A... finished project? And other miracles.

I can't believe what a slacker I've been on this blog. Sorry! Truth be told, I felt a bit antisocial after the miscarriage (and exhausted - a natural miscarriage is not a quick or easy process).

But.  I'm now back to normal (my version of normal, anyway). I'm done with the revisions of The Goddess of Vengeance Wore Pink Galoshes, which is now absolutely the best book I can make it. I know in two or three years I'll re-read it and there will probably be things that make me groan, because I'm not done growing as a writer yet, but it's so much better than the earlier drafts. It's so much better than my writing used to be.

Honestly, I'm starting to learn to love editing. It's neat to see how much my writing's improved from just a year ago when I wrote the rough draft of Goddess. It's exciting to work my way that much closer to the story I set out to write and to telling it effectively.

So now it's time to sub Goddess, and really focus on the next things -- editing my YA novel, Recovering Sara, and rough drafting the next novel (Too. Many. Shiny. Projects).

I've been reading some fantastic books, too. I just finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which is not just a beautifully written modern fantasy, but an adult picture book. The author, Ransom Riggs, collected weird vintage photographs of children that form the basis for his characters. The photos and text work together beautifully, and there's something about the novelty of pictures (especially these intriguing, sometimes unsettling photographs) that I found very winning. But only because the story itself is so well told. Now I'm reading The Left Hand of God, by Paul Hoffman. I have mixed feelings about it in some ways --the religious aspects of it, the omniscient point-of-view that I sometimes find intrusive, personally -- but I'm so invested in the characters, the pacing is so quick and the story so interesting that I can't put it down. Though parts of it may not suit my personal preferences, I think it's a terrific book so far. (And I'm also reading the Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend, but that's not really so much for fun...)

What've you all been up to while I was gone?

Salve

I self-medicate with cute and furry.

Meet Nacho. Nacho is a four-month old kitten rescued by the SPCA, waiting with us for his forever home.

And, in case you couldn't tell, Nacho is adorable.  We picked him up last night and he's super friendly, the only cat I've ever seen go immediately to sleep in his carrier. Which is the only time I've seen him sleep. He is a go-go-go cat, and with all the playing we did last night I still couldn't wear him out.

I've been at a little bit of a loss for what to do with myself lately. Nacho is helping. He knows exactly what I should do - I should throw his ball again.

Gone

I lost the baby.

The almost eight hours in the E.R. seemed interminable until I found out, but really, it’s nothing when you consider what was undone when I finally left. 

Seven weeks of dreaming about the baby because even when I was asleep, he or she was on my mind. Seven weeks of telling him or her to hang in there with my hand on my tummy. Eleven weeks with this child nestled in my belly. Or the seven years now MJ and I have talked about someday, when we’re ready, when we have a baby.

The midwife who came in after the ultrasound told me, “You’re only twenty-seven. You’re young, you’re healthy, there’s no reason you can’t be pregnant again in a few months.”

Maybe in a few months, that’ll seem like something worth saying.

Right now, I want my January baby.

My walked-in-commencement-with-me baby.

My we’re-not-ready-but-we’re-ready baby.

My calling from the top of the stairs, “Um, babe” with an edge of panic in my voice and a pregnancy test in my hand baby.

I want that baby.

If you're not a pantser...

I still think 'pantser' sounds like a dirty word. But for writers it means someone who writes by the seat-of-their-pants. I'm a reformed pantser; not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's not the best method for me personally. Like most of us, I learned that from trial and error.

But. If you're an outliner, there's so much more to figure out after that. So far I've found a combination works best for me - I do a rough outline, then a detailed outline as I go, a few chapters ahead. I just can't plan everything at the start. At least, not yet. I'm still learning!

So I was looking at different outlining methods. Just like with writing as a whole, I don't think there's a good or bad process, just what works best for you.

• For a very high-level outline (that even Pantsers may find helpful), there's the 9-box or Rubik's Cube outline
• Justine Larbalestier talks about spreadsheets (though she actually uses Scrivener now, which I'm curious about). I am a finance dork and love Excel. Spreadsheets tempt me.
• There's the Snowflake method, which seems... exhaustive... but I'm interested to experiment with.
• Or you can outline primary plot points and characterization in half an hour.

I've mentioned, of course, that I already have a method that seems to work for me. At least, it's getting me to the finish line of a rough draft - a few of them, now. But I'm still curious to try these other methods.  Maybe something will make my life easier. Maybe something will make my life easier in revisions. If anyone can make revisions easier for me, I will bake you cupcakes. I'm pretty good at cupcakes. I promise.

But if that doesn't happen, well, I'm sure by the time I've ten or twelve drafts done I'll have found the perfect method. For me. This is an every-man-for-himself sort of thing.

WSJ controvery awesomeness

So I'm sure you guys didn't miss the hoopla about YA; the WSJ posted yet another ill-advised and under-reserched piece about young adult novels this past weekend. To summarize: books for teenagers are too dark nowdays! Also, there was an appropriate reading list divided into "boy books" and "girl books", which I have to admit I was stuck on myself...

Anyway, there was an appropriately irritated response from the kid lit community which included a Twitter trend of #yasaves - some of the responses are here as well as on Twitter.

There's no need for another outrage filled post, so I'm just going to say... I'm so glad we're even having conversations like these.  When I was still searching the YA section for books to read in the '90s, there was so little there. Too old for Babysitters Club and Nancy Drew? Well, there was a handful of issues books like Are You In the House Alone?, A Wrinkle in Time (which I loved) as well as L'Engle's other books, V.C. Andrew's bizarro world and... well, I remember a bunch of romances about terminally ill girls featuring prominently in the tiny YA department of the local bookstore. Slim pickings, and the reason why most of us moved straight on to reading adult fantasy or horror or whatever.

Teens today don't have to skip straight to King and Heinlein right away, though, the way I did (a point which I think the original WSJ article missed -- kids aren't stuck in the YA section, which encompasses such a wide range, from fluffy romance to violent dystopian to gritty issues, that it can now compete with the adult shelves, at least for a while).  There are YA books to hook every reader, including the ones who might not make the jump to adult fiction otherwise.

And while that might be causing some unrest in various parental camps, that's also pretty awesome.

Reason #93 I think the whole world is crazy.

Having a baby is making me feel rebellious.

Let me just say up front, a healthy baby is the most important thing to me. I'll do whatever I have to do for that. But some of the things pregnant women are supposed to abstain from aren't backed up by scientific research - there's a lot of fear-mongering.

So here's a list of things you are not allowed if you are a Good Mother, which may or may not be valid:

• No hot tubs or hot baths
• No sunbathing
• No fake tanner, either, if you're feeling pale
• No hair dye or highlights
• No nail polish and certainly no going in the salon with all the fumes!
• No alcohol
• No sushi
• No deli meat
• No soft ice cream
• No hot dogs                                                   
• No soft cheeses                                              
• No roller coasters
• No rafting or tubing
• No caffeine

I'd heard of the sushi restriction and who, of course, hasn't seen the "No preggers" warning on a bottle of booze?  But others have caught me off-guard, like when I read the no-caffeine thing while sucking down my usual caramel frappucino (for the record, while "no caffeine" is often batted about and lots of pregnant women pass it up completely, there's no reason not to drink it in moderation; too much can just be hard for the fetus to metabolize and can lead to premature uterine contractions. Fun fact!).

The perfectionism of the whole thing bugs me - the idea of trying to do everything right so Nothing Will Go Wrong. There are a lot of things that can go wrong during a pregnancy, and I think that's why we tend to resort to perfectionism. It reminds me of being a college athlete and being superstitious, knowing it was irrational but not wanting to entertain that niggling doubt if something went wrong.

And if you're really worried? Well, then you can buy belly armor to shield your unborn child from the radiation of your cell phone and laptop. Just to be safe.

I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the next 7 months with my sanity intact, y'all. And once they're born, there's so much more to worry about.

Every ending's a beginning...

This weekend was grad school commencement. 

I gave some of my Starbucks frappucino to the University of Maryland College Park turtle. I'm so grateful the whole thing is over. No more late nights doing stats & spreadsheets. No more trying to read a textbook as I bounce around in turbulence on yet another airplane for yet another work trip. No more excruciating Sunday night group meetings. 

And, most of all, another nice thing to put on my resume: M.S., Finance.

But the craziest part of the whole thing?

I didn't walk in commence by myself.

It's really too early to tell anyone (but here I am). I found out, amazingly enough, on Mother's Day. I'm going to be a mom. And I have no idea what I'm doing. We started "trying", sure, but I thought it would take time. Time to get used to the idea and come up with a new plan to replace my infamous Three Year Plan.

Maybe that's why I'm telling you, blog friends. But I'm excited. I'm hoping I can figure it out. And you know I'll blog about it all along the way.

The best cause is your cause.

Now that grad school is over, my life is so much more... orderly.

I ran this morning. I shaved my legs. I packed a healthy lunch to work. I wrote today. I talked to my husband.  My house is (relatively) clean. We made dinner together instead of running to the gyro place around the corner.  Maybe for you guys that's just another day as a real grown-up, but for me, it's a gold-sticker sort of day.

Of course, I can't help but immediately spin out with new plans now that grad school is over, though I'm trying to keep in to a minimum. The only thing I'm letting myself add into my life now is... volunteer work.

Pre-grad-school, some type of volunteer work was almost always a part of my world. I tried a lot of things: soup kitchen, first response medical team, pet rescue, homeless transitional house, scouting, outreach program for homeless teens, SPCA.  Some weren't a good fit for me and some were fun and inspiring, but I learned something everywhere.


I know there are people who think some causes are more important than others. It's a case I've heard made more than once. Breast cancer trumps animal rescue, because people matter more than animals, for instance. Or conservation doesn't matter when there are children starving to death. Or building homes isn't important when the whole planet is going to hell.  And I really don't get it.

There's lots of bad in the world. Lots of work to do. So who cares what "cause" is most important? Let's just get to work doing something, whatever we're most passionate about. It's not like we're all going to unite tomorrow and decide that, hey, today is the day we're going to cure homelessness (though that would be super).  Maybe it's a good thing we all have different passions and gifts to put to work so we can do different things to lessen the suck in the world.

That's what I believe, anyway. And I'm looking forward to transforming that belief back into action.

Photo from the awesome free stock photo site, http://www.sxc.hu. Many thanks to the photog!

L is for Losing the A to Z challenge

Well. I've disappeared for a while, which obviously hasn't been good for the daily blogging and the A to Z challenge.

On the plus side, my (current) time period of biting off more than I can chew has come to an end. I finished my last grad school class on WEDNESDAY! So no more of this:

Which is how I've felt lately.  Like I just can't get my arms around things (though I have to say, grad school was not so much with the cute and cuddly).

J is for the joke on me

I posted last month about how bad things tend to come in threes, and that was true for us (Recap here). First our car died, and it was going to cost as much to (maybe) fix it as it was worth. Our dishwasher died (in the middle of a big home reno project, too, which was a nice touch). And then, the third thing that I didn't want to post about, was that MJ lost his job.

But he got a new job! Yay! Knowing what so many are going through in this economy and job market, I recognize we are so, so blessed. And I'm really not complaining.

But that things about threes?

Yeah, my washing machine just broke.

H is for the homeless, I is for idealism

Once, when a friend and I were planning a trip into D.C., she said, "But seriously, I'm only going in without you if you promise not to talk to the homeless people."

I don't remember what I'd done before to bring that on. I have an admittedly low capacity for resistance to people asking me for food, though, which may make me a sucker. I've volunteered with homeless teenagers before, so I know sometimes people are trying to get money for things that are... not food. But still.

Yesterday I was in Baltimore by myself. I parked my car in a lot and as I walked out,  there was no one around except a young man with a beard and worn-looking clothes. He came over to me, said, "I don't know if you can help me..."

"I'll try," I said, thinking he was going to ask me for directions, which was just going to be bad for both of us. I can barely give directions to my house, forget a city I don't live in.

"I'm trying to buy some food," he said.

"Oh, sure." I pulled my wallet out of my purse and opened it, and then realized - and I'm sure he saw too - that I had around a dozen $20's. I'd just picked up cash the day before to pay a friend for a piece of exercise equipment for our home gym.

I couldn't help but think... man, this guy is probably a nice guy who's down on his luck, but the nicest guy in the world who's hungry has got to be thinking he could punch me in the face and walk off with my wallet right now, even if he never would.

That didn't happen. But I thought two things, afterwards. One, maybe I'm dumb for stopping and opening up my wallet when I'm alone and there's no one else around.  Two, I wish I'd walked around the corner with him to the Subway and bought him lunch instead of giving him a few bucks and hurrying off to my meeting. It would have been a bit more meaningful of a gesture. So what if I'd been two minutes late?

And those two thoughts are completely contradictory.

I know we all have our own philosophies - some people give to panhandlers, some only give to charities that help the homeless. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of those different perspectives.

But personally, when someone asks me for food, I don't see any reason not to give. I guess I'd rather be a little dumb sometimes.

G is for Guinevere

When my parents were choosing names, they debated between Cassiopia (for the space-prostitute-turned-nurse from Battlestar Galactica) and Guinevere, of Arthurian legend.

Neither of these are popular baby names in the U.S.

Mythologically speaking, Cassiopia was the braggart queen that claimed to be prettier than Posiedon's sea nymphs. Because Poseidon was, apparently, a psycho, this resulted in him unleashing a monster on the coast of her country. Cassiopia and her husband chained their daughter Andromeda to a rock as an offering to quell the beast. Luckily, Andromeda was rescued by a convenient hero, Perseus.  Happy ending! Your parents didn't get you killed!

So that story sort of sucks. However, according to the baby name sites, the name means "She whose words excel" (judging from the story, her words excel at starting trouble), so I do like that.

Guinevere, of course, was a great queen in Arthurian legend right up until she cheated on Arthur with Lancelot and caused the downfall of Camelot (Of course - woman-blaming is fun!). The name is translated alternately as meaning "White spirit" or "White wave" or a combination of white and smooth. I was fated by my name to be this damn pale.

The name's generally considered to be rooted in Welsh, but I've also read some argument that Guinevere historically speaking was likely French.

In the end, my parents went with Guinevere.  When I was a kid, I was the only Guinevere I knew. I was obsessed with Arthurian legend (yes, along with the forensic pathology. I was... well-rounded?). I didn't like my name as a child, though. It was so weird, and seriously, I was already weird enough.  I didn't mind when people butchered it and called me "Jen" instead (which is derived from Guinevere).

I grew into my name, though. It helped that I got to leave my childhood home, where it seemed everyone was named Crystal or Jessica. And I married a man with a very English last name which sounds lovely with Guinevere, than my rather ethnic maiden name (which was something akin to Polishlongnameoffski). And that I just plain grew up, and being different - in any way - no longer seems like the little disaster it is at eleven.

In other words, good news, Mom: I've abandoned my childhood plans to change my name to Jane!

F is for... F is for...

When I was trying to come up with a topic for E, I brainstormed words that start with E and I just kept coming up with eels. Why yes, Brain, eels starts with no one but TWO E's, but that alone doesn't make eels a great blog post topic.

Today with F I'm stuck on fish. There's a whole under-the-sea theme going on in my subconscious.

But let's move on to F for forensic pathology.  As a kid, I was obsessed with forensic pathology.  I watched "X-Files" and "Silence of the Lambs" at an embarrassingly tender age.  I read forensic science textbooks and pathology case studies.

I planned to become a forensic pathologist right up until I realized it was thirteen years of further education post-high school and that I just could. not. commit.  And then I studied history in college, which was every bit of gruesome as forensic pathology, and went off into the Marines and generally forgot about the entire subject. I don't even watch C.S.I.

Recently, though, I started writing mysteries, often mysteries in historic settings, and I remember bits of case studies I read fifteen years ago. I've been surprised to realize that it's true nothing you ever learn is ever really lost (details, yes, general concepts, no), and I'm not sure any interest ever fades away completely. 

So now, instead of that weird kid reading true crime, I'm that weird adult reading articles from the International Journal of Forensic Science. Booya.

E is for Escalators and other scary things

As a kid, I watched a lot of R-rated films and TV shows without any apparent harm. I loved "Silence of the Lambs" and "Pippi Longstocking" equally.

What did mess me up, though, was the evening news.

I particularly remember being very little - three or four - and playing in our living room while my dad watched the news.  They ran a news story about a woman involved in an escalator accident when her shoe got stuck in the escalator.  Of course, in my childish imagination she was dragged into the depths of the escalator and never seen again.

The next time my mom and I went to Woolworth's, I stared at the escalator, trying to figure out how a whole person could be sucked into an escalator. I wondered what was in the body of the escalator, underneath the treads. Probably trolls.

And, to my mom's bafflement, I'm sure, I refused to get on the escalator. I would spend the next eight years or so of my life taking stairs or elevators until the pressure of being an adolescent mall rat forced me to confront my fears and save face in front of my friends.

But now I'm an adult. I've researched escalator accidents and being aware of how to prevent them (a handy tip: don't wear Crocs on escalators. Actually, to be safe, you might want to never wear Crocs). I realize no one is getting sucked into the escalator mechanism and that, worse case scenario, you're probably just going to mangle a toe or too -- I'm a marathon runner, we mangle our own toes, that's no big deal.  I understand there are no trolls.

I still hesitate, do a little stutter-step, every time I get onto an escalator, though. I just want to be careful. Old fears die hard.

Anyone else have any irrational perfectly logical childhood fears?

C is for Cars, D is for Debt

This weekend MJ and I went car shopping. We test drove a few cars, poked around the used cars, and were having a pretty good experience until that terrible moment at the end of visiting a car dealership where they bring out the big guns.

Do they do this everywhere or just in Virginia? You look at some cars, you talk to a salesperson, you take a test drive, and then they're like "Oh, real quick, let me grab my sales manager to give you the hard sell until you wish you'd never thought of buying a new car."

This sales manager was a particularly interesting case. He talked loudly and excitedly without making eye contact.  He flipped a pen between his hands as he talked at us, asking how aggressive a deal he'd need to make for us to buy a car today, and asking the same questions repeatedly.

At a key moment in his spiel, he told us, "Look, I will give you twenty percent off a car today. That's unheard of. That's such a good deal, it's an investment. Tell me that's not an investment."
I tried to stop myself, but...well... he asked. I said, "Well, it's not an investment. By definition, an investment is something that appreciates in value. This car is going to depreciate. I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm getting my Master's in Finance and - that's just not an investment."

"Okay, okay," he said. He repeated his spiel over again, and then finished with, "Tell me that's not an investment!"

You know what happened next.

I'd feel badly for this dude, who is just trying to do his job, right? And here I am, unable to resist the impulse to define key financial terms for him.  But when we were test driving the car, the dealer told us about how many young kids from the nearby base come in and buy sports cars. He didn't know how they could afford them.  And, having spent lots of time with young Marines and their financial troubles, I'd have to say they can't.

But maybe someone convinces them it's an investment!

B is for Babies

I'm a planner by nature. There are a few things that are tough to plan -- writing and publishing, for instance, refuse so far to submit to a calendar -- but I plan everything I possibly can. I used to have a career flowchart hanging on the wall of my bedroom, with various divergences planned for in multi-color Sharpie.

I've grown out of that, a little, but not much.

When MJ and I first married, we said it was nice we were marrying a little younger than most of our family and friends did. We'd have a few years together to just enjoy being, and then we could start a family while we were younger, too. We thought we'd have our first baby at 27 or so, which happens to be the age I am now (with 28 rapidly approaching).

But then the career plans and the budget plans and the travel plans overtook the early baby thoughts.  I want to run just one more marathon before I settle into the walking-and-yoga routine typical of pregnant ladies. I'd like to have X dollars in the bank. I want to go to England, Ireland, France and Japan before we give up traveling for a season. I had to finish grad school pre-baby. I must finish up 3 years at my present assignment and settle into a new job before we have a baby. I should sell a book first, maybe two, because who knows what the baby will do to my writing equilibrium.

That's a lot of To Do pre-baby. It pushed the baby schedule out into my early 30's.

And lately? I'm not sure I care about any of it.  I just want to have a baby, and let the plans work themselves out. No Sharpies or schedules.

That feels a little scary.

A is for ASIM

Alright, I dithered on whether or not to do the A to Z blogging challenge like last year, since I'm in the last month of grad school (YAY!), but it was just so much fun last year I had to.

My post for A is on the Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine Pre-Slushing Workshop (man, say that three times fast). ASIM is one of the pro-paying sci-fi markets. They ran a workshop where authors posted the first 300 words of their short stories, and then editors commented on what they liked, didn't like, and whether they'd read on.

Since we so rarely get substantive feedback from editors, this was a great chance to see what works for them and what doesn't.  If you write sci-fi  or just want a look at how editors read, you might want to go over to Patty Jansen's blog, Must Use Bigger Elephants, and check out the slush.

If you're curious, too, one of my short stories is in there as slush too - the first 300 words of ALL WE KNOW OF HEAVEN AND HELL is posted here with editorial comments.

Grammar is not my thing (but parentheses, oh parentheses are...)

I've always thought of myself as a good writer. As a kid, I hated grammar and paid as little attention to English class as possible, but I also read voraciously and wrote for fun. I wrote everything - short stories, poetry, abortive attempts at novels, essays. I wrote essays for fun. I studied vocabulary for fun. I'd usually go through my vocabulary workbook by the end of September and then spend the rest of the year making up my own vocabulary lessons that no one ever wanted to do.

Basically, I was a little geek until you planted me in front of an English workbook and told me to diagram sentences, at which point my Love of Learning evaporated in a sad little puff of smoke.

Also, I don't do things I don't want to do, as a general rule, unless you offer me money. And no one did that in fifth grade. So I never really diagrammed any sentences. I did develop what I believe is a decent ear for English and a very natural, thoughtless approach to writing. That approach served me well enough throughout my school career and into work -- despite the fact that I struggle to recall what the difference is between an adjective and an adverb.

But I've been realizing lately that's not enough. Two people recently critiqued two different pieces of my writing where I used 'laid' when I should have written 'lay'. Reading 'Reasoning with Vampires' (which, besides being snarky as hell, is also pretty educational) has made me wonder about my indiscriminate use of commas (the comma is never wrong!) and perhaps excessively enthusiastic love of the em-dash. And, well, the parentheses. If you read my blog, you probably know how I feel about parentheses (LOVE! I'd make sweet love resulting in baby (parentheses) if I weren't already married). 

I want to be more than a good writer. I want to be a great writer. That might mean breaking rules of English composition on occasion, but it should be deliberate, not because I write the way I talk.

So I have some studying to do. But seriously?

I'm still not diagramming any sentences.

Limitless

This weekend I saw Limitless at the theater. It was my reward to myself for a) writing a ten page paper about Adidas' acquisitions (not exciting) and b) adding ten thousand words to my novel (exciting!).

And it was a perfect reward. Limitless was an amazing movie - one of the best I've seen in a while.

Limitless is a sci-fi flick about a down-on-his-luck writer who gets the chance to try out a miracle drug that allows the user to access every part of their brain, every memory of everything they've seen and read, every bit of analytical power.

Too bad it has some side effects. And that everyone wants a piece of the guy with the drug...

I loved that the main character is a writer (watch the trailer!), although I must admit they didn't exactly write publishing exactly (an advance on his novel before it's written? um, about that...).  I love the voice in this movie - the humor, the narrative was a little reminiscent of what I liked about fight club.  It had a great concept, and a plot that made the ending as perfect as the beginning.  It's just a fun sci-fi action flick.

Also, the lead Bradley Cooper is wicked hot.

Show me the voice!

Brenda Drake is holding this very cool blogfest/contest where you post the first 250 words of your story for the chance to win a crit from agent Natalie Fischer! Get all the details here to check out all the participants and/or sign up yourself! The idea is that we crit each other's first 250 words and then send the polished versions in for judging.

Here are my first 250 words for the current YA mystery WIP, RECOVERING SARA:
*****************************************************************************

I would never have been at a support group, on a precious Saturday no less, if my mother hadn’t pulled out every maternal threat that still worked at sixteen. Mostly, that if I did not stop sulking and get in the goddamn car so she could drive me to the Y, she would not drive me anywhere I actually wanted to go. I swear the only reason people move out to suburbs when they have children is so that they can hold them in thrall.

            

 “Okay guys,” Reggie said, swiping at her fangs of chin-length black hair. Reggie led the Young Adults With Ulcerative Colitis Support Group. So far, she wasn’t what I expected from a support group leader. I thought she’d be more bouncy and enthusiastic. She smiled a lot, but beneath the false cheer she seemed irritated.  Ulcerative colitis does that to us all.  “Let’s go around and do introductions. I see some new faces here tonight.”

            
 I gnawed on one shiny pink fingernail while I waited for the introductions to come around to me.  There was a small girl with dark hair and glasses sitting across from me. She looked like she should be across the hall at a support group for Second Graders With Ulcerative Colitis. 

I stole a glance at the boy on my right, not wanting him to catch me looking. He was red haired, the kind of tall and gawky that doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with hands and knees. He crossed his legs at the knee and then uncrossed them yet again.