping for air and yank it back. I uncover a furious face half marred by yesterday’s mascara. Nina claws out in search of the covering with faint whines. I rip off the rest of the sheet and then turn my attention to the covered windows. Pulling one up hard snaps in unwelcome light. The room looks even more disastrous when lit.

Nina shudders to enough cohesiveness to aim a hung-over pillow throw at my head. It misses and instead knocks over an open makeup case on the painted drawers by my elbow.

I whirl around to face Nina, and clamber up to the foot of the bed. She’s pissed, I can see. But I need her to hear me out. “Nina, I’m sorry you were evicted from your place, and you know I’m more than happy to get you back on your feet, but it’s been three weeks now, and you haven’t made any effort whatsoever to find a job or another place to stay.”

Her voice is still scratchy, not quite recovered from last night’s concert. “Doug, I’m almost there, I swear. I talked to the stage manager last night, and he says he might be able to offer me something. I got his number. It’s right there.”

She points to a pile of rubbish on the floor. I uncover a slip of stained paper emitting fumes of alcohol with 6 numbers on it. “Uh-huh, Nina, I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

She gives me a disappointed and befuddled look, and then pulls the sheets back over her head, asleep before her head hits the pillow.

But Wait, There's More.

            If you’ve been reading SummerSalt for a while, you might remember the story of the two brothers and the vixen, Maria. The two brothers lived in a village in Hungary named Veszprem. One brother is my great-great grandfather, Anton, and the other was Josef. Josef was getting married, and in those days it was common for the brother of the soon-to-be-groom to bring back the fiancé to the village, so off goes Anton to retrieve the bride for the arranged marriage of his brother Josef. However, player that my great-grandfather was, he and Maria fell in love on the return trip. So, if you fall in love with your brother’s bride and totally betray your family in screwing up an arranged marriage, this leads to a rather awkward situation of explaining. As such, Anton and Maria decided to skip out on that process, and instead boarded a train without tickets. Of course when the ticket collector came by, they had nothing to turn over, and so instead Anton did the obvious thing, he pushed his true love off the moving train and jumped out after her. P.S., when I told this story to my campers up in Philly, the only question they repeatedly asked was “Were they hurt?” So, I don’t know the answer to that. However, if they were, it clearly did not mess up either of their reproductive organs, or I wouldn’t be here. So Maria and her love rolled to a stop (unhurt or in pain, unknown), in France. They had absolutely no money, so they got a job cleaning hotels, all the while saving up their earnings to come to America. Which they did, and this is why I’m here.

            The way we pieced together this whole story is, Anton’s brother Josef had one son very late in life (he was kept for some years as a POW), and that son’s wife gave birth to my cousin Zsolt. He still lives in Veszprem, and he contacted my grandfather here in America, and we compiled this whole little drama-drenched novel of my family.

            So, all this time, we had automatically assumed that my grandmother’s side of the family is purebred Italian (I’m half Italian), and that my grandfather’s side was Hungarian.

            We were wrong. Through Facebook (such a marvelous thing), we were contacted by a guy in Canada. My last name is not common in any country, not even Hungary where it supposedly came from. Even Hungarians would tell us the country of origin of the name wasn’t Hungary.

            This Canadian dude contacts my father (Italian), and sends him a message saying that his father-in-law just died, and his surname was the same as mine. He found hardly any of the name around the globe, but a lot of us in North Carolina. He had done some genealogy research about the family, and this is what he told us:

            200 years ago, my family came from Italy to Hungary to build Zirc Cathedral, and they settled there. Crazy enough, the cathedral is in the village where my cousin Zsolt lives. The fact that my family was church builders is a bit ironic, seeing as I’ve already mentioned in a previous article that I am not religious in the least. In the 1956 revolution, Canada took in 35,000 Hungarians, and the Canadian’s father-in-law was the only with my surname.

            So, as it turns out, my name isn’t actually Hungarian as we had believed all this time, and the way my family came to America (at least on my grandfather’s side), is worthy of a romance novel. Now I feel as if with a name like that, I have quite a lot to live up to. 

Salt Hits Youtube?

Hey guys, so you may remember me introducing you to the beautiful and incredible Hannah Newberry in the post What I'm Listening to. Well, she's back. But this time it's for me to toot both her horn and mine.
To my starry eyed surprise, when the camp I was working at last week in Philly had a snack break, I checked Facebook (as those social site addicts like me tend to do), and found a notification from Hannah. She'd turned a poem that I posted awhile ago into what I think is a brilliant song (and not just because I wrote the lyrics). So, check it out:

Underage

I actually got offered the position as a counselor for an arts and crafts camp in Philly about a year ago. I sew clothes, and a neighbor across the street saw the dress I had sewn for my aunt and fell in love, with both the dress and me. So she told me about this camp that she’s a director for.

The dress. Marvel at my awesome abilities.

So here I am, CIT (Counselor in Training seeing as it’s my first year) at this craft camp. I’m doing the handwork portion, as opposed to machine camp. I’m convinced Satan invented sewing machines. I can’t walk near one without it becoming possessed by an evil fabric-snarling demon. The girls I’m teaching are K-6 grade, and as cliché as it sounds, it takes me back to a different time, when I would be one of them.

So, these are the things I had forgotten about when the world seemed so big but my own sphere was so small.

#1: Cliques. I’m lucky enough to go to Raleigh Charter, and lucky enough to feel like I’m part of a family that just so happens to go to school as opposed to a part of a school that just so happens to not be family. I’m one of about 525 students; so being small tends to make people pretty close, ignoring the fact that this can sometimes be by force as opposed to choice. When these girls convene, though, there’s individual groups of about 2-4 people, and if you’re not in, you’re so far out you don’t even have a prayer. There are two private bubbles of just two girls each, and I swear I’ve never seen them move more than 2 feet apart from each other. There’s twins, sisters, cousins, and they come all included. It’s a package deal. Most of them go to the school I’m working at, too, and so they already know each other. Today one girl didn’t show up at camp. Concerned, we called the receptionist at the front desk to see if she’d heard from the girl’s family. The missing camper was younger, and although she enjoyed the camp a ton (who wouldn’t, I’m working there), she felt as if she hadn’t really connected with anyone or made any friends. So she stayed home. It was a really disappointing realization.

#2: Jealousy. This is the best example I can give: So, when the girls go home, me and my fellow counselors who I shall hereafter refer to as The Twins, and I stay after to take the role of “The Knitting Faerie.” Most of the campers are learning to knit for the first time, and unsurprisingly, they detest it and as such refuse to do more than a few stitches per day. So, today when they came in Skylar* saw that Amanda’s* project had been visited by the Knitting Faerie. She was furious. The entire day Skylar continued to pester The Twins and me about the fact that she hadn’t been visited and how that was totally unfair. Like, literally, if I had a penny for every time I heard something about that loathsome mythical creature, I’d probably have one hundred dollars. Which, incidentally, is twice what I’m making this week. Whatevs. Not like I care. Ha. So then, every time Amanda was showing how far she had gotten, Skylar insisted that she was only that far because the Knitting Faerie had unfairly helped her out. At the end of the day I told The Twins God bless our souls if someone didn’t pick up Skylar’s piece to work on that afternoon.

#3: Love hate relationships. So, back to the clique thing. There’s one duo made up of a group with two girls, Adrienne* and Nayla* who are totally inseparable… at least they are when they aren’t hating each other. They’re seriously the kinds of girls who yesterday wore matching shirts with Adrienne in a “Thing One” green tee, and Nayla sporting the “Thing Two.” That day however, they proceeded to get in fights usually ending in one running away, a counselor chasing that one down and holding her as she sobbed into one of our shoulders. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Once it was over a marker getting taken away by the other. And then the next minute they’re pretending that making pom-poms out of a plastic device is actually a hospital and they’re working in the nursery giving birth to pom poms. Oh, I miss the imagination of small children.

So, seeing as I’ve made it just a little over halfway through my week (yay for Hump Day), I’ll most likely have more delightful stories by the end of my session. Yay for cliffhangers.  

No, I swear, they love being shoved in lockers by yours truly.

*Names have been changed. 

I Journeyed All the Way to Urban Outfitter’s HQ and All I Got Was This Lousy Incredible Experience

Oh, and pictures, too.

Again, writing from Philly, but this time after an extravagant tour of the headquarters of the famous brand empire of UO, Anthropologie, Terrain, and Free People.

So, my aunt pretty much knows everybody who's anybody, and as it turns out, she's friends with the creator of Urban Outfitters. So I met Judy (aforementioned creator), just a few days ago when we were walking down the street. I didn't know at the time that I was meeting a god, until we walked away and my aunt explained. Needless to say, I went bonkers. There was screaming, jumping in the air, and tripping over a flowerbed (ouch). Then, to top off the highlight of my day, I find out that the empire's lair is located here in Philadelphia. WHAT? And we get to go. 

Skip forward to today, and you see me getting ready this morning, which took like an hour and about 20 wardrobe changes. 

We hop in my aunt's Prius and drive to the Naval Yard, which used to actually be an active base, but isn't anymore. 

Boat in back, and glimpse of UO Cafeteria. Side note: Those floating planters spell out URBAN which that plane landing in the back can see from the air. WOAH.

We're waiting to meet up with Sarah, who incidentally is the girlfriend of one of my aunt's employees and also a graphic designer for the company. So, we walk into building 543 (the buildings are numbered in order of the date when they were built, so they make absolutely no sense; 300 could be next to 12). We wait in the lobby while I absolutely drool at the hanging ferns draping from the ceiling and the gym on the second floor that employees use to work out.

Treadmills and machinery from when this was an active naval base building.

So, I'm having fun posing with fun things in the lobby and snapping pictures like some Urban Outfitter's groupie (which, let's be honest, I totally am). 

Me being a nerd

Finally, Sarah walks up. Needless to say, absolutely everyone that works for Urban Outfitters is a female in her mid to upper 20s. Most of them have small dogs, and they're pretty much THE most stylish people you will ever see in your life. Everyone looks like they just stepped out of a catalogue. Sarah's no exception. She has a light denim washed tunic, with white lace thigh leggings, cafe colored leather sandals, and jewelry that's totally to die for. I feel like I just stepped out of Oscar the Grouch's trash can. She's friendly, though, and eager to tell me about the company.

By the way, at this point I feel I should mention I brought my 23 month-old cousin. Yikes. He's obsessed with hoses for whatever reason, and when we walked into this building, 

Kai making a dash for the hose. Yikes!

 there was a hose on the ground, which he promptly picked up and would have sprayed inside the place if I hadn't nearly slow motion tackled him. It was dramatic, and Sarah looked like she might pass out right then and there.

The buildings are old, but with super modern touches, just like the Urban Outfitter's brand. 

Also, it's like being in a spy movie, walking around the buildings. You can't get in unless you have a top secret card to swipe in front of a sensor to unlock the doors. I felt so exclusive.

There's so many dogs strolling around inside, people eating in the cafe, and employees working out, it feels like there's hardly any work done at all. 

Eventually we sit and eat (me feeling even more like a bum in a whole room of uber style gurus), and the food was amazing. I got a Buddha bowl, which was fried tofu with edamame, chives, and brown rice in a teriyaki sauce. 

P.S., this is our goddess of a tour guide, Sarah

An internship offer? Yes, please.

I've concluded I need to make more friends in high places.

The Absolutely True Untold Stories of a Co-op

Hey, SummerSalt here from Philadelphia, PA. I come up to this corner of New England frequently, too frequently in some people’s opinions. It’s automatically assumed when we have a break in the school year that I’m flying up here. So, hello from my aunt’s house with my 23-month-old cousin. Side note: 2 things I wonder about babies. A. Why do people baby proof? It’s extremely obnoxious. Seriously, I struggled with a gate for like 10 minutes the other day before I figured out how it worked. Does this rate my intelligence on the same level as a toddler? B. How long do people go by the age as a month thing? It’s like, okay I’m sixteen and a half now, so should my parents introduce me as 198 months old? Gross. That’s a lot of months. I swear; parents need to start using the whole “year” thing a lot earlier.

Now that I have my little tangent/rant thing out of the way, I’ll explain what this whole article’s actually about. So, in Philadelphia on the street my aunt lives on, there’s a co-op. For those of you who don’t know, a co-op is like a teeny tiny grocery store market thing with all local and/or organic foods. It has a miniscule staff, and patrons can become members, meaning you get a discount. The catch is that to compensate for the discount and meager number of employees, members have to work six hours per year to maintain membership. Why does this involve me, you might ask? Well, because my aunt and uncle joined the program a few years ago and were subsequently kicked out for like… the past 10 years. So, they recently joined again and now I’m the lucky earner of 12 co-op hours for the two of them. So not complaining. They do a ton of work, plus I’m mooching off them for 3 weeks this summer and eating all their food and stuff. Plus, as it turns out, co-ops give plenty of good writing material.

            Shift one: My first shift is a little farther away, in the co-op’s other location. My uncle drives me in his dilapidated VW bus, which you occasionally have to use a Little Miss Sunshine jumpstart on, complete with running alongside open doors down a slight incline and jumping in at the last second. Seriously. I have flower duty, so after some standard disinfecting of buckets and watering outside, I meet Ginger. Ginger’s a pretty impressive specimen. She has absolutely no wrinkles, but you can tell she’s older. She has gingery (no kidding) hair pulled up in the back, and a lank frame. So we talk about the standard root of conversation for kids my age. Where do I want to go to school? She asks if I’m thinking about the northeast. I tell her the winter would be hard. Then Ginger talks about her childhood, going to college in Virginia, and then moving to New York to work. For a flower girl at a co-op, this is pretty interesting news. So (naturally) I ask her what she did. Ginger was a model in New York for about 15 years. She was signed with an agency and did commercials and catalogues, the whole shebang. Like, whoa! Then she met her husband to be. Jokingly I ask if he was a model, too. She laughs and says when he found out her profession he wanted nothing to do with her, and of course Ginger couldn’t resist a challenge. That was my first interesting character of the day.

            Shift two: So my next shift (incidentally on the exact same day), I have to ride my bike to the other location. I’m not from the area, so I’m scared out of my wits to try to figure out my way, even with the written instructions. I make it safe and sound, though, so no worries. This time I work on the floor. Do you have any idea how much work goes on behind stocking shelves? I have to “rotate” foods. Which means you pull all the stuff already on the shelf off, set it on the floor, and put the newer stuff you just unpacked back on that shelf and put the older things in front of the newer unboxed stuff. This is so the oldest ones with more imminent expiration dates are taken first. It’s a pretty lengthy job. Also, I’m not the most muscular person in the world, so unloading boxes of 12 olive oils is a yikes.

            So, intro new interesting character: Erin. She has a light airy voice fit for an adorable child, and a smooth, round face to match. We talk, and she asks how old I am. When I say I’m 16, she tells me about her son who just graduated from high school. I’m stunned. Nosy me, I tell her that she doesn’t look nearly old enough to have an 18-year-old son. She just smiles and tells me she isn’t. She had her son when she was my age. And she doesn’t recommend it. She turns out to be pretty maternal. She takes the boxes that are significantly heavier off the cart to pack away herself and save my weak limbs from strain.

            Shift three: The co-op is a whole microcosm you never get to see. Keith works in the back. When I’m packing cookies (which believe you me, I was more than a little tempted to nibble on), a young butcher comes back and looks at the cart Keith is stacking with bagged espresso grounds. The butcher spazzes with an expletive. “Dude! I didn’t know we had these!” His enthusiasm crashes him into the cart, tossing bags in the air. He apologizes in a half-hearted way, telling Keith he hopes they weren’t in any particular perfectly sorted order. Keith says they were, but he’s jesting, and throws an espresso sack at the butcher’s head. Why do we overlook these people working in grocery stores on a day-to-day basis? They have interesting stories, they brought up a child as a single teen, and they have a world of jokes and laughter that we so rarely witness. There’s so much we take for granted, and we tend to look at, but not really see. So look harder, ask questions. You might be surprised and discover some absolutely true untold stories yourself.

It's a Sign. Part Three.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. In recent escapades, I've found so many delightful signs I simply had to continue the series. So, background: in Part One I had humorous or thought provoking signs from my Christmas vacation in Hong Kong. Part Two was simply various trips I've made. The following addition is from my adventures in Topsail Island with my best friend, Jessie Tomlinson, and Philadelphia, where I'm staying for the next two weeks.

Okay, I lied. I forgot this one from Virginia. Misleading as I didn't know there was a U.S. boundary in the mountains...

Even to a vegetarian, I would prefer my bacon cooked. 

Apparently this restroom is reserved only for women and ninjas poised for action.

We dubbed this sign Franklin the turtle.

Note: Choclate.

Not the greatest thing to see on a nice day out.

So, from my limited knowledge of Latin roots, I know that Sans means without. Without appeal? Umm... branding issue.

I discovered that Franklin the turtle sign has a distant cousin up in Philly.

Note: My name is Summer. So get down and worship me at 9:30 on the dot.

All handbags "are 20%" 20% what? And why is it in quotation marks?

I don't know what would lead to someone spray painting PROB over an entire garage, but I'd like to think it was a response to a spray painted "Will you go to prom with me?" I don't know why Bilbo was dragged into it, though.

Note: This was a sign for a preschool.

Klassy with a capital K.

The honeymoon can be a visit to the Eastern State Penitentiary, as long as they're only there between 10 and 5.

Curses. I forgot to rotate this one, and I'm too lazy to do it now. Sorry to make you go to all the effort of tilting your head.

Business Owner Laid Off

A sign of the times, Oscar Stone, 43, previous business owner of Guild Architecture, has asked himself to leave the firm due to economic pressures.

“It was a really tough decision,” says Stone about his decision to let himself go. “The economy is in the crapper, I tried to keep myself as long as I could, but with taxes and budget cuts, I couldn’t work my way around it.”

Stone was put off by the meager severance pay he received from himself, but appreciates that he was able to grant any at all.

Oscar says he has no hard feelings towards himself, and that he hopes the company is able to pick itself back up without him. 

Chapters II & III

Back again for more? Here to satisfy your inner bookworm is chapters two and three of what I've been working on for a novel, Wing Girl. Chapter one is posted below from yesterday. These two wound up being so short that I decided to lump them together into one happy lovely entity, like a banana split. So I've switched the vantage points from Doug, to Nina, to now a new entry, Toby. I'm working on creating distinct voices for all of them. 

This is the general breakdown: 

Doug: Insightful, slightly pessimistic, a thought train with a slight touch of ADD.

Nina: Positive, free spirit, drama queen.

Toby: Typical dude with ambition, simple.

Not sure if I've really achieved my goal yet, but let me know. 

II

Nina

“Shhhh!” I warn Doug, before he can scream too loud. Living in a duplex has its downfalls. “It’s me!”

He’s quiet for a moment as this registers, utters a brief profanity, and stalks off towards the kitchen. “Jesus, Nina. Didn’t you think to possibly call me before breaking into my house?”

He bangs cupboards furiously, and I perch myself on a tall wooden stool at his granite countertop. I trace my finger along a swirling crystalline pattern. “I did call. Many times.”

He pauses long enough between the slams to check his phone. “Oh. Ten missed calls? Nina, what on earth was so important?”

I jut my lower lip in a defiant pout, “Isn’t it possible I only wanted to see my baby brother?”

He snorts and rifles through his fridge, hostility forgotten. It’s practically bare, almost to the point of being useful as an armoire. “Uh-oh. You aren’t looking for a calzone by chance, are you?”

Hostility back. “NINA!”

I’m good with acting. I muster up the most pathetic face I have archived, wide-eyed and innocent. His own face softens a few degrees at the change in mine. I had wanted to be an actress after high school, but I got tired of college quickly, and halfway through my sophomore year I dropped out. No one wants to hire an acting school dropout. It shows a lack of commitment, which I suppose is pretty much the definition of my being.

“I’ll take you out, Dougy. Let’s go to that pub down on the corner that you like! My treat!”

I have to soften him up before I drop the bomb on him. I feel like he notices the momentary flash of uneasiness across my face. He always picks up on those kinds of subtle things. Doug thinks too much. It’s unhealthy.

He mumbles out something that sounds like agreement, and I grab the shoulder bag slung across the back of his buttery leather couch on our way out.

I link my arm through his down the steep concrete steps, and his tabby passes through the tall grasses to the right. What’s her name again? I rack my brain to remember. “Hey… Lisa.”

“Liza.” Doug corrects me.

That was it. Damn.

The two of us make our way down the hill and past a vacant brick building at the bottom. “Are they still going to turn that into a dialysis clinic?”

Doug snickers, “Yeah. The rest of the neighbors can save their breath, it’s going to happen, and it needs to be done somewhere.”

I disagree, but I keep it to myself. After all, I do have quite a favor to ask of him, and the more in tune he feels with me, the better.

III

Toby

I stand back to admire the sign, the cherry on top of the cake I’d been cooking up for the past two years. “Wing Girls”: chunky black letters emblazoned on the front window fulfill the last step of my conquest. This is it. The building is bought, the office is furnished, some girls have been hired, and a sign to mark the whole thing with finality.

I came up with the concept a long time ago. Young and on the prowl in the dating scene, I had the prerequisite for all serial daters. A wing man. It didn’t go well, and I wasn’t sure why. I told my coworker, Shea. I felt the eye roll in her voice through the cloth walls of the cubicle. “Look, Toby,” she began in her most condescending tone, “girls get a little put off by a guy totally checking them out from across the room. Throw in another bone head who doesn’t know what he’s doing, and they’re sure to be more likely to hand over their numbers to a private detective than you.”

Shea had a point. Guys don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to women. We don’t know how they think the vast majority of the time, so why are we putting two of us “bone heads” together? Sometimes two heads aren’t better than one. But girls, somehow they understand each other like they’ve taken some foreign language class in high school that somehow all of the male gender had skipped out on. They know what to say, and how to say it.

I brought Shea along to a bar one night. She spotted some girls across the room, walked over to join them, told them good made-up stuff about me, and then excused herself. I got four numbers that night. It was more than I’d made on all my other trips with a wing man… combined.

Fast forward two years to now, and you have Wing Girls. A company where it’s as easy to order a Wing Girl as it is a pizza. Pick up the phone, dial, and the girl will be there to offer pointers and guidance at the location of your choosing.

My mom called it a modern form of prostitution, but I simply nom it genius.

Chapter I

Oh, hey there, remember me? It's been just about forever since I've last posted. I apologize profusely, and hope you will accept my deepest sorrow. To make up for it, I spent today in Philly walking along Chestnut Hill to settle myself in a coffee house up at the top to write for an hour or two. My loitering of the place, nursing my latte, allowed me to complete two, count them two chapters of Wing Girl. Remember that crazy insane concept from earlier? If you don't (lame,) here you go: http://summersaltproject.blogspot.com/2011/06/wing-women-wing-men.html
No excuses now. So the idea is that the book will change perspectives each chapter, so this first one is from the viewpoint of the character Doug Collins. I'll post a couple more chapters, unless you guys hate this first one so much that you're positively on your knees begging me to stop. So, yes? No? Maybe so? If you can, let me know.

Doug

“Alright Autumn, I need you to count down from 10 for me.”

The girl, looking even more small and fragile once swept away by the anesthesia barely makes it past seven.

I watch as her small chest undulates slowly. Kris hands me the scalpel from across the table, the blade flashing brilliantly in the fluorescent-lit room. She smiles my favorite Kris smile, the one full of hope and encouragement. She knows I hate to be the one to make the first incision.

Here’s what I don’t like about the whole idea of making that entry mark: that is the single cut that will stay with the individual forever. One day, as your browsing the galas in the supermarket, looking for the one that’s just ripe, but not too ripe, you look up and WHAM, there’s that patient you worked on 3 years ago. There, still visible despite the many years that have come to pass, lingers that one white line. That one white line that you yourself made. And then what’s the proper protocol? Is there some form of etiquette when you see a past patient who would barely remember you, groggy as they were when he or she glimpsed your mask-obscured face? Do you just keep going on your merry way to snag some milk, but what if they do recognize you? And then you look so rude totally blowing that person off?

Kris tells me that I think too much.

I grip the glimmering metal in my left hand, and with the slightest pressure I can manage, I make the stroke down the small trail of purple dots marking the point of insertion. Warm scarlet trickles up, but Kris is ready.

A biopsy is a rather simple procedure once you get past the initial entrance. I’m fine from that point on. It’s all too easy to fall back into the same pattern as in medical school, when this was merely a cadaver lying stony on the table. And really, how much damage can you do to a cadaver anyway?

Snip. Cut. Swish. Pluck. Whistle whistle.

In only three quarters of an hour, the girl is being rolled back to join her family, and the infected lymph node rolled back to the lab for testing.

I snap off my gloves and go to shake the anxious hand of the girl’s mother. I assure her everything will be perfectly fine, and I see that she believes me, but I understand how it would feel to see that person you love more than anyone in the world lying so helpless before you.

Not like I’ve ever had that feeling before.

It’s growing dark out, although you’d ever be able to tell in these pristine white hallways, but I know because my gastric juices slosh in an uncomforting way. I think ahead to the leftover calzone from Friday night, and the anguished noises calm themselves just a bit.

I shed my coat and toss it into the half-filled sterilizing bin with the other scrubs from the day.

The hall is more empty than usual, and I pass just a few doctors on my way out. It’s eerie, in that scary movie setting in a hospital kind of way.

I hope to stay here. I like the location, and though downtown may be just a tad far away from my home in Chestnut Hill, I enjoy my work. I’m fond of the coworkers I’ve grown so close to, like Patrick and Kris.

I was right; it is growing dark out. The always-present traffic jam is especially awful on a twilit Saturday. I wait at the crosswalk with a chorus of couples. When the signal to go is given, I remember a story I heard of once about a mockingbird. The bird had learned to mimic the sound of the crosswalk signal, the irritating chirp specifically intended for the visually impaired. I recall that the blind community was in an uproar over the bird. They wanted it captured, and I don’t remember what they planned to do with it afterwards. I never heard the end of the story, and I often think of what became of the bird. It’s amazing how some things become newsworthy, and stick in your mind, while others like the square root of pi slip quietly out the back window of your occipital lobe.

My car is across the street, parked in the lot reserved for hospital staff. I skip the elevator for exercise, and because it smells strongly of urine and other bodily fluids, and instead take the stairway. On the third floor I reach into my pocket, feeling the slight buzz of my phone against my fingers. Four cars down on the second row my Volvo S80 blinks its taillights in a welcoming way, like a small dog at the arrival of an owner it had waited longingly for all day.

My phone chirps once, signaling a voicemail. I'll answer later. I have seen too many effects of driving on the phone to desire to experience the tragedy firsthand.

It’s probably just Nina anyway. Usually she is the only one who calls to leave a voicemail. Oh, Nina, my lovable yet impulsive sister older than me by just 2 years. Most of the time it feels as if I am the more mature of us. Nina has lived everywhere, including a brief stint residing in a tent with a man much older than herself on a beach in Hawaii. She has never been able to stick to anything, anyone, or anywhere. Last I have heard; she lives in Doylestown at a café serving coffee. Living close allows me to see her sometimes, but it’s been awhile. Maybe she wants to get together now.

I turn the radio to WHYY and get lost in the calming voices of reporters relaying the disastrous events that had transpired in the world today.

I turn onto Chestnut Hill and drive slowly down the rugged cobblestone streets. Wonderful smells work their ways through the open windows from the restaurants lining the stones, and I think once more of my cold calzone, beckoning to be heated and devoured.

I used to be dreadful at parallel parking, but living in Philly has cured me of that. I back smoothly into a spot in one try and turn the key, cutting off the misleading peaceful tones of the radio host.

My cat, Liza Jane, stretches her long spine on the walk by my passenger door. I bend down, grateful for the small pop in my knees after being locked all day at work. She guides my hand across her muzzle and back behind her ear to stroke her striped back. Cats are funny in that way. Dogs will take whatever they can possibly get, and gladly roll onto their side to welcome more tender strokes. Cats are bossy, and quick to train you to obey their own agenda.

Liza’s collar jingles up the steps in the fast encroaching night, and she pauses at the top, attempting to trap a glowing firefly in vain.

The keys are still in my hand from getting out of the car, and I slowly sift through them to uncover the faded bronze of the house key. The lock matches the ancient metal of the key, and as usual, it sticks for just a moment until I jiggle violently and the door pops open unwillingly.

It’s dark inside, but a light is on in the kitchen. That’s unusual, seeing as typically it’s bright enough in the morning for me to get away without switching on any fixtures. Floorboards squeal behind me, and I hear feet too big to be Liza’s padding towards my turned back. I whirl around, but not before small cold hands cover my eyes.

What I'm Listening to (and You Should, too)

Hannah Newberry. Honestly, she's going to be the next JBiebs, but actually GOOD and with a cooler haircut, i.e. she has a youtube channel and awesome hair: HannahNewberrySings, and she's stinkin' fantastic. It's only a matter of time before she's discovered and whisked away to the Hollywood hills and making music videos with special appearances by Usher. Just kidding, she's too cool for that. 

And simply because I just don't trust you enough to make all the effort to type in youtube and that name up there, I have provided just a little sampling of her song "Another April." Now all you have to do is press a little white triangle and get hooked on the melody like I did and then spend the next half hour browsing her videos and then realize you've missed a dentist appointment.... not like that's actually happened to me or anything... You can check out her wicked hair (and music) here. By the way, did I mention she has a blog? Julliard: Enterprise. Hello missed dentist appointments. 

Infuriated Fowls

I feel as if this particular subject needn't warrant a description; however, just in case, I shall e'ssplain. For those of you who don't know, Angry Birds is an app for iPhones/iPods. The goal of the game is to try to aim your stash of birds (pre-loaded for each level of the game), by means of a slingshot at little green pigs which may or may not be obstructed by certain obstacles. 
Now that that's out of the way, I think I should admit my secret addiction to said app as of yesterday afternoon. In the midst of playing, I realized a lot of things I was thinking to myself were pretty parallel to life lessons. 
#1. You never know what life will give you, but somehow you have to figure out a way to turn lemonade into lemons, or however that saying goes. Each level in Angry Birds has new and unexpected surprises. For example, maybe you'll only have two birds to bombard a whole army of green pigs. You never know how many hogs there will be for you to destroy, or how difficult it will be to reach them with your limited supply of feathered friends. 
#2. The farther you go, the more you gain. Yes sometimes the app and life in general are ridiculously difficult, but we accomplish and  we earn things, whether it be a new skill, or a new bird that can explode when you toss it at pigs. In the end, things are worth it, no matter how hard they may be to begin with. 
#3. Never never give up. There's blockings in life, as well as  in Angry Birds. People we don't get along with, a flat tire, or a whole ton of computerized stones you have to break through to vanquish a couple of pigs. Either way, we learn to cope with such things. We learn to deal with that person we don't particularly enjoy spending time with, we learn to change a tire, or how to hit just one stone out of the way to topple over a seemingly impossible 2-D tower. And when we learn how to do these things, it's a pretty great feeling and sense of accomplishment. 
So that's life and angry birds. In a nutshell. 

Qadaffi Sending Mixed Signals, Reports Obama

President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that relations between the Libyan leader and himself have grown strained. 
After launching a surprise missile attack two days prior, Obama admitted he may have been reading into things for the past few months. 
Obama says he called after about an hour to see if Qudaffi had gotten the launch, but Kadafi's secretary picked up and said he was out, though Obama insists "I could hear Kodaffi in the background telling her to say he wasn't there."
The U.S. president is currently debating whether or not to text Quadafi directly. "I just want to know what I did wrong," he says. 
Later however, after Kudafi forces attacked American troops, Obama thought perhaps the air had cleared between the two leaders, but discovered that he had been defriended by Koddafi on Facebook. 
He does insist he will not call Qudafi until the Libyan dictator calls him first "so as not to seem desperate."

Wing Women > Wing Men

Aloha from the exotic shores of Topsail Island. I'm here for a few days with my friend Jessie, who it just so happens has tolerated me for 12 years. Even I have to admit that's an impressive feat. So anyway, on the way down I was drawing a picture of a girl with wings watching a city in complete ruin. 
Jess looked over at the picture and said, "Haha, it's a wing girl!"
LIGHTBULB! 
So now I'm working on a book. With a legit plot. Usually (like most things I start) I run out of momentum and have no plan for an ending, so I have about 20 half-finished books occupying my hard drive. No more! I wrote out a plan. 
You know wing men? Über popular amongst various timid men. So I can say from personal experience that when you see 2 guys sizing you up from across the room, it's freaky. (I'm just kidding, I've never had that happen). So what if they thought to be smart? What if, guys brought a wing girl? 
Think about it: girls know how other girls think. We know how to act in a way that doesn't freak others out. On the other hand, you have the male species. They have NO clue what's going on in a girl's head, so doesn't that make absolutely no sense to bring along 2 heads that are so not better than one? 
That's the idea behind the book. 
What if guys could hire a third party, that's a girl? Wow, I'm using a lot of what ifs. 
Imagine if a guy could call in a wing girl as easy as a pizza. It's simple enough for males to comprehend, and it makes so much more sense than two big testosterone fueled goons. 
Working on the first chapter currently, I'll keep you posted. 
Whatta ya think?

It's a Sign. Part Two.

Second and final part of the series. So sorry. Perhaps I should have divvied these up better. Anyway, these are mostly from my various adventures around the country: Denver, DC, Pinehurst, Philadelphia, Meadows of Dan, Alexandria, Topsail Island, and my home.

This wasn't even the best sign at this restaurant, the "Opossum" flavor under cobbler types was.

Sometimes, I get this huge urge to just leave a sticky-note on someone's windshield when they have a totally lovable car just to tell them that it's okay if we become best friends. 

That's right. Paper made of elephant bizzness, in the middle of a grocery store.

Museum exhibit dedicated to Barbie? I think yes.

So was this a warning that the SIGN has sharp edges, or the sculpture behind it? Hmmm...

Story of my life.

Only in the Italian part of Philly would you find this sign...

I think I found the car of the cat chick from the eHarmony video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTwcCVajAc

Who doesn't love the cheeseburger special for breakfast?

Unfortunately, blinky signs don't like to be photographed. But you can sort of tell that this does say "AVIOD" in our nation's capital.

Number 6. Stranger danger.

No explanation necessary.

Clearly the pricing person for this book really didn't feel like doing the conversions on how much this would cost in Canada.

I'd prefer if instead of Marley, this was a rock star.

This electrical box on Boulder's campus is endorsed by Shakespeare.

I'm a vegetarian. 'Nuff said.