In the second, much of the beginning is lost now, including a supermarket trip and closing of the foundation office formerly known as Toyland. My colleague Curtis, who was on both Packard Humanities and Vogel Institute projects, purchased the office's contents an space. I needed to see Curtis so I drove over to the office, which was the haunted house of my grandmother's at 711 Tenth Avenue in Middletown, OH, where I lived the first four years of my life. It was so early when I got there that when I got to the door I could see Curtis' lit up computer screen against the back wall of the room, and I could hear him speaking loudly on the phone, so I sat in the car for a bit, drove up to Verity Parkway and then drove back to Tenth Avenue. I went back to the door. He was still out of sight, on the phone, so I went in, and he was in my grandmother's kitchen, talking on trhe phone. Then a couple of women showed up with a package of sliced pears in come sort of red cinnamon syrup. Curtis and I discussed whatever I came about, and I asked him, are you living here as well? He affirmed that, and I thought, I wonder if he's seen or heard the ghosts yet, but before I could ask, he said, sometimes I wonder if someone's walking up and down the stairs. And I woke up.
