#also my car seat covers are vinyl and in the summer when the windows were rolled up 🤤

[lostandbackagain]

I don't drink or smoke or do drugs and I get 8 hours of sleep and eat a shit ton of vegetables and hike so I should be allowed to breathe in hot plastic fumes if I fucking want

[tennessoui]

this is probably too many prompts lol but uhhh obikin: #6 meeting at a coffee shop au; #24 literally bumping into each other au; #40 exes meeting again after not speaking for years au (i'm a sucker for breaking up and getting back together again lol); #42 star-crossed lovers au; #48 meeting again at a high school reunion au

hi!! you probably forgot you sent this at all and I wouldn't blame you in the slightest. I'm pretty sure someone else already asked for 24, 40, and 42, so I wrote #6 instead! warnings for this one: bittersweet in that both anakin and obi-wan are sad, also the author is sad, also this takes place in the midwest in america (this is the first fic that is obviously set in america!!! wow!!)

6. Meeting At A Coffee Shop Diner AU (1.9k)

“Have a seat anywhere you want,” the hostess tells Obi-Wan without looking up from her phone.

Obi-Wan blinks and then looks around the deserted seating area. “Thank you, uh.” She’s not wearing a name tag.

“Angel’ll bring you the menu and take care of you, thanks for coming in,” she says, glancing up at him and then away.

Well then. Obi-Wan reminds himself that customer service isn’t everyone’s strong suit, that she might have had a rough day, that he’s here for the quick food on his way through town, that his ego isn’t fragile enough that he needs to be led to a table with a smile.

The restaurant is almost completely deserted. There’s two truckers eating their weight in bacon and eggs at the counter, and a family of four seated around a table, resolutely picking at their food instead of talking to each other. And then there’s Obi-Wan.

He chooses a booth by the window, one that overlooks the absolute nothingness of midwestern American scenery. If he cranes his neck, he can probably see corn.

God, Obi-Wan’s sick of seeing corn, and he’s only been in this part of the country for a few hours. He needs to go right through most of it to get where he’s headed. He’s not sure how he won’t die of boredom.

The thought sends a pang through his chest. It’s too soon to think of death even in an offhand way. He taps his fingers on the cover of his leather journal, before a line of dark brown under one of them catches his eye. He studies his hand critically.

It’s been two days since the funeral. Surely he wouldn’t still have grave dirt under his nails. Surely things like that wash away eventually.

“Hey,” a voice says from in front of him. A man is turned around and kneeling up in the booth in front of Obi-Wan’s, leaning over the garishly red vinyl of the empty seat with a menu clutched in one hand. His hair is short and dark blond, an undercut with a long fringe settling over his forehead. He has a nice sort of smile, one that looks genuine but doesn’t touch his eyes. Obi-Wan notices how long the man’s neck is and how predominant his collarbones appear in the loose white shirt he’s wearing, before he forces himself to focus only on his face. “I’m Angel,” the guy says, passing over the menu. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

Obi-Wan accepts it gingerly. It looks like something that’s perpetually sticky. “Water is fine,” he says politely. “Thank you.”

“Will do,” Angel salutes him and ambles away. Obi-Wan watches him go before shaking his head to rid himself of any sort of thought, and opening the menu.

It’s standard food fare, of course. Breakfast options served all day if anyone were to come in and request them. Lunch and dinner options are also served all day, probably for the same reason: a diner like this can’t afford to turn anyone away, even if they want a hamburger at nine in the morning.

A glass of water clinks down onto the table next to him, making him look up at Angel, who’s looking at him curiously.

“You ready to order?” he asks, even though Obi-Wan is still very much looking at the menu and it’s also only been a few minutes at most since Angel gave it to him in the first place.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Obi-Wan asks politely. “I’ve never been here before. What’s good?”

“The water,” Angel says and then laughs like he’s said something funny. Obi-Wan finds his own mouth curling up at the sound. Sometimes people’s laughter is contagious, like a yawn.

And then Angel says, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No,” Obi-Wan admits. “North of Boston.”

Angel whistles, like Obi-Wan has said something impressive. “Boston, huh? What are you doing all the way out here?”

The pit in his stomach intensifies. He does his best not to look at his nails and the grave dirt that might still be under them. “Driving,” he finally says. “And are you...from around here?”

Angel’s eyes grow distant for a second, and when he focuses again on Obi-Wan, they’re cold. “Born and raised,” he tells him flatly. “Never got out.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan doesn’t know what to do with the sort of bitterness in Angel’s tone. It complements his own well enough.

“If you like eggs, I’ll put you in for the house special omelette,” Angel declares suddenly, all business again. “It’s four eggs, tomatoes, peppers, cheese. The usual.”

“What makes it special?” Obi-Wan asks, closing his menu and setting it down on the table in front of him.

“For you?” Angel drawls, “I’ll watch the cook to make sure he doesn’t get any egg shells in it,” and then he winks, holding out his hand.

Naturally, Obi-Wan shakes it. Naturally, Obi-Wan realizes a second after feeling Angel’s warm, calloused rough palm against his own that the man had meant to take the menu from Obi-Wan.

He can’t remember the last time he’s blushed this red, but he is absolutely regretting everything about this road trip. God, he’d pay money just to be able to leave now.

He should get in his car and drive back to Boston. It had been a stupid idea to come out here anyway, a result of stir-craziness and a desire to outrun the death of his father.

And now look what he’s doing. Shaking hands with his handsome waiter, as if he isn’t thirty-nine and perfectly aware of social norms.

Thankfully, miraculously, Angel laughs and this time it sounds real. “It’s okay,” he tells him, reaching out to pick up the menu.

Luckily for everyone involved, Obi-Wan finds it very easy to laugh at himself. “Well. It’s nice to meet you, Angel, I’m Obi-Wan.”

“I’ll go put the order in,” Angel says, “Obi-Wan.”

He’s back within five minutes, sliding into the seat across from Obi-Wan. So much for no eggshells in his omelette, but he can’t bring himself to be disappointed. There’s something magnetically fascinating about Angel. He’d like to know more.

“So you’re driving?” Angel asks, picking up a thread of conversation from several minutes ago. “Where are you going?”

“I was thinking of Alaska,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve--I’ve always wanted to go.”

“You’re driving from Boston to Alaska?” Angel whistles, raising his eyebrows in shock. “I think the gas money alone would cost me two months of work.”

Obi-Wan shrugs. It’s not like he makes much himself as a teacher in Massachusetts. “My father was a lifelong gambler,” he discloses without really knowing why he’s telling this to a stranger. “He came into a bit of luck near the end. A bit of a fortune as well. And when he...died, I inherited it and his house.”

Angel touches his hand softly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “When did he pass?”

Obi-Wan huffs out what might be a chuckle. “A week ago, actually. It’s summer break in Massachusetts--I’m a teacher--and I suddenly had nothing to stay for, for a bit. It was either leave for Alaska or find some other way to cope.”

He runs a hand--his free hand, the one Angel isn’t touching--over his beard as he gives the man a rueful smile. “Dad always wanted me to see more of the world.”

“My mom was the same way,” Angel leans forward to tell him, as if it’s a secret. Obi-Wan feels like it is a secret, that there’s something delicate and fragile in the air. Something that matches whatever emotion is filling up Angel’s eyes. “Always telling me to leave, go get famous, go get happy, come back and tell her about it.”

“You didn’t?” Obi-Wan asks, his chest tightening at the thought that the man before him could be unhappy.

“I couldn’t,” Angel sneers, looking out the window and propping his chin on his hand. Some things must be too close to the heart to tell someone to their face. “Mom got sick. I wanted to get out, I was so close. Graduated high school, packed my stuff. I was going to go to California. To Los Angeles, really make it big.” He rolls his eyes and scoffs, as if there’s something inherently funny about the dreams he must have cherished for so long.

“Then mom collapsed going down the stairs. Just passed out in the middle of the day. Doctors told us she was sick. Then life became all about treatment plans and monitoring symptoms and getting the money for the medicines and I never left. Got a job here when I was eighteen years old, right before I graduated high school. It’s all I’ve ever known, I guess.”

“And your mother?” Obi-Wan asks, mouth dry and heart all tangled up in itself for this stranger man, for Angel with the hard, sad eyes.

“Died a year and a half ago or so,” Angel says flatly like he’s repeated the words so often in his head that the truth digs no barbs into his flesh. Obi-Wan knows that voice is a lie. How often has he looked in the mirror this past week and told himself, ‘Qui-Gon Jinn is dead’? He can’t imagine a year and a half would make the pain go away.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says seriously, reaching across the table to touch Angel’s hand this time.

Angel shrugs but doesn’t pull away. “Is what it is, I guess,” he says. “I’ve made my peace with it. And the fact that I’ll never leave this godforsaken town.”

“You could,” Obi-Wan points out hesitantly. “You could leave tomorrow.”

For a second, a wild and previously undiscovered part of Obi-Wan wonders what it would be like, if Angel did leave tomorrow--with him. If they got into the same car and headed to Alaska together and Obi-Wan wasn’t alone at the wheel and Angel wasn’t alone in this town. If Obi-Wan could look over at the man in the passenger seat, asleep against the doorway as they crossed into Canada.

Obi-Wan wonders. Obi-Wan aches.

“I could,” Angel says, laughing once. “I guess I could. I guess I just can’t think of a good enough reason to.”

There’s a call of his name from the kitchen, and Angel stands and stretches, checking the time on his watch. “That’ll be your omelette, sir, which is perfect timing considering I’m off shift as of five minutes ago.”

“Thank you then,” Obi-Wan replies, ignoring the pang in his gut at the knowledge he won’t be able to keep talking to him. “It was nice meeting you, Angel.”

Angel’s face grows dark for a second as his jaw clenches. “That’s not my name,” he finally says, scratching at his neck with one hand. “That’s just what they called me when I started working here. Angel, like Los Angeles. Cause I told everyone for weeks this was a temporary thing, you know? I’d be going to California soon as mom got better. Guess they knew better than I did.”

Obi-Wan has never wanted to kidnap a grown man away from a place more, so he hides his hands under the table instead. “Would you tell me your name then?” he asks, wondering if he’s overstepping but needing to know too much to censor himself.

“It’s Anakin,” his waiter says, sticking his hand out, no menu to grab.

Obi-Wan takes it gently, turns it over, and cradles it between both of his hands. “Then it’s nice to meet you, Anakin.”

Maybe, he thinks as he picks at his omelette and watches Anakin shoulder his way through the front doors of the diner before disappearing down the street, maybe he can stay a day in this nowhere town. Just an extra day.

Yes, he thinks, taking a sip of his water. He’ll try the pancakes next.

[avaantares]

My New Ventilated Social-Distancing Movie Theatre

(or, how I bought a 2020-proof social life for less than $100)

So the USA is (still) a hot mess in terms of pandemic response. Because both my father and I are at increased risk for complications from COVID-19, and my sister and I have to work together in person to run our workshops, my entire family has been in a state of self-quarantine for six months straight (with no end in sight). But it’s hard being in constant isolation, so the four households that comprise my local family have been doing weekly outdoor gatherings -- with plenty of hand sanitizer and safely-spaced tables -- so we can see each other and socialize at a distance. However, that’s only feasible when the weather cooperates.

I’ve also really missed watching movies with friends, which prior to the pandemic had been a regular activity. I have a 70-year-old tripod screen I inherited from my grandfather and a projector I use for running panels at conventions, so we’ve watched occasional DVDs outdoors, but we could only do that on evenings without wind (which could tear the brittle screen) or rain (which would damage the projector), and we have to be careful not to have the sound too loud because it might disturb the neighbors.

A couple weeks ago, when our city delayed reopening again due to rising COVID-19 case numbers, I decided to convert half of my garage into an outdoor movie theatre. It turned out pretty well, and it only cost about what I would spend on movie tickets in an average year (and since I’m not going to any movies in 2020, it’s pretty much a wash). I’m sharing the details in case it gives anyone else ideas for making a health-conscious social hangout!

Obviously YMMV, and in areas with higher case numbers (hi, FL & AZ), this still might be too much contact. Be safe and follow official recommendations to prevent viral spread, folks!

The Space

Before I settled on the garage, I considered building a movie space under a tent canopy (nixed because they’re almost impossible to anchor through Midwest storm winds) or carport kit (too expensive and high-maintenance for me), so there are definitely other options depending on where you live, your typical weather, and what space you have available!

My garage has an unusual layout that allows for better-than-average ventilation. When it was first built, it was a 2 1/2-car garage with the doors facing the street and windows on the side. About 40 years later, the owners decided to move the driveway to the other side of the house, so they built a second garage attached to the drive-door side and knocked out an end wall to put in a new overhead door. This means that by square footage, the garage could hold four cars, but the way the drive doors are situated, it’s a divided two-car garage with a bunch of extra space at the far end. The two sides are connected by one of the original overhead doors, which means that three of the four walls have openings that allow for air movement. (More on that below.)

Normally there’s a car in each side of the garage, but I decided I was willing to park outside all summer for the sake of having a social life. Over the course of a week, I emptied and thoroughly cleaned the half of the garage that has the windows.

Air Flow

Constant fresh air flow is critical to flushing aerosolized particles that can spread the virus, so in order to make a safe indoor space, I had to simulate outdoor air movement. I opened all three overhead doors and both windows, then placed several fans to draw air through the building: One in each window, one along the side wall, and a box fan in the connecting door between the two sides of the garage to pull more air in from the outside. To make sure air was actually moving through the building and not just circulating within it, I turned on all the fans while I was sweeping the (very dusty) floor and walls, and adjusted the fan angles until the dust blew straight out the overhead door, rather hanging in the air or gathering in the corners. (Experts recommend that to prevent virus transmission, indoor spaces should have 100% air turnover every 10 minutes; obviously I have no way of testing that in a garage, but there is a constant light breeze through the building and stuff seems to be blowing out, so I feel pretty good about it.)

Projection Setup

I already had the projector and DVD player (I took the one out of my living room, since I usually just watch DVDs on my game console anyway), but I wanted a larger wall-mounted screen, since my grandfather’s 1950s screen was designed for showing vacation slides in a living room, not wide-screen films. Hanging fabric screens are very cheap, but I opted for a 120″ retractable screen so it would stay clean in the dusty garage. I also have an old set of monitor speakers that provide nice stereo sound.

Seating

The beauty of setting up in a garage is that it’s basically outdoors, so you can use lawn furniture or bean bags or old chairs you pulled out of someone’s trash (I do this regularly; it’s how I got my entire patio set). Measuring out at least 6 feet between each table and staggering their positions so nobody was directly downwind of another table, I set up all the card tables and folding tables I owned, and put a pair of chairs by each one so that couples from the same household could share a table but not be in close contact with any other groups. I put my largest folding table (which was also salvaged from the trash -- seriously, it’s the best way to get stuff!) against the wall right by the open door to serve as a snack table, so it’s on the opposite wall from the seating and nobody would be breathing on the food. I covered all the tables with decorative heavy-duty vinyl tablecloths (mostly for sanitation purposes, because those tables have been sitting out in my garage and I know I’ve had raccoons and opossums out there -- not to mention the colony of bats that lives in the loft off the back of the garage).

This setup can seat up to eight people, and even provides a place for serving food. (I put pump bottles of hand sanitizer on each table and on the food table, and people wear face masks when they’re loading up their plates, so there’s minimal contamination risk there.)

Total Cost

My out-of-pocket cost for this whole project was only about $83, though that’s because I already had a lot of stuff lying around. Here’s a more complete breakdown:

Fans: I already owned the box fan ($25 new) and a couple other fans that I’d picked up super cheap at garage sales ($5 or so), because my house is old and the HVAC is not very efficient. The only new fan I bought for this project was a refurbished air circulator from Amazon ($14), because I needed a small but high-velocity fan to fit in a window.

Projection setup: The only new thing I bought was the screen, which was $65 including shipping (though non-retractable fabric screens start around $10-15, so if you’re on a budget you can get one very cheap). I bought the projector used on eBay about eight years ago. I think I paid around $40 for it then, but prices have come down since; I’ve seen discount projectors for as low as $20. The DVD player is a cheapo region free model, which I got a decade ago for maybe $30. The speakers were secondhand; I’ve also used an old set of external PC speakers ($10 from Goodwill) when running video off my laptop, and they worked well enough in the indoor space.

Seating: Almost all the outdoor furniture I own came from other people’s trash, so I didn’t pay anything for it! Any kind of seating or tables will work, though. I did invest about $4 for new tablecloths, which I got on seasonal clearance.

Bonus Perks

I’ve discovered that the garage walls block a LOT of light and sound unless you’re standing directly outside the drive doors, so we can watch movies for half the night or stay up late chatting and we aren’t disturbing the neighbors! We couldn’t run movies out on the patio late at night because the sound would carry to neighboring houses.

Also, when we’re watching a film in the evening, we get to watch my bats fly through the garage on their way to and from dinner! (Which might be an annoyance to the bats if we were out there all the time, but we try to keep our volume low and we’re only out there about once a week, so I don’t think we’re disturbing them too much.) Bats are protected in my state, as some of the native species are critically endangered, and we try to encourage nesting as they’re essential to pest insect control. I love watching them fly around!

The setup also works well for video games. A local friend and I had been playing online, late at night because it was the only time we could get enough bandwidth to maintain connection (the ISP in my area is not super reliable), but now we can sit on opposite sides of the garage and play local co-op with no lag:

So, in summary, my “movie theatre” is by no means a luxurious setup, but it was cheap :) and it’s a great way for my small pandemic social bubble to get together and chat, have a movie night, or play games without risking being in a closed room together.

[thismightbeaterribleidea]

FAQ

Hello! So, during a global pandemic and at the beginning of what will probably be a long and severe recession, at the age of 40 and with basically no knowledge of how automobiles work, I’m going to live in a van.

This might be a terrible idea. Hence, I’m calling my blog This Might Be A Terrible Idea.

If you’re reading this, I imagine it’s because you know me, so I’ll skip the introduction. I like a good FAQ, so let’s start there.

FAQ

Where are you going? Short answer: I don’t know!

Long answer: I’ll probably primarily split my time between Colorado/northern New Mexico, Maryland/Pennsylvania, and Florida. I want to stay as low-budget as I can and also avoid crowds during the pandemic. So whenever possible, I’ll opt for free, dispersed sites in national forests, state forests, BLM (which I now read as Black Lives Matter but here it’s the less-important acronym, Bureau of Land Management), state game lands, etc. I’ll pop into a developed campground every now and then to refill the water tanks, empty the portable toilet, and take a shower.

What kind of van do you have? In late June, I bought a 2007 Ford E250 with a high roof. In its first life, it was actually an Embassy Suites hotel shuttle, so when I got it, it had SO MANY SEATS. After it retired from the hotel biz, it went to a guy who owned a brewery and used the van for ski trips. Then he eventually traded it to a friend’s college-aged son in exchange for lawn-mowing work. This young man was actually going to make it into a camper too but didn’t have time, so he sold it to me.

I got the van for a very low price ($2000) because it’s really high mileage — almost 300,000. It also has a few issues: the dashboard, power windows, and radio only work sometimes. The doors are creaky and don’t like to close. There are splatters of paint (?) on the inside of the driver’s door. The air conditioning wasn’t working. And the interior is pretty beat up.

With help from my brother who actually knows about cars, I recharged the air conditioning. A new, functional instrument cluster is on the way. And the type of engine in this van (5.4L V8) supposedly has a reputation for being extremely durable. If I get a couple of good years out of this vehicle, I’ll be happy.

How are you going to afford this? A few years ago, I paid $4200 for an acre of land in the San Luis Valley, a few hours from Denver. I hoped to eventually put a little camper on it and make a very low-budget part-time home. But a few months after I bought the land, the county changed its rules to prohibit living in campers or mobile homes for more than a couple of weeks at a time. So the camper idea went out the window, and in June, I sold that land for $5000. This was my funding to buy the van and associated stuff. I’m going to try to keep the initial total cost of the van (vehicle, repairs, materials for the interior, solar installation) to about $6000.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be in a position where I don’t have to choose between my job and a weird nomadic lifestyle. About a year ago, I went full-time freelance as an editor and writer. So I’m self-employed and I work from home. I don’t even need the internet that much — aside from checking email, file downloads/uploads, and occasional googling for research and editing questions, I can be mostly offline. Also incredibly fortunate: the pandemic hasn’t affected my work, at least not so far.

I’ll have new and unexpected expenses: food will be more expensive, I’ll have to pay for campgrounds sometimes, the van will need gas and repairs and oil and new tires, and then I’ll want to make livability improvements (like insulation). But I hope that I’ll be able to cover all of that while still living within my means.

Aren’t you selling your condo? Why don’t you get a newer/lower mileage/already converted van? Yes, I am (fingers crossed that the sale goes through) selling my condo in Denver. But I also have no savings, no retirement fund, no emergency fund. And the recession is just getting started… the whole future seems pretty uncertain. I’d feel better if I kept as much of the condo money in the bank as possible, even if that means having a crappier van.

Don’t you worry about safety? Absolutely. I’m a worrying person. I worry a lot! But if I responded to those worries by not going anywhere alone, staying in only developed campgrounds, etc., then I’d have missed out on some of the best experiences in my life, and I’d never go much of anywhere at all.

To stay safe in a van, I’ll use the same approach I use for solo car camping. If a place feels sketchy, I go somewhere else. To avoid trouble from bears, I try not to get food on the ground, do food prep and brush teeth away from the vehicle, and keep the car doors locked when I’m away and at night. To avoid trouble from bros, I try to stay out of sight. I pick spots and set up my campsite so that people passing by mostly just see the vehicle and not me or my single chair or small tent. I have bear spray, which stays in arm’s reach when I’m out hiking and at night, and I have a sharp knife, which is always pretty accessible too.

In fact, safety is why I chose a van over a truck with a camper, which actually would have been preferable. If a truck ever had recurring or expensive mechanical problems, I could just get a new truck and put the camper on it — but with a van, I’ll either have to do the expensive repairs or get a new van and re-do the whole interior. And if I wanted to stay in one place for a while, I could take the camper off and just drive the truck around, saving on gas and wear and tear. But with a truck camper, if I were ever inside the camper and felt unsafe, I’d have to *go outside* and then get into the truck cab in order to leave. With a van, if things start feeling sketchy, I can just hop in the driver’s seat and go.

(Side note: It’s upsetting and frustrating to me that these safety concerns and choices are so linked to gender. Of course men also need to think about safety when they’re out camping alone, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had to think about it at least 200% as much as my equivalent 40-year-old non-threatening-looking out-of-shape single dude.)

If we’re talking about safety from non-sentient threats — bad weather, injuries, mechanical breakdowns, etc. — then I…

a) try not to get into situations that I can’t get out of — whether it’s a too-rugged road, a too-steep trail, or a spot that is likely to turn into a mud pit if it rains. I also think about whether I could walk to get help if I needed to. b) have some basic safety and first aid stuff. Tape, gauze, and a mylar blanket for me; jumper cables and a portable air compressor for the car. c) have a Triple A membership in case I need a tow.

The van came with a handy fire extinguisher strapped to the driver’s seat. To reduce the possibility of being unable to call for help if I get stuck somewhere, I eventually plan to get a cell phone signal booster.

The fire extinguisher or even my bear spray won’t keep me safe from COVID-19. But like I mentioned, I’m trying to stay as far away from crowds as possible. To cut down on contact when resupplying, I’ve got storage for 10 gallons of water (I’m actually going to expand this to 15) and plan to carry enough food for a month. Unless there’s a mechanical problem or breakdown (definitely my biggest concern), I should be able to drive coast to coast while remaining in a relatively firm bubble. The riskiest thing I’ll *have* to do is refuel at gas pumps, but I can pick gas stations that seem less crowded, refuel in smaller towns rather than busy highway rest areas, and go at quieter times of day.

Does your van have air conditioning? Nope! Well, it has the standard vehicle AC, but that only works while the van is running, and most of the time I’ll be parked. There are AC units that can go on top of campers and vans, but they use a ton of power: either you have to be plugged in to shore power at a campground, use a gas-powered generator, or have a million solar panels and batteries. I’m going to get a good roof vent and fan installed, plus maybe put some smaller battery-powered fans in the windows, so that will hopefully keep me from getting heatstroke in the summer.

Does it have running water? Nope! Right now, I have a portable foot-pump sink and a self-contained portable toilet. I plan to eventually build a nicer/bigger sink. I’m also going to order a collapsible tub so I can do sponge baths or use a solar shower (a black vinyl bag that heats up in the sun and has a hose attached). Swimming in freshwater lakes will need to become a bigger part of my life. I’ll probably be a little stinky at times, but people should be social distancing anyway, so if anyone can smell me, they’re way too close.

Does it have electricity? It will! I’m planning to have one large solar panel and a lithium battery installed. (For those who are curious, it’s a 315 watt solar panel with a 100 AH battery.) This will power the roof fan, my laptop, my phone, some plug-in lights, and eventually also built-in lights, the cell phone signal booster, and maybe a small fridge or cooler. The solar power system is going to outlast the van and will be easily switchable to my next vehicle.

Wait. “Maybe” a fridge? What are you going to eat? Ummm… I’ll figure it out? I eat like a scavenging raccoon, so I’m not too picky. I bought a bunch of freeze-dried legume-based soup and stew mixes from Harmony House, some high-protein shake mix from Huel, and I plan to stock rice, quinoa, peanut butter, oatmeal, hard cheese, packaged salmon and tuna, and dried fruit. If I’m driving, I’ll probably also keep an eye out for farm stands and grab some produce that will keep unrefrigerated for a few days. During the pandemic, I’ve been using support for local businesses as a way of justifying takeout or delivery once or twice a week, so I’ll probably keep doing that when I pass through developed areas.

Can you poop in your van? Does it smell? Yes to the first! I haven’t, um, tested it out yet. But after road trip in my sedan in May, when I had to go into a scary (no one wearing masks or social distancing) gas station in Colorado Springs, bathroom and hand-washing facilities for the van became a priority. Right now the portable toilet is just sort of hanging out in the open, but I’m going to build a plywood box to contain it. I did pee in it a bunch during my inaugural camping trip, and I’m happy to report that the chemicals I added to the tank made it not smell gross while also not producing an overwhelming chemical smell.

How will you get the internet? Unlimited data plan FTW! I recently figured out that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot and connect to it with my laptop. It’s not fast, but it’ll do what I need it to. And I should be able to have connectivity even in more remote areas after I get a signal booster.

Won’t you get tired of living in a tiny space? Maybe. I do have some good practice, though. In the last decade, I’ve gone from living in a 700-square-foot condo (Denver) to a 400-ish-square-foot studio apartment (New Jersey; grad school) to my childhood room in my parents’ house (Maryland; post-grad-school student loan debt). Each time, I’ve gotten rid of stuff, even things it’s painful to get rid of: old books, childhood knickknacks, cassette tapes, drawings, horse show ribbons I remember winning, cutlery and glassware I got as housewarming gifts.

I also tend to feel really at home in my car. I’ve napped in my car, drafted novels in my car, had long and meaningful conversations in my car, had existential crises in my car, eaten hundreds of meals in my car. Car = house makes sense to me. And I hope to be staying in places where I have access to big and engaging outdoor spaces.

What will you do after you live in a van for a while? I have no idea. There are definitely things that I want to do — write fiction, build my career, be more involved with community/communities, get healthier, be a better human — but all of those things are geographically nonspecific. And everything both personally and nationally feels so up in the air. I could end up living in a van for a year, or five, or ten. I might eventually buy a house or a boat or a farm, or settle down somewhere (I don’t know where) in a more permanent way. But I’m not making plans for any of that, and I’m not making plans for an “after.”

I think that’s it for the FAQ! If you have any questions, let me know and I will address them in a later LFAQ (Less Frequently Asked Questions).

Also, please bear with me because I don’t really know how Tumblr works. If you want to start reading, start FROM THE BOTTOM.

[mortismacabre]

Tip.

A Short Story By Nick Unthank

_______________________________________

“I can cover you if you take care of the tip,” Mary offered, no doubt noticing my eyes frequently darting from the lunch menu to my PayPal account. Still $0 no matter how many times I refresh.

Embarrassed, I attempted to hide the screen of my phone by stuffing it into my Jack Skellington purse. “No, it’s okay I-”

“Jill, it’s fine,” Mary interrupted, “It was my idea to get you out of the apartment for the day. My treat. Consider it a bribe for what I propose later.”

“What is later?”

“Order your pancakes.”

Damnit. How did she know I wanted pancakes? Mary was always doing that. She always seemed to know what I wanted before I did. I wasn’t even looking at the breakfast menu. I distinctly perused the appetizers given the $5 I had in my pants pocket. Sure I glanced at the dessert menu to see what change from the bottom of Jack’s vinyl head I could scrape together towards a slice of pie, but I specifically avoided the breakfast section so as to spare myself the temptation of those pillowy discs of carby goodness.

Mary smirked as she saw me ponder her powers of clairvoyance. I hesitated to flip the page for a few seconds just to deny her the satisfaction of seeing me confirm any suspicions. “I hate you,” I mumbled playfully as she snorted a tiny giggle.

The waitress approached the table and after forcing Mary to order first, I gave in to a stack of chocolate chip pancakes and two pieces of bacon. The pancakes came with eggs, but I offered them up to Mary since they make me feel gross. I attempted to order a water, but Mary forced me to get orange juice instead. She must really want something.

With the orders taken and the menus removed, Mary adjusted herself in her seat by pulling her left leg underneath her. She wasn’t a short girl, at least she wasn’t as short as me, but in her former years as a Steak n’ Shake waitress she developed a need to make cheap booths comfortable. I always said it was because she had a bony white girl ass. I think there is room for both of us to be right from time to time.

We had met a few years ago when I first started cosplaying. I can’t really remember one show or another that we were at. It could have been Shotocon, or maybe Miami Anime. Shows tend to merge together after a while and after seeing each other at the same photoshoots we just sort of became friends. Truth be told, we only really started hanging out outside of the cons a year or so ago when she moved closer to the coast.

She removed her army green canvas jacket and folded it to her side, the self-tailored Spider-man shirt underneath showing off her pale shoulders and a sporadic collection of random hairs from her cat Gizmo. She removed a hairband from her wrist and tied back her pink and brown hair, blowing a random strand out from behind her glasses and working it into a ponytail with her fingers.

“So what are you selling?” she asked, nodding to the phone in my purse as she finished arranging her hair.

“Oh, that breastplate for Morgan. She was supposed to send me the money when she got paid but I haven’t heard from her since last night.”

“You told me you were going to stop selling to her when she didn’t credit you when she won at the St. Augustine show with your bracers,” Mary said as she poured a packet of Sweet n Low in her tea.

“I was planning on stopping, but Josh needed to borrow some money for his car insurance and I couldn’t really say no.”

Mary’s face didn’t change. She pulled the tea to her lips and took a sip. Her silence taunted me.

“I KNOW!” I grunted as I pushed my back against the seat.

“I didn’t say anything,” Mary offered, her arms gently raised in the air as if she were being held up by a tiny policeman.

“Of course you didn’t, you don’t have to. I just… I don’t want to go over it again today, okay? I know you think we should split up.”

“You should.”

“I know you think I’m not happy.”

“You’re not.”

“But I do still care about him, and after six years I can’t just give up on him,” I lamented, Mary’s face kept firmly in my peripheral as I studied the ring-shaped pool of condensation formed by her glass of tea. Mary didn’t flinch, or smirk, she just took another sip and kept her gaze on me. It was as if she was waiting for me to continue to make her arguments for her.

“Please tell me this isn’t why you bought me pancakes,” I grumbled as I resumed eye contact.

“Not fully,” she retorted, setting her glass back over the ringlet of liquid on the table, “but I can’t really resist the opportunity to remind you that after six years, the guy has come no closer to proposing to you than he has managed a week without getting stoned with his buddies and playing Street Fighter until dawn. I also know that my going on and on about it doesn’t really help to convince you either way so I will leave it at that.”

I sigh a breath of relief, “Thank you. And not just for sparing me another… lashing. I do consider what you say, and I know that you aren’t completely wrong. I just… care about him and I don’t really know what he would do if I left. I don’t know what I would do.”

The waitress arrived with our food, my breakfast neatly arranged on two plates, Mary’s chicken fingers nestled cozily in a basket of fries. I relocated the bacon from their egg friends and placed them near my pancakes as Mary stealthily slid the scrambled piles of eww to her side of the tabletop. I scanned the rack for pads of butter as the waitress returned with the syrup pitcher… handled-jar thing.

“Well, you are always welcome at my place. I doubt Gizmo would mind having a buddy to curl up with on the couch while I am at school. Or you could always enroll yourself?” Mary suggested, punctuating her sentence with the soft crunch of a fry.

Pancakes fully slathered in butter I began to drench the flaps of jack with a shower of sticky syrup. “I can’t afford school right now,” I protest, licking a bead of syrup from my finger as I rest the container back from whence it came.

“Of course, you can’t, because you have Morgan refusing to advertise your work, and Josh hitting you up for loans that he pays back in boring sex.”

“Oh, that’s not fair.”

“Your words, my gal, not mine.”

“I thought you were going to spare me the lecture today.”

“Think of this as a jumping off point. How would you like to have your life on the right track for good? What if you could see - for absolute certain - that you are destined to move towards great things?”

Mary’s face was sincere, but her words didn’t seem any less outlandish.

“Are you high?” I ask, cutting into my triple stacked tower of joy.

“Not yet. Just answer me, honestly. If you could see things as they are, would you change your mind?”

“What are you talking about? How can I change my mind if I have no idea what seeing ‘things as they are’ even means?”

“Silver Civic, dent above the right tail light, blue Pokeball sticker on the back window. Sitting in front of the UPS store,” Mary said coyly before snapping into her second chicken finger. I looked outside to see the aforementioned store sans a car in front.

“What car? I don’t see a--” a silver Honda eases in front of the shop; dented body, blue decal. “You’re fucking with me.”

“There are three people in the car, all wearing hoods. They are going to get out of the car and two of them have guns stuffed in their pants, the driver is going to pull a shotgun from the passenger seat before they go inside.”

A small sliver of pancake broke free from the tines of my fork to the plate below as I watched the hooded men Mary described exit the car she described holding the guns she described.

“Mary…”

“No one inside the store is going to get hurt. The clerk behind the counter is going to start crying, but no matter how loud the shotgun guy gets, he doesn’t even let his finger graze the trigger. He is going to ask for all the money orders in the drawer and toss a bag on the counter for her to fill up. The other two will split up, one keeping an eye on the door, the other retrieving the manager from the storeroom.”

“Mary stop,” I drop the fork to my plate, but I don’t take my eyes off the storefront. I swear I can just make out the reflections of a man with a shotgun barking at a trembling woman as she fills a gym bag with the contents of a register and a stack of papers.

“I need you to listen carefully, Jilly. What you see next needs to happen exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

“No… we have to do something. This isn’t-”

“Look at me, Jillian,” she demands, brushing our plates aside and taking my hand in hers. I shoot her a momentary glance, keeping the storefront in the corner of my eye. “Do not go after him.”

“Who?” I ask, my eyes returning to the UPS store as three men rush towards the Civic, the trunk now raised high to accept a bag full of contraband. I watch in horror as the shotgun man drops the bag inside the car and spins into the welcoming blast of his compatriot’s handgun, his hood exploding like an over-filled water-balloon on a hot summer day.

The man falls to the ground, blood splattering on the pavement as his shotgun fumbles along the edge of the car. The shooter spins his recently-fired gun toward the third gunman standing at the driver’s door, his own gun now drawn towards the shooter.

“They are arguing. It wasn’t supposed to happen then. They were supposed to do it later. ‘You will join him if you don’t shut the fuck up and start the car.’ The girl inside is screaming now, she is petrified they will come get her next. The manager of this diner is on the phone with the cops. - Jill this is the important part: He is going to tell them to hurry and a bullet is going to just miss the window. I need you to duck.”

“Wha--,” I squeak. Mary jerked my arm forward, slamming my face into the countertop as shards of glass sprinkled into my hair. I kept my head low as more shots rang out. Mary was face to face with me as we were pressed to the table.

“You can’t look at him, Jill,” Mary whispered, “I need you to keep your eyes on me.”

“What’s happening? How are you doing this? Make it stop.”

“Keep your eyes on me, Jilly, please. Let him come and go.”

“Who? Let who?”

The front door explodes as more shots pelt the building outside. The room erupts in more screaming than ever as the booming voice of a madman echoes through the restaurant. “Everybody get the FUCK down!” he shouts, his gun swinging wildly as sirens become louder in distance.

Mary began to whisper, “Moment of truth, Jilly. This is as far as I saw. You need to let him go. Just look at me and let him leave out the back.”

“Josh,” I gasped, slapping my hand to my mouth in a desperate gesture to keep the word from escaping. The room grew silent as the gunman stopped.

“Who the fuck said that?!” he roared as he kicked bits of broken plate across the lobby, “Who said my goddamn name?!”

A tear dripped from Mary’s eye and road the slope of her arm like a waterslide as the man grew more agitated. She didn’t make a sound but I could hear her mouth the words like a deafening cry: Let him go.

I squeezed her hand and as he kicked over a table, I could feel the silverware sliding towards my shoe. He was close and was getting ever closer. The sirens wailed through the streets towards a howling crescendo in the parking lot. Doors flung open as a medley of “Don’t moves” and “Freeze mother fuckers” pelted the windows like the bullets from moments before.

I gave Mary’s hand a final squeeze as another tear left her eye. I stood up to find not the man that I once loved, or even the man that she had often begged me to dump. The man I found standing before me was Josh, but with a gun in his hand, and another man’s blood-flecked on his jacket, he was something different.

“Jill? What the… you aren’t supposed to be here…” Josh muttered confusedly, letting the gun dangle at his side.

“Shh, it’s okay Baby. I am here. It’s okay. Come here.” I said soothingly as I held out my arms. Cautiously he entered my embrace, and I relieved him of the gun as chunks of bone and globs of grey matter pressed against my Legend of Zelda shirt.

“I did it for us, sweety. I promise. I did it for us,” he sobbed.

“I know, Baby. I know you did. It’s okay.”

The shot didn’t sound like a shot at all. It was muffled, pitiful, like the last tense dry heave after a violent vomit - all strain, no bile. When Josh’s face pulled back into view it was awash with betrayal and shock, his arms clutching his chest as he stumbled backward. He crumpled to the floor as tears filled his eyes. With the pistol in my hand, he stretched his arm towards me, the hole in his lungs stealing the precious breath he needed to ask, “Why?”

A sharp pain lit my shoulder on fire, followed by a twinge of flame through my lower abdomen that spun me around to the officers standing, smoking guns drawn in the window above Mary’s sobbing face.

I dropped the gun to the egg-stained carpet floor and plopped into a nearby booth. I could feel Josh’s dead stare as I looked towards Mary, but for once, I didn’t care. The last thought that went through my mind was the delicious sight of those crispy strips of bacon, clinging for safety to the mountain of chocolate-chipped, golden brown, Pac-Man-shaped cakes.

Mary rushed to my side as the police entered and screamed for her to stand back. She took my hand in hers as blood lightly dripped from the corner of my mouth. “Damnit, Jilly. No, not like this. Goddamnit, no,” she cried.

I brought my other hand to Mary’s as she cried, sliding my five-dollar bill into her palm. I smiled one final time and as the light of the room fizzled away I shared a final goodbye to my best friend, “Tip”

[123goth]

Night Out

Her throat was dry. She could hear the tap dripping intermittently into the aluminum sink behind her. The way the quiet pitter-patter was unrhythmic and unpredictable sent a shiver down her spine. She buried her face into the couch. Dad said he was going to fix the pipes last weekend, but something came up. Maybe mom is sick, she thought. It didn’t matter anyway. Dad’s mind worked more like a river than a pond. Nothing stayed in view for long. Instead, everything moved along with the current. In one ear, leaking out the other.

Seconds seem to drip out of Katherine’s hands. She was waiting. Darcy was supposed to arrive soon, but that wasn’t her style. There was no reason for it either, but it always kept Katerine on her feet.

They had plans that night. A movie and dinner at a rooftop bar catering mostly to middle-aged couples desperately seeking respite from kids they loved but couldn’t always like. Katherine had wanted to go for a while. Vintage lights hung from thick cords around the deck. All the chairs were mismatched, some of the wickers, like they were stolen from an elderly woman’s backyard, others ornate dining chairs with delicate designs carved into the wood and purple velvet seats accented with tortoiseshell buttons.

It sat in the middle of the town square, overlooking a tall war monument protecting the roundabout that controlled everything. Once could not get anywhere without looking the Union soldier in the eyes. His face was gaunt, as though starvation from the war followed him. His cheekbones protruded, leaving the skin to drape loosely below. The small holes in the limestone left the statue with a strange aura of life, like each of his pores was delicately chiseled onto his face. She never learned his name.

Katherine lifted her head out of the linen cushions. Darcy should be here soon, but she was already 30 minutes late. They would miss the movie for sure. She could show up with a bundle of flowers. That happened once, years ago when they had first met. The summer night was ebbing slowly into the sky as the sun began to lay its head. She remembers the scene so vividly. The orange clouds mixed with the blush pink seeping from the delicate blue, teeter toddlers between a fading gray and a dying cornflower, the day’s last gift to the trees before falling below their view.

They didn’t have set plans that night, just dinner around seven, but Katherine was anxious. What if the food gets cold? She was always worried. Dinner sat on the stove, her on the couch. Staring at the light hanging from the ceiling, a myriad of disastrous situations danced before her eyes. Car crash. Pole fell on her while she was driving. Slipped and fell. Got lost. Abducted. Phone died. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like you. “Enough of that,” Katherine said to herself. Her mind worked more like a whirlpool, spinning deeper and deeper into itself. Usually, a part of her sat above, throwing a lifesaver down before her head submerged fully. Slapping her knees, she stood and looked out the window. The stars, rubbing their tired eyes, were peering faintly out over the leaves.

Just as she sighed, the heaving type where sadness pools into and out of one’s lungs with the same breath, she heard a knock at the door. She was startled, a jolt of energy mixed with reupholstered fear made her fingers cold as she rushed to the door. Katherine found herself staring at Darcy, holding bunches of wildflowers. Giddy joy and a twinge of childlike apologetic guilt spread across her cheeks like blush on her olive skin.

Her outfit was eclectic and completely her own. Daisy yellow vinyl raincoat with accenting red sleeves with matching rain boots. They were covered with mud, Katherine would later find that she had waded through a creek to grab the flowers for her. She wore a sweater underneath. It must have been wool, but Katherine couldn’t tell. The thick knit turtleneck was a deep brown, coincidentally matching the mud on her shoes. She was messy and put together. A whirlwind and a light breeze. Summer air and heavy rainfall.

“These are for you.” She thrust the bouquet forward into Katherine’s chest. A ladybug was hanging onto one of the leaves. It flew off towards the light above them. “T-thank you,” Katherine mumbled, not meeting Darcy’s eyes, instead of locked in a trance at the meager gift she had received. There must have been something in the pollen, Katherine thinks, because at that moment, looking into Darcy’s brown eyes, spun with specks of green, she fell in love.

Remembering that night always brought that same smirk Darcy had to Katherine’s lips. She had been trying to be more like her, daring. Unapologetically herself. Wanting nothing from the world besides what she could find on the side of the road or hidden behind her ear.

A light-filled the living room from the driveway. Darcy’s old station wagon flew up next to the house. A flutter started somewhere in Katherine’s legs, moving quickly up to her chest. Heartbeats became so rapid, she couldn’t tell if her heart had stopped altogether or not. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember whether or not she had brushed her teeth. It’s too late to check. She did, she knew she did. A small part of her sat on her heart, calming her soul. Tonight could be the night. It could finally be tonight. She padded from the window to the entrance hall, tiptoeing like she was afraid to move any luck that had settled to the floor from countless days of blowing matches out with the same thought each time.

They had known each other for years now, but Katherine felt something special in the night. The birds had continued singing much longer than they usually did. The moon was just short of full, its eerily bright light illuminating the front yard. The back of the door seemed whiter, purer somehow. She wanted to wait, just to stare until Darcy’s signature knock would fill her ears, just before she would let herself in. “Kat. Kat, listen. Waiting is for the birds. I promise I’ll always knock before I walk in,” she pleaded with her once after Katherine suggested she open the door for her. But, she knew it was futile, and it didn’t bother her anyway. Darcy was a hurricane, and hurricanes don’t ask to go anywhere.

She heard steps on the stairs. Knock. Breathe. Knock. Breathe. Knock. Breathe. Doorknob. Breathe, Katherine.

The door swung open, and there she stood. She smelled like cinnamon and jasmine. It was something new every day. Sometimes small bottles of sandalwood jostled in her purse on early morning walks. Rose petals hidden behind her ears, lavender pouches in her pockets. She was wearing baggy jeans with stars that she had doodled all over her legs. Various colors and sizes of an imaginary galaxy covered her knees. An oversized jacket draped over her bony shoulders, a tight maroon top somehow was also falling off of her. The dinner was somewhat formal, although she didn’t fit the atmosphere much, Katherine knew it wouldn’t matter. Darcy transformed wherever she was. The sky would change colors for her, Katherine was almost sure of that.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said, that special smirk forming as she turned to grab what she had brought. “You’ll never guess what I found when I ran into the drug store on my way here.” She ducked behind the other closed door. There was a scuttle. Katherine’s chest felt heavy. “You remember Tyler, right?” A man appeared in front of Katherine.

  Fuck.

Something broke inside her for a moment. Brief and hopefully indistinguishable in her face. The girl sitting on her heart fell, clutching at her ribs in vain. There was nothing to do.

“Yes! Tyler, how are you? It’s been so long!” She spoke slightly through her teeth, hoping embarrassment and resentment weren’t leaking out her eyes instead of the tears she was holding back. She did know Tyler. They had gone to high school together years ago. She had fallen out of touch with him because she had wanted to. Blame it on the breeze, she reasoned to herself. Time moves and people move with it. It’s no one’s fault. You didn’t even see it happen. But there he stood. His lanky arms filled the space uncomfortably. Katherine felt a strange aura around him. Did he even want to be here? Darcy wanted him to. She held his hand as his eyes couldn’t seem to meet Katherine’s.

His voice was quiet. “Yeah. Hi. It’s been a while.” He didn’t know what he was getting roped into. It was obvious. He just wanted what most people who saw Darcy walking past wanted. Katherine wanted to think she was special, different from the rest, but maybe she wasn’t after all. She did want what he did, but she also wanted to hear about her dreams and what she thought of each blade of grass in the yard. To know her favorite shade of yellow and why certain days have darker blue skies than others. He wouldn’t want that. If he did, Katherine couldn’t be better. There was no fighting it.

“Let me grab my purse and fix my hair, then we can go. I’ll meet you guys in the car?” She spoke more like a command than a suggestion, turning for the bathroom before she had finished talking. She wanted to scream. Pull her hair out. Punch something. Why are you even angry? This wasn’t a date anyway. But she wanted it to be. This was going to be the night where she would look Darcy in the eyes and reach for her hand. Recite a poem about brown-haired girls with big lives and too little time on their hands. She would look her in the eyes and say everything that was collecting on a desk in the back of her mind.

She knotted her thick hair into a bun. It didn’t matter what she looked like anymore. She wiped off the meticulously applied lipstick, smearing it slightly across her cheek. She wanted to rub her makeup off. It didn’t matter. Tears rolled down her face. Suck it up. You don’t cry. Courage was mustered from somewhere in her that she didn’t know existed. With one glance in the mirror and a forced smile, she walked to the car.

The night passed fast.

They arrived. The waiter arrived. Dinner arrived. Other diners arrived. The noise arrived. The discomfort arrived.

It felt like Katherine was third-wheeling her plans. Darcy was always touching Tyler. Nothing inappropriate. A hand on the chest. A simple slap on the shoulder. Fingers accidentally tracing his hand as she reached for something. The conversation was tedious. Tyler monotonously droned on about a job Katherine didn’t care about. All she could stare at was his tooth gap and how his cheeks were too big for his face. His chin was sharp and too strong, she felt, for his big apple cheeks.

The night passed fast.

She was standing on her porch as she watched Darcy get into her car, Tyler by her side, his arm around her shoulder. She watched them get into the car. She watched them look at the other the way she always thought Darcy looked at her. He put his hand on the back of her neck and kissed her delicately. Katherine dissolved into a puddle.

  She’s not a prize. She’s never even told you if she likes girls anyway. That was true. She didn’t know if she did like girls, but that wasn’t ever something they talked about. “Labels are restricting. Who cares what I am when I don’t even fully know yet,” Darcy exclaimed one night. Her arms were always flung everywhere while she spoke like she was giving a speech no matter how small the audience was.

She sat on the couch while the tv played infomercials for the perfect nonstick pan. Nothing would ever stay on it. “No oil needed!” the enthusiastic host practically yelled into the camera. With the loud crash of overzealous salesmanship, Katherine’s eyes refocused. Darcy’s mind was like a riptide. Pulling people out to sea before they could realize how deep they were in. She was stuck out in the sea now, too far to find her way back to the shore she began on. Time moves quickly, but Katherine moves faster. It’s time to let go of the current. It was.

Sweet Darcy. She thought longingly at all the nights when the sky was too perfect not to reach out for her. All the opportunities she missed. Her exterior was too slick. Her walls are too high. Sweet Darcy. The sun has set. The light is gone. And as the birds finally fell asleep, she grappled with the position she found herself stuck in. I’m never going out with you again.

[durenjtmusings]

10 Baby Facts for SPN Fic Authors

[I swear this is not a rant - it ISN’T. Honest.]

It is actually kind of cool to realize that you possess specialty knowledge that may be of use to others. Stuff that you didn’t really KNOW you knew, until, of course, you are reading along in a fic and something the author describes (or the character says) brings your brain to a screeching halt. “That’s not right – it can’t possibly happen that way…” And then you go and do actual research to back up your gut knowledge. This little FAQ is the result of one such realization.

My dad fixed antique and classic cars for a living from 1964 – 1978, owning his own showroom for 3 years near the end of that time. Born in 1966, I grew up playing in old cars, hiding in floorboards and exploring them to my heart’s content. Our family car for several years was a 1966 Thunderbird, but when dad went to car shows, we rode in whatever he wanted to show off. I’ve been in rumble seats, hard top convertibles, cars with windshields that laid down flat, and cars with no roof, doors, or walls of any kind. My 1st car was a fully restored 1966 mustang. Without really realizing it, I soaked up a LOT of inherent understandings about older cars. The information below is based in that knowledge, backed up with some internet research.

The following is true about Baby (the character in SPN, not necessarily the actual cars that play her): 

1) Compared to most modern sedans, Baby is BIG. Like REALLY BIG. She is 17 and ¾ feet long (5.4 meters) and 7 feet 8 inches wide (2.03 meters). Allowing for door thickness on either side and the gaps between doors and bench seat, I’m betting the front seat is a little over 5 feet wide. Given basic geometry and human skeletal limitations, this means it is not possible for the passenger to have their head resting against the passenger door/window AND place their hand on the driver’s thigh. If the passenger is in this position, the driver can,  at best, entwine fingers with the passenger’s outstretched hand. That’s IT (even with Sam’s monkey arms). Sitting up straight, yes. Slumped over, no. On the plus side, this is why the guys can, in fact, get some sleep in her (and have fun in the back seat).

2) Despite how big Baby is, she is kinda short. Baby is only 54 inches high (4’6” or 138 cm). INSIDE the car, she is slightly less than 4 feet tall total. This means that the following actions WILL make you bump your head (or butt or hands or feet) on the ceiling unless you are very very slow and careful: climbing over the back seat, straddling someone’s lap, taking off your pants or t-shirt (unless nearly lying down in the seat), and lunging across the front bench seat to attack someone bodily. And you will look graceless doing it. [Ahem, trust me on these, I KNOW.] Additional negative modifiers for Sam due to height.

More below the cut.

3) Baby HATES crappy roads. Her big body has an all steel frame and body panels plus a very large engine system. Baby is HEAVY. She weighs a *minimum* of 3704 lbs empty. With equipment and the boys in her, she is over 2 tons. Oh and Baby is LOW. Her ground clearance is slightly less than 6 inches. This means an 8 inch deep pot hole (like the one in episode 11.01, above) can bottom out her axle and stop her in her tracks.  She SUCKS on rough terrain. Oh, and getting her OUT of said hole? Will require a JACK and a lot of swearing. (Baby is rear-wheel drive – her front wheels aren’t getting her out of anywhere). There was NO way the boys lifted her out of that hole in that episode (especially since they showed up in the next scene NOT covered in mud).

4) Baby is, in fact, good to have in a wreck. That all steel frame means she can practically bounce off of most modern cars. You’ll note they use large SUVs and tractor trailer trucks to hurt her. The fact that she makes it through the bumps and bruises she does is relatively accurate. In addition, Baby’s model had shoulder* seat belts in the front driver and passenger sides ‘standard’. Now this doesn’t mean the guys have to wear ‘em, or that Dean/John didn’t take ‘em out, but they were a standard safety measure. If you are wearing them, however, all movement described in 1 & 2 above is even MORE limited/complicated. Wearing them should keep you from getting thrown out of the car in an accident. Without them - you are the rock in a slingshot, out you go.

5) Baby’s model ONLY had a full, flat, smooth bench seat all the way across (front and back). She should NOT be drawn or described with a split front seat or (shudder) bucket seats of any kind. Sliding across this kind of seat from one side to the other was, in fact, a fun game for us as kids. Again, this makes her relatively ideal for napping…kinda. The backwards tilting angle is weird to sleep on and the seat itself is narrow front to back. it isn’t ideal, just possible.

6)  Baby’s gear shift is on the steering column (and she is an automatic). While there is a hump in the floor boards for the transmission, there is exactly zero to climb over for anyone who might be…shifting positions for activities in the front seat. In fact, given #1 above, it is possible for three grown adults to sit in the front seat, although the floor bump makes the middle person uncomfortable (unless they are short). Leg crowding and hip/elbow bumping will occur, but it can be done without too much discomfort. This means Baby can seat 6 with only mild discomfort (and in fact, has seat belts for 6 standard - see #4 above). You could do 7 if the four in the back are small (or someone lays across the other three – What? I’ve done it). OK, if later season Sam is in the front seat, the person in the middle better be Claire or Jody.

7)  Baby, as portrayed on screen, has lots of “optional” features. Most likely, John and Dean have been regularly ‘upgrading her’ over the years. For example she has “all vinyl interior” (standard was cloth and vinyl combined). The extra headlamps in early seasons are another example (and of course the trunk modifications). The ‘67 impala came with a wide variety of transmission and engine options. Even before the Season 1 finale, Baby likely had a “non-standard” engine system. Who KNOWS how powerful a system Dean put into Baby in the FIRST reconstruction (because, trust me, she needed a new engine) and what he might have done since then.

8)  Baby is OLD school rock and roll. *NEW* for the 1967 model year was the option of a tape deck – an 8 track tape deck. Dean’s ‘compact cassette’ deck is an after-market modification, likely sometime after John bought it in 1973. The compact cassette player is not “authentic” or “original” for Baby. (Although Dean may say or think so, he, in fact, knows better.) John likely listened to 8-tracks or to just the radio if the previous owner hadn’t put an 8-track in her.

9)  Baby is EXPENSIVE to maintain: > At best, Baby gets between 10-15 miles to the gallon (4.26-6.19 kpl), depending on the size of the engine Dean put in her most recently (and the tweaks he has made to it). As a corollary, Baby’s top speed is between 95-130 mph (152-209 kph) also depending on the engine. Top speed is inversely proportional to gas mileage. The bigger/faster engine Dean uses, the crappier the gas mileage. > Baby’s engines – ALL of them – are designed for ‘leaded’ gas. To get the most out of her, Dean has to regularly give her additives. > At this point, parts for Baby are either original ‘leftovers’ from the manufacturer (and very expensive) or from junk yards (used) or from online specialty stores (or Dean machines them himself). Glass, in particular, is going to be a special order. This means that ANY fic you write can include gripes about the COST of Baby (or the challenges in finding parts for her). Really, If I was FBI/enemy hunting Dean, I’d haunt the 67 Impala online groups  - which is where Dean’d go to find parts for cheap. They’d all know each other – classic car enthusiasts are a small close-knit community.

10)  Baby needs LOTS of regular maintenance. The mileage on baby, at this point, is almost a moot number. She’s had at least 2 new engines and one new transmission. She’s had just all sorts of parts replaced. Dean can tell you what’s still truly original, but for the most part, consider only the mileage you see from seasons 2 on when considering wear and tear. That said, Baby is FIFTY years old this season. Yet, as depicted, her interior and her engine are PRISTINE. Dean must spend TONS of time regularly detailing her inside and out. I mean LOOK at the carpets in the image for #5-6 above. There is NO MUD or dirt anywhere. The dashboard isn’t all faded or cracked from sunlight, and the vinyl hasn’t any rips or stains. Now, granted, likely most of that was all replaced with as new as Dean could get in 2006, but still, it takes a LOT of work to keep a car looking like that even if you keep her under a cover in the garage all the time. Baby is an actively working classic car, with the added bonus of blood and other nasty goo all over her on a regular basis. Any time a fic writer needs something for Dean to do, he can be working on Baby. There is ALWAYS something for him to be doing. [Heaven forefend he lube the damn door hinges.]

Bonus Facts: Baby is HOT. No, I mean it, all black vinyl seats and steering wheel sitting all day in the sun – is scorching hot. Like “I can’t touch anything without yelping” hot.  The 67 Impala had air conditioning as an option, so the guys likely have it, but it will still take a while to cool her down in the summer – especially in the southwest.  She will likely also take a bit of time to heat up from dead cold in the winter – especially for those in the back seat. And she isn’t air tight or well insulated, she’ll have subtle drafts. Which also means she’ll fill up fast and sink like a rock if she goes into water (2 TONS – see #3 above).

I hope this is helpful to SPN fic writers. I certainly feel better for writing it - this was fun! :)

*Updated - *brackets* for shoulder seat belts were standard - the belts themselves were an option.

[cometoceantrenches]

its for the extra credits [3]

SUMMARY: Seventeen-year-old Amaya Sloan didn’t really like this. The situation was just thrust upon her. What was it you ask? Well, its to tutor Hawkins’ resident Bad Boy: Billy Hargrove. Though things take a turn and it isn’t just about tutoring anymore...

CHAPTER SUMMARY: First day of tutoring; it's much worse than they thought.

A/N: Yeet! I wanna thank @strangerstuffandthingsimagines for helping me by editing. Its really helped. <3  Also, it was pretty fun delving deeper into Billy’s character. Poor boy. Anyways enjoy the fic and as always, feedback is appreciated.

Amaya never really thought about the challenge it until the day itself arrived.

Her fingers drummed against the mahogany table of Hawkin’s library, both out of nervousness and impatience. Her other hand held her chin as she browsed through the notes and extra cue cards she went as far as making just for the sake of Billy learning something.

She sighed at the empty space beside her. Steve had offered to stay with her, to help ease her conscience but something came up and that left him to babysit the Party again. She remembers him apologizing profusely during dismissal but she dismissed it, assuring him that she can handle it. He gave her a sympathetic smile before being dragged off by the impatient kids.

The girl looked around in a bored manner. Not many people were around, just a handful. The librarian was behind the desk, as usual, her dark brown hair, now streaked with thin strands of grey tied up neatly. The rest were either students or bookworms that seemed to be so immersed in whatever they were reading. The afternoon sun filtered through the windows, giving the place a calm feel to it.

Amaya looked down at her watch. The time set for them to meet was 3:35 in the afternoon. It was already 4:05. She groaned internally, folding her arms under her and laying her head upon it. To pass the time, as well as to be productive, she reviewed the notes herself. Another minute passed by before the sound of wood scraping against the linoleum floor made her perk up.

“It's 4:20 where the fuck were you?” She scolded, seeing Billy take a seat across her.

He merely shrugged, an easy-going smirk on his face as he leaned back, an arm slung over the back of the chair. If the librarian weren’t so strict, he would’ve propped his feet up on the table. A dark purple bruise where the neck and shoulder meet started to bloom. As soon as Amaya’s gaze landed on the hickey, she couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Of fucking course…” She mumbled to herself and pulled out a textbook. “Please tell me you at least brought some of your notes… if you have any.” She mumbled the last part to herself.

Surprisingly, the denim-clad boy bent down to pull out a worn out paperback spiral notebook. There were creases on the cover of the notebook as well as the invisible pen marks dented upon it whenever it would sit under a paper Billy would write on. He threw it on the table with a small thud but nevertheless, it resounded throughout the quiet walls of the library.

The librarian’s head snapped up, the beads on her eyeglass’s strings swinging from side to side. She hushed them a little violently before turning back to her work. Amaya bit the insides of her cheeks as she inwardly cringed. Her face burned red with embarrassment.

God help me. She prayed silently before clearing her throat and sliding the cue cards she had made over to him. “Okay so let’s start with Ternary Nomenclature.”

Halfway through the session, Billy lost interest and started to let his mind drift to his other thoughts. He thought back to the good times in California where he would walk the boardwalk and let the sun beat down on him during the summer, hanging out with his friends at the beach or riding the waves on a surfboard or on a boat. He remembered how cold it would get in the bay area during the winter and how so many people would visit to see the seals and Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay Area. Most of all, he thought of his mom.

God, he missed her so much. He missed how safe he felt in his mother’s arms like he could be a little boy again and just be shielded from the world. He missed how his mom would comfort him whenever his dad was being an asshole and how she would put him to sleep at night. He remembered how she taught him to drive with the iconic blue Camaro she got him for his birthday. Billy remembered how he took care of his mom when she started getting sick and frail, how he made sure she was comfortable, had enough rest as well as sleep and that she ate enough.

The blond was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt a stinging pain on his arm. “Ach- hey..!” He whispered loudly and shot a glare at the girl across him.

“You weren’t paying attention. Come on, focus.” Amaya huffed before starting over again.

As she read out some descriptions of the elements and compounds, Billy rolled his eyes and turned to face the window. All he wanted was for this stupid study session to end. Another flick to his arm made him return his attention to her.

“Hargrove. If you weren’t going to pay attention why did you even come?”

The blond’s furrowed brows relaxed after a moment of silence. He fell back into his easy-going attitude and propped his feet upon the chair beside him, his arm swinging lazily as it hung lazily over the backrest. “Why do you care so much, Sloan? I didn’t think you’d be this desperate to have my attention.”

His response made the Filipina freeze in place. A furious flush of crimson dusted her cheeks. Billy smirked at her reaction, silently gloating at how flustered she was. Whether it was from anger or something else, it didn’t fail to amuse him.

Amaya cleared her throat after a while before adjusting her notes, an effort to act unaffected by what he just said. Her gaze flickered at her surroundings before uneasily settling back at Billy. The said boy ran his tongue across his pearly whites. Once more, Amaya cleared her throat and returned to her former state.

“Are you done, Hargrove? We really need to get back to studying.” She said and straightened up.

Billy’s head rolled back lazily as he let out a quiet groan. “Ugh, what’s the point? There’s only like what,” he looked down to his watch. “ten, fifteen minutes to time? We’re both suffering here just being in each others’ presence. Let’s just book it and get out of our hairs already.”

The other gave a humorless laugh and tossed her pencil onto the table. “As much as I’d like to, we can’t because you can’t keep it in your fucking pants and caused the time to be extended. If you don’t want your precious time to be taken up by this, put this ahead instead of your other, how should I say this, sessions.” With a sigh, she ran her hand through her hair and held it out for him to shake. “Deal?”

Billy gave a sigh of his own before curtly shaking her hand. “Let’s get this shit done then.”

After what seemed like forever, Amaya snapped her textbook shut and started packing up. “Alright, we’re done. Now get out of my sight.”

“Christ, so harsh. And I thought we had something special going on.” The blond teased before fixing his own things.

She simply rolled her eyes for what seemed like the umpteenth time before pushing back her chair and heading out to the parking lot’ leaving Billy behind.

Outside, Steve waited along with Lili and Dustin in the red convertible. The engine revved to life when the brunet saw her exiting the building. The shotgun door opened and she slid in, heaving a heavy sigh. The older of the two Sloans heard a sympathetic click of a tongue from behind her.

“Worse than what you expected?” Dustin inquired.

Ever since Amaya started hanging out with Steve, he had considered her as an older sister. Besides, he may or may not have a thing for her younger sister.

“Ugh.”

“That’s a yes then.”

Steve turned to her. “This is why I told you to quit while you’re ahead. Now… you’re pretty much too late.”

She smiled sarcastically, her head resting against the vinyl of the car. “Gee, thanks mom. Very positive.”

“*Kaya mo ‘yan ate.” Lili piped up and leaned forward, only to slump back once the brunet pulled out of the parking lot. “You can do it. Just… just maybe picture someone else?”

“I hope my tired brain can think something up.”

“Why don’t we just head out to Benny’s? My treat.” Steve suggested. He chuckled when he heard the joyous cheers of the kids behind him and the relieved sigh his friend let out.

And for a quick moment, Amaya forgot all about tutoring Hargrove the next day.

[golshxd-blog]

By late this past summer, our trusty and beloved Chevy Tahoe Franklin had carried us safely almost 40,000 miles, through almost 40 states, and was getting close to hitting 200,000 miles. And honestly — he was starting to look like it. The carpets looked terrible; some small tears in the leather seats had turned into not-so-small tears; one of the rain guards was coming loose; the wheel wells had all kind of garbage in them — he was just looking old and run down. I’ve always cared about the vehicles I drive, and although I’ve always bought higher mileage older cars, I’ve also managed to buy ones that look good, and then try to keep them that way.

So in August, I started what turned into a months-long visual restoration project on Franklin, to help him look his best again. I started with the one that was annoying me the most — the loose rain guard over the driver’s side window. Whenever I got up over 40mph or so, it would start relentlessly flapping and driving me nuts. So it had to be the first to go.

That turned out to be a pretty quick and easy project — I bought some 3M tape designed for rain guards, scraped off the existing tape and residual adhesive, cleaned it with Goo Gone a few times, let it dry, and applied the new tape. Took me about 45 minutes, and it hasn’t budged since!

Oh yeah.

The item I was most excited to upgrade was the radio. Before I bought the truck, I checked to see that the radio worked–but didn’t think to check the CD player. The first time I tried it was at the beginning of our first road trip out to the PNW — and no dice. So, we spent a year with JUST THE RADIO. I’d previously owned one of those little am transmitters you can plug your phone or iPod into, but  was never really impressed. The broken CD player didn’t have an audio input jack either, so we were pretty much SOL. And on top of that, the paint was coming off of the knobs, a few of the lights were out so the display always read in a weird language — it was rough.

Apparently, it was so bad,  I avoided taking any pictures, because I can’t find one anywhere. But I saved up over the summer, and before we took off for Maine, I was able to get a brand new system with all the works — CD player, DVD player, Bluetooth, aux in, hands free, and it was even wired for a backup camera! This system ended up being my possibly my favorite — and certainly my most used — purchase of 2016. We listen to music, enjoy Audible books together, and answer phone calls while keeping both hands firmly on the wheel!

New hotness!!

Those two projects got me through our Maine vacation and fall road trip, but once we got up to New Hampshire in late October and set up shop through the holidays, I jumped back to it.

First up was the carpets — and they. were. ATROCIOUS. Faded, dirty, stained — even after several rounds of vacuuming and OxyClean (my all-time favorite vehicle carpet cleaner), they were only moderately better. So, I did some Interneting, and discovered that carpet dye was a thing! I watched some videos, and quickly decided to give it a shot — even if it went horribly, it couldn’t possibly look worse!

What, am I gonna mess THAT up? (This doesn’t even show the red koolaid stains in the back!)

I decided on the Dupli-Color Vinyl and Fabric coating in charcoal grey, grabbed a stiff brush from Home Depot to scrub the paint down into the carpet fibers, and taped everything off.

And let me tell you, spraying this stuff on was pure catharsis. I’m the kind of guy who could watch powerwashing videos all day long, and this was right up there with that. The difference was night and day — just look at that!

Ohhhhhh yeah. Seriously — check out this line.

Greatly encouraged, I taped off the rest of the truck, and went through a few more bottles of spray. It was fun, easy, and made for some great before and afters. This one is my personal favorite:

It’s been about 8 weeks since I did it, and I will say — the spray is not a huge fan of water. I’ve already done a few small touch ups, but frankly, that’s still wayyyy better than what it was before. If every six months I buy a can or two and my carpets keep looking awesome, I’ll still consider this project a complete win.

So next up was the leather. This was one of those creeping problems — small tears had gotten much larger, and needed to be dealt with. I actually priced out professional leather repair just out of curiosity, and it was going to be over $800 to fix it — not even remotely an option.

So instead, I headed over to Joann Fabrics, and was really lucky to find a pleather material that was an almost perfect color match for our seats! Rebecca sent me a coupon, I got 2 yards for $8, grabbed some Gorilla Super Glue Gel, and got to work. This was not difficult, just rather painstaking. The material cut with scissors, I matched the curves and seams as best as I could, and then superglued it to death. This was the most visible spot, and it came out great!

It’s been almost 2 months since I did the glued repairs, and they haven’t budged at all, even in the high traffic areas! The other repairs were right along seams, and my lovely wife really saved the day here. She got a strong needle, some matching thread, and closed up big gaps in 3 or 4 very visible areas in the front seats. Another cheap win!

That pretty much completed the inside projects I wanted to do, and I turned my attention to the outside. The paint job isn’t in terrible shape, and with a decent wash, I’m fine with it. However, the chrome tape that was on the door trim had almost completely peeled off on both sides, leaving hanging plastic bits and glue residue, instead of a nice clean shiny line. That I knew I could fix with a little time and a can of spray paint — in this case, Rustoleum Metallic Finish.

As you can see, it was just dirty and nasty. I went around with a razor blade and tweezers, pulled off as much of the leftover plastic and tape as I could, then gave the whole thing a good scrubbing with the firm side of a dish sponge. That worked even better than I’d anticipated, and left everything looking significantly better already.

Smooth and clean, but still not shiny!

Then came the fun part — a very careful taping job, then wrapping the surrounding area in paper. However, I ended up doing this on a really gusty day, and I had to upgrade and put old tarps all over the rest of the truck to keep the overspray off. However, it came out pretty well!

So shiny! Inspired by how relatively easy that was to do, I turned my eyes on another cheap and easy spray paint fix — the nasty, dirty wheel wells. Below are a few “before” pictures, and just so we’re clear: that residue was all caked on there. These pics were taken after I scrubbed the wheel wells.

I upped my game, and went after them again, this time with a degreasing soap and a very firm scrub brush, then covered the tires and carefully taped off all the trim. A lot of guys I saw online used more expensive truck bed spray or high temperature engine spray. But at this point I was getting tired of putting money into this project, so I just went with the no-name-brand flat black spray paint for 87 cents a can from Walmart. Frankly, it was a solid decision.

Seriously, how much better does that look? I think I used 7 cans overall, it went on smooth and nice, and when I got my truck washed last week after 6 weeks of New Hampshire snow and ice and road salt, the wheel wells still looked this good. Success!

And obviously, when you spend all this time making your vehicle look so much better, you get it washed, and take great pictures. So please enjoy this short montage of Franklin in his Sunday best.

      I’m more than a little proud that after 45,000 miles of camper towing and off-roading and road tripping, Franklin looks and runs better than he did when we got him. But this was only the beginning — stay tuned for my sleeping platform redesign, and our best new idea — the Hitchenette!

[takeeachdayonebookatatime]

·         AS MUCH AS I EVER COULD

By ·         Brandy Woods Snow

·         Author Bio:

 Brandy Woods Snow is a Young Adult author, journalist, wife, mama of three, Christian, and proud Southerner. Born and raised in the area of Greenville, South Carolina, she still resides in the rolling foothills of the Upstate region, though she plans to one day retire to the state’s famous Grand Strand. Brandy has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Writing from Clemson University. While creative writing pursuits have always held her heart, she’s built a career as a journalist and editor. Brandy has more than 19 years’ experience and a strong platform that includes articles and columns published in Delta Sky Magazine, Greenville Business Magazine, Columbia Business Monthly and Home Design & Décor Magazine (Charlotte and Raleigh). Currently, she also works as the Marketing Manager and an Acquisitions Editor for Filles Vertes Publishing.

Her first novel MEANT TO BE BROKEN was published by Filles Vertes Publishing in May 2018, and she has a short story featured in FVP’s LOVE ON MAIN anthology, forthcoming in February 2020. When Brandy’s not writing, reading, spending time with her husband or driving carpool for her three kids, she enjoys kayaking, family hikes, yelling “Go Tigers!” as loud as she can, playing the piano and taking “naked” Jeep Wrangler cruises on twisty, country roads.

 Here is an 

·         Excerpt: for the book hope you enjoy it 

 CHAPTER 1

 A summer away at Memaw’s can’t rectify everything that fell apart in a single minute, but that won’t stop my dad from forcing it on me.

My fingers wrench tighter around the handle grip of Dad’s Ford Explorer as he hugs the center line, tires thumping over golden reflectors in waves and shooting vibrations through my seat. I glance over my shoulder to make sure the door lock is crammed to its neck into the tan vinyl interior. Not that it’d make a difference if he were to flip this thing head-over-end into the muddy goop of tidal flats along either side of the road. If a body’s going to exit a car in a hurry, it sure as hell won’t wait for an unlocked door.

These kinds of thoughts never shoved their way into my brain before the accident. Now they circulate like a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle.

I sigh and yank my phone off the dashboard. 4:15 PM. Only ten more minutes to get my summer of hell underway.

A notification blinks on the home screen. One new email from Trent Casey and all I can see of it is “CJ, things have changed so much this last year that I think…” Inbox preview cruelty at its finest. A little sneak peek of my on-again, off-again boyfriend kicking me to the curb because I’ve been too screwed up to screw him the past year. Not that I’d screwed him before, or anyone else for that matter.

I toss the phone in the cup holder and stare over at my dad in the driver’s seat, his eyes fixed and hooded as if in a trance. He hasn’t spoken in over a hundred miles, but I’ve strategically coughed from time to time to make sure there’s at least a reaction to the noise, and he’s not comatose or something. Plus, it’s easier than actually talking, and it warrants no response from him. Win-win.

Dad flips on the blinker, its dink-doonk, dink-doonk, dink-doonk signaling a right turn. Into where I have no idea, and unless Memaw has taken up living in a dilapidated open-air shack, he’s seriously misguided. He pulls into one of the ten open parking slots, demarcated by rows of conch shells instead of actual painted-on lines. How beachy of them.

Dad lets the engine idle, sliding his phone from the pocket of his polo and pecking out a text message without so much as a word or glance in my direction. I unlatch my seatbelt and open the door, easing out onto the hot, gritty sand, which creeps into my sandals and scratches at the skin.

“Where are we?” When he doesn’t respond, I step beside the open door, banging my hand on the window. “Dad, where are we?”

“Edisto Island, of course,” he mumbles, never looking up from his phone, his fingers still moving furiously over the screen.

I point to the rectangular banner draped atop the entrance with what looks like a hand-stenciled Welcome to Edisto Beach, SC! in blue paint. “No shit. I mean, what is this place?”

“Watch your mouth, CJ. I’m still your father.” He finally looks up long enough to glare across his steering wheel at the banner, squinting as if it’s written in some foreign language before looking back at me. He waves his hand around. “We’re obviously at the market.”

The entrance isn’t a single open-close door but one of those garage-style deals that pulls down from the ceiling. Oyster shell wind chimes tinkle in the breeze. I take a deep breath, the briny air expanding in my lungs and coating my skin, and somehow start imagining myself as one of those slugs we used to find on the back porch at home and pour salt over. Almost immediately, their slimy little bodies would foam up and implode, turning into a dried-up crispie we’d flick off in the grass the next day. Maybe that’ll happen to me, and I can simply shrivel up and disappear.

Dad gets out and lifts the back hatch, and I walk to meet him, giving an extra foot shake on each step to loosen the stowaway sand from my sandals.

“But why are we here?”

“This is where Memaw’s picking you up.” He hauls out my two large suitcases and sets them under the overhang. “She’s running late, but she’ll be here within the next twenty minutes.”

“And you’re just gonna leave me here?” I thumb over my shoulder.

He stares at me as if I’ve just asked for an explanation on the meaning of life, standing like a statue except for the front flip of his thinning auburn hair that tousles with the breeze. That hair, along with his chocolate brown eyes and freckles, are the only things we even share anymore. Everything else is gone. Evaporated.

“Don’t be dramatic, CJ. I have a long drive home.” He slams the hatch, walks to his still-open driver door and slides in behind the wheel. The passenger window rolls down part-way. “I’ll see you at the end of summer. Bye.” The words scarcely exit his lips before the window’s rolled up and he’s peeling out of the parking lot on two wheels as if he’s off to a five-alarm fire.

Wow. Truly heartfelt. I think he might miss me. I lock my jaw, forcing my quivering stomach back in its rightful place. Part of me loathes him for just dumping me here. The other part understands, though. He hates me for what happened and wants me gone too.

I can’t blame him for that.

·        The cover was designed by : Jena R. Collins/JRC DesignsThe authors social  media pages are ·        Facebook: @BWSnowWrites; Twitter: @brandy_snow; Instagram: @snowbrandy; Website: www.brandywsnow.com 

Awards, Recognitions, and Reviews:

 1.    Second Place, YA Contemporary – NEORWA’s Cleveland Rocks Romance Contest

2.    Second Place YA Contemporary – Music City RWA’s Melody of Love Contest

3.    “A swoonworthy summer read with a hopeful lesson about how to move forward without fear.” – Kirkus Reviews

 Click here to add this book to your Goodreads shelf: http://bit.ly/AMAIEC

Here are the links to buy AS MUCH AS I EVER COULD FVPub.com: https://bit.ly/AMAIEC-FVP·         Amazon: https://bit.ly/AMAIEC-BWS·         Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/AMAIEC-BN·         IndieBound: https://bit.ly/AMAIEC-IB

·         Filles Vertes Publishing (Facebook: @FVpublishing; Twitter: @FillesVertesPub; Instagram: @fillesvertespub; website: www.fillesvertespublishing.com)

[itsworn]

Best of Both Worlds: 1964 Chrysler 300K

The Chrysler letter car story is well known to the readers of Mopar Muscle. Starting in 1955 with the introduction of the C-300, through to the 300L in 1965, the last of the famed letter cars.

For 1963, the entire Chrysler lineup received extensively restyled exterior sheet metal and on the inside, gone was the electro-luminescent AstroDome instrument cluster, replaced with a much more traditional flat instrument panel. While most Chryslers rode on a 126-inch wheelbase, the two door models of the 300 letter and non-letter cars had a wheelbase that was four inches shorter at 122 inches. The biggest news for Chrysler in 1963 was the introduction of the 5 year/50,000-mile warranty, a move that set Chrysler apart from its competitors.

All the 300J hardtops (the letter “I” was skipped due in part to in that it might be confused with the numeral 1) were equipped the 413-cubic-inch V-8 featuring ram induction, producing 310 horsepower. Top speed was reported to be 142 miles per hour making it one of the fastest production cars in America, in spite of a curb weight exceeding 4,000 pounds. Sales were comparably poor for 1963 with just 400 cars produced as sales of the non-letter 300s continued to grow.

For 1964 the convertible returned to the 300K lineup but the cross-ram 413 became an option, a 300K exclusive not offered on other 1964 Chryslers and the leather interior became an extra-cost option. These moves allowed Chrysler to reduce the base price of the 300K by over $1,000. The results were an eight-fold increase in sale to 3,647 units (3,022 hardtops, 625 convertibles), the largest total in the history of the 300 letter car series.

The car you see here, a 1964 Chrysler 300K two-door hardtop, owned by Michael Laiserin, one of those 3,022 hardtops produced for the 1964 model year, the last of the sixth generation.

Michael marks the start of his car enthusiasm in 1971 when he was just four years old, vividly remembering his Dad shopping for a new Chrysler when he planned to trade in the family sedan, a 1964 Newport he bought new, to his mom who was just learning to drive. “I remember a big blue fuselage-bodied Chrysler on the showroom floor with a white vinyl top and interior, fancy wheels and hidden headlamps,” recalls Michael. “Looking back now I’m sure it was a 300 and kept telling my Dad ‘let’s get that one.’ Being ever so practical Dad insisted on another economical sedan and the salesman took us out into the lot and showed us a Burnished Red Metallic Newport. I didn’t like it and told Dad the wheels were ugly – back then the wheel covers were in the trunk until the cars were prepped – and this car was broken because the left front tire was flat. I remember noticing the unusual, dual-pinstripe whitewalls but remained unimpressed. ‘Dad, let’s get the blue one.’ Of course, we came home with the red one.”

For Michael, the 1964 Newport became somewhat of a plaything as he asked. “Hey Dad, if we still have this car when I’m old enough to drive can I have it?” To which his dad replied, laughing, “Sure why not.”

“Little did he know the path he set me on,” says Michael more than four decades later. “As I got older I learned to tinker on that car, changing oil, brakes, ignition points and more. By the time I was sixteen although the car was still around, I came across a big block ’1970 Charger project. Dad wasn’t a car guy and looked at the basket case with the engine in pieces and figured I couldn’t get into any trouble. He knew he was wrong the first time a cop woke him up in the middle of the night and asked if he wanted me locked up and the car impounded or if he wanted to get dressed and come to get me instead. That ended my street racing activities for the summer and I was headed off to college anyway.”

After college, Michael took the Charger off the road with plans to restore it and while he was collecting parts, came across a 1964 Chrysler 300K convertible. I had never seen a 413 cross-ram engine before and he had to have it. He did the best restoration a 23-year-old could back in 1990 and drove that car to every show he could attend. Soon after he replaced his 383 automatic Charger for a legit, numbers-matching 1970 RT/SE four-speed Charger. Once completed, he packed up his cars and headed west figuring Arizona was the place to be as he could drive his cars year-round and they’d never rust again. As the years went by, he didn’t just add a wife and kids, like so many other car nuts, he added and completed projects that included a 1970 Road Runner with a Gen III Hemi, a 1969 Charger 500, and this 1964 300K hardtop.

“I came across this car sitting on a trailer in the swap section of the Spring Fling in Van Nuys, California,” said Michael. “It was a complete, but rough looking, unrestored car. It was pretty devoid of options as far as luxury cars go, even radio and side view mirror delete. The original window sticker was in a box full of paperwork dating back to before the original owner even purchased the car. There were handwritten notes comparing prices from different dealerships and shows he traded in a Renault to order this “bankers hotrod.” He checked off very few options, just leather trim, a Sure-Grip differential, and the ‘300K special package’ which included the dual four-barrel, cross-ram equipped engine. The paper trail on the car spanned nearly 25 years with receipts for warranty work at the dealership, car washes, and even custom tuning at the famous Granatelli Automotive. I struck a deal for it and the seller trailered it to my my place in Phoenix.”

While I’ve driven it to Mopars at the Strip in Vegas and the Spring Fling in California my favorite trip was attending one of the Chrysler 300 Club International’s events which was held in Monterey, California. The show host arranged for an afternoon gathering at Laguna Seca Raceway where they allowed us all to do some exhibition runs around the course. Not going to miss the chance, with the wife and my three kids (the youngest 10 months old and in a car seat) securely fastened we hit the track for a few laps. I’m confident my girls will be able to say they’re likely the only little girls to have experienced the famous corkscrew in the family show car. Not even Disneyland can compete with that.

“I figured that this car was going to be the bookend to my 300K convertible, only with a modern twist,” explains Michael. “Having owned my ram engine ragtop for over 20 years, I know that even when tuned properly, you’ve got to have a feel for how to drive the dual quads. These were built for the open road and they weren’t exactly civil for cruising around town. The decision was made to retain the ram induction but to add EFI for driveability. A manual trans with overdrive would make cruising fun and overcome the 4.10 gear needed to launch this heavy beast. A hydraulic roller cam would maximize power and alleviate the need to regularly remove the intakes to adjust the valves. Yards and yards of Dynamat lined the floors, roof, firewall and doors to keep things quiet so the kiddies in the car seats could nap on long trips. The original KK1 Silver Turquoise paint color was retained as was the black leather interior. I needed to upgrade the wheels as there was no way 14” tires were up to the task of maintaining adhesion with the road considering all the weight and power involved here. I settled on 18-inch Centerline Boulevard wheels custom-ordered with unpolished centers and they were reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s kidney-bean-style wheels. Overall I achieved the look I wanted with the car.”

Michael explains that the original Chrysler 300 letter car series helped to spawn the horsepower races of the 1950s and 1960’s. Not classified as muscle cars (defined as a big engine installed in an intermediate or compact car), the big, bruising Chryslers are muscular cars. “Many are restored to stock as owners feel that protects not only their heritage but value also,” says Michael. “Mine is tastefully modified with subtle improvements that don’t get the purists too upset but make mine a helluva lot more fun to drive.” One of these modifications, the stealth infotainment system concealed behind a movable panel of the dash, is almost as comprehensive as the uConnect package you would find in a contemporary Chrysler 300.

The cross-ram fuel-injection setup is a unique, one-off design. From Imagine Injection in Phoenix, Arizona. It was this unusual EFI set up that caught our eye many years ago when caravanning from Phoenix to Las Vegas for that year’s Mopars at the Strip (when it was still called Mopars at the Strip). Lifting the hood at a gas stop in Wickenburg, Arizona, we saw that the expected carburetors were missing, replaced by a state-of-the-art fuel-injection set up. Michael explained that not only did fuel injection improve driveability, but in conjunction with the overdrive fifth gear, it substantially improved fuel mileage. It’s almost as if it was engineered by Chrysler’s engineers in Highland Park back in the 1960s (remember that Corvette offered fuel injection since 1957).

Over the years Michael has joined many Mopar clubs including the Chrysler 300 Club International, the Chrysler 300 Club Inc., AZLX Modern Mopar Muscle, and the 602 (area code) Mopars. He’s participated in the Silver State Classic Challenge and the Nevada Open Road Challenge

Michael notes that he doesn’t drive the 300K as much as he might like. “I drive my projects a little bit after completing them before parking them and getting involved in my next project. It’s a mixed blessing. I’ve been fortunate to be able to build quite a few Mopars but when I’m into a current build that consumes all my time, I don’t enjoy the finished cars as often as I hoped to. One thing I love is that my family is actively involved in the hobby and I have aspirations that my three daughters will get the car bug as they approach driving age in a few years.”

“I love my vintage Mopars, but as I’ve gotten older, and the cars have gotten older I enjoy them differently than I used to,” say Michael with a smile. “I don’t abuse them like I used to, I have the modern Mopars for that. If I hurt one of the new cars the local dealership delivers the new parts to my shop the next day and I’m well on the way to being back on the road. I had a customer who wrecked his vintage Challenger and although the insurance took care of the bill, the car was down nearly a year for the rebuild. I think that’s got to be a collector’s worst nightmare.”

Concluding our conversation, Michael noted that both the 1964 and 1971 Newports that started it all for him are still in the family. This, as well as the cars he’s built since then, remain in his custody. Unlike many of us, he’s had space and never has been forced to sell any of his Mopar legacy.

ENGINE Type V8 Wedge Bore x stroke 4.36-inch x 4.15-inch Block 440 Rotating assembly: Mopar Cylinder heads: Edelbrock Compression: 10.4:1 Camshaft: Muscle Motors spec’d, Comp Cams ground Hydraulic Roller Cam Valve train: Hughes Engines 1.6 Roller Rockers Induction: Original “Short” cross-ram fitted with EFI Oiling system: OEM Fuel system: EFI by Imagine Injection Phoenix, AZ Exhaust: Factory Cast Iron “headers” into 2.5-inch pipes through Impco Imperial-style stock mufflers Ignition: Direct Connection electronic replacing the factory dual point Cooling OE Engine built by: Shortblock by Speedomotive,

DRIVETRAIN Transmission: Five-speed Tremec TKO600 Shifter: Tremec with Hurst Handle Steering: Stock power steering Front brakes: AAJ Disc brake conversion using GM calipers Rear brakes: Dr. Diff Disc brake conversion using Mustang Cobra calipers Rear Axle: 8-3/4 sure grip with 4.10 gear

WHEELS & TIRES Wheels: 18×8 Centerline Boulevard wheels with as-cast centers instead of polished Tires: Michelin MXV4, front 235-50-18, Rear 255-55-18

INTERIOR Seats: OEM leather by Legendary Auto Interiors Instruments: OEM and vintage-style Autometer short sweep tach mounted on the steering column Hidden Navigation radio

The post Best of Both Worlds: 1964 Chrysler 300K appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[babettepress]

What’s Lutz got to do with it? On Lutz Bacher & Tina Turner

What’s Love Got to Do With It is the title of Lutz Bacher’s new exhibition at K21 in Düsseldorf. It’s the second exhibition of note this year to borrow a title from Tina Turner: the 10th Berlin Biennale was titled We Don’t Need Another Hero, a Turner hit of a similar vintage, and it's hard to say whether Lutz is playing artworld ping-pong, slamming a slice serve back at that other German art institution, or whether Tina Turner, a black woman and one-time battered wife, who in 2013 rescinded her US citizenship to become a citizen of Switzerland, has become an unlikely antidote to our Trumpian age. Lutz’s exhibition reopens the programme at K21 with three rooms of cryptic objects, surveillance mirrors and fragments of texts, a web of criss-crossing ideas and bleak ideologies, discarded artefacts from her native United States of America. 

The work is more on-the-nose political than I had expected from Bacher, who has a reputation for being evasive. A long, paper artwork runs like a ribbon throughout the rooms: white banner with wavering black scribble, like a seismograph. I have seen images of this work before, installed in a space in San Francisco, where it was presented in 2017 without a text or a title. I did not know, when I first saw it, that this jagged black line (like “barbed wire”, says Frieze[1]) was the signature of the current President of the United States of America, spliced, repeated, amplified. And yet, I think, I innately understood. The violence of that juddering black mark was enough. 

Lutz Bacher, installation view, 3320 18th St., San Francisco, 2017. Source.

Lutz Bacher is not the artist's real name. No one knows her real name, except, I’m sure, some close friends, her bank clerk, her dealer. Since the 1970s she has been making work under the masculine, Germanic pseudonym Lutz Bacher, so appropriate for a conceptual artist making a show in Düsseldorf. Lutz Bacher does not really give interviews and is never photographed, at least in any official capacity. Lutz Bacher’s exhibition reviews describe her, invariably, as “elusive”, “slippery”, “mysterious”. 

When I search #lutzbacher on Instagram, the current ‘top image’ shows a woman that I presume to be the artist, stood alone, a black silhouette against the Donald Trump signature work. Head downturned, frozen in a sort of half-smile. Slight. Self-contained. Pin-striped blazer and what looks to be a scarf around her neck. Appropriately for an artist who has used low-fi photographic and video imagery throughout her career, the image is pixellated, low-grade, and I imagine it was taken covertly at the opening reception of What’s Love Got to Do With It. I imagine that the photographer got a kind of smug self-satisfaction when she captured it, pinching her fingers on the screen to zoom in and isolate the figure, uploaded it, hashtagged it. “I got her.” 

#lutzbacher on Instagram. Source.

Tina Turner is not the singer's real name, either. Born Anna Mae Bullock, or perhaps Martha Nell Bullock, her first recordings were under the name “Little Ann”. It was Ike Turner that named her Tina. He was reportedly inspired by Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and trademarked the name so that if Little Ann left him he could hire another singer and she could also perform under the made-up name. He thought Tina Turner was replaceable. 

Lutz Bacher, James Dean, 1986, video slideshow, 16 paired slides shown on two monitors, dimensions variable. Exhibited at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, 2014. Source.

Lutz Bacher is fairly anomalous among feminist artists of her generation in that her work prods at masculinity more than it does femininity or feminine constructs. While her contemporaries made didactic works that sought to dismantle female-assigned gender roles, or focused primarily on the female body as a site of exchange and exploitation, Lutz Bacher, with her draggy name, fixes her gaze on maleness. Hundreds of beaten-in baseballs slumped onto the floor of the Whitney; a diptych of James Dean publicity shots, doomed heartthrob looking two different directions; a hoard of photographs taken by a US soldier stationed at Bien Hoa Air Base in Vietnam, found by the artist in a Berkeley salvage store; a Twilight publicity poster framed behind tinted glass, Robert Pattison’s brooding share receding into darkness; Playboy bunnies stencilled on the steel shells of military planes; cut-outs of Elvis Presley and T-Rexes on a chessboard; a conga-line of frat boy-ish trucker hats snaking across the gallery floor. 

Martin Herbert points out that her work is in an “ongoing conversation” with an ecosystem of male artists and writers – Duchamp, Flavin, Johns, Warhol – and that her work has a preoccupation with “masculinity, domination, selfdefence”. He argues her work “suggests that the fixity of gender roles is the problem, and the best thing to do, via a rewiring of the gaze, is to explode it”.[2]

Tina & Ike Turner perform Proud Mary live on Italian TV station RAI, 1971. Watch.

An ex-boyfriend once told me that Mick Jagger stole his whole routine from Tina Turner. This boyfriend was notorious for invented truths, but watching a YouTube video of Tina and Ike perform Proud Mary in 1971, I’m inclined to believe this one. She inhabits the song so fully, so vigorously, it comes alive in her. Face muscles contorting into wild postures, lips wrestling with words. Shrieking, stuttering and stomping, a ticking bomb. 

Lutz Bacher, Huge Uterus, 1990. Source.

Lutz Bacher’s rebuff to feminist artists who made work exclusively fixated on the female body was her 1990 work Huge Uterus, a video documenting the six-hour long surgery the artist underwent to remove fibroids from her real-life uterus. Lia Gangitano, the gallerist/curator who showed this work at Thread Waxing Space, has indicated that critics’ persistent focus on Lutz’s obfuscation of authorship, their reading of her work as elusive, is partially misplaced. “My experience of Lutz’s work and her practice is really about intimate collaborations,” she argues in an online talk by ICA London, “and incredibly personally revealing work.”[3] She cites Huge Uterus as an example – what could be more personally revealing than a video from inside one’s uterus? But I think Gangitano’s point holds even for those works that do not reveal the artist’s internal organs. The artifice of Bacher’s identity does not prevent her from revealing herself. To paraphrase Wilde, give a woman a pseudonym and she will tell you the truth. 

Cher & Tina Turner sing Shame, Shame, Shame, The Cher Show, 1975. Watch.

I never thought of myself as a Tina Turner fan until the summer of 2015. I was at a party. A housewarming in a glass-fronted penthouse with views of the canal, one of those endless celebrations that continues to unfold for hours on end. By now, we were deep into the second day and most people had dropped off, leaving only a core group of revellers with electric chat. When the sun streamed in through the windows, we stocked up on ingredients for Bloody Marys. 

“This song was released just as both of their marriages broke down,” said a friend as he typed the words “cher tina turner shame” into YouTube. “It’s just the two women, striking out without their husbands. They nail it.” Tina sashays onto the stage in a long blue gown like a beaded curtain. It catches the light as she moves her legs, jellyfish dancing in a sea of diamonds. She sings the opening bars of the song alone – “Shame, shame, shame, shaaaa-ame!” – before Cher is announced with a scream, whoops and applause – “Awwwwwwww!!!! Shame on YOU!”. Cher is wearing the same dress but in pink and they sing the rest of the song as a duet. They have sass, conviction, and genuine rapport, looking into each others’ eyes as they sing. My friend was right – they nail it. 

Lutz Bacher, Accidental Tourist, Greene Naftali Garage, Brooklyn, 2016. Source.

Do you love me? This is the question Lutz Bacher asked her friends, colleagues and collaborators again and again for a number of years. Their answers to this loaded questions are published – unedited – in an artist book of the same name (Do You Love Me?, Primary Information, New York, 2012). In a blurb for Mousse, Stefano Cernuschi says that reading the book "feels like being in the backseat of a car driving fast, and you can’t hear every word that is spoken between the front seats, and mostly you can’t see the faces, but it’s kind of thrilling and also rewarding to be close enough to grasp what they say.”[4] What you realise from reading the answers is that, in answering an intimate question about Lutz, people always reveal more about themselves than they do about her. Sometimes the most personal insights come from talking about something outside of us. 

Just as Lutz Bacher’s anonymity does not make her work any less personal, her use of hyperbole and humour does not make it any less serious. A seemingly throwaway gesture, like covering the floor with glitter, reveals prisms of light breaking across the ground. Glitter, that synthetic, silly substance associated with frivolousness and nightlife, becomes the medium to reveal the transmutability of the cosmos; something so natural, so contemplative, it could be seen as Romanticist, in the same way that a William McKeown painting can be, with its glimpse through an open window into the two-tone fade of the sky.

Elsewhere in her work, plastic vinyl screens are printed with hot, hovering suns, or cool mountains, synthetic vistas that seem palpably real. A spinning milky way is painted on the side of an elongated school bus. I suspect Bacher would reject my literal reading of this work, but this work, The Bus, struck me as apt, because when you’re young enough to ride a school bus, your universe really is that small. 

Tina Turner, What’s Love Got to Do With It?, 1984

Tina Turner was in her 40s by the time she released What’s Love Got To Do With It in 1984. Her big comeback hit after her divorce from Ike Turner, the video sees her strut around New York with lion’s mane hair and a leather skirt, playfully rebuffing sexual advances. Her relatively mature age (by popstar standards) works in the track’s favour. She’s tough but jaded. Given up on love. She carries the pain of her abusive, broken down marriage into the song's guttural vocals, and we believe her when she looks into the camera and sings with conviction: Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? 

It’s like the song was made for her, but really it wasn’t. It was written by two white British guys who first offered it to Cliff Richard, Donna Summer, Phyllis Hyman and even Bucks Fizz, who recorded the song first and planned to include it on their album. They dropped it upon hearing Tina’s version.

*

I’ve since fallen out of touch with most of the people at that party I told you about. Thinking back on it now, it seems like a distant flicker from another time, like when Joan Didion writes that she has “lost touch with several of the people she used to be”. 

I have, however, been a Tina Turner fan ever since. 

Lutz Bacher, Bus, 2011. Digital photograph, dimensions variable. Image courtesy the artist, Ratio 3, San Francisco, Alex Zachary, New York, and Cabinet, London. Photograph by Vincent Fecteau. Source.

Like Tina’s, Lutz Bacher’s success and recognition has accumulated with age. I guess it’s what happens when you refuse to play the PR game, to avoid all the trappings and limelight and sycophancy that comes with artworld ascendancy, but despite her being consistently active since the 1970s, Bacher’s work went largely unacknowledged by the mainstream until about six years ago, when she was included in the 2012 Whitney Biennial and then subsequently snapped up for a spate of solo shows in Europe. I wonder if she is relieved, bemused, or exasperated at her boom in recognition and success. 

I remember hearing at a lecture once that Carol Rama, having been marginalised by the artworld establishment for almost her entire life, and then suddenly awarded the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion award at the age of 85, was nonplussed about her late recognition. “I’m not interested in stupid people,” she told The Walrus in 2005. “When I think of the attention I’ve been getting these last few years … so late in my career, I feel sadness. It leaves me somewhat stunned: all of this now?!”.[5]

Does Lutz feel the same way? “All of this now?!” My instinct is no. My instinct is that she is three steps ahead of us, turning back to shoot a sidelong glance every once in a while to see if we’re following yet. Perhaps her pseudonym, her “there-but-not-there”-ness, protects her from our slow-to-catch-up gaze. 

In an interview last year, Tina Turner told The Daily Mail that “when the lights go out, I go back to being Anna Mae Bullock.”[6] Perhaps Lutz Bacher, too, goes back to being whoever the fuck Lutz Bacher wants to be. My instinct is that, like Rama, neither of them are interested in stupid people. 

Babette

[1] Moritz Scheper, ‘Critic’s Pick: Lutz Bacher’, Frieze, September 2018. URL: https://frieze.com/event/lutz-bacher-3

[2] Martin Herbert, ‘Lutz Bacher’, ArtReview, Summer 2015. URL: https://artreview.com/features/summer_2015_lutz_bacher/

[3] Lia Gangitano in ‘Online Talk: Lutz Bacher’, ICA London, streamed live on 7 November 2013. URL: https://archive.ica.art/bulletin/video/online-talk-lutz-bacher

[4] Stefano Cernuschi, ‘BOOKS. Lutz Bacher: Do You Love Me?’, Mousse. URL: http://moussemagazine.it/lutz-bacher-do-you-love-me/

[5] Carol Rama, quoted in The Walrus, March 2005. URL: https://thewalrus.ca/2005-03-detail/

[6] Tina Turner, quoted in The Daily Mail, 14 September 2017. URL: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4886020/I-taught-Mick-Jagger-dance-says-Tina-Turner.html

[yesterdaysdreams]

How Did That Hold Up? (Vol. 6)

Hi friends! It’s time for an updated “How did that hold up?”. We do these posts every couple of years to share what held up amazing and also anything we regret! One of the tough things about DIY is that you don’t REALLY know how long it will last until years later. So that’s what I am going to get into today!

Note: All these photos are NEW from this summer (so there are years of wear on most of these projects, besides the gold closet rods, since they are more recent).

My Color Washed Floors <— view the full post here. I asked for requests on IG and far and away this was the most requested update from my home. We did these floors three summers ago before we moved in. And I am happy to report that they have held up FLAWLESSLY. There is no damage whatsoever. They are just as strong as the other wood floors in our home.

I do feel like I have to note, though, these are NOT just painted floors. It it NOT a good idea to paint your floors with wall paint … that will not hold up! Make sure you read the whole post before trying it. The key factors are that I had a professional flooring guy do them AND they are sealed exactly like all the other floors in our home.

The photo above doesn’t do them justice so I will show more on stories. But they look awesome!

As far as do I still LOVE the color … I do. But I will admit that I go back and forth. Sometimes, I wish they were the same as the rest of the house. But a lot of the time, I love the bold pop in this one room. So I do not plan to change it as long as we live here.

That said, I not sure what I will do when it’s time to sell our home someday—my sister says to leave it because the next owners may love it. I am afraid it could scare people off (and it’s not very expensive to change back so I don’t want that!). What do you think? Would that scare you off if you were house shopping?

Anyway, it doesn’t matter right now because we LOVE it. And this project TOTALLY held up. I am so happy! It could be done in any color … the possibilities are endless!

Our DIY Dining Room Table This table has been going strong for SO LONG … since 2012! Not bad for a $350 table that seats eight! I still love this table and for the style of our decor and the function of our home, I cannot imagine anything better!

We do paint it about once a year because it gets scratched. But I don’t think that is a big deal for a piece of furniture that is so heavily used.

I still love it SO much and have had zero desire to shop for a new table, and for the past six years we have been using this one.

Gold Closet Rods I will be honest … I was NERVOUS about this! It worked so well in Nova’s room but then in my room it was a disaster. So we redid it with this paint and now, after a few months, it has ZERO scratches (the last time it scratched up immediately). The difference is the better product, but I truly believe it is also the one week cure time (before any clothes were hung on it). If you do this project (or any other spray paint project that is going to be handled a lot), you need to let it cure.

Very, very happy about this so far, but in a year I will know for SURE whether it is a winner. But it’s looking VERY promising after about two months.

Our Recolored Appliances  These are holding up. I am confident they will last until we move (and beyond). We paid $400 for the vinyl, which was custom printed with the color we chose and that also included installation.

I am happy with the colors. There are small flaws in the installation that bother me a little. The company that did it for me were definitely used to doing, like, band posters on the side of tour buses and jobs like that, so I am not surprised that they weren’t up to my level of perfectionism. Honestly, they were a hassle to communicate with, but the end result was worth it!

The vinyl is easy to clean and has aged really well (there aren’t any issues really). And when we sell our home, if the next owner doesn’t want the mint color, they can be peeled off super easily.

So, all in all, I would recommend the project because we saved thousands compared to the specialty appliance brands that offer colors AND we still have the option of going back to neutral if we wanted to.

Hopefully, for anyone else who takes on this project, you’ll get lucky and find a local vendor who is a little easier to work with. But honestly, even just having the photos of our appliances to show them will help!

Also, I will say that it’s totally possible to do the install yourself. But you would just want to make sure you use vinyl that is made for cars because it can safely go up to a very high heat and you need that for the oven.

Pink Bunk Beds The pink bunk beds were a good decision. We bought these affordable bunk beds from Amazon, painted them with pink oil-based paint and then added these felt succulent window boxes. We’ve used these beds A LOT and now that I’ve tried it I highly recommend bunk beds like these for a guest room.

Closet Organization I still love and appreciate this simple closet organization we installed every day. It basically took a blank wall and made it useful for storing hats, necklaces, scarves and bags.

I have to say, organization DIYs are SO WORTH IT. My closet and also pantry renovation are two of the best things we did to make better use of the space we have.

Cactus Stenciled Wallpaper This project was a good amount of work—one of the most time consuming DIYs in our home. But I still love it and there have been no issues with it whatsoever. It still looks just as good as the day we completed it. I would totally do this project again in the future. The gold paint pen makes it look really cool.

A few other projects people asked about …

Stick on Subway Tile (in our laundry room) I’m not sure when it happened, but we recently noticed that ONE block of tile from the peel & stick tile had turned yellow. Just one. And it was pretty noticeable. I have no idea why or how just one piece of the tile changed colors, but I was pretty disappointed! I probably would not do it again now just because I would be afraid of that happening again. It did save money to do the stick-on tile (on install), but it didn’t really save supply money. So it wasn’t one of those DIYs that could save you a huge chunk of money. I will go back and update that post with this new info about the color change.

I’m not saying that all peel & stick tile is problematic, because I am sure it isn’t. But I would no longer recommend what we used.

Luckily, we were already considering a more thorough renovation (we had never renovated this room, just changed a few finished when we first moved in). So it was pretty good timing for us. And what is kind of crazy is that I ended up choosing shiplap and it was less than half the price of the peel & stick tile.

Live and learn!

Chalk Paint Rainbow Wall A few people asked why we painted over this wall. It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with it. In fact, I really miss it and kind of regret painting over it.

But the reason I made that choice was because when I was designing the playroom I really wanted to use this leftover juju wallpaper I had on just one wall and it seemed crazy to have two statement walls in one room. So the wallpaper won.

The problem with the rainbow was that I did it before I knew what I was doing with the rest of the room … so it didn’t fit.

It’s still an awesome DIY and I hope some of you do it for your homes!

Faux Tile in Jeremy’s Entryway This still looks perfect! I don’t have a photo on my phone, but I’ll show it on IG stories. It is a very tedious project, but Collin did an amazing job! Since the space is covered and low-traffic, it hasn’t to be touched up yet. It’s lasting really well and really makes the space a lot more special and thought out.

White Walls and Light Floors I had a few questions on whether I ever regret having mainly white walls and floors and whether they are difficult to clean. I love them and I do think they hide mess a lot better than dark floors—especially since we have a lot of white-based rugs (that shed furballs) and a light colored dog.

ZERO regrets on the floor and I would totally do it again.

As for the walls, we do mainly use matte paint, so they do get smudged and scratched easier than semi-gloss. But I don’t mind a once yearly touch up and magic eraser (or just a wet washcloth) gets most of it.

I love living in an mainly white home! The only things I honestly EVER think about changing are the colored accents. Like our pink bathroom vanity or yellow guest room. I love them and they are some of the most “shared” photos from our home, but I do get an itch to change bold accents so so so much sooner than neutrals.

In our next home (which is years off, but I am still a psycho who loves to plan five years in advance…), I may consider a more high contrast look. Mainly because I had so much fun using those colors in our bnb home.

To answer the question though, white walls + light floors forever & always!

Thanks for reading!!! I am happy to talk about any other project you are curious about in the comments. Every design project is a learning experience for me and I don’t believe there is ANY shame in regretting a project once in a while or wanting to do it differently the next time. I know this post was mostly positive experiences, but that is also because the projects I remember to recap years later are the ones I use for years so they stay at the top of my mind!

These projects can be so intimidating so I hope these recaps of how things have held up are helpful. xx – Elsie

Credits/Author: Elsie Larson. Photography: Amber Ulmer. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

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[sudsybear]

Just Drive

We were left to ourselves most of that summer. We both worked, as did our parents. Dad was gone for weeks at a time. He worked in Phoenix, coming home only on weekends. Mom had earned her diploma, but still had to study for her state nursing exam. She was also busy monitoring my grandmother who had health problems and was in and out of the hospital. Mom also started a new job, and was going through orientation – full-time employment for several weeks. Toss in that I was a youngest child and the whole active parenting thing had gone by the wayside.

 Ross’ parents both worked – his mom had taken a position at a greeting card company and was busy with a stuffed animal project. His dad was a devoted P&Ger. (All hail the soap works.) Ross was nineteen and had already been away from home for over a year. He hardly needed supervision.

 We mostly abandoned the few friends who were around. Many of Ross’ contemporaries stayed away for summer internships, jobs, or traveled abroad. Over the school year, I’d fallen out with many of my friends. David was busy with a new round of people. Christopher’s and my friendship disintegrated the previous fall. Julie worked two jobs, desperately trying to save enough money for tuition. Erin was doing the same. Valli was madly in love with Jerry, a guy she met through her Young Life activities, and she worked full-time as a lifeguard, so she wasn’t around much. Shari left for her last summer of camp – this time as a counselor. Anna spent her summer abroad, Victor was required to attend summer Reserve training and broke his leg. He’ll deny it to the end of his days, but he spent his summer smoking pot on a neighbor’s back deck.

 I literally lived at the J’s' for days at a time. I stopped by their house between baby-sitting jobs, entered through the unlocked garage/basement, left messages on the white-board in the breakfast nook and went on with my business. We slept in Ross' long twin bed and I fought with those damn high countertops in the kitchen. (Side note:  Ross’ family is very tall – his mother is 5’11” if she isn’t 6’ tall. His dad is at least 6’2.” “Little” brother Scott topped out at 6’5 at least.) At some point in the late 70s or early 80s, they remodeled their kitchen and chose to have the countertops installed a few inches higher than is the industry standard. I am 5’4” tall. I could not reach the cabinets, and working at the counter was awkward. Ross found a step stool for me to use while I was there. Had we been ten years older, you could describe us as having moved in together. But we weren’t ten years older. We were teenagers, just seventeen and nineteen. We lacked experience to draw upon, and the confidence that comes with it.

 Ross’ bedroom in his parents’ house was our haven. The stereo and speakers (all four of them), the albums and computers - all were strewn with laundry - clean shirts and dirty socks. Soldering tools, wires, pliers, and desk lamps were scattered over the “desk.” I never saw an actual work surface - it was littered with computer pieces; motherboards, hard drives, video boards. This masculine clutter was familiar. My father’s workshop at home, and my brother’s room before he left. To me, it was a very comfortable place…full of warmth. The door to Scott's room was open often enough to hear Scott playing guitar and to talk and chat and visit. We spent hours together there. Chaka Khan, Pat Metheny, Phil Collins, Joe Jackson, and Neil Diamond (his mom never seemed to mind when he cranked Neil Diamond or Phil Collins) were just some of the musical favorites that summer. I can still see him playing air guitar with a particularly fun riff from some album or the other. (These were vinyl albums – Ross was saving his money to buy a CD-player and a replacement for the guitar he’d destroyed in the Corral Show some two years previous. CDs were still new and the packaging was controversial – sold in the long cardboard boxes with plastic overwrap. In the mid-90s I got irritated with the lack of space in our basement, and convinced my husband to finally dispose of his collection of long-boxes from his own mid-80s CD purchases.)

 We spent evenings in the TV room watching his dad flick through the thirty or so TV channels that were available when cable was new. We had been away from adult supervision for too long, so we settled into the couch in front of the television to make nice with the ‘rents. My head snuggled up under Ross' arm. Ross tried to make idle small talk with his dad - attempting to smooth the relationship. It used to drive me nuts the way his dad would flip, flip, flip through umpteen channels and seemingly watch four shows at the same time. What's sad is I do that today. Give me the remote control, and I flip, flip, flip and watch 3-4 shows at the same time. Damn commercials.

 The TV room was just that – a TV room. Not a “family room” like so many homes have today, but a TV room. In years past the room had probably been a sunroom, a sitting room, perhaps an office. It was on the west side of the house, so in the late afternoon, you’d have to close the blinds against the glare of the sun in order to see the TV. The opening to the room was off the living room. A formal living room with couches, a curio cabinet and the grand piano. No doorway, no formal archway, just a large open space in the wall between the living room and TV room. The room was long and narrow and ran the length of the house. At one end was the couch, placed under the windows facing the television. And at the other end was a table and built-in shelves that held the fish tanks, the hermit crab and the encyclopedia set. There was no room to do much of anything else.

 Late one night, after the eleven o’clock news, we watched C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) on cable. While the rest of the family slept upstairs, we curled up on the couch and stared at the blue flickering screen. The TV set provided the only light on in the house. I covered my eyes and squealed at the gruesome parts. I was fascinated and terrified at the same time. I’m not good with horror flicks – even bad ones. After the movie, Ross walked me out to my car, I got in, and to avoid waking his parents, he pushed it out of the driveway. I coasted down the street, popped the clutch and drove home. Ross taught me that particular bit of street knowledge, how to start a car by popping the clutch. Useful only if you’re driving an old-fashioned standard transmission.

 Some nights we just drove. We put hundreds of miles on various vehicles - the VW Rabbit (1981 gray, two-door, hatchback - diesel, cloth seats) has especially pungent memories. We knew of only two or three gas stations in the county that supplied diesel, so invariably we drove to one of them to fill up the tank. The VW Vanagon and the Oldsmobile Station Wagon (with maroon vinyl seats and the compass on the front dash) were also driven more than once. We talked about our dreams, our insecurities, our parents, gossiped about what so and so was doing, and played the game of “identify the vehicle by the headlights”; Hondas versus Datsuns versus Fords, versus Chryslers – throw in an exotic Volvo or Saab. I never quite got the knack of that one. He was so disappointed when I mis-identified a vehicle. To this day, I can drive in reverse pretty well. For whatever reason, I had lots of practice. On a whim, Ross might decide to drive home from somewhere in reverse, just for the hell of it. He backed around parking lots, he backed down long driveways, he backed down the street. And believe it or not, I really think we always wore our seatbelts.

 We spent the Fourth of July holiday together. In the morning I stood by the side of the road and watched the parade (Dad was involved because of council, mom was with the ambulance crew) then stopped at Moreno’s for lunch and volleyball. Finally, Ross and I spent the late afternoon in his bedroom. His parents were out with their own friends, Scott was gone, so Ross and I were contentedly alone. We spent the hours spooned on his bed, listening to music, enjoying uninterrupted togetherness. We were supposed to go to the town fireworks display at the high school athletic field, but never made it. We watched a few fireworks from the window, then fell back to bed and fell asleep. I got home to my own bed in my parents house sometime in the early morning hours of the fifth. And we both had to work the next morning.

 *          *          *

 Ross was very close with his brother. Though only 2 ½ years apart in age, due to the quirks of the school system they were three years apart in school. Even so, they shared everything. They read the same books, swapped albums, music, they played in the same band together. Ross passed on snippets of wisdom for dealing with teachers and peers. In one of his letters from Wooster, Ross had encouraged me to introduce myself to Scott, concerned for his younger brother’s well-being. A few weeks into the summer, Ross realized his little brother Scott had a crush on me. It stands to reason - I had first fooled around with his best buddy Mark and then was a constant presence not just in his home, but in his brother's bedroom, an open door away. He must have caught us more than once in various states of undress. (I never did understand that floor plan, why was there a door between Scott's and Ross' bedrooms?)  

 I felt a fondness toward Scott myself. He was my friend as well as Ross’ brother and we had enjoyed our own friendship and escapades before Ross came home. Aside from Scrabble games at Corral, Mark, Scott, Igor and their buddy Jon had the brilliant idea to make their very own episode of Star Trek. Jon had a ton of video equipment. Igor put together a set in his basement, and Scott, Mark, and Igor’s little brother Alex were recruited as actors. Mark starred as the Captain, Scott played Spock, Alex and Igor posed as the science officers, and they needed a girl to play “Lieutenant U-whor-a.” Whether I was doing a favor for Igor or Mark, or both, they managed to get me to agree in a weak moment. Jon was the director/cameraman, and we made up dialogue as we went along.

 My character, as you might surmise from the character’s name, was the spaceship harlot. My scenes involved sitting in the captain’s lap (Mark), attempting sexual distraction; sitting in my chair at the communications center, showing off my legs whilst making obscene gestures; and rattling off one-liners like, “Why jack-off when you can have me for free?” Some “sweet’n’innocent” stuff, eh?

 It took several days of filming in Moreno’s basement, and I couldn’t be there for all the filming days. I filmed the first day, and then was busy with other activities. My absence led to some creative explanations as to why U-Whor-A was absent from the bridge, including AIDS, Toxic Shock Syndrome, and other female ails resulting from monthly cycles. Igor and Alex’s dad got fed up with the “set” in the basement. He declared a deadline by which the crap had to be cleaned up. The guys begged me to return so they could finish the film.

 Over the summer Jon and Scott edited the thing and roped Ross into designing credits for them. I didn’t see the finished product until years later. It is a rare masterpiece that someday I’ll have to explain to my children. I don’t look forward to the discussion with my children; explaining it to my husband was embarrassing enough.

 And yet with all of that, I was Ross’ girl. So in deference to Scott’s feelings, Ross and I made a conscious effort to monitor our behavior. It just so happened those were the same weeks our parents had been coming down hard on us to behave ourselves. I suppose we had gotten a bit out of control, and needed to pull back and exercise proper decorum.

ot��

[iyam-aujourdhui]

01/26/17

My life took a very dark turn about the time that Grandpa Alvin transitioned. I became more compulsive, fearful, and depressed. But not before asking to be excused from class, "Mrs. Shultz, can I go to the restroom?" "Yes, come get a hallway pass." While in the rest room I had stuffed my tube top full of tissue making two nice sized little breasts. Only - they weren't big enough. We had a new girl in class that actually wore a bra! So, I stuffed more. I came back to class as a third grader with a couple of double D breasts! And also not before I had knocked on almost every door in my neighborhood saying, "Hi, my name is Iyam, do you have any children that can come outside and play?" Needless to say, I was friends with EVERY child in my neighborhood that was able to come outside and play on their own. Imagine the little girls surprise who called me a nigger when I showed up at her door! Third grade ended, it was summer time - time to head back to my grandmother's house in Georgia. She moved to a plot of land right next to Iris. My uncle had a concrete business and he built her house, yes - out of concrete. The walls, the floor. Well, at least it was sturdy. My grandmother put a rug on the living room floor, but it was still really uncomfortable. A thin dirt road separated my grandmothers house from the house of her cousin, I'll call her Mary. Mary had three or four children, two of which still lived at home - maybe in their early twenties, I'll call them Zain and Don. They would rape and torture me repeatedly, one after the other. They were extremely cruel. To say that I was petrified of them is an understatement. They would gather all of the children together to play football. I always had to be the one to hike the ball between my legs while one of them would be the quarterback. I always had to be the one to sit with them in the back seat of the car on our trips to the pool. I was always the one that they would call to come with them to their back yard. While they would rape me I would stare at them - directly in their eyes. Eventually they started covering my face. When I returned home to Kansas I was having trouble sleeping. My mind was consumed in fear. I would lay in my bed and spread my arms and legs out so that I wouldn't be touching myself. That way, I would know if someone else was touching me. When it was time to take a bath at night I wouldn't undress in front of the mirror - I was afraid that "they" were watching me. Sometimes I would just run my bath water and sit in the bathroom fully dressed - never getting into the tub. Iris came for a visit. The morning that she left to go back to Georgia I noticed that my piggy bank was missing. I looked out of my bedroom window to see that her and my mother were both still sitting in the car in the driveway. She took it! Without hesitation I ran down the hallway, flew down the stairs, and bolted out of the front door. Just as my mother had put the car in reverse to back out of the driveway, I ran up to the car and started banging on the hood - on the hood of Charles' Cadillac. My mom stopped the car and I ran to the passenger side window where Iris was sitting and I started banging on the window and yelling at the top of my lungs. After the window was rolled down my mother frantically said, "What? What is it? What's wrong?" I don't remember exactly what I said, but Charles had unknowingly taught me several four letter words and how to use them properly in a sentence. As angry as I was I imagine it could have gone a little something like this, "Bitch, give me my fucking money back!" Iris sat there shocked. She insisted that she didn't know what I was talking about and that she would never take my money. "Give me back my fucking money!!!" Time stopped for a moment in the silence that proceeded from my roar. Iris bent over and pulled out my piggy bank from her bag that rested on the floor of the car, in between her feet. I took it and walked calmly back into the house like nothing had ever happened. I would get a weekly allowance and save it up until I had enough to buy vinyl records, books, and candy. I kept a stash of all three in my bedroom at all times. Here’s to the Risen Warrior in each of you!!! Many blessings & much love ❤️,
-Iyam

[resetperspectives-blog]

Black Betty our Adventure Vehicle

For sometime we had talked about getting a van and putting a mattress in it, nothing to flash just something very simple, so we could just escape the hustle and bustle of our busy lives. 

We looked around at car yards and started to follow websites that featured campervans, trying to find the ideal van for our needs, after looking for some months we decided on a Volkswagen Transporter, but to find one with low kilometres  and was not priced beyond our budget was posing to be difficult, then one evening during the regular scan of the cars for sale websites,  I found a van that looked like it would be ideal and not priced over the top. The next day we drove across town to check it and it was ideal so we bought it.

  It was a 2010 Volkswagen Transporter Long wheelbase hightop van, it has a turbo diesel engine with automatic transmission and reasonably low kilometres, and Jet black (this is unusual for this type of van as most are white). The van had been used as a florists delivery and pick up van, it was a little bit grubby inside, but a little bit of elbow grease fixed that.

Now the plan was to keep it simple just a mattress and some basic camping gear! After researching camper van websites and seeing all the great ideas, from storage solutions, kitchen layouts, and power systems to power all our devices that are part of our lives now, our plans changed. Having a blank canvas (or empty shell of van) our mind were racing with ideas of all the things would need and all the things we would like in a van.

So the project of converting this once a florist delivery van in to a weekend adventure vehicle began.

After looking at other vans we planned on have in a side kitchen with a "U" shaped lounge with a drop down table that would form a bed for sleeping at night, and because the van was a hightop this allowed us to have overhead storage cupboards. The other thing we thought would be good was a windout awning of the side of the van, this would provide additional living space and protection from the sun and rain.

In the kitchen area we would need a refrigerator sink, cooktop, microwave oven and additional storage cupboards.

We had decided we would need a fairly large battery to run all the electrics in the van and to charge it we would need solar panels on the roof as well as being able to plug in to power in caravan parks, in addition to this it charges from the engine when we are driving.

The first thing we did was strip the plywood linings from the cargo bay, cleaning it all up. then installing the solar panels on the roof, cutting in a ventilation hatch in the roof and installing the awning on the side of the van.

 As the van did not have any windows in the cargo bay we had  three installed one above the kitchen bench and two along the kerb side of the van.

I had read on many camper van websites that insulation was very important as it reduces how hot the van would get in summer and how cold it would be in winter, but more importantly it would reduce the amount of condensation that would form on the metal body of the van and also deaden the road noise inside the van whilst driving. So we double insulated the walls, floor and roof of the van.

At this stage it was important to rough in all the wiring for the lighting, appliances, power points, solar power supply, and charging systems. This was completed over the course of a weekend, we were the ready to install the wall and roof linings.

The walls and roof were lined in MDF sheet and then covered with a special carpet designed for lining the inside of boats, what a job that was it took 4 day to cut and glue all the carpet in to place, very fiddly. The floor was lined with self adhesive vinyl flooring that looks like timber floor boards.

 With a plan for the Lounge/bed set up, we went and purchased the foam for the cushions and had it cut to size. This now governed the size of the lounge base units that would also double as storage space. The next thing was to select a suitable fabric for the seats, cushions and curtains,  and recruit  the services of my mother in law to sew the covers for the cushions and the curtains for the windows, she did a great job and at the right price.

Whilst the cushions were being covered I got to work on fabricating the all the cupboards, seats and bulkheads, this was done using a laminated MDF sheet, another fiddly job this must of taken two weekends.

 All the time I had been working on the van I had been shopping around for Deep Cycle battery, refrigerator, cooktop, tapware, microwave oven, hot water unit, Water tank, water pump, Dc to Dc charger, AC to DC charger, 12v to 240v inverter, light fittings and fan, Most of these items I found on eBay at very reasonable prices, most other materials were purchased from Bunnings and Jaycar.

Now the walls and roof were lined and the cupboards we installed it was time to install all the electrical fittings and lighting, and to my surprise it all worked as planned, all the research had paid off.

The next major task was to install the freshwater tank, pump, sink, shower and hot water unit. Installing the freshwater tank under the van was fairly straight forward except the space was quite limited, once it was installed it was just a matter of running the plumbing hoses to the pump, hot water unit, sink and shower, and again it all worked as planned.

The final touches of installing the curtains, cushions, and table was the next thing to do. At this stage the van conversion was complete, just some minor fine tuning some storage nets in the cupboard, a couple of towel rails, etc to make it work a little better for us.

The whole idea about buying the van and converting it to a camper was to provide us with the means to escape on weekends, to explore and photograph places we had never been to, to escape the hustle and bustle and stress of our day to day lives, to get out into the bush, mountains, and by the ocean and get closer to nature, and just relax and unwind.

 We plan to get away a lot more this coming year, and our adventures will be shared here in blog, photographic, and video format for you enjoy, and maybe you may choose to join us on our adventures.