Some break the rules, and live to count the cost

MathMan and I rode together to work and the Howard Jones song No One Is to Blame played on the radio. I paused in my nostalgic and painful-to-listen-to warbling to note a specific line. It would come in handy some day.

The insecurity is the thing that won’t get lost.

Insecurity. So many forms. Emotional. Financial. Professional. A euphemism for hunger. Food insecurity. Why use one word when you can use two?

We’re locked in the Battle Royale with our insecurities. We’re swaddled in them. They are our shadow, our muse, our nail-biting, bed-wetting, bed-hopping eating disorder.

Sometimes they are the long pole helping us balance on the tightrope. Nothing but the pole, the air and way down below – – the net.

My insecurities and I are so tangled up together it’s impossible to tell us apart. They borrow my clothes and force me to eat pie after 10pm. They twirl my hair and suggest that people who probably don’t even know I exist are talking smack about me. And then they wonder aloud why those people don’t know I exist. They make me ask MathMan if he really loves me and then to pick at the affirmative with a plaintive “why?“

Your insecurities might keep you up at night. Mine mostly keep me inert.

When I hear from someone who is in an insecure situation, I want to do whatever I can to help them out.

I know you guys are of a generous spirit and I’ve been so grateful for the help you’ve given us when we were struggling to keep the roof, the food, the lights, etc. Now I’m asking you to help out a friend who has been generous with us in the past.

Robert’s car requires repairs so he can get to job interviews. His rent is also due. There isn’t enough money for both things. These are the tough choices we make in this unequal world of ours. If you can slide a couple of dollars his way, I’m sure he’d be grateful.

Don’t let Robert’s gruff demeanor throw you. He’s a kind guy who worried that the Golden kids wouldn’t get Christmas gifts, who loves his cat Popeye and has blogged for social justice for as long as I’ve known him. He’s also an unrecognized writing talent with a couple of novels in need of a publisher.

You know how much I hate to ask, but it’s far easier to ask for someone else than it is for me. And as relieved as I am that we’re on the road to financial recovery, I won’t feel secure into we all feel, at least, some sense of financial security and justice.

 Until then, we buoy each other when our insecurities threaten to pull us under.

Take it away, Howard.

 

Smarter than

Once you go smart, you never go back.

I had no idea how much I’d love having a smartphone. It doesn’t even matter that it’s a hand-me-down.

Does your family do this? Chloe bought a used iPhone from a friend. Nate had an Android we got for a deal that didn’t require a contract. Sophie and MathMan have newish unlocked phones. I was using the mobile phone equivalent of one of those black metal phones with the metal thing you clack up and down while saying the operator’s name. I was fine with it, too. I could make calls, text and take grainy photos.

Another friend of Chloe’s got a new iPhone and gave Chloe her newer used iPhone. Nate took Chloe’s first iPhone and, feeling full of first iPhone magnanimity, bequeathed his Android to me. He then spent an exasperating hour trying to show me how to use it.

A couple of weeks later, a friend spilled something on Nate’s iPhone leaving the screen unreadable. He gently suggested he’d like his Android back.

I’d be more likely to give him one of my kidneys, a cornea and my entire set of Leif Garrett collectible lip gloss tins.

I may not be an early adopter, but I know love when I feel it. This phone and I are just into our honeymoon phase. I don’t even mind that the phone is the Alpha in this relationship. I consider it a mark of my maturity that I appreciate its intelligence and versatility.

Despite my affection for the phone, the learning curve has been steep. On my old phone with real buttons, I zipped out messages using my fingernails. On the smartphone, I have to press my fingerpads to the glass screen. Unless, I’m drinking, it’s a slow, laborious process peppered with uttered oaths and localized sweating. Add alcohol and I’m texting with my thumbs like any sixteen-year-old with a pressing need to communicate.

I can’t always turn to alcohol to facilitate the process, so when I’m in a hurry and alone, I use the voice-recognition feature. I talk into the phone and it types the text. To me, it’s space age magic.

The system isn’t infallible. Proofreading is required. I say, “Hello, baby” and it types Ruby Dee. Every time I say me it types Maine. I didn’t realize this the first time it happened which explains why MathMan received a text from me reading “Ruby Dee, I am on my way. If you’re going to go late, text Maine.”

The good news – if I speak like Siri, the voice recognition works better. The bad news – talking dirty in a Siri voice sounds more antiseptic than sexy. It’s the subway voice instructing you to take off your clothes instead of warning you to stay clear of the doors.

No matter how I say boobs, in my own weird accent or deadpan as Siri, the voice recognition refuses to type boobs. It offers other suggestions. Power. Nice, but no. Good. Sure, but still no.

If I want to dirty text my husband and have the described action include my boobs, I have to use the proper anatomical term. Knockers.

If you’re scandalized by my behavior, my defense is simple. MathMan started it. He texts me when he’s peeing. That was the gauntlet hitting the floor. Things escalated because I’m not about to be outdone by potty humor.

Besides, the sexting keeps things interesting. Why pay a marriage counselor? We’ve got the love thing nailed down. It’s the excitement that needs constant nurturing. Sexting beats the hell out of those Furry costumes. They’re stifling in the summer heat.

There are other phone features about which I know nothing. I try not to mess with them for fear that I’ll end up ordering a delivery of fried shrimp for the International Space Station or launching an app that will download Celine Dion music without my knowledge.

Apps. I don’t even know where to begin. I love Instagram and I blame Averil for that. My attempt to use the virtual assistant ended in cat fight. She refused to let me swap her out for the chap with the British accent. I called her a joyless clerk and threatened to fire her. She said I’m dreadful harpy and intimated that she’d sue for discrimination. When she threatened to send my next sexting dispatch to my entire list of contacts, I relented.

I’m still learning how to use the vast array of apps available, but I am comfortable with the standards – Facebook and Twitter. I’ve even checked in a time or two, but don’t feel it necessary to bore everyone with my visits to CVS, IHop and The Pink Pony.

I do feel like I’ve finally joined the rest of the world by being able to check my email in the bathroom at the office. I can check email, Twitter and Facebook, read my news subscriptions, visit your blogs and even write my own posts on the Android.

Which means that by the time most of you are using the iPhone 8, I’ll be discovering Angry Birds and Words with Friends.

Smarter than

Once you go smart, you never go back.

I had no idea how much I’d love having a smartphone. It doesn’t even matter that it’s a hand-me-down.

Does your family do this? Chloe bought a used iPhone from a friend. Nate had an Android we got for a deal that didn’t require a contract. Sophie and MathMan have newish unlocked phones. I was using the mobile phone equivalent of one of those black metal phones with the metal thing you clack up and down while saying the operator’s name. I was fine with it, too. I could make calls, text and take grainy photos.

Another friend of Chloe’s got a new iPhone and gave Chloe her newer used iPhone. Nate took Chloe’s first iPhone and, feeling full of first iPhone magnanimity, bequeathed his Android to me. He then spent an exasperating hour trying to show me how to use it.

A couple of weeks later, a friend spilled something on Nate’s iPhone leaving the screen unreadable. He gently suggested he’d like his Android back.

I’d be more likely to give him one of my kidneys, a cornea and my entire set of Leif Garrett collectible lip gloss tins.

I may not be an early adopter, but I know love when I feel it. This phone and I are just into our honeymoon phase. I don’t even mind that the phone is the Alpha in this relationship. I consider it a mark of my maturity that I appreciate its intelligence and versatility.

Despite my affection for the phone, the learning curve has been steep. On my old phone with real buttons, I zipped out messages using my fingernails. On the smartphone, I have to press my fingerpads to the glass screen. Unless, I’m drinking, it’s a slow, laborious process peppered with uttered oaths and localized sweating. Add alcohol and I’m texting with my thumbs like any sixteen-year-old with a pressing need to communicate.

I can’t always turn to alcohol to facilitate the process, so when I’m in a hurry and alone, I use the voice-recognition feature. I talk into the phone and it types the text. To me, it’s space age magic.

The system isn’t infallible. Proofreading is required. I say, “Hello, baby” and it types Ruby Dee. Every time I say me it types Maine. I didn’t realize this the first time it happened which explains why MathMan received a text from me reading “Ruby Dee, I am on my way. If you’re going to go late, text Maine.”

The good news – if I speak like Siri, the voice recognition works better. The bad news – talking dirty in a Siri voice sounds more antiseptic than sexy. It’s the subway voice instructing you to take off your clothes instead of warning you to stay clear of the doors.

No matter how I say boobs, in my own weird accent or deadpan as Siri, the voice recognition refuses to type boobs. It offers other suggestions. Power. Nice, but no. Good. Sure, but still no.

If I want to dirty text my husband and have the described action include my boobs, I have to use the proper anatomical term. Knockers.

If you’re scandalized by my behavior, my defense is simple. MathMan started it. He texts me when he’s peeing. That was the gauntlet hitting the floor. Things escalated because I’m not about to be outdone by potty humor.

Besides, the sexting keeps things interesting. Why pay a marriage counselor? We’ve got the love thing nailed down. It’s the excitement that needs constant nurturing. Sexting beats the hell out of those Furry costumes. They’re stifling in the summer heat.

There are other phone features about which I know nothing. I try not to mess with them for fear that I’ll end up ordering a delivery of fried shrimp for the International Space Station or launching an app that will download Celine Dion music without my knowledge.

Apps. I don’t even know where to begin. I love Instagram and I blame Averil for that. My attempt to use the virtual assistant ended in cat fight. She refused to let me swap her out for the chap with the British accent. I called her a joyless clerk and threatened to fire her. She said I’m dreadful harpy and intimated that she’d sue for discrimination. When she threatened to send my next sexting dispatch to my entire list of contacts, I relented.

I’m still learning how to use the vast array of apps available, but I am comfortable with the standards – Facebook and Twitter. I’ve even checked in a time or two, but don’t feel it necessary to bore everyone with my visits to CVS, IHop and The Pink Pony.

I do feel like I’ve finally joined the rest of the world by being able to check my email in the bathroom at the office. I can check email, Twitter and Facebook, read my news subscriptions, visit your blogs and even write my own posts on the Android.

Which means that by the time most of you are using the iPhone 8, I’ll be discovering Angry Birds and Words with Friends.

I’m an excellent driver

I listened to a radio show from 1952. It was a space thriller set in the future. 1987.

That was twenty-five years ago. 1987. The year I went to France, fell in love, came home, met my future husband, made choices that altered lives. If you could boil down a life, it was probably my most significant year.

In an instant, I became obsessed with the passage of time. I started timestamping everything.

MathMan and I have been living together twenty-four years. It’s been thirty years since I got my driver’s license. I haven’t seen my family in two years. It’s been (mumble, mumble) since I wore a size 8, fourteen years since I was pregnant for the last time, six years since I started blogging, three years since we moved into this house, almost five years since I last colored my hair, going on twenty-two years since I’ve seen Ethan if you don’t count Skyping, three years since my 25th high school class reunion, nine months since I’ve been in Chicago, five years since I lost my head, twenty-three years since I graduated from I.U., three years since I’ve been on an airplane, fourteen years since Seinfeld went off the air, too long since I’ve seen some of my friends,  two years since I began working on the now fallow novel, six months since I’ve had a drink, six months since I started taking the anti-Ds, eleven weeks since I started working…..

MathMan says sometimes it’s like living with Rainman. With boobs. And slightly better social skills. Read:  I can, and often do, make eye contact. And I’m an excellent driver.

My husband tries to engage me in conversation about Calculus and I want to talk about how Nabisco has gotten freakin’ stingy with the cream in the Oreos. No, really. I swear the cream used to be thicker and it reached almost to the edges. Now? It’s a shrinking circle of delicious fat and sugar. Life is so unfair.

More idiot than savant, I became so enthralled with our past that I created a Spotify playlist so I can immerse myself in the early 1990s while I work. Pathetic? Perhaps. But so many of my mistakes were ahead of me, you know? The naivete of potential and a seemingly endless future are enough some days. Enough is nice.

Six days in a hotel with airline pilots brought my six months without a drink to a swift and bubbly end. It isn’t so much that they’re hard to be around – they’re actually quite delightful even when they’re busy making sausage.

See, each night they host a hospitality suite with a well-stocked bar. Tough gig, right?

In light of that stifling pressure, my alcohol fast dove head first into a sparkling glass of Prosecco. Chloe gets some of the blame, too. She joined me at the hotel for the evening and we finally had a drink together. Strange on one hand, really cool on another. Daughter peer pressure. Having her holler Chug! Chug! Chug! and make chicken noises at me was too much for me to resist.

And then I realized that Chloe is closer in age to some of my colleagues than I am. Excuse me while I schedule a Botox treatment.

I was just sitting at the kitchen table having lunch with my colleagues at my first real job. They were telling me about how cool it was to be post-menopausal. Sex without consequences! I listened politely, trying to keep the horror from showing on my face. That was 1990 when the idea of being their age (over 45!) was as foreign to me as the idea that I would one day resort to eating Dominos Pizza because it was so easy to order online.

There was a time when I would have eaten liver before I’d touch a Domino’s Pizza because the founder was such an anti-reproductive rights bumblenut.

Time has a way of making us reluctant believers, hypocrites, sinners against ourselves.

By Friday night I’d taught my favorite bartender how to make a Monaco, relearned the secrets for warding off a hangover and embraced my inner beer drinker. There may have been karaoke, hijinks at Zocalo (try the guac), my successfully wheedling the stories of how they got their nicknames out of a few pilots, and cigars. However, I’m bound by a confidentiality statement so….

The good news is that the days spent in the hotel were productive. The bad news is that alcohol is still made up of delicious, empty calories, still likely to cause mild silliness and will definitely alter the passage of time if you consume enough of it.

Which brings me back to the beginning.

Imagine 1987 as the future and not the shrinking image in the rearview mirror. What do you see?

I’m an excellent driver

I listened to a radio show from 1952. It was a space thriller set in the future. 1987.

That was twenty-five years ago. 1987. The year I went to France, fell in love, came home, met my future husband, made choices that altered lives. If you could boil down a life, it was probably my most significant year.

In an instant, I became obsessed with the passage of time. I started timestamping everything.

MathMan and I have been living together twenty-four years. It’s been thirty years since I got my driver’s license. I haven’t seen my family in two years. It’s been (mumble, mumble) since I wore a size 8, fourteen years since I was pregnant for the last time, six years since I started blogging, three years since we moved into this house, almost five years since I last colored my hair, going on twenty-two years since I’ve seen Ethan if you don’t count Skyping, three years since my 25th high school class reunion, nine months since I’ve been in Chicago, five years since I lost my head, twenty-three years since I graduated from I.U., three years since I’ve been on an airplane, fourteen years since Seinfeld went off the air, too long since I’ve seen some of my friends,  two years since I began working on the now fallow novel, six months since I’ve had a drink, six months since I started taking the anti-Ds, eleven weeks since I started working…..

MathMan says sometimes it’s like living with Rainman. With boobs. And slightly better social skills. Read:  I can, and often do, make eye contact. And I’m an excellent driver.

My husband tries to engage me in conversation about Calculus and I want to talk about how Nabisco has gotten freakin’ stingy with the cream in the Oreos. No, really. I swear the cream used to be thicker and it reached almost to the edges. Now? It’s a shrinking circle of delicious fat and sugar. Life is so unfair.

More idiot than savant, I became so enthralled with our past that I created a Spotify playlist so I can immerse myself in the early 1990s while I work. Pathetic? Perhaps. But so many of my mistakes were ahead of me, you know? The naivete of potential and a seemingly endless future are enough some days. Enough is nice.

Six days in a hotel with airline pilots brought my six months without a drink to a swift and bubbly end. It isn’t so much that they’re hard to be around – they’re actually quite delightful even when they’re busy making sausage.

See, each night they host a hospitality suite with a well-stocked bar. Tough gig, right?

In light of that stifling pressure, my alcohol fast dove head first into a sparkling glass of Prosecco. Chloe gets some of the blame, too. She joined me at the hotel for the evening and we finally had a drink together. Strange on one hand, really cool on another. Daughter peer pressure. Having her holler Chug! Chug! Chug! and make chicken noises at me was too much for me to resist.

And then I realized that Chloe is closer in age to some of my colleagues than I am. Excuse me while I schedule a Botox treatment.


I was just sitting at the kitchen table having lunch with my colleagues at my first real job. They were telling me about how cool it was to be post-menopausal. Sex without consequences! I listened politely, trying to keep the horror from showing on my face. That was 1990 when the idea of being their age (over 45!) was as foreign to me as the idea that I would one day resort to eating Dominos Pizza because it was so easy to order online.

There was a time when I would have eaten liver before I’d touch a Domino’s Pizza because the founder was such an anti-reproductive rights bumblenut.

Time has a way of making us reluctant believers, hypocrites, sinners against ourselves.

By Friday night I’d taught my favorite bartender how to make a Monaco, relearned the secrets for warding off a hangover and embraced my inner beer drinker. There may have been karaoke, hijinks at Zocalo (try the guac), my successfully wheedling the stories of how they got their nicknames out of a few pilots, and cigars. However, I’m bound by a confidentiality statement so….

The good news is that the days spent in the hotel were productive. The bad news is that alcohol is still made up of delicious, empty calories, still likely to cause mild silliness and will definitely alter the passage of time if you consume enough of it.

Which brings me back to the beginning.

Imagine 1987 as the future and not the shrinking image in the rearview mirror. What do you see?

Remembering the 3 F Rule

I imagine this set to music, carved on the Great Wall of China, a cave painting somewhere in France, Sanskrit on  palm leaf, set in hieroglyphics at the base of a pyramid. Captured for posterity. We could weep for humanity. Or just blog it.

daisy gardner
she walked through the corn leading down to the river

i love my mom and black metal

column hairdryer
D cup
scent of friendship

that’s why
That why

rich people school senior prom date
wild cheryl strayed

big bang theory fail pictures

Remember the 3 F rule. If you’re not fucking me, feeding me or financing me, then your opinions really

fun ways to style short hair on teens every day
joan didion

THATS WHY
That’s why

am siki (That’s turkish)
cat wearing a wig
french painting woman man toast wine cheers
my live webcast
young anais nin

vienna beef logo
vienna beef log

I am on vacation bitch
I am on vacation bitch

Hwy 61 pic
monet metropolitan museum of art
college cheer 1984
casual sex friday

daisy gardner

why a strategy session
laundry on a line

stalking kids online

go go jason waterfalls

parachute open mind
parachute open mind

xhamster free sex mom

How do people find you?

Simple idea

Can we all agree that it’s ridiculous to stand open-mouthed and aghast when a politician does something for political reasons?

It’s an argument that has run its course.

Now, of course, if you’re a person who does things exclusively for political reasons, you should check your morals in the mirror. But since we’ve got many elected officials driven mostly by the almighty campaign contribution, I don’t see doing something purely for the purpose of making political points nearly the pearl-clutching offense it could be.

Over to you, my friends…… what political arguments would you like to see put out to pasture?

Apples

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Perimenopause is making me acutely aware of my body. I can’t ignore its reactions to specific stimuli.  For example, I used to be cold. Always reaching for a sweater. But not now. I’m not talking hot flashes, but my body temperature is up.

When I experience PMS – albeit mild and with charming manifestations like an undeniable need for Clark Bars and other culinary near-misses – I am under siege to olfactory nerves in overdrive.

Normal things – things that don’t typically bother me – smell … weird. Wrong. Gross.

“It smells eggy,” I say as I hand the plate back to MathMan who looks confused and on the verge exasperated.

On Mother’s Day, he made dinner. Operating on the theory that the source of the trouble was lavender-infused Cascade, he hand washed the dishes before dinner to see if the eggy smell would disappear.

Chloe walked into the kitchen to find him holding an empty dinner plate under my nose.

“Smells fine,” I said to him. “Thank you.”

Chloe’s knitted eyebrows spoke for her.

“That’s love,” I said.

“I see that.” She didn’t miss a beat.

She returned to the living room and said to Nathan, “She’s sniffing plates. And we wonder why Sophie is a freak who won’t eat off metal utensils or drink out of a plastic cup.”

********

The children provided the appropriate amount of Mother Worship on Mother’s Day. That’s not saying much since I have set that bar so low, it’s subterranean. I get my lack of holiday esprit de corps from my own mother. When I phoned her to wish her a happy Mother’s Day, she informed me that her rotten children hadn’t gotten her a damn thing.

“That’s why I’m calling. (Okay, so I was calling way, way late to ask, but still.) What would you like for a gift?”  Seriously – I haven’t a clue what to get her.

“Your sister tells me I’m hard to buy for.”

My inner teenager screamed No shit! But I cheerfully replied, “I’d agree. So what would you like?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. When I need something, I go get it. Besides this is just Mother’s Day.”

“Okay, so help me out here. What would you like for your birthday in August?” See, I was planning ahead. I’m trying.

“I don’t know. That’s months from now.”

Ohmylord.

“Christmas? What could we get you for Christmas?”

“Well, I told your sister she could get us a paper shredder.”

Of course she’d know what she wants for Christmas.

“That’s great for Denise, but —-? Maybe I’ll get you a book. Something like 201 Practically Legal Things You Can Do with Shredded Paper. Or would you just like a case of paper to shred?”

She muttered. Where did you get such a smart mouth, Lisa?

Then she launched into a story about being an election judge and running into a high school friend of mine, who worked for the opposite political party. During their conversation, a ray of light fell upon my friend and he joked that god was smiling down on him.

“Why, yes, she is,” Mom agreed.

My friend rolled his eyes. “That sounds like something Lisa would say.”

“Where do you think she got it?” Mom shot back.

I listened and watched the clouds crowd out the moon overhead.  “Should we discuss irony?” I asked.

“What?”

“Nevermind,” I sighed.

She sighed back.  “Listen, just buy me some perfume. Nothing with musk in it. Musk still makes me feel sick.”

This is a long-established truth  in our family.

“How do you feel about the smell of eggs?” I smirked.

Note to readers:  I miss you guys. If you follow the news, you could guess why I’m locked in a hotel in Midtown Atlanta for the foreseeable future. Long days, some long nights. While I’m away, will someone please remind the Goldens to scoop the litterboxes? Thanks! xoxo

Apples

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Perimenopause is making me acutely aware of my body. I can’t ignore its reactions to specific stimuli.  For example, I used to be cold. Always reaching for a sweater. But not now. I’m not talking hot flashes, but my body temperature is up.

When I experience PMS – albeit mild and with charming manifestations like an undeniable need for Clark Bars and other culinary near-misses – I am under siege to olfactory nerves in overdrive. 

Normal things – things that don’t typically bother me – smell … weird. Wrong. Gross.

“It smells eggy,” I say as I hand the plate back to MathMan who looks confused and on the verge exasperated.

On Mother’s Day, he made dinner. Operating on the theory that the source of the trouble was lavender-infused Cascade, he hand washed the dishes before dinner to see if the eggy smell would disappear.

Chloe walked into the kitchen to find him holding an empty dinner plate under my nose.

“Smells fine,” I said to him. “Thank you.”

Chloe’s knitted eyebrows spoke for her.

“That’s love,” I said.

“I see that.” She didn’t miss a beat.

She returned to the living room and said to Nathan, “She’s sniffing plates. And we wonder why Sophie is a freak who won’t eat off metal utensils or drink out of a plastic cup.”

********

The children provided the appropriate amount of Mother Worship on Mother’s Day. That’s not saying much since I have set that bar so low, it’s subterranean. I get my lack of holiday esprit de corps from my own mother. When I phoned her to wish her a happy Mother’s Day, she informed me that her rotten children hadn’t gotten her a damn thing.

“That’s why I’m calling. (Okay, so I was calling way, way late to ask, but still.) What would you like for a gift?”  Seriously – I haven’t a clue what to get her.

“Your sister tells me I’m hard to buy for.”

My inner teenager screamed No shit! But I cheerfully replied, “I’d agree. So what would you like?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. When I need something, I go get it. Besides this is just Mother’s Day.”

“Okay, so help me out here. What would you like for your birthday in August?” See, I was planning ahead. I’m trying.

“I don’t know. That’s months from now.”

Ohmylord.

“Christmas? What could we get you for Christmas?”

“Well, I told your sister she could get us a paper shredder.”

Of course she’d know what she wants for Christmas.

“That’s great for Denise, but —-? Maybe I’ll get you a book. Something like 201 Practically Legal Things You Can Do with Shredded Paper. Or would you just like a case of paper to shred?”

She muttered. Where did you get such a smart mouth, Lisa?

Then she launched into a story about being an election judge and running into a high school friend of mine, who worked for the opposite political party. During their conversation, a ray of light fell upon my friend and he joked that god was smiling down on him.

“Why, yes, she is,” Mom agreed.

My friend rolled his eyes. “That sounds like something Lisa would say.”

“Where do you think she got it?” Mom shot back.

I listened and watched the clouds crowd out the moon overhead.  “Should we discuss irony?” I asked.

“What?”

“Nevermind,” I sighed.

She sighed back.  “Listen, just buy me some perfume. Nothing with musk in it. Musk still makes me feel sick.”

This is a long-established truth  in our family.

“How do you feel about the smell of eggs?” I smirked.

Note to readers:  I miss you guys. If you follow the news, you could guess why I’m locked in a hotel in Midtown Atlanta for the foreseeable future. Long days, some long nights. While I’m away, will someone please remind the Goldens to scoop the litterboxes? Thanks! xoxo

Girl in the war

Bethany (the hilarious Bethany) gave me a gentle tap, tagging me with the dreaded meme. I suspect she knows I’m not the meme type (too many rules), but Bethany is hardly one to bow to convention. Plus she’s been one of my favorite Tweeter/Writer/Blogger/Fashion Icon/Mom to Preciousness/Sister/Ex-Pats for what seems like at least a couple of years now.

In internet time, that’s like Dog Years.  So how could I say no?

This particular meme involves works in progress. It’s specific to to writers, but anyone can get into the act as far as I’m concerned. You know the old saying, right?

The more of us in the water, the better the game of Marco Polo.

Here are those blasted rules I mentioned:

Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP.

Go to line 7.

Copy down the next 7 lines–sentences or paragraphs–and post them on your blog.

Tag 7 authors and let them know Only if you want to. I’m not the boss of you. Okay, so here’s mine. From my most recent and now fallow schnovel, I give you…..

Her root beer eyes blazed with all this new information. 

“Wow. Ba -rack..?” 

“Obama.”

 “I don’t know what to say about any of this. It seems so fantastical. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.” She furrowed her brow.

“I wish you knew my mum and dad. I’d love to know how they’re doing. And my sister Josie. That’s the hardest part. Not knowing what’s happened to them.”

 I took a deep breath. Our light-hearted conversation had taken that wicked turn, back to our loved ones, the people left behind 

“Do you wonder if we’re dead?” 

“I did. I mean, when I first arrived in this time I often thought this was some sort of limbo. Or perhaps Purgatory? I never did go in much for church so I didn’t quite know how to explain it.” She released the mug and dropped her hands to her lap. 

“I suppose the longer I’m here, the less it will freak me out.” I needed something to hold on to.
A half smile fluttered across her face. “That is true. But you’ll be reminded of your other life and then you’ll worry and wonder. It can make you feel quite hopeless if you let it. It’s been like that for me for nearly three years. I suppose that’s one good thing about this bloody war. It keeps me busy.” 

What have you in progress?