Why Michigan? Why not?

Go Blue...

During my senior year of college I had regular meetings with my unofficial life coach. My future, which had once seemed so clear and straight-forward, was now completely open-ended, and I just needed someone to talk things through with.

“What do you want to do?” he would ask me.

“Well, I think I want to edit books… in the long run…”

“Well, what is your number one concern?”

“I don’t want to move back to Eureka.”

This was my biggest fear. That I would get stuck. Don’t get me wrong; I love my hometown. I just think it would be a dead end for me. Not saying it’s that way for everyone; I have plenty of friends with great jobs and great lives in Eureka… I just don’t think I could really thrive there.

And so I applied to dozens of publishing jobs during my last semester of college. They were all over the place – New York, Boston, Chicago, Oregon, Florida, and I think I even applied to a couple in England and Australia.

My good friend Julianne and I had a dream of moving to New York together (okay, we still do). It was a simple plan, really:

1. Get jobs in New York.

2. Find an apartment.

3. Go out every weekend and mingle with wealthy businessmen.

I even looked at apartments in New York. “Let’s live near Central Park!” she suggested. It was a plan.

It was about March when, after not being contacted by a single company I had applied to (aside from the occasional “we have received your application” email), that I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was technically qualified for all the jobs I applied to, but honestly, I didn’t have a chance with Simon & Schuster, Random House, McGraw Hill, Hearst Magazines… I was reaching for the stars, which is a good thing, but I had no real backup plan.

So May came, and it was time for graduation. When people asked me what I was doing with my life, I had to tell them the truth, which I had finally come to accept: “I’m moving back to Eureka for probably just a year. Going to work, save some money, then get a job, move somewhere…”

I put it off for as long as I could. After graduation I stayed in San Diego for another week. Then I stayed with Julianne in San Jose for a week and a half. Then after going to Eureka for a few days I went back to the Bay Area. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I lived there now. I applied to a few jobs in Eureka, but I was spending so much time elsewhere that I didn’t invest much time into the job search.

A little over a month after my college graduation I was sitting at home with my friend Hannah, who was going to the University of Michigan for grad school in the fall. Half-jokingly, one of us said something about me looking for jobs in Ann Arbor. My laptop was right there, so I went onto a couple job boards and applied to a couple of editorial jobs.

The next day I left for Africa, and it was while on that mission trip that I really decided that I needed to move away from Eureka. I love new people and new places, and that is precisely what I cannot find in my hometown. So, on the drive back from the San Francisco airport, I told my parents: “I think I’m going to move to Michigan.”

A week later I had a room in a house. I signed the lease and began searching for jobs. Before I arrived in Michigan, I had three job interviews lined up. The first one, at a café a few blocks away from my house, was less than 12 hours after I arrived in Ann Arbor.

So now I have a new home. I’m in a house with new roommates, in a city with new faces, and I work at a café with people who have become my new friends. It’s an adventure. It may not be my typical adventure, but it’s still new and exciting… and I really think that life isn’t about your circumstances—whether you live in San Diego or Ann Arbor, whether you’re an editorial assistant for Random House or a barista at Glass House Café, you get out of life whatever you put into it.

Accident-prone

"Why did you fall?" the nurse asked me.  I guess just telling her I hit my head on a concrete wall wasn't enough information.

"Well, I had been drinking..."

"Okay.  Was this in any way related to domestic violence?  Did someone push you?"

"Nope.  I just fell."

Less than three weeks after college graduation and I was in Urgent Care in Novato.

"Do you drink a lot?" the doctor asked me when he came in.

"No, not a lot... I mean, I had a lot that night..."

I can understand why the doctor at Novato Urgent Care would think I drink a lot, though.  Less than three months earlier I had been in this same Urgent Care, this same room even, with another drinking-related injury.  The first day of Spring Break I had come into Urgent Care on my way to my aunt's beach house just to make sure I hadn't broken my foot when I fell in a parking lot the night before.  A few quick x-rays determined that there was no break; I had just torn some ligaments.

I was lucky this time, too.  The doctor told me I did not have a concussion, which was a relief.  That might be the reason Novato has my favorite Urgent Care: they always give me good news, and it never takes more than half an hour.

Last time I went to Urgent Care in San Diego, though... wow.  I guess the San Diego Urgent Care wasn't too bad; it was really the Emergency Room that kept me waiting.

The week of my 21st birthday I was having some serious trouble breathing, so my friend Julianne took me to the Urgent Care.  They didn't have the equipment to run the necessary tests, so he redirected me to the Emergency Room.  Six hours in the ER revealed that I did not have a pulmonary embolism (thank God!), but just had some swelling around my lungs.

Three trips to Urgent Care may seem like a lot, but this is something I have done my whole life.  The first trip I remember was to the Urgent Care in Sonora when I was 11 after I had gone off a water slide into a 3" rusty nail.  I remember grabbing my foot and pulling out what I thought was a twig.  After an emergency tetanus shot and walking on the side of my foot for a few days, though, I was fine.

My trips to the Urgent Care started before I was even a year old, my mom tells me.  I have been to Urgent Care facilities in Lodi, Sonora, Eureka, San Diego, and Novato.

A couple years ago I was sitting in a doctor's office after I had fallen at a park in Eureka (not drinking related) and the doctor was taking a look at my medical history.  "Are you accident-prone?" he asked me.

I laughed.  Accident-prone.  I guess you could say that.

Pre-tequila shots and pre-hitting my head. With Julianne, who has gone with me to Urgent Care twice.

Packages, Nuts, Balls, and Big Ones

After I graduated from college, I didn't want to go back home to Eureka right away.  I couch surfed for a little over two weeks, but then finally decided it was time to spend some time with my family.  I met up with my mom and we spent the night at my aunt's house in San Rafael before heading up to Humboldt County.

We ended up talking about what I am going to do now, where I should apply for jobs, and then I remembered my student loans.

"Don't worry about it," my Mom said.  "You really don't have to pay back that much."  Then she started talking about my brother, who goes to the school I just graduated from.  Apparently he will have even more debt than I do when he finishes college in two years.

"But he just got a letter about financial aid.  I'm not sure how much he's getting, though; I want to see his package!"

Within seconds we were cracking up.  This isn't the first time my mom has said something that could have been interpreted in more than one way, either.

Once my mom was grocery shopping and confronted a worker in one of the aisles and asked him a question.  "Excuse me, sir, where are your nuts?"

But "like mother, like daughter" the saying goes.  I have had many accidental inappropriate utterances of my own.

Once I was playing bingo at a campground with a few friends.  Any serious bingo player knows that many different formations are used to make the game more interesting.  Instead of just a line, sometimes players aim to mark all four corners, an X, or many other shapes. 

This particular game we were trying to make the shape of a field goal.  In addition to the field goal shape, we needed to have one space marked to look like a football going through the goal. 

There are six spaces that will work for the football, so it's really not that hard to get, but when I marked one of the spaces I was excited nonetheless.  "I have a ball!" I told my friends.  They didn't share my enthusiasm, but when the next number called was another one of those six spaces inside of the field goal, I got even more excited.

"I have two balls!"  I yelled.  My friends looked away and acted like they didn't know me.

Another story along these lines, perhaps my favorite, occurred a couple months ago at a McDonald's.  I was there with two guy friends and two girl friends.  Both of the guys got french fries, and I don't really like fast food so I didn't buy anything. 

Of course, though, when my friend was sitting across from me eating his small fry, I stole some.  After we had been sitting there talking and eating for a while, my other guy friend pulled his fries out of his bag, which is when I saw that he had bought a large fry.

"Why have I been eating his when you have a big one?!" I exclaimed.  And immediately realized I shouldn't have said that to two college guys.

I guess these things are just inevitable these days.  "Package didn't mean that back in the day," my mom told me on our drive back to Eureka yesterday.  One of the interesting things about modern English, I realized, is that almost any word can be interpreted as either phallic or a yonic.  And mostly phallic, since we do live in a phallocracy (thanks, Lit Theory).

So I don't think that I say these things is really my fault.  It's really the fault of our language.  Maybe I should start talking a little bit more quietly, though...

Lost in the Woods

One beautiful day in Eureka the Hills family was visiting from San Diego.  It must have been summer because it was so sunny and warm; I think they were on their way to visit some family in Idaho or Oregon.

I decided to take the girls (Maggie, who was about my age, and Dakota, her little sister) on a walk.  I live on a little lane with just a couple other houses, and at the end of the lane is a gate that leads to the woods.

I have never been afraid of the woods.  Maybe it's because I have grown up surrounded by trees.  As long as I remember I have gone for walks on trails in the woods, and apparently I've always made it out alright.  My good friend Nina and I used to go walk in the woods.  We never knew where we were going, but we always popped out somewhere familiar before too long.  The trails always lead out, so what is there to fear?  And besides, I have an excellent sense of direction.

So at about 5:00pm the two out-of-towners and I began our trek in the woods.  It started out as the exact same walk I had taken many times before.  The beginning is always familiar, but we take slightly different routes every time we go.  Once Nina and I had to cross a pretty big stream.  Another time we walked through an overgrown field for twenty minutes.  We hit neither of these landmarks, so after a little while everything on this walk was new.

We walked along the trails in the woods for about an hour before I thought I recognized where we were.

"I know where we are," I told my friends.  "I'm pretty sure we're really close to my friend Kyle's house."  So I led them along these trails, which I was sure I had been on before.

Half an hour later we were still on those same familiar trails.  When we passed the same tire for the third time we decided to take the fork there that went the other way.  But somehow this trail ended up leading us back to the same place.

Now we were starting to get a little bit worried.  It was starting to get dark, none of us had a cell phone with us, and I had finally admitted that I had no idea where we were going.

We continued to take different forks in the trails, but somehow they all led back to the same place.  We were lost.

It's funny how much scarier being lost is once the sun starts setting.  I hadn't been concerned at all when our paths were still brightly lit, but now that all was getting darker, I was starting to doubt my navigational skills more and more.

But we kept going.  We are not the type to give up.

All of a sudden Dakota screamed.  Three figures ran toward us from behind.  I turned around.

"Kyle!"  It was my friend running shirtless with his two dogs.  One of the dogs is black and quite large, so apparently Dakota had mistaken it for a bear.  But I had never been so excited to see Kyle. 

"What are you doing here?" he asked us, so we told him the whole story.  "You just turn right here, then right again," he pointed and instructed us.

Surely enough, we had been really close to Kyle's house in Lundbar Hills, just as I had thought.  We had approached the correct fork in the trail multiple times, but I guess we had always turned the wrong way.

Kyle gave us a ride back to my parents' house, and by the time we got there it was around 8:00, and they had just begun to wonder where we were.

"We just got lost in the woods," we told them.

"Oh, okay," they replied.  "Well, I guess you made it."

No, a Fence

“Cross country is more fun,” I explained to Mike at track practice one day. “But track is safer. One time in a cross country race…”

“What?” he asked. “Did you run into a tree?”

“No, a fence.”

Mike was confused for a few seconds before he got it. “Oh, a fence! I was wondering what you could have run into that would offend me!”

It is true that I sometimes have a lack of depth perception. My sophomore year of high school I was running in a race that was at a campground and turned a corner too tight, ramming half my body into a fence. I was fine, I didn’t fall or anything, but it was a little bit embarrassing.

A couple years later, though, I ran into another fence. We met for cross country practice on the steps behind the gym. We then ran around the tennis courts and onto the street. There was a gate next to the tennis court, but about three feet of space between that gate and the fence surrounding the tennis court made it easy to get through.

Unless the person trying to get through is me. We set off on our run and I apparently misjudged how far I was away from the small gate and ran into it. My shorts got caught on the fence, so they now had a huge hole on the left side. It hurt a little bit, but I just laughed it off and kept running with my friends.

After about a mile of running I looked down and saw blood through the hole in my shorts.

“Oh my gosh, you guys! Look, I’m bleeding!” But I kept running, of course. No need to stop, it was just a little scrape.

After another half-mile the whole team stopped at the park for further instruction from Morris, our coach. Morris was standing facing most of the team, and a couple other girls and I were standing behind him.

“Oh my god! Look at Abby!” Ryan pointed and yelled in the middle of Morris’s talk. Everyone looked. And I actually looked at it for the first time. Not only were my shorts ripped and my leg bleeding, but the cut was a couple inches deep.

“Ooh, you’re going to need stitches on that,” Morris said after brief examination.

I finished the workout with blood running down my leg, then returned to school and examined the gate, which had a huge bolt sticking out the side that I had run into.  I went into the gym and asked the volleyball coach for a first-aid kit. She helped me fix my leg up with some butterfly bandages and I was once again told that I should probably get stitches.

But there was a race the next day. If I got stitches, I wouldn’t be able to compete.

So the next day, instead of getting stitches, I went to the cross country meet (which just happened to be at the same campground where I had run into a fence two years prior) with butterfly bandages, gauze, a huge band-aid, and medical tape all over my left leg.

I ran the race and didn’t run into anything. I later told a friend that I “don’t believe in stitches.” While that’s not true, I do think that because I didn’t get stitches, I have a much cooler scar.

After the attack!  Thanks for the picture, Holly!

Love Hurts...Well, So Does Friendship

Being friends with me can be a health risk.  In Kindergarten I broke Zach Cornberg's arm by jumping on him.  At a track meet in high school my forceful headbutt to Bret's sternum almost send him to the hospital.  These things are almost always accidental, but I still think it takes a brave person to be my friend.

In high school I loved to give hugs.  I still do, but in high school my hugs were very aggressive in nature.  If I spotted a good friend down the hall or across the street, I would run up to her and squeeze her until she yelled out in pain.

One spring day at Eureka High School I was walking out of the science building after class.  As soon as I stepped out of the double doors, I looked to my right and saw Jenna standing in "The Row," our usual hangout between the main and science building that consisted of grass and some benches.  Jenna had recently become a very good friend of mine.  I was only 15 and a sophomore, so I felt really cool hanging out with a senior (with a car!), especially someone as cool as Jenna.

When I spotted Jenna, of course I had to go hug her immediately.  I dropped my bags where I was standing and broke into a sprint toward Jenna.  Jenna had fallen victim to many an Abby hug before, so she knew what she was in for.  Or so she thought.

She stepped backwards to brace herself, but what she didn't know is that Dillon Adams's skateboard was right behind her.  She stepped on the skateboard at the same time as I made contact with her, sending us both flying through the air.

The next thing I knew, I was on the cement on top of Jenna.  Once we figured out what had happened and got up, I saw that Jenna's jeans were ripped.

"I am so sorry!"

"Oh, don't worry about it."  Jenna was always too nice to me.

But I wasn't very worried about the jeans when I saw Jenna limping to her 5th period English class with Ashley's help.  I apologized more, but Jenna said she was fine.

That Saturday was Jenna's senior prom.  I went and saw Jenna, who was on crutches.  She had gone to the Emergency Room after her class, and it turns out she had sprained her knee and her ankle. 

Well, I guess I had sprained her knee and her ankle.  I felt immensely guilty for making Jenna attend her senior prom with crutches and couldn't stop apologizing.

"Oh, it's okay," Jenna said.  "I don't like dancing, anyway."

Jenna and I still hang out almost every time I am in Eureka.  She doesn't let me drive and is probably a little bit more careful whenever I go to hug her, but somehow Jenna still wants to be my friend.

Me and Jenna: Still friends, but I try not to hurt her anymore

My Favorite Toilet

One of the highlights of driving up Highway 101 north of the Bay Area is Laytonville.  Not many people live there (the population is about 1,300), and not much happens there.  But on the side of the highway that runs through the five mile stretch of primarily farmland is a toilet sitting in a field.

Yes, I just said that one of the highlights of northern California is a toilet.  I can't even count how many times I've stopped there.  You just can't see a toilet on the side of the road and not want to sit on it.  The ground is usually wet, so we get mud all over our shoes and cars, but the pictures of us pretending to use this stinky, mold-growing toilet are worth it.

Across the road from the toilet is a barn bearing a huge sign that says, "Don't Forget the Magic!"  On days we didn't stop at the toilet because it was raining or we were in a hurry, we would still always read the sign out loud.  It's a great message, but I never thought it had any connection with the toilet across the street.

In December three of my roommates and I were driving up to my hometown, Eureka.  One of my roommates is also from Eureka, but for the other two, this was their first adventure into the far corners of northern California.  When we entered Laytonville, I told them that we needed to make a stop soon.

They were just as fascinated as I had hoped when we pulled over to see the toilet.  We hopped across a stream of muddy water and took turns photographing each other on the toilet (actually, in front of the toilet...it was wet).

As we were taking pictures, a man stuck his head out of the barn across the street—the "Don't Forget the Magic!" barn—and yelled something to us.  None of us understood what he said, so we laughed and hesitantly said, "okay..."

As we pulled back onto the highway, the man waved his arms, beckoning us to come back to his barn.  Four girls in no hurry, we loved the randomness of the situation and turned around the first chance we got.

We parked and approached the barn, but the man wasn't out in front anymore.  The door was open, so we peeked in.  "Hello?"  We took a few steps in, passing a box full of walnuts and a single orange ping pong ball.  A rocking chair hung from the rafters above a giant gumball machine.

"Oh, you came back!"  The man jumped up from where he sat poking a hot metal rod through some sort of metal box.  "You need to sign my toilet journal!"

He led us to a big, high table where he gave us two journals, one to sign and one full journal to look through.

"Do you girls want anything?  A beer?  A smoke?  A soda?"

"No thanks," we laughed.

"Well, here.  At least take some candy for the road."

He introduced himself as John and told us that he loved talking to everyone who stopped at the toilet.  He asks that they sign the journal with their names and where they are from and always keeps refreshments handy to share with travelers.

Some entries in the journal were one or two lines.  Some addressed John by name or referred to him as "Toilet Guy."  He told us about his grandchildren and his daughter-in-law, who started a website so that he could keep track of even more Laytonville toilet enthusiasts and even get their pictures.

It wasn't until I visited the website that I found out that John McCaffrey, the man in the barn, is actually responsible for the toilet.  Since he retired, his daughter-in-law writes on the website, John has been doing lots of strange things like this to entertain the folks of Laytonville and those passing through.  She mentions a "doorknob tree" and birds made out of old shovels.

A friend who asked John what the sign on his barn means says that he replied, "It means don't forget the magic in your life, whatever it is."

Well, thanks for a little more magic, John.

Mendocino County's Finest Rest Area

Magic

I was on the plaza in a wedding dress at midnight. I know, it sounds a little bit like Cinderella. And no, I hadn’t just run out on my own wedding. Where the story actually starts is a little bit embarrassing, but here we go:

Kelsey was over at my house one summer night because, well, there isn’t much else to do in Eureka. We never plan on watching TV, especially not TLC wedding shows, but it somehow happened. So there we were, watching Say Yes to the Dress, giddily comparing the dresses on the screen to our visions of our own ideal wedding gown.

When the show ended I turned to my mom, who had been passing in and out of the living room and our wedding conversations. “Mom, would your wedding dress fit me?”

Within minutes I was wearing my mother’s homemade wedding dress. I felt like a little girl in mommy’s high heels. This opportunity was too good to waste, so I told Kelsey we were going out. We were 19 and it was 11pm, so “going out” was really limited to donuts or pizza. We ransacked my closet looking for something suitable for Kelsey to wear and eventually decided on a tutu I had made the previous summer.

We drove to Don’s Donuts in Arcata, one of our only late-night options. We walked in, Kelsey in the tutu and I in the wedding dress, and were greeted with enthusiasm.

“Did you girls just get married?” one girl asked us. No judgment in her voice; judgment is rarely passed in Arcata. As we stood in line, the radio began playing: Going to the chapel and we’re going to get married… No way, I thought. This is too perfect.

To make matters even more perfect, we just happened to be catching the very end of National Donut Day. Hungry stoners filled the donut shop even more than a normal Friday night, so we took our donuts and milk to the plaza, which is just down the block.

We sat on a park bench and finished our midnight snack as we saw a homeless man approaching us. This is pretty common in Arcata. He probably just wants some money or a cigarette, we assumed.

“Did you just get married?” he asked me. No, I told him, I was just wearing a wedding dress for fun.

“Oh,” he said. “I was going to ask if I could take off your garter if your husband hadn’t already done it.”

Nervous giggle. “Nope, no garter.”

“I’m Magic,” he said and stuck out his hand. Kelsey and I introduced ourselves, and I struggled for words to fill the silence that followed.

“I like your necklace,” I told him. It was your average hemp necklace, but with a dolphin charm hanging in the middle.

“You like that? You like dolphins?” he asked. “Here, I think I have something for you.” He began rummaging through his pockets and produced a similar dolphin charm, which he then handed to me. “I want you to keep that and think of me every time you see it.” Oh trust me, Magic, there is no way I was going to forget this night.

He then turned to Kelsey. “Here, I have something for you, too.” He handed her a marble. Not the kind you play marbles with, but the flat kind that you put in the bottom of fish tanks. We thanked him for his gifts. They weren’t much, but neither of us could remember the last time a homeless man had offered us anything besides weed.

“Okay, I have to ask,” Magic said. “Is there any chance you girls would take a homeless guy home and give him a shower?”

“No, sorry…” We may not follow the not talking to strangers rule, but we seldom let them into our cars and never let them into our parents’ houses.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, it was great to meet you girls. If you ever need anything—weed, shrooms, LSD, whatever—come find me. I’ll give you a good deal.”

We thanked him, he walked off into the night, and we went home. Who gets into situations like this? I often wonder, looking back. It’s not true that there is nothing to do back where I come from, it’s just different. And I’ll never forget the Magic.

This is the dolphin Magic gave me.  It's now part of a collage on the wall in my dorm room.

And, by request, here is a picture of the beginning of our night.