That one time I almost got arrested.

On Monday I whined a little about my aversion to having my picture taken, and told the story of how, one Sunday morning in January, I found myself in Rebecca Skinner's car, headed for an abandoned mill site, to take my author photo.

We were chatting happily as she drove down a narrow, winding road, when we looked through the scraggly branches of the leafless trees to see ...

Bare concrete foundation slabs.

"Oh, hell," Rebecca said. "They've torn it down."

[Insert frownie face here]

Yep, not one week before, a lovely abandoned mill had been standing on that very spot, but someone decided to get medieval on it and knocked it flat. We took a few pictures of me in front of the few walls that remained standing. I sat in some broken glass.

Here's me, sitting on some broken glass, wishing I was
inside an abandoned mill.Good thing my jeans protected my tender parts. Anyway, Rebecca was undeterred. "There's another mill in Bellingham!" she announced. "We shall go!" <--she actually talks like a normal person, but you know. Dramatic license.

She drove us to Bellingham, to the ruins of this old mill with a river running underneath it. She parked her car right next to the NO TRESPASSING sign. And the fence with the chain and the padlock. "The fence doesn't go all the way around," she assured me. "There's an open spot if we walk through these woods." Then we discussed the relative likelihood that one of the neighbors would see us and call the police, and decided to go for it anyway.

Now, I have always been a rule follower. I respect authority. I do not normally do things like this. And man, was I having fun. I'm following this photographer lady through the woods and feeling very cool. We crept around the fence and made our way across the bare slabs of foundation, over to the part of the mill that was still standing (and boarded up). "I'm pretty sure we can climb through in the back. There are some barrels we can stand on to get through the windows," Rebecca said to me as we looked up at the ruins of the building, surrounded by piles of debris and bricks.

Aaaaand that's where we were standing when the owners of the mill arrived. Yeah. They unlocked that padlock on the fence and rolled in with a Uhaul. "Well, shit," Rebecca said. <--this isn't dramatic license. She actually said that, which, if possible, made me like her even more.

These were not friendly looking men. In fact, they were rather pissed-off-looking men as they climbed out of their trucks and saw us standing there. One of them walked over to us. "You're just taking pictures?" he asked, staring at Rebecca, whose arms were full of camera equipment.

"Oh, yes, sir," she said sweetly. (and of course, I was standing there, all wide-eyed and innocent-looking, nodding my head vigorously)

"And you're not going to go inside, right?"

"Oh, no, sir." (and yes, I was shaking my head, like "No way, sir, wouldn't dream of it, sir, please don't call the police, sir.")

"Well, all right then." And then he and his buddy went into the mill, and left us alone. I was thrilled! Until Rebecca and I realized that, unless we wanted to wait them out (and I actually think they decided to wait us out) or get arrested ... no interior abandoned mill photos for us.

*wails*

We made the most of it. The outside of that place really was pretty cool, as you see here:


Here I am, having found yet another incredibly comfortable
place to sit.And Rebecca was excellent company. She did her best with me, and I think we found a pretty good photo that will heretofore be known as the Official. Author. Photo:*




There you have it. The reasonably interesting story of how I got my author photo. And now, let us celebrate having gotten it over with, and the revealing of my actual face on the Internet. Here is what I suggest: You give me a caption for this photo, and next Monday, I'll pick one of today's commenters (captioners?) to receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

What say you?

And once you're done captioning, please head on over to Laura's blog, as she answers this month's Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog question--about prologues!

*Except for my S.E. Fine author photo, which doesn't come with a funny story, but is kind of nice nevertheless. I'll will be showing it off at a later date.