Two Weeks?!

Ever notice how time is relative? I don't mean Einstein relativity, or Stephen Hawking's musings on the universe. I mean how it is subjective and personal and relative to you and what you're doing.

I took a look at the date of my last posting, and had one of those animated eyes-bulging, double-take moments. It's been two weeks ... TWO WEEKS!

On one hand, it seems longer than two weeks, because so much has happened. On the other hand, tempus fugit, and flew fast. See ... that's what I mean. Relative and subjective.

Now, before describing why and how I've been Time's fool (to quote Willie S.), I am hereby undertaking an official pledge to keep up with my own blog every week. Here's hoping the old man with the sickle won't be chasing after me, horror-movie style. :)

So what has caused my chronological conundrum? Well, on August 1st, we celebrated a launch party. And quite a fete it was ... Bourbon and Branch, the famed and fabulous speakeasy in San Francisco, provided the setting and the most delicious cocktails this side of Harry's Bar in Venice, circa 1932. And yes, even absinthe was served!

On the menu were two delicious drinks, invented for the event: the Roman Noir (an amarna/mint/honey confection, dark, slightly bitter and delicious), and the Nox Dormienda (dreamy, white, frothy, with citrus and elderflower and an orchid on top). The setting was the library, complete with secret door and amazing ambiance. And I'm proud to say that Bourbon and Branch just won the Best of the Bay award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Diane Kudisch of the San Francisco Mystery Bookstore was my indefatigable and wonderful bookseller ... another Best of the Bay award-winner! So we all had reason to celebrate, and celebrate we did.

But the most important ingredient of all -- that which makes a party a wonderful, memorable time -- the people. I really can't tell you how good it felt to be surrounded by so many friends and colleagues from all the strands of my life ... the writing community to comic store buddies to SF State. And I had the chance to meet new friends, because guests brought other guests!

Local writer-friends from MWA and SinC and ITW and out-of-town friends participating in the RWA conference ... my agent, friends from Red Room (the best space for writers!) ... I could fill up this blog with a list of my wonderful, generous and beautiful guests. Which included, by the way, a contingent of talented Romans dressed in costume, from the Legio X Fretensis.

My beautiful, funny, smart and unique mother was there, of course, and she brought her friends, one of whom drove 250 miles from Fortuna to come. The joint was jumping. I'm posting a few pictures here ... these and many more will soon be up on a new page of my website, a kind of photo scrap book of past events. Hey, with my small house, I need to electronically store my memories! :)

I really felt like George Bailey (at the end, not the beginning). :) I just wish I'd had more time to talk to everyone for longer. And I'm immeasurably grateful to everyone for coming to the party!
I'm writing an article about it ... it was such a special event for me -- a career launch as as well as a book launch -- that I need to give it some more thought and time. More details when done.

The next day was my first book store signing/reading at the terrific M is for Mystery, which was absolutely wonderful. People actually came! I've heard all the stories from the road, and I'm fully expecting to encounter an audience of none for some upcoming event, but I was elated to meet some interesting and terrific readers my first time around. And I picked up a Certificate of Honor from the City and County of San Francisco, signed by our mayor, in recognition of Roman Noir. So my new genre has been officially recognized by my beloved, shimmering jewel of a city. :)

Sunday, a week ago today, I spent the morning with dear friend Jordan Dane, who'd flown out for RWA (and had come to the party). Then I came home and collapsed, exhausted but happy.

The last week has been a return to normalcy, of a kind. Day job. Box dinners. Trying to catch up with all the myriad book stuff I'm behind in, now that Nox is officially and truly out in the world. I'm still behind, but am diligently trying. And writing my WIP.

Thursday night I also had the great fun of guesting on a library panel in Morgan Hill with Terri Thayer and Penny Warner, and getting to see Becky LeVine and Beth Proudfoot again (we'd met at my first-ever conference -- No Crime Unpublished -- last June).

Yesterday was a MWA NorCal meeting at John's Grill, where we were able to hear scintillating stories from legendary female private investigator Sandra Sutherland.

And that brings me to today. Still with too much to do and not enough time to do it in, but I'm adjusting to the new normal, and hoping that Time will be kind. And not in such a damn hurry!

Next week: A small and long overdue post on Nora Prentiss. I'll be in Seattle for a signing at the fabulous Seattle Mystery Bookshop on the August 22nd, too.

Party photos: Bourbon and Branch library, around the bar, Romans!, the uber-talented and wonderful Jordan Dane and sensational Simon Wood, two of the most talented and beautiful and nicest women in the biz, Michelle Gagnon and Heather Graham, and the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, looking like a million bucks in white (not black). :)

Year of the Rat; or, The Best Laid Plans O' Mice and Men ...

Last week I mentioned that a book debut was a little like temporary insanity ... what I didn't know is that I was actually making a prophecy.

In short, dear readers, insanity in the form of the most improbable series of coincidences since the plot of Murder on the Orient Express struck my household on Sunday.

Now, I don't normally like to write about my life blah-blah-blah stuff. Writing in the Dark is, at its heart, supposed to be about noir with a dash of history and esoterica thrown in for good measure. However, the events of Sunday afternoon were so bizarre as to warrant their own blog post. After all, if not to chronicle life's strangeness -- and truth is, indeed, far weirder than fiction -- what else is a blog for?

Noir will return next week, when I resume my top ten countdown (with the truly strange and wonderful Nora Prentiss! Stay tuned!). For now, I'll share a little noirishness of my own ...

Sunday afternoon I was type-type-typing away, trying to finish a chapter of my work in progress ... when I hear some noises that alarmed me, opened the door of our very small, 1941-built San Francisco home, and found my loved one in a state of consternation. Make that great consternation.

First, a little architectural background. San Francisco houses of the district in which we live were usually built with the living space on an upper floor and a garage below. A substantial (for this city) backyard appends the rear. Our house is virtually unchanged from 1941 -- the garage is still a garage and storage area, not an extra living space. One day, when I'm not trying to launch a new career, we'll add an extra bedroom or library downstairs. For now, however, our living space is very small, very crowded (especially with a 70 pound Springer Spaniel) and (at this point in time) messy.

It's called "debut book syndrome," and it happens to the best of homes.

Anyway, we like things old-fashioned, and I am, after all, currently writing about 1940, so hey--our house is like built-in research.

Anyway, back to Sunday. The consternation was because:

A. Said Springer Spaniel evidently had a medical emergency ... in the nature of a urinary tract demonstration. This was brought to our attention by the fact that the living room futon was beyond salvation.

B. At exactly the same time as the dog was tracking pee in the hallway, the cat was hissing and howling outside the door that leads from the hallway downstairs to the garage. And said cat chased a large mouse or small rat under the door, into our house and into the bedroom.

Well, let's just say I didn't get that chapter finished on Sunday. We spent four or five hours trying to clear out the bedroom so that we could find the rat. In the meantime, we also had to make sure the dog was all right, take him out every fifteen minutes, and haul a very, very wet and heavy futon mattress downstairs.

We combed the bedroom looking for the rat, finding it at one point, but then poof! he seemed to disappear under the bed. Fearing the worst, we examined the box springs ... not there, thank God. But that meant ... no, it couldn't be ... one of the eight foot tall bookcases. Maybe he was behind it.

So we stripped that bookcase, dear readers, removing all the precious books until we ran out of room, boxes and bags. We carefully moved the bookcase, and ... no rat.

By then it was time to take a break, and we were faced with:

A. Having to stay in a motel for at least one night
B. Obviously missing work the next day
C. Dismantling 2 (two) more bookcases ... same size

We were in the Slough of Despond, the Pit of Despair, feeling like noir protagonists (you-know-what on page one).

And that, my friends, is when the clouds cleared, if only for a moment, when the magical sound of the Ice Cream man rolled down our street, signaling "Don't worry!"

There's something magical about the Ice Cream man, and no more so than when your dog has ruined your futon and there's a rat in your bedroom.

After a delicious Fudgsicle and Blue Bunny Chocolate Sundae Bar, we resumed our daunting and gargantuan task. We started to clear the room of everything, examining each bag and box to make sure there wasn't a rat in it before we moved it to another spot in the house.

And, lo! I peered into a bag of books, lifting it off the floor ... and I immediately dropped it again, because Mr. Rat was tucked next to a hardback of What Charles Dickens Ate and Jane Austen Wore or something similar.

I stood over that bag like my cat. Loved One cleared the path between the rat and freedom, flinging open the guilty door which led to the basement and the back yard.

Faster than you can say "Fudgsicle" I rolled up the top of that bag (thankfully, it was double-bagged), tucked it under my arm, and performed a 50 yard Rat Dash to the backyard, where Mr. Rat was able to scamper and hop through the grass and up and over the neighbor's fence, from which (we surmise) he had emerged earlier. The cat chased him again, but couldn't be bothered to go over the fence herself. There are limits to Sunday work for cats, or they contact the union.

The literary Rat thus lived to read someone else's library. I immediately fixed the doorway so that, should the universe ever attempt to repeat this insanity, the rat would be forced to make a U-turn.

We were able to stay home that night, though the next day was spent in trying to achieve equilibrium: finding clothes, locating books, rearranging furniture, buying another couch, and of course, getting antibiotics for the dog.

The moral, dear readers, is that something good actually came out of this rather tortuous adventure. We are now in the middle of a late Spring cleaning, foisted upon us by an uninvited guest, and have a great head start in a home improvement project ... despite the impending book launch.

And think about how amazingly lucky we were ... first, to have seen the rat getting chased, and thus be able to do something about it, and secondly, to have found it in a bag.

So here is my Year of the Rat challenge to you: what seemingly horrible event has resulted in something positive for you? When have your best laid plans gone awry, and yet you later discover that that was a good thing? And what has been your equivalent of "The Ice Cream Man" -- that one, shining moment that seems (in retrospect) to have turned everything around?

Share your stories ... it's the Year of the Rat!