NEW FRIENDS & TRAVEL

by Melodie Johnson Howe

I took some much needed vacation time after Bouchercon and have just returned home. So I am late writing about my experience.

NEW FRIENDS. It was great to meet my fellow bloggers for the first time. I think what was most interesting was that we are what we write. Our blog voices do define us. In a sense it was like meeting old friends. It was natural and as easy as if we had known each other for years. It was also nice to meet Terrie Moran at the bar. Again, that strange feeling that we knew each other. I even met a woman I went to high school with. (I’ll write about that encounter later.)

Thank God we all liked each other. If we didn’t we’d have to have blog divorces or settle for blog bickering. Steve Steinbock and I discovered we share a certain kind of thinking. Secret handshake here. Leigh Lundin was funny and warm. John Floyd was every bit the southern gentleman with a sharp wit. JLW, whom I already knew, was at his erudite acerbic best. Angela Zeman was superb on our panel, and her husband not only knows his mysteries but his wines. A man after my own heart.

I had lunch with Janet Hutchings, the editor of EQMM. There I met two English writers, Anne Cleeves and Martin Edwards. Martin wrote about our lunch and put a picture of me on his blog. Emily Giglierano, Janet’s editorial assistant, was humorous and charming. I have a short story in the December issues of EQMM. Janet was kind enough to mention Criminal Brief in my bio.

I was surprised at how many people turned out for our panel. I even got a few emails from some in the audience telling me how much they enjoyed it. Linda Landrigan, the editor of AHMM, was the perfect moderator. She made us sound intelligent.

TRAVEL. Traveling is dehumanizing. Or maybe there is too much traveling humanity. What is it that Wordsworth said? “The world is too much with me.” Or there is the sixties version of that comment — “Stop the world I want to get off.” I think we writers hide and take solace in our imaginations. Get us out into the real world and we go through a kind of shocked transition.

What I particularly noticed were people eating. Because the airlines won’t feed us anymore, people seemed desperate for food. While I sat and waited to board, I watched passengers stuff themselves with fast food and food brought from home. The smell of barbecued ribs wafted past me while I clutched my Starbuck latte. I watched mouths open and then smack shut. Cheeks bulging. Jaws moving up and down furiously crunching. Everyone was eating as if they were never going to have another meal again. Did they know something I didn’t? I took a sip of my latte and burnt the roof of my mouth. A woman sat across from me eating an apple. She didn’t nibble at it. She opened wide and let her big square strong teeth plunge into the apple as if it were a marshmallow. I was fascinated and a little in awe of her choppers. I wondered if in another life she was a horse. A very slim woman with her eyebrows lifted to her hair line held a single slice of pizza the size of Texas. She started at the narrowed tip and ate it right down to the crust. I waited to see if she was going to eat the crust but I got diverted by a man who sat down next to me with something that resembled a Sloppy Joe on a wobbly paper plate. He opened his mouth and half of the oozy sandwich disappeared. I looked back at the thin lady but she was already putting her lipstick on. I had an irrational to need to ask her if she ate the crust. It would somehow define her. Those who eat the crust and those who don’t.

Not to feel left out I bought a bag of Planter Trail Mix for a thousand dollars. Then I attempted to open the bag. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing. I pulled at the sides of the bag, Nothing. I put the bag in my purse. On the plane I wrestled the trail mix bag to a standstill. I thought of asking the woman next to me to open it. She had just scolded everybody for being in the wrong seats when she was the one in the wrong seat. She was very disgruntled and I didn’t want to start a conversation with her. The couple across the aisle from me were busy hiding their toy Terrier under a magazine so the stewardess wouldn’t see he was out of his carry bag. The dog panted and peered at me from his hiding spot. It had the biggest tongue I’d ever seen. It was like a red carpet unfolding from his furry mouth. It was then I realized I had become orally fixated on this trip. I stared at my uneaten expensive trail mix and stuffed it pack in my purse and closed my eyes.

When I got home I threw the “unopenable” into the trash. My husband retrieved it.

“You didn’t eat any of this.”

“It can’t be opened.” As the words came out of my mouth I knew he would open it with ease. He did with a triumphant grin on his face. I sighed and smiled. I was so glad to be home.