Two weeks ago, I started feeling really bad — almost like a flu bug but not quite: I was run down, severely dizzy, couldn’t think straight, and my head hurt a lot.  For a week I battled this until I found something in the back of my mouth: a little bump that hurt when I touched it.  It reminded me of previous bumps and what they were — jaw infections — so naturally I freaked out. First, let me back up just a bit.  When I was 15 (for those of you playing along at home, that would be twenty years ago), I had extensive jaw surgery to correct severe TMJ.  In order to hold everything together while it healed, my surgeon put in 28 pieces of hardware: plates, wires, and screws.  And unfortunately, as of right now, I’ve had two surgeries to remove the hardware from the left side of both jaws.  Because they got infected and would have (most likely, not being dramatic here) killed me.  And the infections were almost impossible to cure because they were both on the metal, not in tissue.

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This past Tuesday, my family got together and made decisions about who would get what was left of my grandfather’s possessions.  At his funeral, my aunt told me that she had my grandmother’s old typewriter and that it was her wish that I have it.  She felt that because I was the writer of the family, like grandma, that I would like that.  I was excited and so, so honored.  On Tuesday, I finally got to see it and take it home.

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I’ll tell you a secret. I’m 35 years old and I don’t have a driver’s license. Yep, you read that right. People always freak out when I tell them that. In this day and age, and where I live, this is not the norm. We have a crappy public transit system, so driving is really necessary. Which sucks for someone like me. Here’s the condensed version. When I was 15, I went through the standard Driver’s Ed training. That was a joke, because I got, at most, three hours on the road. And I had severe anxiety, having never behind the wheel before. The instructor told my parents that I was not in any way ready to drive. I needed more time. So, the following year, we gave it another shot, and I was still unable to complete the training.

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It started with a dream. A few nights ago, I dreamed I self-published my current novel-in-progress (which is going through its final revision), Pirouette, as a duology. When I woke up I totally dismissed it, but then I began mulling it over. See, when I began publishing with Turtleduck Press, it was for my poetry only. I was going to write a third chapbook and publish it through TDP. Then I discovered that poetry is a hard sell. Not a lot of people are into it, and while publishing my two chapbooks has been very rewarding, I’m not sure I want to invest more time into writing another poetry chapbook that may essentially disappear into oblivion.  

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I play a game with myself at work. My bosses play a classic rock station on the radio, and I try to identify as many songs and artists as I can. What’s scary is that I’ve been able to identify almost all of them. What’s interesting is that they evoke so many memories for me. For instance, any song by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons brings up memories of my childhood at our old house. It’s summer. Dad’s working on one of his cars. Mom’s in the kitchen cooking. My sister and I are in the living room dancing to Dad’s Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tape (yes, this was before CDs and DVDs). I remember vividly “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Rag Doll,” and “Sherry.” There are many more.

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Love is a wonderful thing…most of the time.  But sometimes, love goes bad.  It becomes something horrible and wrong.  It hurts more than it uplifts.  It haunts you.  It taunts you.  It becomes a nightmare. I’ve been in love enough times to be intimately familiar with both sides, the dark and the light.  The happy and the sad.  The wrong (too many times) and the right (once). In fact, it took me 30 years to find The One after many near misses (one ill-fated engagement that ended badly and one actual marriage that was right at the time, but hurt too much to continue).  I’m happy to report that I’m happy and I’m in a solid, healthy relationship with the best husband on the planet.  It took me quite awhile to get here, and the journey is what lead me to write Without Wings, my second chapbook, which is releasing on April 1st.

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My grandfather passed away on Valentine’s Day. I am still numb, and the funeral is on Saturday. Gramps was my last living grandparent, and he was a WWII veteran.  His greatest accomplishment in his life was serving in the war. He even earned a Purple Heart. He was 97. His health was really good, almost perfect, for many years.  But a few years back, he took a fall and that changed everything.  He steadily deteriorated.  About a week ago, we were told to see him because he wasn’t going to be with us much longer.  He hadn’t been eating and was being fed intravenously.  It was time. Hubby and I went to see him the day before he passed, but due to a miscommunication, and quite possibly my stupidity, we didn’t end up in the right place.  Apparently, my dad was there at the same time.  He said we went to the wrong place.  I’m not sure how, but the fact remains: I didn’t get to see him before he died. I will carry that with me forever. So, I will write Gramps a note.  And hope that wherever he is, he will see it and understand.  

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When I was a kid, I was made fun of by other kids.  I don’t know what I did to them.  I was always nice to everyone, and I was painfully shy so I kept to myself most of the time.  But for some reason, people found things to laugh at.  They also pulled some horrible pranks on me: once, they locked me in a closet (and to this day, I’m terribly claustrophobic); another time, someone tried to set my long hair on fire.  These weren’t harmless pranks, and they hurt me badly.  For years, I existed as a joke, not a real person with real feelings. As you can probably guess, my self-esteem was non-existent.  When I was fourteen, I contemplated suicide.  Going to school was traumatic and not fun.  I had no real friends, no one to talk to or to care about me.  I was nothing.  I was worse than nothing.  I was a freak. All I wanted was to be accepted.  To be acknowledged as a person and not treated like crap.  I wanted people to look at me and see me, not the girl who’s the butt of jokes or my imperfections.  I was convinced that I’d never find that, that it just wasn’t possible. Enter Job’s Daughters. 

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I love Christmas.  It is my favorite time of the year: family, friends, gifts, magic…the snow, the tree, the lights… What isn’t fun for me, though, is wrapping gifts.  In fact, it is so not fun that my gift wrapping skills are legendary.  Mind you, my gifts look fine, but I was born without the Gift Wrapper gene because my gifts are never wrapped perfectly.  There’s always some bumps and the seams aren’t perfectly straight and sometimes my bows are lopsided.  Sometimes, I use handmade tags (from the wrapping paper) and apparently that’s not done.  Oops.  Anyway, my mom and I were discussing what else? but gift wrapping and how awful mine is.  She and my sister have double the Gift Wrapper gene because their gifts are always wrapped perfectly.  There are no ragged seams; the bows are perfect; there are no bumps.  They’re gorgeous.  Works of art.  See, they are into the whole “presentation” thing and it shows.  And that’s really cool…if you’re them.

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