Twerk or Treat

Seriously. What the hell is with this costume?

I’ve been following a conversation thread a bunch of female writers are having about appropriate Halloween costumes for their preteen girls. They’re discussing the battle for common sense. One had mentioned that she was looking for a monster costume online and had to wade through “sexy monster” getups to find something a seven year old could wear who wasn’t a child prostitute in Bangkok.

Another listened as her own third grader chattered on about this or that being “sexy”. When she asked her daughter what that meant, she admitted she didn’t know. Mom explained that it was dressing in a way to make you attractive so that someone will want to kiss and hold you romantically. That shut the kid down pronto. Apparently, to her child, the word “sexy” was akin to “smurfy” or some other innocuous and kitschy adjective.

I saw this conversation thread while back in my Illinois hometown for my aunt’s funeral this week. The memories of Halloweens past were thick as a hand full of milk duds tossed into a greedy mouth.

Driving from the cemetery, I had to take Wolf Road, going right past my school friend, Merry’s, house. That’s the house where we all played spin-the-bottle for the first time at her Halloween Party; the big event of the season. Costumes required. It was seventh grade. 1967.

I wanted to wear something pretty and girly. Being the athletic, tomboy type, this would have been a major transformation for me given that my closet boasted a collection of competitive swimsuits, a pair of treasured kangaroo-skin track shoes with long and short removable spikes, a well-worn baseball glove, a rock collection and a bunch of freaky encyclopedias that I read like other kids read Tiger Beat.

My mom feared my inevitable blossoming into a young woman. After I got permission to attend the party, the costume search began. I was just looking for something pretty. Not slutty. Instead, she prepared a costume for me. I went to this party- this important party- as George Washington. Powdered wig, ruffled shirt, blue waist coat, buckle shoes. No shit. George freaking Washington. Not even Martha! Though I have seen portraits of her and it wouldn’t have been very different.

MORTIFIED. I was completely, utterly mortified. There would be boys there! BOYS! And the bottle thing! Kissing! Kill me now. No one will want to be kissing George Freaking Washington. I would be the only female not in a girly, pretty, sparkly, gown. I just knew it.

Merry answered the door in a spectacular evil witch costume; hideous warty nose and all. Relief flooded through me that she hadn’t chosen to be the Blue Fairy. A little while later, one of my junior high crushes walked in. He tottered on his high heels, adjusted the hem of the dress and shook out the curls of his bouffant styled wig. There he was; adorable, Kurt. He was a brown haired version of Kurt Russell; startling blue eyes and a soft dusting of freckles on his cheeks. Impossibly, his eyes looked even bluer with the slather of mascara and red lipstick that his older sister had put on him; all the while, laughing maniacally, I would guess.

The evening took an instant turn for the better. I even got through the bottle-spinning-kissing-stuff and ended up wearing lipstick anyway. Red. It matched my cheeks when everyone clapped afterwards. Kurt and I won the costume contest and I went home feeling pretty good in spite of my initial mortification.

Two weeks from now, I’ll stand at my door and pass out a zillion bags of candy. I’ll see little Optimus Primes, ninjas, Wii Controllers, Dalmatian dogs and the inevitable blur of tiny hooker-pop tarts whose mother’s caved and let them dress that way because Miley twerked her way into their consciousness.

Those little girls will likely need to up the ante every following year on their “smurfy”, sexy costumes. In ten years, when they’re eighteen, what will they need to wear to feel “smurfy”? They just might end up being the same girls entertaining their creepy elderly neighbor guy at the local strip club.

You know, being George Washington that year for Halloween did not inhibit my ascension to female goddess status one single bit. I spent that evening, at Merry’s party, laughing and talking with everyone; guys mostly. Being a tomboy, they were the majority of my pals. In fact, I’ll bet I had a better time at Merry’s party, than the girls who ran to the bathroom every half hour to make sure their makeup was still looking good.

All this stuff went through my head as I drove past Merry’s old house last Tuesday. Merry, she moved out west somewhere. Kurt, sadly, died of a drug overdose before he was twenty. My mom and her nervousness about my emerging sexuality are long gone with the powdered wig and buckle shoes she’d made in an attempt to make me as gender neutral as possible. Sorry mom. Can’t stop the tidal wave.

I really do hope that parents can get across to their young daughters that there will be thousands of opportunities to dress inappropriately and that each time they do, they will spend more time worrying about their outfit than they will spend actually having fun with the people around them. Just like Miley, they should wait until they are twenty one to lose their minds and behave like they were raised in a brothel by crack addicted parents. Then, maybe these parents won’t have to suffer through years watching their daughter’s awkward grasp at becoming the “smurfy-est” girl in school.

Yes, do that, young tartlets. Leave the smurfing to the older girls. Please.


And save me some candy corn. I love those things…

 

Toast. Fried. Zizzzzz

 

 

I’ve typed the words, THE END, onto the last page of The Grove! Well, the end of Book One of The Awakened Trilogy, that is. See? There it is. Just above this blog post. It’s REAL. That, is nearly five years of thinking about it, researching it, toying with the concept and then six months of writing, almost every day. It’s a good feeling to type, the end. I’ve hard edited several times and handed it off to beta readers who I’ve asked to read and rip before I start the extra, super fun process of peddling my soul to the highest bidder.

My brain is now fried, toasted and making that zizzing noise it makes when you are done with one thing and trying to clear the debris of creation to get ready for the next big thing.

For creative sorts, like myself, here is where fantasy slams head-on into reality. This isn’t the Renaissance and families like the Medici’s don’t go around adopting wayward artists anymore; letting them create in a studio they’ve provided just because they love art in all its forms. Now, that would be the ticket, would it not? To have someone love what you do so much, that they sponsor you and take on the pimp role of selling your symbolic flesh and blood to interested parties while you get to stay in your studio and crank stuff out. Imagine that!

There are rooms in houses, basements, garages and attics filled with glorious art, photography, writing, sculpture, pottery and other feats of wonder that no one will ever see because the people who create these things are not: marketing/sales/agents/promoters/pushers or pimps. They are creative souls.

We fantasize about waking in a place where all the tools we need are within reach and the day and night stretch out before us, eager to be filled with whatever we haul up from the nothing, to play with and shape and make into our art. Our dream is that one day, there will be a knock on our door. We’ll answer it with paint in our hair or a crazed seventeen hour writing buzz blazing in our eyes and there will be an angel knocking, wanting to bring our things out for the world to see. They’ll tell us they could feel the wave of creation pouring from this place and they just had to come and see what was here.

We do not want to write query letters and spend the last of our money printing and mailing and waiting for some kid, two years out of college, to reject our work because they, personally, don’t like Sci Fi-anything. We don’t want to have to sit down, after writing 105,317 words (The Grove word-count), and force ourselves to write some clever tag line or Book Blurb that becomes the only thing that grabs or bores a potential “customer” into buying or not buying our books.

Self promotion is a lot like doing your own dental work. Sure, I could get a mirror and some drills and shit, but I will probably just make a big, bloody mess because I can’t see what’s inside my own head like an outside observer can.

Hire someone, you say! Just for shits and grins, take a little saunter through the websites that list literary agents and see if you can find someone that WILL read a Sci-Fi Fantasy Adventure manuscript. One that has adult language, some sex, some violence and humor and its all wrapped around humans who are changed in order to save the planet from other humans who are wrecking it. Go ahead. I double dog dare you.

For every legitimate literary agent, editor and publishing company out there, there are two who have hung a shingle and know as much about book pimping as I do, and probably have the same amount of influence approaching the big dogs with my manuscript.
“You could have just written a Young Adult Romance novel because those sell like hot cakes and it doesn’t require the research or rewrites you did on your last one”, you might say.

Well, I did not. I did not because that is not what was pushing its way out of my head. This book, The Grove, is what was asking to be born, this time. I wrote it because I could not not write it. I have four other projects right behind this one, plus two more books to write in The Awakened Trilogy. Put on the coffee…

So here I am, big ole manuscript in hand, checking the M’s in the phone book for “Medici”, to see if they have any American cousins who might want to adopt me, so I can be their in-house source of wonder.

In the end, I’ll write the fricking blurb and the damn query letters. I’ll do all the things I will have to do to launch this project out into the world. If for no other reason than the fact that it would be epically pathetic to actually be living in Paris Hilton’s pool house.

We Don't Do Death in America: for Matilda

In America, we don’t do death.
One day, it happens to everything that now lives, but as a culture, we just don’t do death. As a nation, we prefer to pretend it’s not going to happen. Conversations about anything’s imminent demise are short, strictly business and as fast as we can segue to more pleasant topics, we do. The irony that we cause so much of it around the world in war scenarios is not lost on me. Other people do death. We don’t.

My dog is sick. We’re awaiting test results that will either tell us for sure, she is in end stage lymphoma or possibly has Addison’s disease; a slightly better prognosis that might give us more time with her wondrous wiggly-ness. She has been a patient at Michigan State University Veterinary Hospital, one of the best Vet programs in the world. We live five minutes away by sheer luck. As I’m moving around in my very silent house, I’m hearing phantom nails clicking on the hardwood floor, telling me it’s time to clip them. I’m coming down the stairs and my heart goes up as I wait to see her pop her big Great Dane face around the corner to greet me and it goes down again quickly when I remember where she is. I think I am practicing grief now so when it really does body slam me in the too-soon future, I might be able to manage it without flooding the first floor of my house with over flowing tears.

Many years ago, when my parents were reaching the end of their stories, I trained as a hospice volunteer. It helped tremendously when I was with them nearing the end and it helped me answer questions and be there in a fully-present way for them and my family. My younger sister even went to do her own training and now works as a hospice nurse.

Hospice, which is what my home will become for our dog, Matilda, starting today at 6 P.M. EST, is the polar opposite of not doing death. It is the sane, logical, holistic and compassionate practice of embracing every phase of life from first breath to last. I remember people asking me how I could be around those who were dying. Wasn’t it horribly depressing? No. It was not. It was an honor to be able to be with people who were fully aware of their situation. They had accepted that it was happening and were using their final days to just be with people in a way they may never have taken the time to be before they got sick.

We, as an American culture, do everything we can to avoid and delay aging and death. From plastic surgery to shark cartilage pills, hormone replacement to Viagra. We want to stay young forever and we never, ever, ever want to die, so we often die without a will, a medical directive or having given our loved ones a clue of what we wanted done with our remains. We spend more than 80% of our health care money in the last two weeks of life trying, desperately, to avoid nature calling for us. Because we do such a fantastic job of stuffing the reality of death into an airtight container in the back of our minds, the “business” of death; funerals, burial options etc., has been allowed to flourish as a ridiculously expensive service that guilt alone can propel families into financial crisis purchasing.
I’ve had a couple of friends in my life whose family business was a mortuary. They all said that they and their parents refused to have any of the expensive and wacky services done to their own bodies and though they may use a fancy casket for a wake viewing, they were choosing a biodegradable box. Why? In their own words, “It doesn’t matter what you put in the ground, a body will naturally decompose inside a paper, wood or metal container. The box is only for the living to feel like they honored the deceased in a special way.”

That last bit probably creeped you out. See? We don’t do death in America. We would rather write a check for $20,000 and buy the “top of the line casket” along with a grave site with a “view” then to look death squarely in the eye and when our or our loved one’s time comes, to say goodbye with grace, not guilt guiding decision making. I intend to honor the living while they are here and allow the endings and the afterward to move in the most natural way possible.

I happen to believe that I am not this physical body. I am a being of light that has stepped into this meat suit, like a space suit, so I could walk around this oxygen dependent planet for a while. I don’t think we just shut down and there is nothing more. I have had too many other worldly experiences to believe that without this meat suit, I cease to exist. In fact, I believe that the most difficult thing my larger light body has had to do was to compress and condense all that I am into this human form. PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER…iddy biddy living space.

I think it’s the same for animals. There’s some farmy-happy space where their sweet gooey love selves get to hang out. I have a parade of well-loved pets from the past 40 years, hanging out on a sofa in the aether's. Jai, a Lab-Dane. Chunk, a Lab-Shepard. Sydney, a Lab-Australian Shepard. Pez, a Lab-Spaniel and probably squirrel mix. Hannah, a Lab-Golden. Mouse, the cat and Sushi, the cat-both who lived to be over 21. A few years back, I started putting pictures of dogs up on my kitchen cabinets. As they have passed over, the photos migrated to the left side of the collection and our current dog, Matilda, has taken over the right two doors with pup to adult shots with my grown kids. Today, when I went to get a glass out of the cabinet, it smacked me in the face that very, very soon, she would be moving left too. That did it. Me and my Kleenex box needed to have a sit down.

Ram Dass, an American contemporary spiritual teacher and author said something once that has pressed into my heart and stayed there. “We are all just walking each other home.”

Tonight, when I go to get my super large dog friend from the hospital to bring her back into the only home she has ever known, I will be remembering that. I have accepted that death is as natural as birth, and that hospice care is the same as being a mid-wife only instead of assisting birth into this world, we are assisting birth into the next.

I am trying to shore up my reserves of strength so that when the day comes, I can look my sweet girl in the eyes and tell her, “Come on baby. I’ll walk you home.”

If Wishes Were Water

My Birthday Wish

http://my.charitywater.org/coolwatermimi

It's August and in a matter of days, I'll turn a year older. 59 this time around.

A long time ago, I promised myself that I would find ways to make a difference anywhere and anytime I could.  Just this morning, I took a shower, brushed, my teeth, made a pot of coffee, washed some dishes, fed and watered the dog and the cat I am watching this week, watered my plants in the house and gave a little drink to my herbs and tomatoes. That was just my usage...before 9:00 A.M.

800 million people on this planet still don't have access to clean drinking water, and I'm doing something about it.
This year, I'm giving up my birthday for charity: water.
Instead of giving me presents, or writing on my Facebook wall, please donate $59 for my 59th birthday, and help me bring clean water to people in need.

Please, go to my campaign to donate:http://my.charitywater.org/coolwatermimi
What's really cool is that 100% of the money we raise will directly fund water project costs in the field, and charity: water will prove every single dollar.  When the project we help fund is complete, they'll send us a digital completion report with GPS coordinates and photos of the community we helped. Click for an example.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than by giving the gift of clean water to people in need. Please join me.http://my.charitywater.org/coolwatermimi

Thank you for your support!

With love and thanks for making a difference along with me.

XOXO
Mimi
P.S. Read this story from charity: water to learn how clean water changes lives.

 

And here's a little music for you-one of my favorites: Joni Mitchell & Willie Nelson singing a very cool version of Cool Water

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9I3ncCrSg

And here is a bit more detail about why water is so very important.

 

QUICK UPDATE: I posted this message on my social networks yesterday and in a matter of ten hours, the first donations started coming in. In less than ten hours, a few of my wonderful friends made sure 141 people would have water...in ten hours just by donating $59 to my Charity Water Campaign. Thank you Steve Curran, Jane Aldrich, Lenore Quiroga, Mary Katherine Quasarano, Joel Heberlein and Anonymous for your water gifts, given to people we will never meet, but who we know and will feel your compassion in every blessed drop. The campaign will continue to run until my birthday on August 19th. I hope you'll join the party and make a difference too.

My Sadly Neglected Old Blog

I've been spending my time these days with the shiny new author's blog and have left this one whining at the door to go out and chase squirrels on a long walk. Sorry, Bloggy.

My readers looking to absorb words that excite you, or annoy you or make you laugh; come on over and follow my new blog where I will continue to do all of those things for you and more. Maybe I'll even bake you some cookies.

Click the link for instant gratification..... http://wordninjagirl.com/

I was up at Mt. Shasta last October. If you haven’t been there yet, get on it. There’s something very special and sacred and connected on that land and you just have to be there to feel it. Anyway, on a high trail, I stopped at a picnic bench area to have some water from my pack and when I set my stuff on the table, I saw this note.

It was tucked under a rock and waiting for some unknown soul to happen upon. The writer of the note thought the ring had been lost. I was thinking it had been set free. You’d have to be standing there looking up the mountain and looking back and out over the land below to know that no one leaves a ring on a table right there accidently.

It reminded me of a friend who married in her mid thirties; her first marriage, his second. She was over the moon that she had finally found “the one” and when he was offered a chef’s position at a hotel restaurant soon to open at a very high profile casino in Las Vegas, she happily packed her life in Chicago and headed to the desert with her man. A thousand things came into play in her life, not the least of which was a rekindled dream that there was still enough time to have a child with her new husband.

On a corporate path for so long, she had almost let that dream blow by her like tumbleweed; until he came into her life that was. They settled in and she brought her formidable talent and humor, her artistic nature and her beautiful self 100% into this new life. Not even two years later, she found herself alone, standing on the roadway over the Hoover Dam with her wedding ring in her hand. When she drew back her arm and let it fly out and down into the nothing below, she let him go. He and the cocktail waitress he had been sleeping with those nights he was “working late.”

I wasn’t there when she did it, but I could clearly see her black hair flying in the breeze and her startling green eyes flash and shimmer with the last tear that she would shed for this bastard. She didn’t even cry the next year when he married the cocktail waitress who was pregnant with his child, the irony not lost on her as he had told her about his second thoughts of starting a second family in his forties.

Not all who wander are lost…not all things left behind are a mistake.

I wrote a response to that note on the picnic table in poetry form. I tucked it under the rock and after I had my water and got ready to put my feet back to the trail, I gave a salute to Jennifer. To her new life without him; to the ring that now rests among the rocks at the bottom of the dam, perhaps with a million others, and to moving her feet back onto her own trail, wherever it may lead her.

Here’s to you, babe. Walk on.

Cheat Alert! Today, I'm totally cheating by posting a piece I wrote for my authors blog over at WordNinjaGirl.com   

I’m supposed to be writing this week. I thought I would pound out at least four more chapters in seven days. So, that didn’t happen. Life happened. It happened all around me. Cat sitting, dog managing, spouse home for several weeks recovering from a surgical adventure. Oh, yes. I said weeks. Even when those around you take care of themselves and stay out of your field of vision, for the most part, we are always keenly aware of their presence. We’re also aware of the laundry mountain awaiting our attention, and the dust bunnies multiplying like, well, rabbits, beneath the sofa and pulling food from the freezer for dinner 8 hours from now. And hey! Wouldn’t this be a great time to call Nancy and have a chat over coffee?

DISTRACTIONS…
In 2011, the University College in London did a study and concluded, and I quote, so you won’t think I just made this up to justify my possible ADD-Sugar-enhanced-Dory-the-fish Olympic avoidance festivals, “… those who are easily distracted from tasks at hand have ‘too much brain’.” Researchers at the university found that there were larger than average volumes of grey matter in certain brain regions in people whose attention was easily diverted.

YES! This is the problem! I have too much brain! I am vindicated! Free now to claim superior deductive powers,  not a lack of control over my attention span. No, sir. It is the sole fault of my giant fraking brain.

Some distractions we really can not do anything about and so we must live with them. Others, we can have some control over; like our writing environment. I have a table that I used as a desk last year that sat in the corner of my living room. It worked pretty well for me until staring out the window at the neighbors house began to feel far less inspirational than it once did. It was time for a change of scenery. I commandeered the dining room. A long, white table sits next to the front window giving me a street view of winter snow, spring blossoms and now, a lush green, leafed out Michigan summer.

Being a dining room table it is a magnet for every bit of junk mail, keys, hats, empty coffee cups and whatever family has in their hands as they pass. I made this place a little writing altar. I have a candle and a Kwan Yin and some little tchotchke things that I use as writing juju. I do not care if the Sprint headset box that was left on the table looks just as important as my turquoise suede pouch with the wolf stone my daughter gave me, it is not MY juju and I find it distracting.

The other day on Pinterest, (the MECCA of distraction), I saw a sketch of a guy sitting on a heap of books with more piles covering the landscape. It said some clever thing about wisdom. Nice enough picture, but I found myself thinking that any real lover of books would be freaking out at the horrible disorganization of what they supposedly, love. That is not wise. That is not even love. That is feeding a short term addiction to interesting stuff. When we truly love what we read and love what we write and love the ideas our muses give us, we want to be able to easily and quickly lay our hands on them again so we can quote them or nurture them into a storyline.

Scanning my dining table/workspace I find that my own stacks of reference books, research material, spiral notebooks and sticky notes with “great ideas” may have been moved to accommodate the nearly finished mocha latte to-go cup that he-who-will-not-be-named really, really needed to leave right there. It … distracts me.

Shades of Joan Crawford screaming about wire hangers move through my mind when I look up from the keyboard and see that paper cup exactly where my Celtic Wheel of Life and The Path of Druidry books were earlier this morning.

Logic says that this is all yet another avoidance tactic to getting down to the writing. Giant Brain Squirrel Girl says, “Honey, does this rag smell like chloroform?” It will be interesting to see which choice my giant brain makes…right after I have some lunch because I see the spouse making a sandwich and that looks really good right this very minute…

An Author's Blog? WTF?

http://wordninjagirl.wordpress.com/

It has been recommended that as my book manuscripts roll towards publishing, that I set up author sites on social networking and have a blog where readers can find out about titles, read the latest news and interact with me. (Cue scary face) So in that spirit, I'll be creating a Facebook Author Page, and I now have an author blog too.(link above) and I'll keep writing this my fun blog for those who read it, or cyber stalk it.

 

Yeah, that's right. I know you're out there, still in your pajamas, reading my stuff. 4,546 of you readers, as of today. And dude, put some pants on.

If you read scifi/romance, urban fiction, fantasy romance or other genres that I write within, you can check it out and I'll let you all know when the stuff hits the fan(s). And by the way poo-pooers who think they aren't into romance...anything, here's a few titles in those genres you might have heard of: Star Wars, Nikita, Dune, Battlestar Galactica, Princess Bride, Camelot just to name a few...

 

I guess this means I have to grow up now. Shit.

The Point Is That She Lived ... Eulogy for My Mother

Sorting boxes yesterday, I ran across the eulogy I wrote for my mother when she passed in 1997. When I finished reading it again, the final line of dialog from the lovely film retelling of the Cinderella story starring Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott, came to mind. After the Queen has told the entire story to the Grimm brothers about her ancestor she says, "The point is, gentlemen, that she lived." Tomorrow, May 10th, would have been my mothers 93rd birthday. It was also her wedding anniversary with my father, and Sunday, including my half brother, Phillip, in this equation, it would have been her 74th Mother's day as well. Mom's ashes were taken aboard Phil's sailboat and scattered, with flowers, on Lake Michigan. Such a perfect circle for her and exactly what she had wanted. In her memory, here is her eulogy.........................                       
 
Eulogy for my mother, Anne DiFrancesca

Born: Chicago, Il May 10, 1920 -  Died: Scottsdale, Az. February 14, 1997

I spent a lot of time these past few years talking with my Mom about her life, about who she was and what her dreams and wishes were; about the people in her life and what they have meant to her; about what brought her joy and what moved her.

As a young girl, growing up in Chicago, her most treasured moments were at Lake Michigan. Playing on the rocks at Belmont Harbor, or swimming the distance to the buoys and back again with friends. Her father’s work took their family up to Charlevoix, Michigan each summer where she would wander the sand dunes and watch ships move on the bay. On her father’s sailboat, The Mistral, she learned to love the wind in her hair and the feel of the wooden deck under her feet.

There was a bit of pirate in my Mom. I could tell by her love of the water and by her love of the search for treasure. As a child, I’d spend hours going through the amazing collection of costumes and fabric, ribbons and dress up jewelry that Mom had found who knows where. She would whip up outfits for Halloween with details and trimming a movie costumer would envy; even ethnic costumes that my older sister and I wore for folk dancing demonstrations at the local elementary school.

She loved to write and spent many hours at her old manual typewriter on articles for the local newspaper, poetry or journaling her thoughts. On birthdays and holidays she would bake and decorate elaborate cakes and cookies to pile high on the table for arriving company.

Our family moved to Arizona in January of 1972, and Mom found a lot of new and dear friends here and spent many happy hours as a volunteer for Scottsdale Memorial Hospital. She worked the spring training baseball games with her beloved Cubbies giving her a connection to her home town . She and her circle of girlfriends took off for lunches at the Quilted Bear and in search of treasure here in the valley.

There were two things on the horizon that always caught my mother’s eye; a boat sail and a garage sale.

After a day out with “the girls”, she’d return to the house with handfuls of trinkets and treasures for children and grandchildren and for her collection at the house. A good day of garage sale-ing was like a good day of pirating on the high seas.

I’ll think about my mother when I smell cookies baking, lilacs blooming and Chanel no. 5. I’ll think of her when I sit down at my computer to write my own thoughts. I’ll think of her when I see a boat sail or a garage sale.

These last few years were very hard on her as she lost her mobility. Even trips to the mailbox eventually became too difficult to manage. And I know how she hated dragging that oxygen tank around with her wherever she went. But now she’s free to move and dream and fly. She has our love to carry on her journey. And I know, in my heart of hearts that right now, she’s waiting on a shoreline for the boat to dock and carry her out on the water, where the wind can catch her hair.

Coffee, coffee, coffee

Oh, this heavenly liquid that fuels my journeys into word canyons, paint farms, color corridors, fabric tunnels, sound clouds and oceans of faces that I see moving in my days and nights; I love you so, my coffee.

What A Woman Wants

Romance and all that it encompasses; it must be in the air.

Recently, I’ve heard a slew of conversations about what women want; guys talking, of course. And it’s usually laced with hands being thrown up in the air for comedic exaggeration or sometimes, blind frustration, as if they are painstakingly attempting to resolve a solution for quantum gravity.

Do you honestly want to know what a woman wants? Can you handle it? We're all adults here and if this is too adult for you then you shouldn't be concerned with big people things that are real or messy, so go read a crafting blog. OK, here it is.

A woman wants someone who will walk up to her, wind their fingers into her hair and kiss the stupid right out of her. A woman wants someone who will see her when she’s happy, when she’s sad and when she’s pissed off and they will find all of those moments equally adorable.

A woman wants a senseless argument to be ended with your lips on hers and your arms around her making smooth circles on her back while you tell her how much you love her and that this is a moment that will pass.

A woman wants to know that she is enough for you and she wants to know that your heart stops and starts again when she kisses you back.

A woman wants someone who will tell her to open her eyes because you want to see how you make her feel just as you slide into her. And a woman wants to know, without a doubt, that since you found her, no other person in the world except her, is ever going to have a chance to hear you say that again.

That’s what a woman really wants. This isn’t rocket science. It’s the same stuff she wanted when she was 15 years old and the world was not really that complicated.

Not a single one of those things will cost you one thin dime. What they will cost you is a wide open heart and a willingness to be all in; to be there through every glorious, steamy, crazy, beautiful, angry, joyful, tragic and magnificent moment and, it will be worth it.

That’s what a woman wants.

Ink

I did it.

 

I gathered up the zillion pens, pencils, sharpies, and highlighters and went through the mountain to see what still worked. While tossing out many, I rediscovered favorite pens that fit my hands just so and whose ink moves ...easily, inspiring me to write something, anything, just to feel the flow.

 

There were probably things I intended to write down when I saved each writing instrument. There were probably important things I should have, could have said to someone, in my own handwriting so it would carry a bit more of my energy all the way to them, wherever they were. The ink dried up, the pen stopped working and I missed the opportunity to say it, to write it. If our words of love to family and friends were stored in the junk drawer, captured in the barrel of a blue Bic, could we lay our hands on that pen and take the time to write down those flower words and send them to our beloveds? Would we, before the ink dries out, before we’re gone, before they are gone?

 

Even after throwing out a good two dozen pens, I still have a healthy stack just waiting to be my love conspirator. The ink will flow and the words will land just so until they are picked up by my dearest dears and stored inside their hearts. I need to start using each drop of precious ink now to shape love on paper before the chance moves on; before the ink evaporates and returns to the sea of words where they’ll wait for someone else to draw them down.

Where Have I Been?

 

Blogging, like a New Year's resolution, begins as a great intention. I'll write once a day! OK, once a week. Screw that, I'll write when something starts itching and I need to scratch it ... with words ... on the Internet.

 

Though I'd like to write on here on a more regular basis, life always takes priority. And even with the daily chores and responsibilities, occasionally, something super shiny flashes in front of our eyes and like Dory, the fish in Finding Nemo, off we go to see where the shiny thing leads. Last year, my daughter, knowing my love of absurd and wonderful crap, introduced me to Pinterest. It's official, I'm in love.

Pinterest is the place where you can shop to your hearts desire and never spend a single dime. It's a cyber attic where you can store all the holiday decorating ideas that would normally live in three dimensional storage boxes filled with magazines that you don't want to throw away because you might really, really need the instructions for creating the pine cone card holders for the Christmas buffet tables. Hoarders should discover Pinterest and use only that to collect their garbage before they end up burying their family and pets alive.

Pinterest is the Large Hadron Collider of every word that moves you, every joke that makes coffee come out your nose and every picture of a sweet baby animal looking, well, sweet. It's the hope chest you never actually had where you can put the clothes you'll never own and the detailed plans for the dream house you will never build. It sounds bleak when I say it that way, but it's not. 

I believe that Pinterest is the single greatest invention for personal development that has been introduced to humanity since psychotherapy. Yeah. I said that.

I've been to workshops and have even hosted them in my home, where guests create vision boards to enable them to be more clear about what it is they want to have in their lives. Tables are filled with scissors, glue sticks and stacks of magazines and photos that are then transformed into succinct pieces of artwork that map out a path from where you are now to where you want to be in the near future.Pictures of the perfect little black dress in the perfect size are glued on the big white board right next to the word proclamations like YES and BE HEARD. Lakeside cabin photos are connected to pictures of a storefront showing where the money will come from to buy said cabin. Al fresco tables with family gathered, laughter and gorgeous food running down the middle captures the desire for more connection with those we love. 

Pinterest is a gigantic vision board area that is free and its only limits are the amount of your free time and your imagination.

If I were young and single and I wanted to know more about the person I'm interested in, I'd be looking for their Pinterest boards. Right there in front of your face is everything you'll ever need to know about who they are, what makes them laugh, what touches their souls, what thrills them and
who they aspire to be.

I'm hooked like a Pin junkie. In my spare time, in waiting rooms or airport gate areas, even during mediocre TV shows and especially commercials, I can be found with my Kindle Fire on my lap. I sort and pin treasures and trash onto my current 59 boards and almost 6,000 pins. I've got new followers everyday who check to see what wonders I've found and I love to follow other people's pins to their original sites to find that they live in Kosovo or New Zealand or Seoul.

Women seem to comprise the biggest number of pinners, though I've been pleasantly surprised to find a lot of guys following the boards I've set up to hold the gear and clothing inspirations for my urban fantasy story characters. There's nothing like a 12 piece Kunai throwing knife set or a hot picture of a black Aventador to make a guy go see who the heck this person is pinning that intriguing stuff. Imagine their surprise when they find that I also have a board solely devoted to pictures of animals waving hello.

There is crazy wisdom out there in cyber world and inspiration for anything you are going through or heading towards. There are Weight Watcher's tips and recipes and inspiring quotes to get you back on track and keep you there and humor galore to give you a laugh or ten every single day. 

So where have I been? Everywhere, and right here, creating tiny worlds that hold areas of my heart.

Come see my little worlds...but be warned, it's addicting.

http://pinterest.com/mimigrace1/
 

Unconditional Puppy Love

It's beginning to look a lot like... the way it should look the rest of the year! Though the holidays have re-sized themselves in our home to accommodate less lavish soirees and gifting, they have also taken on the adult vibe that surrounds homes in between grown up kids and the world of grandchildren. Lots of people my age are grandparents and their homes are filled with electrical outlet safety caps, breakable items on high shelves and every holiday decoration they can find gracing any surface that exists. My house looked like that too, back when my kids were young.

We have arrived at that wonderful, comfortable place where our kids are adults now; intelligent, funny, creative and wonderful company and their visits home allow impromptu gourmet cooking adventures, marathon viewing of favorite movies and nights by the fireplace tucked in with the dogs and a glass of wine. I'm leaning into the fabulous Bohemian feel of having these "big people" days together because I know that soon enough, my home will reacquire that North Pole ambiance when, one day, little people will run my halls and the world will change again.

My daughter, Samm, has been inspired to use this holiday to gather things for our local Humane Society. I am so happy to see her stepping into a helping role again, as she does often. While other people her age are obsessing over which gift they want, what to wear to the holiday party or some relationship drama that has taken over their full attention, it is inspiring to watch as people step out of their own needs and wants and look to the needs of someone or something beyond themselves.  

In the spirit of reaching out to those who can't help themselves, how about looking into your own community to see if there is a cause you can give a little time, or a little money or a little love to?

If you're in Mid Michigan in the USA, you can help Samm by making a donation that will make the lives of some precious dogs and cats, just a little bit better this holiday season.
Here's her blog... check it out and I hope it inspires a similar project at your house, wherever in the world you may be.

http://sammjoy.blogspot.com/2012/12/all-i-want-for-christmas-is.html

Cups Running Over

As parents, we go along, living our lives and wondering if any of the thousands of hours we spent encouraging our children to "use their words" sank in far enough to become part of their daily practice.

Those same people who once dragged their blankie down a hallway with their story book in hand so you could read it to them in their favorite rocking chair, now wield a keyboard or a pen and paper and create their own wonder of words for others to experience.

My son has chosen a career path in the world of food and restaurant management. It was his major in college and now it is his life as he helps guide the day to day workings of a popular and highly rated Italian restaurant in Chicago's Lincoln Park district. I love that he's doing what he loves, but my heart was holding a space for him to do some writing too. He has a gift with words, and the crazy hours of restaurant world don't make for the easiest schedule to settle at your laptop and let the words flow.

Somehow, he made the time and I was thrilled today, to see that he's decided to blog ... about food. How perfect! His observations go beyond the usual recipes or wine pairing chatter. True to his inquisitive nature, he writes about underlying motivations of diners and food creators and he studies the memorable evenings we all treasure, gathered around a table laden with dishes and glasses, in the company of friends, laughter and stimulating conversation.

I have an imaginery "Mom" cup here; one that fills with joy and pride when I get to see what the people I love are doing in the world. Right now, it's running over.

Check out Mike's blog called Pursuit of Pasta:  http://pursuitofpasta.wordpress.com/

I'm a proud mom.

Social Vampires in the Family: Watching Out for the Pointy Parts

I’ve had some interesting discussions with friends and family of late. I’ve listened as they’ve laid out their stories of the mother-in-law, the sister, the brother, the parent, the child who is the person  at the center of their worry that is stirring the hurricane that threatens the peace of their home. I’ve seen the depth of their anxiety over how much or how far or how long they are required to try and quell the storm their wayward relative insists on resurrecting day after day and year after year. It knots their stomachs and drains them of resources both physical and emotional. Let's call this post a pre-emptive strike for anyone who has a social vampire relative and  also has any sort of financial success and stability in their lives, because you will, forever, smell like fresh blood to your family fanger. This Blogisode is for you and all those of us who live with the fang marks of past attacks on our necks and still get up every day to care for our own.

Issues of all proportions eat away at us. If you ask a professional therapist what the number one source of continuous stress is among us, they will tell you it is family issues and dysfunction. There isn’t a family on the planet who does not boast a cast of characters worthy of a soap opera, a sit-com or, in the extreme, a psychological drama that can leave you drained and depressed. Back in the 1970’s, I actually chose to walk out of a theater showing Ingmar Bergman’s classic, Scenes from A Marriage, because I couldn’t believe I paid money to watch something I could see at home any day of the week for free. It’s so much harder to walk out of a family and harder yet, to shut your door on a family member who is knocking for reasons that can harm you and your own loved ones like the death of a thousand cuts.

Recently, theaters, bookshelves and family dinner tables seem to be the unwitting hosts to the new threat to simple, happy living: vampires. Movies and books are filled with good looking, wealthy, educated bloodsuckers that play more like rock stars than villains. If only the family vampires could be so cool, we might even be able to forgive them the “accident” with the family dog.

Family vampires, social vampires aren’t looking for actual blood; they latch onto the jugular vein on a family and they suck until every ounce of goodwill, patience, forgiveness, money, second chances and compassion is as dry and useless as a Phoenix street in August.

When a family member approaches, or rather, when they demand financial and/or emotional support, as the potential benefactor, we have the vantage point of historical precedence for their current situation. We have been witness to their lifetime of events and we know that this is not a situational emergency at all, but a lifestyle choice. We recognize the familiar sharpened fangs of a social vampire when we see one, even when they share our own DNA.

Some people chose a life as a circus performer and their every day work puts them, literally, on a high wire with or without a net between them and the thirty feet to the ground. Performers train and learn how to walk that narrow wire and every time they place their front foot out and take the second step, they have committed themselves to the task at hand and accepted the responsibilities of the job. The same can be said for firefighters who bravely walk into a burning building to save us, knowing full well that this may be their last day. They do it anyway because this is their calling and because they chose this life and choose it again every day when they wake up.

Anyone can find themselves in a rare but desperate situation, even those who do not choose to live a life where danger or risk is required of them on a daily basis.  It happens. Jobs end, natural disasters strike or serious illness befalls them and they are suddenly without shelter, without funds or without assistance when they need it most. And though there are some instances when a financially solvent, independent and fully functioning person is suddenly unable to cope, there are far more instances when the person “in need” is working their latest angle to extract money from others rather than finally getting the mental health care and occupational rehabilitation that they really need.

As a family member, we know the long history of events that led the needy relative up to this moment. We have watched for a lifetime, as each choice they have made has kept them on a risky and fiscally irresponsible path and we know, without a doubt, that they chose, of their own free will, to live a precarious life and that their occupation of choice is one of a social vampire: a panhandler and professional victim.

Granted, individuals who live this lifestyle choice are predominantly those who suffer borderline personality disorder or other undiagnosed mental health care issues. Most of them have been encouraged by family and friends to seek mental health care assistance. Many have been offered the payment of that mental health care if they accept and follow a doctor’s prescriptions and recommendations. When they decline the help they really need and instead, keep their hand out for a cash infusion, they will eventually come to the end of the money train and, sadly, the end of their family member’s patience and goodwill.

On their own and fresh out of smaller emergency situations that historically netted them a cash infusion, they often turn to attaching themselves to larger, more dramatic relief efforts funded by church or government monies. At the new source, they hope to latch onto the constant flowing milk teat of a cash source that is too large and busy to ever do a detailed background history that might expose their mental health care issues. Like all good vampires, they will feed and then form new families of others like them that can identify replacement sources after they have drained their access to their current source.

The social vampires who have managed to live a marginally functional life often haunt the internet  and you will find them attempting to rally others together against the “system”. Read: relatives who have had enough and have cut them off. They join support groups for issues that they have no connection with, and they select them based on outrage factors alone: child abductions, etc, much the same way tabloid papers select their cover stories; by shock value. They can smell the blood of pain and tragedy and they know that where that scent exists, innocent donors will be drawn to it and a fresh source of what they want will be available for the taking, if you can jump on the sympathy train.  Each time there is a natural disaster, the stories of some person trying to collect benefits who wasn’t anywhere near the tragedy come floating up in the news like a rotting piece of meat in the sea of compassion.

Individuals who have worn out their own families feed source often become these same predatorily driven people who are drawn to tragedy like a shark to blood in the water. They have a religious resume that reads like a Wikipedia file on random belief systems as they have tried them all on like t-shirts at Wal-Mart, and left them on the floor after they realized the shirts weren’t free.

Often, they appoint themselves as a crusader for issues they don’t actually have and when their expertise comes into question from actual victims, the social vampire moves on to fresh feeding grounds. You’ll find them all over the Internet posing as “concerned citizens” trying to promote efforts with poorly organized online communities. The sites hold a few threads of chat that die off from lack of any real forward motion. Healthy individuals, who were unlucky enough to have stumbled onto these social vampire sites, will naturally gravitate away from them, leaving web pages and chat groups flailing like a running vacuum hose awaiting the next taker to be sucked into its machine.   

There is nothing as tragic as being forced to end contact with a family member who has chosen a life of social vampirism. Lost are all the opportunities for a shared familial experience; celebrating or supporting one another throughout milestone events, witnessing the lives of their children and grandchildren and comforting one another as we lose family members along the way. Breaking the ties with these damaged individuals means an early loss of a loved one that rides the same rails as the loss of a family member to dementia; they are still alive but gone from who they ever were. We don’t make the decision to cut the ties easily or lightly and it is always done so that we have a chance to preserve our own family; done as in the removal of a gangrenous limb so the remaining healthy body can continue to live.

For the social vampire, the pain of rejection by a family member always cuts deeply because family is the first source of belonging. As in all forms of vampirism, the social vampire never considers the pain that their bite or the life threatening blood loss has on their victims as they bleed them dry of cash, patience, second chances and compassion. Their only thought and their driving force, is their need to feed on whomever has a little bit more than they do and they feed with a vengeance and a sense of entitlement, coveting others lives and property as if it was their own.

And beneath it all, in the quiet stillness of their long nights living in their own personal hells, they know exactly who they are and exactly what they are doing. They know full well that their financial responsibility is their own and not that of their child, their sibling, their parent or other relatives. They look in their own mirror and if they still retain a shred of their former healthy, human lives, they can see that they are 100% responsible for everything they experience and they also know that getting the real help they need and following it is their only chance to be able to walk in the daylight of functional life once more. Again, they know exactly who they are and they are fully aware of what they are doing at all times. Hold no delusions of their ignorance.

Admitting there is a problem and seeking mental health care are the first steps toward a life worth living. Getting the help they need, living that healthy and responsible life day after day is the path that must be walked for any chance of ever reconnecting with others. This is their only choice to build a healthy and happy relationship with people, young and old; who would be in their life if they finally turned away from the road they have chosen.

Each morning, like the tightrope walker, the firefighter, the accountant, the hotelier, the waitress or the nurse; the social vampire chooses their profession. It is a choice and not a situational emergency and the only way today will be different from yesterday for them is to choose differently as they open their eyes when the sun comes up.

NEW NOTE: 30 August 2013   
WOW. This has been a popular post! Perhaps, because we all have at least one of these creatures in our circle of family or friends. And so it is...