An Abundance of Addresses

I have 7 email addresses: 5 Yahoo, 1 Rocketmail, and a G-mail.

Too many, you say? Maybe so. But I use them each for different purposes.

One’s my long-time old one that has a lot of stuff saved in it, including an abundance of contacts. One’s mostly for promotional purposes for my writing. One’s to collect names and addresses for my very periodic writing newsletter. One is for my lawyer persona.

Another is one I use to collect junk email that I might actually read, such as Groupon deals and other bargains. Plus, it contains my link to Freekibble, where I answer a question each day about dogs, and each response generates a donation of kibble to help needy canines. (There’s a cat link, too.)

I started my Rocketmail account when I first joined Facebook. My husband joined FB before I did, and his email was immediately hacked. I wanted to protect my other email addresses, so I decided to start a new one to use for social networking, including FB and my website.

My g-mail address has a couple of purposes, including access to the Killer Hobbies blog! I also use it to run Google Alerts on certain subjects, including myself. Always interesting to see what turns up.

I do use different passwords for each. Do I confuse them at times? Not often, but occasionally.

Those are my main addresses, unless you also count other social networking addresses such as my Facebook account...

How many addresses do you have? Do you find them all useful?

MOVING DAY

It’s Tuesday, and here I am on Killer Hobbies. I’ve moved a lot in my life, but never quite like this. Usually moving calls for lots of boxes and weeks of settling in.

I had really settled into Wednesday. I wrote it Monday and Tuesday – sometimes just on Tuesday – and posted it early (really early) Wednesday morning. I got to post it early because I am up really early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I go to a water aerobics class (which I send my sleuth to in my Betsy Devonshire mysteries, too), the one they call “Early Bird.” It begins at 6:30 in the a.m., which is awfully early. On the other hand I’m back home around 8, washed, dressed, exercised, and ready for my day. Any of the other classes would put an ugly hole in my day, but not the Early Bird class.

Now Tuesday is my day to sleep in. I try not to schedule anything too early on Tuesdays so I can luxuriate in bed. There are two problems with that. One is, I wake up early anyhow – though not as early as on Monday, Wednesday and Friday – and the second is, my cat Snaps has an uncanny ability to sense when I am awake, even when I lie still and breathe gently. And if I’m awake, he thinks I should get up. He’ll nudge and bump and paw, purring ecstatically because this is a great game to him. If I lose my temper and rise to toss him out of the bedroom, closing the door on him – well, I’m up, aren’t I? And annoyed enough that I can’t go back to sleep.

But we’ll see how this works. Though I won’t be posting before six anymore, we’ll see if I can’t post before seven.

One of the great things about Bouchercon by the Bay – San Francisco, that is – was the chance to meet some of my fellow Killer Hobbiests. I got to teach a class on counted cross stitch. Camille Minchon, late of this blog, was wonderful, there ahead of time, ready to help anyway she could, bringing supplies, offering advice. I am not a great crafts teacher – heck, I’m not that great a stitcher – so I was pleased there was also a great stitcher present who had taught classes on counted cross stitch, and who was especially helpful with a young woman who had never tried the craft before. (I even learned a few things from her!) I had volunteered to assist Angela Daniels in her craft class on Saturday, and Joanna Campbell Slan came in with all sorts of handouts. Angela showed us how to take an old book and turn it into an exotic gift box, or perhaps a place to hide a small valuable. Very clever and not desperately difficult. It’s something I think I’d like to try again, as soon as I find that rarity, a book I don’t want to re-read or sell to Half-Price Books.

My thirteenth Betsy Devonshire mystery, Blackwork, is now out in paperback, and I’m looking forward to the publication of the fourteenth, Buttons and Bones, due in bookstores December 7.

Why I Love Crafts--and a Contest!

This is an exciting week for all of us at Killer Hobbies. On Sunday, July 12, we'll celebrate our 800th post. And, according to invesp.com, a service which ranks more than 20,000 blogs, we're one of the top 20 mystery blogs on the Internet.

And it's been an exciting couple of years for us. We did our first ever "Killer Hobbies" blog panel at Malice Domestic this spring, and many of us will be appearing in the craft room this fall in Bouchercon in Indianapolis.

What's at the heart of all this? Crafts and Hobbies, my friends. You see, most of us hadn't met in person until AFTER our blog was up and running. We really didn't know how well we'd mesh, how dedicated we'd be, or whether this idea would take off or not. Deb Baker and I stumbled upon each other at Love Is Murder up in Chicago. Our meeting hatched this grand idea. Next thing you know, we contacted other hobbyists/crafters who also dabbled in blood-red ink on the page--and voila! You've got your Killer Hobbies crew.

I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my personal love of crafts, a love at the heart of all this--

1. I love taking "nothing" and creating "something" out of it. The more "out there" my supplies are, the more fun it is to admire a finished project.

2. I love the people I've met while crafting and teaching crafts. I've taught on cruise ships, in the U.K., and here in the U.S. No matter where you teach, it's guaranteed to be a good time! I love the look of satisfaction on folks' faces as they realize what they can create!

3. I appreciate the comfort that crafting and hobbies gives me. Getting lost in my hobbies offers an easy and elegant escape from my troubles. I've had a pretty "down" weekend, with some real worries this year, so I lost myself working on some scrapbooking art for my upcoming newsletter. (To get it go to my website http://www.joannaslan.com/ and sign up. It's free, and it's chock full of goodies.)

4. I appreciate the end product. I love looking at crafts, at imagining the hours and effort involved. Each step, each stitch, each action is born of love, so the final product is a wonderful response to the creator in all of us!



CONTEST

You could win an autographed copy of Cut, Crop & Die! Here's how:

1. Tell me what keeps you crafting
2. And become a follower of our blog (click the "follow" button on the right side of the blog)
3. I'll choose some lucky person!

The contest ends tomorrow (July 7) at noon CST. Tell a friend and maybe he or she will share the book with you!

The Shocking, True Story behind my Russian Supper Club Performing Career

Note: Our guest blogger today is the multi-talented Michelle Gagnon. Michelle is a former modern dancer, bartender, dog walker, model, personal trainer, and Russian supper club performer. Her debut thriller The Tunnels was an IMBA bestseller. Her next book, Boneyard, depicts a cat and mouse game between dueling serial killers. In her spare time she wonders what happened to Miami Sound Machine.

I confess, this doesn’t really count as a hobby since I was paid to perform (not well paid, but money was involved). But the item on my resume that elicits the most attention is always the bit about how I was once a performer in a Russian Supper Club. This generally provokes questions running along the theme, “Were you naked?” (I wasn’t, I swear).

So let’s clear up any misconceptions. I got the job through a friend from one of my dance classes who knew I was between gigs (which is a nice way of saying I was out of work at the time). I usually filled those interims with bartending jobs, but had a bad experience recently and wasn’t eager to continue slinging drinks. Rent was coming due and my bank account hovered around zero. My friend approached me after class one day and said, “I know how you can make decent money for a half-hour show three nights a week.”

Sounds sketchy, right? But my friend assured me that there was no nudity involved, in fact the costumes were elaborate to the point of being ridiculous. I tentatively agreed to come to rehearsal that afternoon. If all went well, I’d be onstage the following night. I walked in and met the seven other performers (six dancers, two singers). Over the space of two hours they taught me six dance numbers. I found it curious that everything was set to early-eighties tunes like “Beat It” and “Turn the Beat Around,” (this was the mid-nineties), but figured it could be worse.

I was still reluctant, but agreed to try it out for the weekend. I left the club address with my boyfriend just in case I arrived home with one less kidney (or didn’t turn up at all) and headed to Times Square. A van shuttled us from there to Brighton Beach, where a huge neon sign announced “Club Versailles” on a building that looked like a storage warehouse plastered with fake Doric columns. We went in the back way. I followed my friend down a narrow staircase that opened into the kitchen. The room was filled by men in ragged tank tops, most with a cigarette dangling out of their mouths (and dropping ash into the food, at which point I made a mental note not to eat the free dinner). They all leered as we passed, following the snaking corridor to a tiny room at the end of the hall where we were meant to change. A rickety screen in front was supposed to shield us from prying eyes, but let’s just say that it was fairly ineffective.

As for the show itself, let me give you the backstory (yes, there was a running plot):

Aliens have landed in Brooklyn (this was illustrated by the descent of a miniature spaceship from the ceiling, accompanied by clouds of fake smoke. I was actually fairly impressed by the recent immigrants metaphor). The singers (aka the aliens) learn all about American culture via a series of songs and dances. These included, paradoxically:

1. a disco routine where we wore towering French powdered wigs, lacey bodices, and hoop skirts.


2. a Michael Jackson number complete with Jerri-curl wigs and black spandex outfits, and


3. a flapper-style tap routine featuring the Charleston.
   Confused? I was. The modern day equivalent would be teaching people about American History by showing them Youtube clips.

The dining room was packed with families seated at long tables (I was told most of these were local mobsters). Vodka flowed freely, and kids ran around the room despite the late hour. We closed the show every night by grabbing people from the crowd, dragging them onstage, and forcing them to perform the Macarena with us. I’m not kidding.

And here’s the funny thing: in retrospect, it was the most fun I ever had dancing. Up until then I’d worked with a series of very serious modern dance companies doing “important” pieces. So I’d be rolling around the stage in a black leotard simulating the situation in Rwanda, or wallowing in pieces called “Disconnected” that were supposed to illustrate the dehumanizing effect of machinery on modern existence (mind you, this was pre-internet). And the Club Versailles job was just pure fun, the dance equivalent of a summer blockbuster film. I had a blast doing it for the three months the gig lasted. Then one night, we were all abruptly terminated. Apparently the owner suddenly realized she could hire Russian dancers for a quarter of what she was paying us, and wouldn’t have to provide van service.

So I bid the mobsters a forlorn dasvidania and returned to the bar scene. A few months later, in the face in worsening knee injuries, I hung up my dance shoes and moved west in search of a new life. So in the end, Club Versailles closed out my dance career. I’ll admit it, I still get a little teary whenever “Beat It” comes on the radio...

Sign up for my newsletter at www.michellegagnon.com and I’ll toss your name in the hat for an Amazon Kindle, iPod Shuffle, Starbucks gift certificates, and other fabulous prizes.

Autumn

I’m safely back at home – again. This time I was in Hiawatha, Iowa. That’s a suburb of Cedar Rapids. I went down Friday, gave a talk at their library Saturday and came home the same day. They have a nice library, and we had a good turnout, especially for a magnificent Saturday early afternoon. It was sunny and in the low seventies, which is as good as it gets in later October. If it had been me, I would have been out walking in such weather, raking leaves, or watching children play in the park. But about two dozen showed up to listen to me blather on about what fun it is to write about murder. A representative from Barnes & Noble was there selling books, and I noticed as I signed a copy of the first one in the Betsy Devonshire series, Crewel World, that it was in its fifteenth printing. Delighted, that’s what I am!

I love autumn. It’s my favorite season. I once thought that was uncommon, because so many people greet spring with such enthusiasm. The end of harsh winter, the tender green of new growth, every living plant in flower – there is much to recommend spring. And autumn, with its promise of harsh winter back again, the sun fading south, the leaves skittering down the street sounding the death rattle of the year, can seem downright sad. But there’s the crisp air, the tart apples, the heaps of produce – spring’s promise is kept in autumn – the cozy drawing in, the hearty soups, the brilliance of the dying leaves. Don’t you sometimes wish humans could put on such a beautiful display at the end of their lives? Wouldn’t it be fun to suddenly drop the gray and find under it a rich purple or brilliant blue or bright green? Of course that would mean the end is near, so maybe not so much.

I thought we’d have a bad autumn for color this year. In the city, some of our trees are
already naked, a few are glowing orange, and others are still green. Usually our interim seasons (spring and fall) move fast. One weekend the pools are open, the next weekend the leaves are spectacular, the third weekend we can park only on the odd-numbered side of the streets so snow removal can commence. The last few years we’ve had drawn-out autumns, when you don’t have to keep careful track of leaf colors’ progress down the state in order not to miss the one Saturday you can take an autumn drive up the St. Croix to see the colors and buy apples from a roadside stand.

I thought we weren’t going to see autumn out in that blaze of color. But on my drive down Interstate 35 into Iowa the color was lovely, especially on the low shrubs that line the freeway. I think they are the variety called “burning bush” and that’s a great name for shrubs that turn such bright reds, oranges and yellows in the fall. But oh, the hills too! They looked like giant bouquets, the evergreens standing among the maples, aspens, and oaks serving as the greenery tucked among the flowers. This year even the elms and oaks are bright.

I’m going to Galena, Illinois, this weekend. It is small, full of quaint , antique buildings, very touristy – and one of America’s most haunted cities. Virtually every old building has a story of ghostly children’s laughter, a silent figure in a doorway or window, or a mischievous sprite who keeps turning on the lights. So, naturally enough, the town loves Halloween. They have a parade the Saturday in October closest to October 31, which is this coming one. I want to have the climax of the book I will write next set there on that weekend, so I simply must go there for another look. And so long as I am there, I’ll do a signing at Mike and Kathy’s Timeless Needle shop. I’m taking my friend and needlework pattern designer Denise along. A really fun trip, and tax deductible, too.

How I suffer for my art!