goin' to the lightnin' capital

I'm leaving this morning for Florida, to do research on august chagrin. It's kind of exciting; I've never done research on a novel before. Today, I arrive in Jacksonville Beach. I'll stay a couple of days with C., and I'll be forced to do Bikram Yoga (she reminded me to bring shorts); I was the one who introduced her to that -- I discovered it in Jax Beach back in 2003 -- and now she's an instructor and currently in Jax Beach teaching at that very studio! I haven't done much exercise lately, so I'm a little apprehensive about doing it in a room that's 120 degrees Fahrenheit, but if it doesn't kill me, supposedly it'll make me stronger.

On Monday, C. is gonna drive me to Gainesville, where the actual research begins. I'm gonna stay with A. & L.; he's a professor at U of F, and that's where my protag went to school for one year. L. is gonna show me around the campus, including Broward Hall, which is where Randy lived. It'll be nice to visit A. & L.

And then on Wednesday, I'm renting a car and driving from Gainesville (actually a little northwest of there, Keystone Heights) to Tampa, by way of Lakeland or Plant City or somewhere in that area via the backroads because two important things happen in august chagrin around there. Randy's first love, Rich, and Rich's new bride die there in an accident on the way to their honeymoon in the Keys; and a year later, Rich's sister Diamond has Randy drive her to that place so she can plant a cross and plastic flowers on the side of the road. It is the closest Randy and Diamond will ever be. (A year later, after they graduate from high school, they go to Las Vegas together, but they have already started drifting apart by that time.)

I'm also going to see R. in Tampa. He teaches yoga (not Bikram, thank goodness!) there. I haven't seen him in ages, and it'll be weird and interesting to see him, particularly since I'll be there on Valentine's Day. Oh, jeez.

I'll drive back to Gainesville on Friday and return the car, and C. will pick me up, and we'll either go right back to Jax Beach (according to her dog-sitting duties) or to Melrose or St. Augustine for the night. When my world crumbled back in 2002, I moved to Jax Beach, but that fell apart, too, and I wound up in Jacksonville proper living with A., a recovering alcoholic. She met P., who lives in St. Augustine and has an old boarding house in Melrose (which is the area I based Black Lake, Randy's home, on in the book). I'm hoping we'll stay there and not at P. & A.'s house in St. Augustine, even though A. said there's plenty of room, mostly because I want to get the feel of Black Lake again. Hopefully, A. & P. will meet us there.

The day after that is Saturday (a week from today), and I have to be back in Jacksonville to catch a plane back home.