Anneliese Fox - Writing, thinking, messing around

An Environmental Property Tax?

acmfox — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 21:18:54 +0000

An Environmental Property Tax? acmfox Fri, 07/28/2017 - 17:18

What if there was an environmental property tax?

This tax would not be based on property value, but simply on acreage. The amount of the tax would be based on how well a particular property contributes to overall environmental wellness. The definition of environmental wellness would be simple, and defined within the area's geographic location and local environmental concerns. For example, along the east coast rainfall is plentiful and trees grow naturally and trees are great producers of oxygen and other environmental benefits. So the amount of land covered in plants at the ground level and volume of upper canopy greenery (i.e., trees) might constitute the basis upon which the tax is calculated. In arid or semi-arid areas, plants that contribute to the conservation of water might be the basis of calculating tax rates.

Let's say that the tax rate is $100 per acre for a property that makes no positive contribution to the environment. (My numbers here are meant to make calculations simplistic, not necessarily represent good values.) In the Connecticut, that might look like a parking lot. That parking lot is taxed at the highest rate ($100). Next to parking lot is a property with a building and half the land is open space, covered in grass. They get a $10 tax credit. ($100 - $10 = $90 tax bill). Going farther down the way, we find another plot with a house and half the space covered with mature trees. That owner will enjoy a $50 tax credit. For the land owner with 100% coverage of mature (and healthy) trees, the tax credit could max at $125, netting a $25 payment to the owner. So, the more trees you plant, the lower the tax and if you have well managed land that contributes to improving the environment in some significant way, you might even earn some money from it. The tax revenue generated would help to support other environmental causes.

This might spawn another industry: just as there are tax accountants there might be environmental accountants/landscape consultants to help property owners decide how to minimize this tax and perhaps profit by it. I don't imagine a need for an industry of expert tree counters, that is, people who count the trees and other foliage per acre to assess its tax value. Satellite imaging with pattern recognition should be able to manage that function. There may be some professionals who do land-based surveys when a property owner wants to contest a tax bill, however.

I don't have any illusions that in our current political environment that anything like this could be implemented at the federal level. And it doesn't have to be. If just a few states considered something like this and it was a successful revenue producer, other states would join the cause. Even if it is impossible to get the whole country onboard, significant strides can be made.

If you’re not hungry, there’s no reason to get out of bed

acmfox — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 17:32:06 +0000

If you’re not hungry, there’s no reason to get out of bed acmfox Fri, 04/14/2017 - 13:32

I am not a morning person. Never was, never will be. That’s not to say that I haven’t tried. For years, I stumbled out of bed before the sun woke up — to get into the bathroom first; to swim (I was a competitive swimmer in my youth); to take the early classes; to get into work before the traffic got heavy. I went to bed at a ‘reasonable’ hour to get at least eight hours of shut-eye. I did all those things to mesh with the rest of the world.

The thing is, that no matter what schedule I followed, as far as the clock on the wall was concerned, I was a zombie until early afternoon. I functioned on a physical level. I could go through the motions of whatever was demanded at the time, but my brain’s higher functions were AWOL. My clients knew and joked about the fact that they could ask me anything in the afternoon and get an immediate and useful response. Ask me in the morning…not so much.

Over the years, I’ve played around with my sleep/wake schedules. I start working later and end later to give my clients more of my peak hours. I get out of bed later…and later…and…

The truth is, that I don’t ever want to get out of bed, and it has little to do with when I went to bed the night before. Many morning people, it seems (my husband is one) are motivated by their stomach. The get up, they eat, they begin their day. My stomach, it seems, prefers to lie dormant until my brain wakes it up…sometime around mid-afternoon. Even though I spend my morning in the swimming pool, I don’t feel awake or hungry for food until much later.

So my stomach can’t motivate me to get out of bed in the morning.

But I still believe that hunger, not habit, is a powerful motivator for getting one’s ass out of bed in the morning. Just not always hunger for food.

I have explored more than a few self-help/discovery methods over the years, and probably follow too many thinkers along those lines on Medium. For a long time, made training my psyche into an abundance mindset a priority: I did affirmations; I carefully retrained speech patterns from ‘I want…’ to ‘I have…’; I wrote about it; hell, I even invented a set of abundance cards play and meditate upon. Living the life of abundance — and we are surrounded by abundance — didn’t get me out of bed in the morning.

Sitting in a workshop with Jill Butler, I made a comment about reframing a statement about ‘wanting’ into one about ‘having.’ Both Jill and I have a passion about words: what you say and the words you choose to express it can have a profound impact on the outcome of your statement, i.e., whether or not you will actually follow through with your intention. For example, in Jill’s parlance, when I use the word ‘try’ in a statement, I automatically give myself permission to fail:

“I’ll try to review your draft and send my comments tomorrow,” means that I might or might not do this tomorrow (or ever).

“I’ll review your draft and send my comments tomorrow,” means that I will do this, and you’ll see the results tomorrow.

So, when I made a statement about ‘want’ vs. ‘have’, Jill jumped.

“No,” she said, “wanting is important to achieving. If you don’t first want something, then you will never have it.”

So, for me, ‘want’ and ‘hunger’ are intricately related. Because I want to be stronger, healthier, and lose weight, the hunger for those things gets me, zombie-like, out of bed in the morning and into my bathing suit.

Chapter 4

acmfox — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 02:19:26 +0000

Chapter 4

Silverbrook

acmfox Mon, 11/30/2015 - 21:19

10-First Draft

Luce stopped in later than usual. She looked worried, but she wouldn’t talk about it at the shop.
“Your dog’s sleeping in back,” I pointed my head toward the kitchen as I poured coffee. I didn’t want to have her thinking that I’d let one of her charges hang out on the street all night. It might only be late October, but the nights felt like November to me.
She slid around the counter and poked her nose in the kitchen, “Dolf! Such a good boy. You haven’t been making any trouble, have you?”
She had not brought the dog by on the chance that I’d go exploring last night. She had been worried about where the animal had gotten to. She hid her true feelings well beneath a professionally neutral expression. Having a dog go missing for her would be bad business.
“Dolf come.” He ignored the command.
“He likes you.” There was that look in her eyes that said to me, this dog needs a good home.
“He’s a stray, isn’t he.” Every few months, Luce tried to get me to adopt one of her surplus charges. I don’t have the time or space to be some dog’s mother.
“More like abandoned. He showed up at my door a couple of days ago. He’s been well cared for and he has the perfect personality for a someone like you.” Her eyes looked hopeful.
I scowled. I didn’t want to admit that we’d gotten along better than I’d done with any other dog she’d tried to get me to take.
“At least keep him for a couple of days. The inn is overflowing. I’ll send Emily over with the things you’ll need.”
“Maybe you should take him for now,” I suggested, “I’m sure he’s starving and needs to take care of other business that I don’t have time for now.”
Dolf took that moment to pad out of the kitchen. As if it was a regular routine, the dog picked up the passenger end of his leash, came around from behind the counter and sat behind Luce. She picked up her “I heart dogs” travel mug freshly filled with Witches Brew and gave Dolf a little affection. Then she took the lead from his mouth and went back across the street.
I don’t have a no pets allowed policy posted, but no one ever brings them in. Still, the other customers seemed to think it was perfectly natural for the vet to be leaving the establishment accompanied by a giant german shepherd.

The dog came back an hour later with the vet’s assistant Emily hauling a wagon loaded with a pet bed, food dishes, a thirty pound bag of chow and a smaller bag of doggie vitamins or something, a rawhide thing, a toothbrush and God knows what else. I had her take it upstairs. There was no room for all of that in the shop. There wasn’t room for it upstairs, either, as I found out later.
Dolf made himself comfortable just inside the back door. He chose a spot where he wouldn’t be in the way and had a clear view of the shop proper. No one seemed to be bothered by the presence of the large canine. Or they never noticed. You never know with some people when they’re involved with their tablets and smart phones.
As morning rush ended I had more time to wonder about the old high school and what was going on up there. It seemed that Officer Vinny could not have been thorough when he checked the campus. Maybe he could have missed loose boards on one of the windows, but in broad daylight how could he not notice how easy it was to march in through the front door? As I stacked cups for the dishwasher, I thought about calling the state trooper. I decided that since he was almost a regular around here, I’d wait until his next stop by to talk about it.
George and Ernie were seated at one of the back tables. On any other day the realtor and insurance agent, grabbed take-out and only stayed to chat for a few minutes beside the community bulletin board mounted on the panel beside the front door. Today they chatted quietly and watched the group two tables over.
At that other table were Billy Martin, who was not a regular, and three other kids I didn’t recognize, another boy and two girls.
I grabbed a hot pot of Witches brew to make the rounds. Billy and his friends were drinking soft drinks, for which I do not offer table service, so I wasn’t planning to stop at their table. Still, I noticed that their voices were hushed in the presence of adults and they stopped talking to watched me with suspicion as I brought the coffee toward that side of the room. Now I wondered if he or his friends had spotted us when Luce and I hid in his yard the other night. I also wondered what a bunch of school-age kids were doing in a coffee shop this time of day, but not hard. Kids these days had so many school holidays, I never bothered to keep track. They weren’t bothering anyone, so I let them be.
Ernie was ready for another cup, George was not.
“That’s a beautiful shepherd you’ve got,” Ernie said.
“He’s only here until the doc finds a home for him,” I assured.
“A dog like that is a sensible choice for someone like you, living here alone. It’s quiet around here, yes, but with all the goings on lately, some protection is a good idea.”
“Goings on?”
“Yea, up at the old high school.” He paused to look across the room. “And those kids over there are up to something.” He smiled and waved at Billy.
“Are you spying on them?” It seemed ridiculous. From what I heard, Billy was a good kid. He didn’t hang with the wrong kind of kids.
“Something like that. They’ve got something going on tonight. The way they’re being so hush hush about it, they can’t be up to any good. I think we should ask the troopers to patrol the neighborhood closely tonight.” Ernie added half a cup of cream to his coffee. Inside, I cringed. Diluted that much, good java tasted like dirty milk.
It seems that all the insurance agents I know are pessimists. Maybe it goes with the job description. They like to point out all the possible ways things can go horribly wrong. The awful event that might happen for which you cannot be prepared. It’s an occupational hazard for them, I guess. Or just good for business.
“You know the state police aren’t going to do anything,” George said. “All they care about is what happens on the interstate.”
“Well, I’m going up there and find out what it is.”
I wanted to say with authority that there was nothing going on at the abandoned high school. I am not good at lying to make someone feel good. That’s what it felt like. To say that there was nothing going on even when the bulk of the evidence could be construed to agree with that point of view felt like a lie. My inability to tell those kinds of lies had cost my professional career dearly.
It was all a little unsettling. I thought about sharing my experiences up the hill with the two men. Ernie, however, was a busybody and gossip. Whatever I said would be taken, expanded upon and embellished until it became a legend with a life of its own. I wanted to know what was going on, but I was reluctant to collaborate with those two. The fact that they weren’t asking for my help made it easier to hold my tongue.
I completed my sweep with the hot coffee and then began prepping for lunch.

Dolf and I took the leftovers to the food bank. Gordo guarded the receptionist station while the clinic was closed for lunch. Neither the rotties nor Miss Fancy Pants were anywhere to be seen even though, as Luce had said, the kennel was at overflow capacity. I wondered what would happen when Dolf entered Gordo’s space. The two dogs looked once at each other and then turned back to their own business.
The vet treated the shepherd like a long lost friend. Dolf accepted her treats with a single gulp. Otherwise, I think he was disinterested in the overt signs of affection.
“I went back up last night,” I said. “Dolf and I.”
Luce almost dropped the sandwich she was putting into the cooler. She finished that task, stood and turned.
“Why? Wh— what did you find out?”
“The place was clean.” I handed her another sandwich. The lunch crowd was light today so we were able to make one of the shelves look like there was a little abundance; at least until supper time.
“You mean you couldn’t find anything?” She closed the door to the cooler.
“No. I mean clean. As in swept floors, tidy, spik-n-span.”
“I don’t follow.”
Neither would I if I hadn’t seen it. “I mean that the place looked like it would have when it was being used as a school.”
“I thought you said the place was trashed, on the verge of falling down.”
“It was. Or at least it used to be. And the front door was unlocked. Anyone could come and go as they please.”
“No one leaves a vacant building open like that.” Luce got out her phone. “Yea, Emily, it’s me. Sharon and I are going out for a bit. Shouldn’t be gone for more than half an hour…good…that’s fine…talk to you later.” She grabbed a leash from one of the hooks in the hallway. “C’mon Gordo, walkies.”

It was a glorious fall afternoon to be out for a walk. The sky that perfect shade of blue that only exists in New England in the fall; the sun was bright and warm despite being late October. Most folk claimed that it was an unnaturally mild fall. Of course, it was still cold to me and I bundled up like it was January. I don’t have the kind of gear they wear in Antartica so I don’t go out much that time of year.
Gordo bumped into every object lining the street on either side of our path and the pavement—trees, street lamps, mail boxes. Dolf chose a careful path staying slightly ahead of me and to the right, never once bumping or stopping to examine something until we got to the chain blocking the driveway up the hill. That he sniffed briefly, then backed up and lightly hopped over. Gordo, tall enough to step over the chain, attempted to do the same. He caught a back leg on the chain and recovered with a shoulder roll.
The place looked very different in daylight. The hill, once a grassy lawn, was covered in weeds killed by the season’s frosty nights. The building looked decrepit in the daylight. The boards covering the windows were dark and rotting; the brickwork crumbled in places giving the corners a rounded look. The limestone steps leading up to the front door were so cracked and ruined in places that we had to be extra careful going up.
That seemed so out of context from last night when the steps had felt worn in the dark, but not damaged like this. The most perplexing thing, though, was the massive padlock and chains sealing the door closed.
“I swear those weren’t there last night.” I gave the chain a tug. I couldn’t imagine how large the cutter had to be to sever one of those links.
Luce grabbed one of the massive door handles and pulled. Even without the chains in place, it would have been impossible to budge.
Dolf and I went down to check the window below the principal’s office. Though the plywood was old, there was no way I’d pry it off without a crowbar. There was no place to wriggle a finger between the edge of the board and the window frame. The window well itself was filled with trash and debris I hadn’t noticed the night before. We did a more thorough inspection of the building. Like Officer Vinny had said, the place was buttoned up tighter than a drum. It made no sense whatsoever.
“We have to get back,” Luce said, “my next appointment is in fifteen minutes.”
All the way back, Dolf and I were shaking our respective heads. It made no sense.

Chapter 3

acmfox — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 01:07:41 +0000

Chapter 3

Silverbrook

acmfox Mon, 11/16/2015 - 20:07

10-First Draft

My home consists of four rooms above the coffee shop: kitchen, bedroom, bath and sitting room. The upstairs kitchen has a sink and clothes washer for appliances. It is where I store extra inventory and its table is my business office. The real kitchen is downstairs. From there I bake my muffins for the day and sometimes make sandwiches. I’ve gotten pretty good at muffins and am slowing expanding into sweet breads, but I’m no baker. Baking isn’t an elective in business school.
After the late night excursion, I was unable to sleep, so I went down to the kitchen to begin the day’s baking a couple hours early. Once the last batch of muffins were in the oven, I decided to be extra adventurous and make brownies. I’d made them once before and got no complaints, so this time I made a double batch figuring that day old brownies were still edible while day old muffins were not. I also tried a new recipe for a coffee cake with crushed pineapple that I’d been meaning to test for weeks. By the time it was in the oven and the rest of the baking paraphernalia clean and put away, it was time to start making coffee for the day.
Marcy arrived a few minutes later wearing her school clothes, tight black jeans and a blue cashmere sweater. She went upstairs to changed into her self selected work uniform, a black mini-skirt with red leggings and a white blouse with a macrame vest. Her mother almost died the first time she stopped by to buy a vanilla coffee, decaf, black with Sweet-n-Low. The daughter explained in straightforward terms that it was about the tips. She was going to graduate from college debt free. Mrs. Morgan buys a cup of coffee every day. I don’t know whether she tips or not.
I got a lot of orders wrong that morning. Marcy fixed them with grace so that even the regulars didn’t realize how fucked up I was. Until George tried one of the brownies. It seems I mis-measured the salt. By a lot. He was good about it and tried the pineapple coffee cake next which he insisted was not bad. I forgot to call in the sandwich order by 9 so instead of my usual assortment I got the assortment slated for gas station convenience stores. If my afternoon customers wanted that kind of fare, they’d stop at the BP down the road. Aside from a few locals, they were business people on their way from one stop to another. I was convenient and different and they liked that.
I fussed with the sandwiches by adding fancy lettuce and cheeses, and putting a few in the panini press. It made the tired assortment a little more interesting.
By mid afternoon I was too tired to do more than call Luce and tell her to pick up the leftovers herself. I closed the shop early and went upstairs to bed.

I was too tired to be awake and too tired to sleep. My mind raced like greyhounds chasing the mechanical bunny around the track. Except that my track was the damn school grounds and I went round and round thinking about shadows and windows and the music that some folks in town were hearing, but not me. And those boys. They were dressed like normal teenagers, but acted like something out of an old movie like “West Side Story” or “Grease.”
I couldn’t afford another sleepless night and day like today. When I chose to get into this business it was with the understanding that it would require my undivided attention for at least the first five years to make it work. Sleuthing around in the middle of the night was not part of the program.
My brain wouldn’t let go of the vision of those dancing shadows and the kids who could have come from no other place. I chose the relaxing radio station on my iPhone and tried to focus on the music rather than other thoughts. When I found myself singing “Rock Around the Clock” to harp music, I gave up.
Since the music allegedly happened after dark, I decided that I would go back up the hill when it fit best with my schedule. Getting up an hour earlier was easier than interrupting my dreamtime. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour to get in, make my way to the gym, see what was there and get out. My personal curiosity satisfied, I could then decide if things warranted calling the state police. Committing to these plans, I was finally able to drift into much needed sleep.

The iPhone was set to wake at 1:30, but I was wide awake a couple minutes before Joan Jett began singing “I hate myself for loving you.” I made a cup of Sunrise and warmed the last piece of coffee cake in the microwave. I felt guilty pleasure for having saved it. Unlike the brownies, it could have been sold.
I added boots, gloves and a hat to my ensemble from last night’s foray. I tiptoed down the stairs and made my way silently across the floor of the dining room. I don’t know why I was sneaking through my own place. Just getting into the role, I guess.
I opened the front door and pushed into the flank of a giant german shepherd. It scared the shit out of me. The dog seemed unperturbed. He got up and stepped out of the way of the door.
He wore a lead but there was no one around. It wasn’t like Luce to leave a dog out like this, but I had no other explanation. On the other hand, I’d never told her that I was going back up to the school tonight. She had no reason to leave the german shepherd here. This wasn’t one of her dogs, but besides running a kennel for boarding dogs, she doubled as an animal warden in these parts. She took in strays and found homes for them.
The dog handed me his lead. It seemed pretty foolish as I realized that he was dragging me in the direction of the school grounds. One advantage of the brisk pace he set was that I didn’t have time to get cold.
We slowed near the base of the driveway up this hill to let a few late night drivers pass by. I didn’t want to be spotted out here at this time of night. I think my companion agreed. He was in full stealth mode, senses alert, not making a sound.
With the waxing moon overhead and a cloudless sky, it was easy to pick our way along the cracked and buckled driveway. There was a trace of sidewalk leading from the front steps along the building toward the gym that we hadn’t noticed last night. It made for a drier path around the school for which my blue suede boots were grateful.
The night was as cold as it was quiet. There was no wind, not even a gentle breeze. Just a heavy cold that seemed to press my hat closer to my ears. The dog shivered in the darkness too.
The windows looked like portals into absolute darkness. There was no sign of the shadows that I thought I saw last night. I was beginning to believe that I’d imagined them. The dog steered us back to the window well where we’d discovered the loose boards before.
This time I had a more powerful flashlight. I made sure it was ready in my jacket pocket before letting myself down into the window well beneath the principal’s office. Even though I’d left the lead back on the grass above, the german shepherd dropped down lightly beside me.
The board was easy to pry back. It creaked as it opened like a door. Before slipping into the empty classroom I flicked on the flashlight to make sure the path was clear. I expected it to be very dark inside, and it was. The dog dropped onto the floor right behind me. Once inside, he led. I wasn’t quick enough to grab the leash. It left a line trailing between damp paw prints on the dark floor.
As we made our way down the corridor, I looked for footprints other than the ones were making. There weren’t any. I guessed that the kids had found a different way in. As unreasonable as it seemed, I found myself believing that those boys had been in the building last night. The floor seemed awfully clean for an abandoned building.
The lower level was dark and empty. With senses on overdrive, we went up the left set of the grand double stairway to the first floor.
The main lobby was much different than I’d remembered. It was dark, but tidy. The floor was swept; there were wooden benches on either side. It felt like a school at rest, not one that was retired to decay. To the left, everything was dark, but not the pitch black one associates with a boarded up building. Rather, it was like the place was bathed in soft moonlight. Not enough to see clearly, but plenty enough to make out doors and student lockers lining the walls.
There was light coming from the end of hall on the right side. Not a lot—what you might expect from electric exit signs posted by the gym. There were no sounds. The dog leaned against my leg. His breath was strong and steady.
“Do we check it out?” I whispered.
He led the way. The mutt was as curious about this as I was. I swept the beam of the flashlight down the hallway. The place looked lived-in, but not in the way that addicts and derelicts made a place. It looked like the way a school should look after the students were gone for the day and the janitors had had their way with the place.
The double doors to the gym had wire reinforced glass windows. The doors were locked. Peering in, the place looked vacant, no vagrants, no dope-heads, no one at all. Nor was there sign that anyone had been there. It was all too clean. I shined my flashlight through the window in the hope of seeing more. Dolf sniffed around but didn’t seem to notice anything of interest.
“Ok, boy, I guess we’re too late. Let’s go home.” He seemed to agree and we headed back down the corridor.
When we got back to the lobby, the dog took a turn towards the front door. It looked like he was sniffing something and I gave him his lead. He stopped at the double doors leading out. I pushed on the crash bar. And it opened. OK, so I thought the place was padlocked, but maybe it wasn’t. It was quicker and easier than going through the window on the lower level.
The door closed smoothly behind us and we went down the flight of limestone steps worn into shallow troughs by generations of feet entering and leaving the building. I fixed the boards covering our window entrance while the dog continued to investigate the front steps. He wouldn’t come down when I called, so I had to go back up to get him. I was a little pissed that he was suddenly acting this way until I saw that he was pointing at the door. I tried it. It opened.
“Shit.”
If dogs nodded, that’s what he was doing.
“OK, we’ll have to think about this, but now I got to get to work.”
In agreement, we quickly walked back to the shop. I put out a bowl of water and let him sleep on an old blanket at the back of the kitchen until Luce stopped by for her mid-morning coffee.

Chapter 2

acmfox — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 01:04:58 +0000

Chapter 2

Silverbrook

acmfox Mon, 11/16/2015 - 20:04

10-First Draft

Later that afternoon, I shared the results of Officer Vinny’s investigation with Luce.
“Ernie’s right,” she said, checking the expiration dates on packages. “There’s something going on up there.”
“You went up again?” To my recollection, Luce had never been daring enough to brave the terrors of the old high school back in the day. She had been a good student and not that adventurous. Kind of opposite of how I spent my youth.
“I got a little closer. It’s definitely music and it’s coming from the gym.”
“You went walking with Gordo on the old school grounds after dark?” It was one thing to go up there during the day, quite different at night. There were no security lights up there. The last street lamp was at the foot of the driveway. Gordo was much too much of a klutz to manage up there in the dark. I looked around. The dog wasn’t in his usual spot by the door of the food pantry.
“Gordo went home yesterday. I was afraid he was getting so used to being here that he’d forget he was George’s dog. Miss Fancy Pants is staying in the kennel so I brought her along.”
Miss Fancy Pants was a poodle that her owners boarded at the kennel when they went out of town. I don’t know how much of a defense she’d be in a situation, but she yapped at ear bleed level when things were not to her liking, which was most of the time she stayed in the kennel. Everything was quiet today, though.
“What did you do, drug her?”
Luce chuckled. “No. She just likes to hear herself talk. I told her that we were all tired of it and promised her a dip in the hot tub if she could be quiet for a few hours.” The vet’s hot tub was a kiddie pool with a bubbler in her grooming room. Her canine customers adored their trips to the spa.
“Why don’t you go with me tonight? Hear it for yourself.”
“Do you know how early in the morning I get up?” All that baking and prep for the morning coffee rush had to be done. If I stayed awake much past sunset, it was because it was the dead of winter and already dark by 4:30 in the afternoon. Once upon a time I could stay out all night and still be fresh for the next morning. Those days were long past.
“I’ll come by around 10:30. I don’t think much happens up there until dark. It won’t take long. You’ve been in the building, you’ll have a better sense of where the music is coming from.”
“That was a long time ago.” Like more than twenty years. What did she expect?
“It’ll be fun!” She was crazy.

I hung jeans, sweatshirt and my black leather jacket on the hook mounted to the bathroom door, set an alarm for 10:15 and went to bed at 8:30. Of course, I couldn’t sleep, even though it was Tuesday and that’s the day I tear the kitchen down all the way to clean. Every fifteen minutes I’d look at my iPhone check the time and wonder if I did fall asleep, would the alarm be able to wake me, or would Luce bring over Miss Fancy Pants to do the job. At 9:55 I gave up and got dressed. I made a pot of chamomile tea, poured one cup to drink now and filled two travel mugs with the rest. The temperature was still mild, in the lower forties, or so the weather app indicated, but that’s cold enough for me to want to wrap my hands around a warm beverage. They say New Englanders are tough when it comes to cold weather. Well, not all of us are.
Luce knocked on the door ten minutes early. She wore a green quilted vest over dark blue flannel. Her hair was tucked up under a black beanie hat. Her eyes were bright and her face flushed. Two dobermans and a german shepherd stood patiently behind.
“Meet Candy, Peanut and Dolf. Guys, this is Sharon, but she prefers to be called Mort. She looks tough and she is. She knows tai kwon do.”
I did tai kwon do in college and for a couple years afterward. I was out of condition to say the least. I handed a travel mug to Luce.
She let the leash loops slide over her arm, cradled the mug with both hands, inhaled deeply and smiled. “Perfect.” As the dogs stepped closer, she said, “sorry boys, people treat.” She looked up at me. “Ready?”
I closed the door and turned the key all the while wondering what I was doing. Ready? For what? I got the feeling that for her this was some sort of delayed adolescent adventure. I guess I’d gotten all of that out of my system. Hell, I was normally in bed by 8:00 these days and getting up at 2:30. I didn’t have time for a night life.
On the street, Luce fixed me up with a flashlight-blinky-thing-armband and gave me Dolf’s lead. I thought dogs liked to sleep at night but these guys seemed content to be embarking on this nocturnal forray.
I’m not a natural dog lover. I respect all living creatures, but as a rule don’t have them as companions. Dolf respected that. We were two guys on a mission, and got along ok that way.
It’s the length of two commercial buildings and six houses up the highway from the coffee shop to the school grounds. Even though we label it Main Street at the intersection with Spring Street, the sidewalk ends with the last storefront. We walked in the narrow strip of gravel along the road bathed in the orangish glow of street lamps. The air was crisp and cool. I wished I’d thought of putting on a hat. It felt like my hematite ear cuffs were drilling icicles into my brain. My hands, one wrapped around the mug, the other in a jacket pocket, begged for mittens. My german shepherd companion seemed comfortable enough.
We lifted the chain across the driveway so that the dogs could pass under, then we stepped over. Luce paused and ordered the dogs to sit.
“Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?” All I heard were the dogs breathing and a click every so often from one of the leads, although that might have been my teeth chattering.
“The music.”
I tried hard. I identified gentle breezes flicking at the limbs of leafless trees, a few dead leaves skipping over the pavement, the distant whine of high speed tucks from the interstate, maybe a little late night tv. No music.
I looked at Dolf, silently asking if he heard the music. He looked at me, then Luce, then back at me. No, the shepherd didn’t hear it either.
The dobermans were a different matter. Their ears were perked up. They faced the old building up the hill their bodies at attention. They were hearing something.
“We’ll get closer. Then you’ll hear it.” The beam of her arm-mounted flashlight bounced off cracked pavement as she started up the driveway. Her dogs walked in the grass on either side of the drive.
I followed up the hill. Whatever Luce thought she heard, she must be enjoying it because she did a kind of skip and a hop to a beat that was silent to my ears. Maybe that’s what she meant by dancing with the dogs. It was a lot safer than what I’d imagined earlier.
The atmosphere at the top of the hill had an odd quality to it. Not electric, the kind that charges your hair and cackles, but with a subtle energy that makes your skin crawl just a little bit. There were no trees close to the red brick building so it seemed brighter than down on the tree-lined Main Street. Thin wispy clouds blotted and revealed the quarter moon. Although there were no street lights on the hill, nearby light pollution made all but the brightest stars invisible. I remember coming up here as a kid when people weren’t so afraid of the dark and reveling at the Milky Way, the constellations and the sky crammed with more stars than anyone could count. These days, I guess you’d have to go to Montana or someplace like that to see the glory of the night sky. You won’t find it anywhere in Connecticut any more.
We trudged across dew-laden weeds that grabbed at my jeans until we reached the gym side of the building. My toes squished with the water collecting in my sodden sneakers. Next time, if there would be such a thing, I’d wear wool socks and waterproof boots.
Modern buildings depend upon electricity for light so they don’t have the same kinds of windows as old buildings. Old buildings get their windows painted or bricked over as their interiors are repurposed and light from the good old sun is ignored. The gym windows, those that weren’t broken and boarded, were blackened with paint. On a dark night, looking into a darker building, there should be nothing to see. But there were subtle shadows playing over the dark apertures. It looked like shadows dancing to a silent rhythm. They were indistinct, dark grey light filtering through black. The way the shadows swayed, if I heard the music that Luce seemed to hear, I’d guess there was a dance going on within.
Our armband flashlights made tiny spots of light on the brickwork, but they were more to be seen than to see by. That light did not reach up to the windows, which from ground level were at about ten feet up. The dogs were interested in the wan light escaping from the windows.
I think that if I could have heard the music then, I’d have chalked the whole thing up to kids partying in the building and that would have been it. But Luce was clearly hearing something that I was not. And that gave me the creeps. Slowly, she came to the same conclusion, that the music was in her head only, and it began to worry her as well.
“No, it’s not just in your head,” I whispered. Things were getting too weird to talk in normal tones. I turned off my flashlight and indicated for her to do the same. “The dobies hear it too.”
She looked at her dogs, then mine. “Here, take Candy’s lead and give me Dolf’s.”
We exchanged leads. Dolf looked me. He thought the exercise was silly. Candy acted as if she was being sent to sit at the children’s table at Thanksgiving. As far as I could tell, Dolf and I were still not hearing the music. Candy was acting too pissy for me to determine whether she heard the tunes.
“Turn off your flashlight.”
“Why?”
I looked up at the windows. “Someone’s inside.” Without the extra light of the flashlights, it might bring out more details through the barely lit windows.
She looked confused, but complied. As her eyes adjusted to the even lower light level, she said, “Oh.” Then she looked back at me. I don’t think it had connected with her that sounds coming from within a building meant that there were people inside before now. It was too dark to be sure, but I think she was starting to feel frightened.
I, on the other hand, had experience with being in places I shouldn’t be for reasons that weren’t always noble. As I mentioned earlier, that was in my youth, well before my desire to go climbing corporate ladders. I enjoyed that stupid rush of fear and excitement. And, I am sad to say, I found that I still enjoyed it.
Luce stood circled by the three dogs. I gave her Candy’s lead, took the flashlight off my arm and held it so that I could better direct its glow when I wanted it. I walked closer to the building.
“What are you doing?” she asked, “We should get out of here.”
“Looking for a way in.” The first floor of the school was elevated so that the basement level was only half in the ground. The typical way in was to descend into one of the window wells and through one of the lower level windows. The passage of time had not been good to the glazing, and all of them were covered with plywood panels.
“Are you nuts?”
“You dragged me up here, Dr. Morgan, now I’m curious.” She was still a coward when it came to investigating things after dark.
“You don’t know what you might find.”
“That’s the point.” I was too nice to tell her not to be such a weenie. It’s working with sugary treats and beverages all day. It rubs off.
“You take the dogs and wait for me down on the street. I won’t be long. All I need to do is find out where they’re getting in.” Her presence now would only prevent me from doing the thing she’d brought me up here in this godforsaken cold to do.
“What if—“
“I have Officer Vinny’s private number.” I said he wasn’t my type. I never said that he didn’t like me.
The mention of potential police backup satisfied her. As she started to head down the hill, one dog decided to stay behind. Dolf. I think that made her feel better too.
Dolf and I checked all the basement windows around the building as the easiest to gain entrance. I knew from the seedier side of my youth that there would be at least one where the boards looked tight but weren’t. A youth would be able to swing a board away just enough to squeeze behind. I was older now, and about 20 pounds heavier. I ought to be able to get through. But not tonight. When I explored the interior, it would be without Luce, on my own schedule.
We found it below the old principal’s office, which, if I remembered correctly, would have been a classroom. When we were pranking, we went in a few windows down, through the boys’ bathroom. From the inside, it was easy enough to get one of the front doors open for our victims to enter when we were ready for them.
Dolf sniffed and I broke my fingernails on the loose, rotting boards. That this was the entrance seemed certain, although it didn’t feel like it had been used all that often. There could be others though. After finding one, I was content that I didn’t need to look for more. The dog was happy to leave too. I’m pretty sure it was past his bed time.

Luce and the two dobermans were pacing in tight circles just beyond the chain that protected the school grounds from vehicular traffic. She looked relieved to see us. I don’t know what she what thinking…that the boogey man was going to come after us? It was a decrepit building with creepy shit going on in or around it. What was there to be afraid of? Maybe the old place had become the home of some druggies or homeless people. Worse use could be made of the site.
“Well?” She kept her voice low and the dogs close.
“There’s a way in, not that hard to find.”
“Are you going to call the state police?”
“Not now. Maybe in the morning.”
I could just imagine that conversation. Hello? I was up walking around the old school grounds last night. My friend thought she heard music and I thought I saw some shadows through one of the windows. And, oh, the boards covering the window below the principal’s office are loose.
Nope. Wasn’t going to do that.
And then we heard it. Kids singing and doing a rather botched job of it too.
“…Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock…”
“…gonna rock around the clock…”
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. The sound wasn’t coming from the top of the hill, it was much closer and getting louder. I grabbed Luce’s leads and pulled her and the dogs into the shadow of a spruce tree in the Martin’s yard.
“What?”
“Shhhsh!”
“One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock”
A gang of boys came down the driveway doing something between a hop and a dance step. They only seemed to know the one verse and weren’t always sure of the order of the lines. They might have been stoned, but didn’t look like it. They were high on something though.
“That’s Billy Martin” Luce whispered, “I just updated Mr. Bangle’s shots last week.”
“Shit,” I moved us further around the tree. If he was going home, I didn’t want him to see us hiding in his yard.
The front porch light came on.
“Is that you Billy?,” Mrs. Martin called, “You’re late.”
“I’m coming,” the youth called back. The other boys laughed.
“Get in here!”
“We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, around the clock”
Still butchering the song, the boys parted company and Billy went inside.
I wouldn’t have been a flag carrier with the high school band if I didn’t like music. I recognized the Bill Haley tune despite the awful rendition. It was a tune that made the gray hairs dance; today’s kids listened to a different kind of beat.
“That’s not the music I heard,” Luce tried to explain, “well, it was that style of music, I think, but it was professional, not kids singing for fun.” Luce was a flag carrier because her mom believed she needed to get out and be seen by the boys. Her heart had not been into the music at all.

Chapter 1

acmfox — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 01:02:44 +0000

Chapter 1

Silverbrook

acmfox Mon, 11/16/2015 - 20:02

10-First Draft

Choices, but none that I am in love with. I came upon this conundrum in the ordinary way: over commitment, under achievement. The usual stuff. On the corporate ladder looking at the glass ceiling one day, selling everything to open a coffee shop in a forgettable place the next.
Two years ago, I chose to open my new business in Silverbrook for all the right reasons. The first was location. I wasn’t buying a Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks franchise and neither of those were convenient to the area. The second was demographics. Silverbrook is a bedroom community. It has no local jobs to speak of. It’s on the way to Hartford, Willimantic and Providence and myriad places between. The third was price. I was able to buy the white clapboard building which once housed a small restaurant on the ground level and an owner apartment on the second floor for a song. And, last of all, I was familiar with the place. I’d grown up in Tolland; it was the kind of place the wilder kids liked to go.
Silverbrook isn’t so much of a place as it is the memory of one. The southern edge is identified by a state historic marker on route 74 identifying the location of the old Silverbrook mill. The mill isn’t there any more. The hurricane some years back took down what was left of wood framed second and third stories leaving rubble and broken brick walls. That got bulldozed later so that all remains is the sign marking a vacant lot.
The area called Silverbrook consists of a half mile stretch of the highway, which the locals call Main Street and one intersection, Spring Street. The northern boundary, which is is more east than north, as is typical for New England highways, is the old abandoned high school, an institution that has been vacant since before I was in school.
My business, Mort’s Coffee and More, is located at the intersection of Spring and Main. Next door is a larger two story clapboard building with three storefronts. The left and right are vacant. Sandwiched between is Marchant Frames and Collectibles, owned by Doris Marchant. Across the street is the Silverbrook Animal Hospital and shelter, Luce Morgan, DVM. It’s a low brick building in front that sprawls back along Spring Street in a series of wood frame additions and a parking lot in the rear. Next up is an ugly brick office building that might have at one time been offices for the mill. Now it housed a realtor, tax account, insurance and space for rent. Next door to that is the Silverbrook United Methodist church built in the tradition of a New England church with white clapboards and a steeple. The rest of Main Street is populated with crumbling old houses, once nice single family homes, most now converted to low rent apartments.
Despite Silverbrook having not much of a downtown, it had been a thriving mill town back in the days when factory power was a matter of having a source of running water. The mills continued producing sweaters and blankets well into the age of electricity until the whole textile industry went south. That was before I was born, so all I know about it is empty lot at the other end of Main. Factory on one end, high school on the other end of the street. And everything a small community might need between the two. But that was a long time ago. Now, Silverbrook is nothing but a bedroom community and Main Street is the road folks take to get to the highway.
Which is why it is possible to make a living operating a coffee shop on Main Street. A decent amount of commuter traffic and my prices are cheaper than Dunkin Donuts. I don’t have a drive up window, but I offer curb service. Marcy Robins, my part timer, stands on the sidewalk taking orders and collecting money while I fill and deliver the orders. It works pretty well. Curb service operates from 7:30 a.m. until 9:15 a.m. After that Marcy leaves for college and I work the counter alone. I put on fresh pots for the locals. Dr Luce Morgan, the vet, usually stops in first, followed by Ernie Thompson, the realtor, and George Dever, who sells insurance. The only time I see the accountant, Brian Baker, is when he runs out of K-cups. Besides that, there will usually be a few professionals meeting or working because my wi-fi is better than the Pannara’s by the highway. Even though I bake a fresh batch of muffins every morning by 6:00 a.m., no one ever says that they come for the muffins. Even though I sell out before 11 when the sandwiches and cookies are delivered.
During the slow periods, I wonder if the notion of a small town community is dead, or if there is some way to revive it for a place like Silverbrook. I don’t like the idea of people finding their community some place other than where they live. Can the internet substitute for face to face interaction? How much do you feel with selfies and emoticons?
Doris, from the frame shop, and I talk about this when she stops by for lunch. She fancies my coffee shop as the heart of the community, where locals come by to connect, swap news and share ideas. That may be true for the handful of local business and home owners struggling to keep Silverbrook alive as an identity, but for larger community who shared the same zip code, the shop was either a convenient place to stop for their morning caffein or so far off the center of their daily lives that it would be a chore to even think about it.
Doris sees me as a kind of mayor and town hall for the neighborhood. I think that’s grandiose. I have a bulletin board beside the front door for lost cat notices and the like. Marcy decorates it with seasonal paper cut-outs—bats and pumpkins for October, turkeys for November—so that it doesn’t look too empty. Doris does a seasonal window display of items from her shop. I don’t know how many customers it attracts for her, but it makes my place look a lot nicer.

After lunch, I pack up the leftovers and take them across the street to Luce. I know it sounds weird, but I like the smell of animal odors and I find it relaxing to look in on Luce’s four-footed patients and boarders.
The sandwiches go to the make-shift pantry in the last addition to the building. It’s sort of a self-service food bank that Luce manages for families in the area. It stocks food and supplies for people and pets. I bring over my counter tips and what I don’t sell. Some days it’s a lot, others, not so much.
Luce and I are both in our late thirties. We went to the same high school. She was a couple of years ahead so we didn’t have classes together, but we were both flag carriers for the marching band. She keeps her hair the same shade of blonde she had in high school. I had orange streaks put in mine to celebrate the fall colors. Her style is denim and flannel. My style, well it hasn’t been all that predictable since I left the corporate world and became an entrepreneur. That day I was wearing a black leather mini-skirt, a vintage Grateful Dead tee-shirt, and red Nike’s. The calendar said that it was October, but the temperature still felt like late summer. Global warming, what’s not to love?
It used to be that we mostly swapped war stories, customer encounters that might not be particularly routine, just to convince ourselves that as small business owners we were doing the right thing. That was until things began to get interesting at the old high school.
“Have you heard about anything going on at the old high school, hun?” Luce likes to address people and pets by their given names. My given name is Sharon Mortimer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always hated the name Sharon, so as soon as I could get away with it, I went by the name Mort. Luce can’t bring herself to call me Mort, so she uses terms of endearment, like hun.
“Is someone finally going to tear it down?” The school grounds served the locals as a park. The crumbling building had been boarded up for years.
“No, not that. I was walking Gordo last night and it sounded like there was music coming from the gym.”
“Kids and boom boxes? No trespassing and danger signs are like offering up a dare. Something needs to be done with that place before a kid falls through a rotten floor and kills himself.” I should know. I’d nearly broken a leg in there when I was a kid.
“It didn’t sound like that. You know, it was more like a live music concert. Early rock and roll. Not what kids are listening to today. More like what our parents might have listened to when they were young.”
“Someone in the neighborhood with a stereo? You know how sound can travel funny ways outside.”
“Yea, that must have been it. Music coming from somewhere else and just echoing off the building. But it was kind of cool. Made me and Gordo want to dance.” She paused to bump her hip against the shoulder of the unofficial mascot of the unofficial food bank, one of the ugliest dogs in God’s creation.
Gordo is a small spirit in the body the size of a great dane. He’s not any breed in particular but has mostly the poorer qualities of several large breeds. He’s not pretty. He’s sloppy and bathes in all the wrong places, but there’s something about him that makes you want to give him a hug anyway. He belongs to George, the realtor across the street, but spends most of the time with the vet either for grooming or being patched up for one thing or another. I think Gordo is in love with Luce. I heard that he doesn’t get along well with George’s wife.
The notion of the vet dancing in the moonlight with Gordo was a little too disturbing to consider. I could picture her dancing with most other critters of the four-footed persuasion. With that dog all I could imagine was those paws that were twice the size of my number nines tripping her and the pair rolling down the slope that leads up to the school like two blow-up lawn ornaments tossed in the wind.
I think they perceived my thoughts because as Luce turned toward the dog, he reached up both front paws to set them on her shoulders. Then his back feet lost their footing, he twisted mid-air, came down on one flank while his tail wiped boxes of pasta off the shelf. I went for the pasta while my friend lunged to contain the dog’s destructive momentum. No bones broken this time, but he limped for a few days after that.

People who hang out in coffee shops do so to meet, gossip or read. The readers don’t share much, although they often tip better than the gossipers. I keep their cups full of their chosen beverage and leave them to their Kindles or their papers.
Those using one of my tables for a meeting place like their beverages filled and the hostess to stay out of their business. Once they learn that the tips go to fund the food bank, they are more generous.
From the gossipers I learned that Luce wasn’t the only one to notice music coming from the abandoned high school. As always, and especially during the spooky month of October, kids snuck into the place on dares, for cheap thrills or to terrorize more naive youngsters with imagined hauntings.
I still remember the first time a gang of us kids went up there for an initiation. The once-grand main entrance was littered with all the props of make-believe violence: flickering candles, abandoned clothing, old animal bones and copious amounts of red paint artfully splattered on the floor and walls. To the left was the old principal’s office where it was rumored that you could still hear the thwacks of kids being beaten for misconduct. Once as an initiator rather than an initiate, I hid in there and beat a stick against a leather jacket stretched over my backpack. On the right was the old English classroom where supposedly a kid named Jamie Portman hung himself while reciting “The Raven.” Sometimes especially creative orientations included a hidden sound system playing scary bird sounds. Ahead were the main staircases going up and down. At the far end of the hall to the right was the old gym. To get there, you had to pass through a gauntlet of creepy stuff dangling from the ceiling and a floor so broken up and rough that you could easily twist an ankle in the gloom. The only light was wan moonlight filtered in from transoms above classroom doors that were either locked or otherwise fixed shut. To make it to the gym was the objective. In daylight, it probably wasn’t much of a challenge, but in near total darkness, it was harrowing business.
That kids still performed the same rights of passage was no secret. It was practically the only custom that the area called Silverbrook had as a community. I’m all for custom, but why couldn’t it be a strawberry festival, or skunk cabbage cotillion?
These days, there weren’t as many kids willing to risk life and limb to explore a condemned building, which was a good thing since the place got more unsteady every year. Still, there would be a few crazy adventurers, or maybe others looking to score drugs or sex. When the activities got noticed, the neighbors would call the state police who, during daylight, would look around, find someone to put new locks on the doors and board up any broken windows, and stop by my shop for fresh coffee.
Officer Vinny just crossed into the four-decade. He’s good looking, even for a cop, black hair, brilliant blue eyes, and six foot two of lean muscle. He’s divorced—single girls have to know these things—and still straight. Not that he’s my type; I can’t see spending my life with someone who writes speeding tickets for a living. We’re friendly, though, which is why he always stops by when he’s patrolling this area.
I didn’t have to ask him about the goings on up at the school. My customers, namely Ernie Thompson, began grilling the officer as soon as he stepped up to the counter.
“Been up to the high school again?” the insurance agent asked. If there was anyone that wanted that building erased from the scenery, it was him. He said it was bad for business; caused the property values around here to be depressed.
“Yeap.” He didn’t have order, I was already making him his extra-large Afternoon Delight, skim-milk, four sugars.
“Where did they break in this time?” Ernie, balding and in his late fifties had a way of making anything he didn’t like sound like a major offense.
“Nowhere that I can tell. The place is tight as a drum.” The officer took the lid off his take-out cup to stir his coffee. He claimed that I never stirred it enough.
“I know there were kids up there. I heard the music myself.”
“Echoes from somewhere else, maybe. No one has been in the building.”
Ernie had his hands in his pockets, jingling the change from his hazelnut decaf, one cream, two sugars. He did that when he was bothered by something. “I don’t think so,” he said to the officer, “there’s something going on up there. If you guys would come up when we called instead of when you get around to it, you’d know.”
“I hear you man. But it’s the cutbacks, you know. We have to take care of the real emergencies first.” He put the lid back on his coffee.
Vinny gave me a quick nod goodbye and left. This was an old, tired argument and he didn’t feel like getting into it with Ernie again. I understood. When Ernie starts in on something, it can be like a runaway train with soft brakes. It will stop eventually, but it will be a long ride before you can get off.
Ernie looked at me, hoping to continue the conversation. I smiled and ducked into the kitchen for supplies. The napkins needed replenishing at that exact moment.

Silverbrook

acmfox — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 01:01:01 +0000

Silverbrook

acmfox Mon, 11/16/2015 - 20:01

10-First Draft

Silverbrook is the working title of my 2015 NaNoWriMo project. What you see here is subject to change as I work my way through the draft. And yes, it is very, very, drafty!Also note, that my chapter boundaries occur without rhyme or reason.

You Can't Go Back

acmfox — Tue, 26 May 2015 16:43:58 +0000

You Can't Go Back

acmfox Tue, 05/26/2015 - 12:43

10-First Draft

A Blog about my experiences, good and bad, at Miss Porter's Summer Camp for Girls

The literature regularly suggests that the true difference in most abilities between boys and girls is negligible, yet acknowledges that girls are most likely to thwart their personal abilities in the presence of boys. There are many reasons for this, of course, but the fact remains that for girls to achieve their true potential, they often need a little help. Miss Porter's Summer Camp for Girls provides a healthy environment for girls to do just that.

I spent my first summer at Miss Porter's when I was seven years old. Every summer after that I went back. The rules were simple: be who you are and if you get to the dining hall late, you'll go hungry. Upon your tenth year, there is one more rule added to the list: you can't go back. In this blog, I'll share some of my experiences and the wisdom I picked up at that special summer camp. Because without doubt, I would not be the person I have become without the time I had at Miss Porter's.

What if we had wings?

acmfox — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 22:07:02 +0000

What if we had wings?

Learning to Fly

acmfox Mon, 11/24/2014 - 17:07

Since practically forever, human beings have wanted to fly. I think representing angels with wings as higher beings testifies to this: because beliefs aside, angels don't need wings to get around.

But what would it be like if we did fly?
Would we build our house in tall tress or into high cliffs to give ourselves a bit of arial launch to get out in the morning? It' easier to get air born from a height than from the ground. Perhaps we would all live in high rise buildings—great tall constructions where everyone has a balcony from which to take off and land. Schools and businesses could occur the lower levels so it is easier to drop down to work. Going back up after a hard day could be tough but there might be ground level slingshots for a quick boost or elevators for the weak and feeble.

Would there be less obesity?
It takes more energy to fly than walk. Or, rather than being couch potatoes, would we watch the arial athletics of others as perch potatoes?

What about other forms of transportation?
If we commuted to work under our own power, we wouldn't need cars. Birds have no problem flying thousands miles to vacation in warmer climates, although it would mean getting more time off for trips. If we plan to travel greater distances. Annual rituals like spring break might not occur so far from home, so the gatherings might be more numerous but with fewer participants. They might be a bit more self controlled. Eliminating cars has other advantages: fewer greenhouse gases; commuter collisions sans thousands of pounds of steel automobile and slower speeds should be safer and less frequent; and I can't imagine texting while flying being too much of a problem.

Having wings sounds like it would be advantageous for a lot of reasons. However, there might be some problems. For example,

What about hands?
Physiologically speaking, most invertebrates don't have double sets of arms: one set for flying (wings) and another set for doing other stuff (lifting, carrying, holding). Birds mostly use their mouth and feet for those chores. Can you imagine pecking at a keyboard all day? Would we get the neck equivalent of carpal tunnel? Would we, like most birds, give up stereoscopic vision for 360° vision?

Or would we follow a more insect-like model? Flying insect manage any number of limbs as well as wings. But they do it in part by trading interior bones with an exterior shell. Lobster aside, we humans in general aren't as fond of insects as we are of birds. Even if insects like butterflies have prettier wings. Mostly we shudder at the thought of human-sized flies and roaches. Something in our collective cultural memory just hates bugs. There are more horror films about bugs gone amok than evil birds. I think we like birds better.

On the other hand, we human beings did, after many generations, figure out how to fly in spite of our decidedly terrestrial physiology. I think this speaks well of our current form. It's flexible enough to allow us to dream about and imagine things for which we are not naturally capable and then to find ways to do those things anyway. So even if we haven't invented the perfect means of individual personal flight yet, I expect that we will one day. And for me, that is good enough, because in the end these are all flights of fancy, and what we fancy, if we are passionate about it, we achieve.

Relax Melodies: The Swiss Army Knife of Relaxation

acmfox — Fri, 30 May 2014 13:14:38 +0000

Relax Melodies: The Swiss Army Knife of Relaxation

acmfox Fri, 05/30/2014 - 09:14

I stumbled upon the app Relax Melodies a couple years ago somewhat by accident. At the time, of all the apps in the genre, it had an overwhelming (perhaps 100 to 1) number of reviews and positive ratings than its nearest neighbor, so it was kind of a no-brainer to try it out. Like so many others, after a few minutes of playing around with the free version, I went right back and bought the premium version. Within a week, I had it on all my devices: iPhone, laptop, desktop, iPad. Purchased for its ability to get me grounded again at work, it had the unexpected but happy consequence of also curing me of hives. For that, as anyone who has ever had hives can attest, the app is worth its weight in gold--do apps have a weight?

Even though I still use the app at work from time to time, I rediscovered it again this morning. You might think this was a no-brainer, but I'd never used the app as an aid for meditation before. My recent explorations of meditation cd's did not leave me with a particularly positive experience and fussing with a mix, crafting and saving it in Relax Melodies, while fun, doesn't count for meditation, nor do I normally think of making things like that when I'm not planning on meditating that instant. Still, I needed something to drown out the sounds of the interstate, suburban remodeling and tv in the kitchen.

It turns out, that on the iPhone version, there are a bunch of pre-configured combinations, one being especially useful for meditating. With headphones and a timer set, it was the best meditation I've done at home in a long time. I completed the exercise energized to start my day, energy being something that has been lacking for a long time. Of course, without the timer, I'd probably still be meditating, it was that good of an experience.

Relax Melodies is a useful tool that has definitely made my life better.

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