Category: Personal Blog

 

My team of girls and I used to go on graveyard crawls every year, exploring cemeteries around our area.  This was one of our most fun and YES, I do still have the bounty in my primary circle.

Continue reading “A Fun Story From The Past”

Fake it ’til you can make it, right?  There was a time when I wore a tiara most places I went, including delivering the mail here in Grizzly Flats.  It was an odd time in my life, granted.  Now, no one would think twice about me wearing a crown around town because they know how I am.  Then, though…I was not very well known anywhere, least of all in my own town or even my own home. Hell, I didn’t even know myself very well.  I had just come out of a time of seclusion that lasted many years and had no idea how to interact socially or how to be a friend because it had been a very, very long time since I had done any of those things.  I had also been a very different person the last time I was anyone’s friend or had been a social person.  Since that time, I had endured two painful divorces, both to the same person, had a mental breakdown, given birth to three more children, married someone else and brought a whole roomful of baggage to his doorstep, gained around a hundred pounds, and moved all over the Western United States.  Like I said, it had been a really, really long time since I walked into my house and pulled the door closed behind me. Continue reading “Allusions to Grandeur”

 

I have had this blog conversation before, but Eric (my delightful and accomplished agent) has gently nudged me to be more attentive to the blog, so here we go into a new year with a new entry and a site makeover.  I recently made the decision to no longer do professional web design and remaking this site validated that thought for me. I can feel that web design is a part of my life that has slipped away and anytime I do it now feels like A) I am moving backward and B) it’s time I could spend writing.

Continue reading “Just Keep Swimming”

I have two soaps left from the 80 or so I made for holiday gifts and I just noticed that for some reason, they remind me of breasts.  They are in the common shape of jello molds, but to me, they look like boobs.  Here. Let me show you. Continue reading “Why Isn’t There An Escalator to Heaven?”

Updated again, Dec 17 – Scroll to end for update

In Bloom County, one of my favorite comic strips of all time, a character named Binkley (portrayed mostly as a child) has a “closet of anxieties” with various monsters hiding inside waiting to pounce at certain inopportune times. We all know about that closet and the triggers that hide inside and that is why that particular part of the comic strip was so popular.  We can all relate to that experience.  I do not imagine that anyone alive doesn’t have some fear that drives them, usually in directions they do not wish to go.  Fear is a primal motivator and is part of our “fight or flight” survival instinct.  People who have mental disorders that cause them to feel no fear tend to be more maladapted than most people would imagine.  Just like the inability to perceive pain, one would think the inability to feel fear would turn a person into a superhero of sorts.  Instead, what should be (in theory) a tremendous strength leaves them incredibly vulnerable. Continue reading “The Closet of Anxieties”

I think I have always known, at least since we moved here ten years or so ago, that I would die in my back yard.  I think Eric knows too because for the first year or so we lived here, if he called me during the day, which he usually does 6-10 times a day, he would freak out if I did not pick up the phone.  Once, when Eric worked with a company called Cable Express splicing fiber optic cable, my son Joe, who lived locally for a short time, called me up and said, “Hey, I got paid,do you want to run down to Pizza Factory and have lunch?”  I had just talked to Eric a few minutes before and he’d told me he would be “in the field” and if I called, I would not likely be able to get a hold of him.  Because of this, I did not bother to phone Eric (in the field) and let him know that I was leaving.   Continue reading “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”

Yes, I have Fall-en and I won’t get up, meaning I have gotten my “Fall” on, meaning that I have put the hot, overworked days of summer behind me and slipped into an embrace of Nature that smells like dried leaves and wood smoke and mulled cider that I don’t drink.  I was a lovely year and I dare say, it was one of the best years of my life.  I had a lot of fun and got to spend time with some wonderful people.  There were huge challenges that sometimes, I did not think I could meet, but hey, the Universe and Great Goddess had more faith in me than I had in myself and I made it through.  Now, I look forward to a Dark of the Year where I am cocooning in my house and writing my books and being the reclusive writer that I am in my deepest heart of hearts and most fondest fantasies. Continue reading “Oh How the Mighty Have Fall-en”

First, because it is 8:30 AM and today is already showing signs of being challenging bitch, I must have Jeff Bridges dance for me.  Dance, poppet.  Dance like you mean it.

Hell.  Yes.

Anyway, yeah, Crones. Continue reading “Romancing the Crone”

I have been invited by my publicist/agent/husband to update my blog again (I hate that word because it sounds like someone retching, but “online journal” is archaic and cumbersome) because the last entry is, in his words, “kind of a downer.”  Fair enough.  Life ain’t pretty, but it’s not all bad either, so I can balance.  I never know where these posts are going to go and what detours they will take by the time I am done.  When I write a book, I also don’t know what will happen and often I am eager to get back to the story to find out what comes next.  I have a basic outline in my head and know where the story will ultimately land, but not really the journey it will take getting there.  I have always admired these writers who are able to storyboard their entire process before they ever formally write a single word.  I am…well…not that.  I’m more of a “write it hot, edit it cold” stream-of-consciousness-type writer.  That is even more the case with blog entries.  I always get something out of doing it, but I never know what that is going to be. Continue reading “Creating a Monster 101”

 

This will be long.  Get a drink.  Go pee.  Read it in segments.  Blow it off because it is too long.  Whatever suits ya.

A lot of people do not know that when it comes to my author life, Eric (my husband) is the real brains behind the operation. I write the books and he edits and adds smart stuff to it, but mostly, his job is that he is my marketing jeanyus and all around manager/agent kind of guy.  That works out well for me because I get to spend all day, every day, writing and editing and creating and he does the dirty work that causes me to break out in hives of exasperation  Perfect arrangement. Continue reading “How To Feel Small”

 

It was quite a process, really.  I wrote my first short story in the fifth grade and the entire student body was scandalized because in my story, I paired up very unlikely people from my school into romantic relationships.  I had threats, people telling me I’d better stop writing right then or risk a beat down.  (!!)  The effect this experience had was not the one that was intended.   Instead of discouraging me from writing, it instead taught me that when you are a writer, you can hold a person’s strongest emotions in barrel of your pen.

I was hooked forever. Continue reading “Bona Fide! Finally Walking the Talk!”

So I had this cool thing happen that I want to share with you.  I have another thing that is going on that I will put in the Fatastic Journal before long, but this one is different and goes here.  I have a lovely woman with whom I am acquainted whose husband is a chiropractor.  Before last Friday, I had not met her husband and had not particularly formed an opinion about him based on my interaction with her.  You know how sometimes, when you meet a lady friend, you kind of get an idea that you don’t like her husband even before you meet him?  Is that just me?  Anyway, that didn’t happen and he was just “her husband” in my mind with no preconceived ideas.  I have often been leery about chiropractors in general because while a General Practitioner will listen to your complaint and say something like, “Hmm, take Motrin,” a chiropractor gets right in there and monkeys with business that makes you walk (or not) and move comfortably (or not).  I know there are good chiropractors and bad chiropractors out there and I have heard about a thousand stories from each side of the fence.  Since I know this woman to be capable and smart and fun and open-minded and interesting, I didn’t think her husband was one of the bad ones by any means.  I just couldn’t imagine why I would ever really need a chiropractor. Continue reading “Color Me Impressed!”

First, we should watch this for a while:

And we should do that because it makes us feel
happy and vibrant and alive and like we want
Jeff Bridges all to ourselves for about 4 hours.

OK, enough of that.

Wait… just a little more. Continue reading “Stop Hitting Yourself”

 

I hate that game.  A lot of other people must as well because it isn’t nearly as popular as it was 40 years or so ago.  You know the drill.  You’re standing around, minding your own business, when some jackass walks up behind you and covers your eyes and says, “Guess who?”  You’re left with a voice that is likely disguised that you have to put through a mental roll-a-dex (google it) of how many people would have the nerve to do such a thing, plus the added bonuses of the smell of their hands and a rapidly deteriorating font of patience. Continue reading “Peek-a-Boo ~ It’s The Real You!”

A happy 2013 to all of you!  It has been a long time since I last updated this journal.  I have felt rather private about my life lately and so I have mostly kept to myself other than Facebook posts.  Dark of the Year has been tough for me this time, I won’t lie to you. I guess because the past few years were relatively easy in terms of deeper introspection and awareness, I got used to cruising and then this one just knocked me on my ass.   It has been a struggle to take my own advice, the suggestions I give to my Life Coach clients about staying rooted in the present, focusing on one problem at a time, counting the things that are going right, and actively working to let my emotions be like “water over rocks.”  This leaves me so grateful for the years of relative calm I have enjoyed and eager to get everything put in its rightful brain place so I can get back to a happier place.  There is a relatively new saying that asserts, “Depression lies.”  While I can see the value in that sentiment, I would also say that some of your deepest truths are found in depression if you know where to look. Continue reading “Happy New Year!”