I’ll pass on the excitement…

I was passing through the front room, heading to the kitchen, when I heard something outside my door. Currently, a TV table and cardboard box with Hefty’s old radiator in it are sitting near the door waiting to be taken away. I figured that the wind might have blown the radiator over again or, better yet, the mail man was leaving something.

I did not expect to find a guy crouched down below the landing wall, hiding behind the radiator. He was blond and stocky and wore a bright blue shirt.

"I’m sorry," he said to me, "but, please, ma’am can I come in? There’s eight or nine guys in the neighborhood looking for me." To say his voice was gravelly and hoarse would be to define understatement.

Now, in the past I’ve occasionally done things that I walked away from and thought, "Yeah, as a woman, that probably wasn’t a good idea." Luckily, I’ve known a lot of good, decent men whom I’ve never had to be afraid of. But this situation was a no-brainer.

"No," I said. I think I managed to avoid saying "uh" before it. I was very thankful for my locked wrought-iron-bars "screen" door.

"Can I just come in for a second? If not, I’ll get out of here."

"No," I said a few more times for emphasis and closed my storm door. And locked it.

I was concerned that he might be desperate enough to come through the bedroom window, which was open with the not-wrough-iron-bar easy-as-pancakes-to-remove screen bared. He didn’t. He moved along as he said he would. I didn’t see where he went because I decided the phone might be a valuable thing to have nearby. When I was sure he was gone, I closed the sliding glass window in the bedroom. Moving it makes a bit of noise and didn’t want to attract attention to it.

He was polite, I’ll give him that.

I’m still a bit rattled with the phone next to me and the window still closed. Probably doesn’t help that I’ve been working my way through old horror films as I’m working on rewrites. Eric can’t get home soon enough.

Gimme a PRO! Gimme a CRAST! Gimme an INATION!

Snagged from friend of a friend tallyhohoho:

Where were was I in…? (with one odd fact)

1978: Three years old, growing up in Omaha. As the daughter of a science fiction fan, I was *heavily* into Star Wars.

1983: 2nd/3rd grade, attending a Lutheran school. Failed my multiplication tables and often had to stay after school for talking too much in class.

1988: Public junior high. Book and science fiction nerd, *heavily* into Star Trek: The Next Generation. Decided on becoming a veterinarian.

1993: High school graduation, summer of working full time at a veterinary clinic, college freshman at UNL. Disenchanted with the crap veterinarians have to deal with (figuratively, not literally), I started college as a biology major with an interest in molecular biology. My college roommate thought I was insane for reading Hamlet before classes started.

1998: Living in Lincoln and working for food service after getting my degree in English lit. Dating Eric and began writing my first novel with his advice. Took a grad class in writing, but was dissuaded from that path when the prof made a fool of himself while trying to make an example of me.

2003: In Tempe, married to Eric. Writing on the Marie novels. Played in my first ultimate frisbee tournament and was given the game disc.

2008: Still in Tempe, still married to Eric. Working on a large scale project that incorporates some of the material from the aborted Marie novels; awaiting publication of 1st novel by small press. First year after giving up ultimate tournaments due to joint health.