The Rollercoaster of Life

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“You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. . .  Up, down. Up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just interesting to me that a ride could make me so. . . so frightened. So scared. So sick. So excited and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing.” ~ Grams on “Parenthood.”

Some have said I’ve been on one hell of a rollercoaster ride this year. I would argue that it’s been more like the Millenium Force at Cedar Point after three corn dogs slathered in yellow mustard and a large plastic baggie full of blue cotton candy. In the past seven months my rickety car has climbed toward the sky, stayed suspended at the top for a few moments in time, and plummeted down at lightning speed – taking my breath away. Read more

How to Write

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I’ve been writing a novel since the beginning of time. Okay, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration, but it sure feels like it. In actuality, I started it in 1999 and have been working on it, on and off, for twelve years or so. It’s all kinda fuzzy.

And I’m only about 160 pages in, so take my advice with a single molecule of salt.

The How

Start with a clean space. Spic and span. Not a grain of dust. Get out your Swiffer and, quite literally, go to town. Buy fresh flowers and spend six hours arranging them flawlessly. Run to Bed Bath & Beyond in your pajama bottoms and 2 XL tee. Peruse the Yankee Candle aisle, picking each jar up by its bottom (you don’t want to have to buy all that broken shit), and smell each fragrance until you find the one that matches your flower arrangement. Go home, take two Excedrin to rid yourself of the fume headache that likely ensued. Take a nap.

It’s not like I spent that whole eleven years writing every day. I spent twelve years getting my education. I spent a few years drinking Jim Beam and Jagermeister. Mixed. I spent some time on a tractor at a Journey concert. I’ve been busy. Read more

Wrestling with Breast Cancer

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As I sit here drinking my sixth cup of java my best friend, Monica Wilcox, is walking sixty grueling miles across San Francisco with a gnarly head cold.  It’s hard for me to fathom putting foot to pavement like that when I have to motivate myself to rise and patter to the coffee pot each morn, but she’s been inspired to help put an end to breast cancer.  So, when Save the Ta-tas – an organization simply slathered in Awesome – asked me to be a guest blogger for Breast Cancer Awareness month I knew this was my unique chance to help women and earn a pink ribbon while still drinking my coffee.

I like boobs. I’m particularly attached to my own but I’ve never had breast cancer.  I’ve only known a few tough birds who’ve had it and they knocked it on its ass. However, I have had to strike a bargain with thyroid cancer and that’s close enough for me.  Not to mention that I once found a lump in my breast and had to lay on an ultrasound table while a stoic technician squirted cold goo on my chest and proceeded with a New York style photoshoot sans heavy make-up or the pretty poses. Don’t think for a moment that I wasn’t laying there mentally arranging the calla lilies at my funeral and picturing my family keeling over in grief. Fortunately, for me, I’m just cyst-y. Read more

Is Your Inner Critic An Asshole?

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This isn’t going to be very funny, or witty, or humorous, my friends, but I still think you’ll relate to my son-of-a-bitch of an inner critic.  In fact, I daresay you have one too – possibly a bit less crass, a bit nicer, but you’ve got one nonetheless.

I’m heading in to surgery the day before my 41st birthday.  While finishing up my last semester of college I found a lump in my throat which I blatantly ignored as I studied for finals, wrote my senior thesis, and waited on the edge of my seat to find out if my Valedictorian nomination would mean I had to give a speech to thousands of kids, twenty-some years younger than I, wearing green gowns and caps with yellow tassels.

While I ignored this lady lump on the surface, my subconscious was busy deciding that I needed to move home to be closer to family.  Everyone in my circle asked after my plans “where will you live?” or “what will you do?” I had no idea and, for the first time in my life, I didn’t see a clear vision of my future or of what I wanted. Read more

Money Is Just Energy, Dummies

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Featured on BlogHer.com 9/13/2011

You know those money issues you struggle with?  The ones that keep you cash poor, that have you maxing out your credit card each month, that keep you from asking for that raise every year? Yeah, those are the ones.  Well, here’s a little something I learned recently – those beliefs and issues surrounding money start WAY earlier than I ever would have imagined.

Case in Point:

A few weeks ago, as I was crawling towards the coffee pot early one morn, I happened upon my three nieces (along with one of their small neighbor friends) planning a summer job.  Pink, red, and yellow construction paper was strewn all over the front porch and markers were tossed aside – lids off – to dry in the sun that was already baking the concrete.

I stopped, wiped my bleary eyes, and asked what they were doing. Read more

My Life as a Colonoscopy

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“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ~ E.L. Doctorow

So, yeah, Doctorow was talking about writing and, while I’ve certainly felt that way in penning my own novel, right now these words are encompassing my whole life. They’ve niggled into every corner of my existence and, while I know, “you can make the whole trip” with not but a set of headlights, it’d sure be nice if I weren’t driving a rusted 1971 Pinto, exhaust dragging the pavement, and a Gulf size oil leak.  Don’t even get me started about the headlights themselves.  The bulbs are cracked and covered with a layer of deep red clay dust. I think one is definitely on the fritz because it’s blinking like a firefly’s ass on a sultry summer eve. Read more

Mrs. Zeal, Meet Mrs. Satisfied

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It was midnight on a Saturday and I was sprawled in bed with The Kr8z and a box of Gingersnaps. After working a long but fulfilling day that started at 7:30 a.m. I had the mental capacity of an amoeba. I watched the last ½ hour of Erin Brockovich and a tear slid down my cheek during the denouement. I don’t know if this lone tear was from exhaustion or the story of this powerful kick-ass woman. Either way I was touched. And then, the energy of the airwaves went ballistic.

I couldn’t find the remote (I think So-kr8z must have been sleeping on it as he’s wont to do) so I was torn asunder from my sentimentality and watched in utter horror as a show called  Wife-Swap came on. *Show of hands* — Have y’all ever watched this show? Wow. I felt like I was watching a platypus give birth to a micro piglet in a tub filled with orange Jell-O. I. Just. Couldn’t. Look. Away. Read more

On Healthy Eating: Battling the Comfort Food War Within

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I just found an unopened box of Bulgar Wheat that has been in my cupboard for nigh on seven years. In fact, I would venture to say if I had room in my kitchen for every health food item I’ve purchased but never used, I would be making Top Ramen in a room the size of the Duomo in Milan.

I have the best intentions. I really do. Having had endometriosis for over 15 years I’ve read theory after theory about how one’s diet affects endo symptoms and, over these span of years, I’ve cut out dairy, gluten, meat, sugar, flour, miniscule grains of dust, you name it. I’ve read books and then went on to purchase whole new sets of groceries from lands far, far away. I’ve researched recipes, thrown away all my “normal” food and been completely fired up. I’ve measured, sifted, and whisked with the frenzy of a new convert. I’ve sat at a table, alone, so that I may fully appreciate my food experience. I’ve taken that first bite.

And then I’ve dry heaved. Every. Single. Time. Read more

Zombies, Atheists, & Movers, Oh My!

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Yep, yep. The CDC posted an article yesterday on how to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse. What with the end of the world nigh approaching today, a mother giving her 8-year-old Botox, doctors in Florida refusing to treat overweight women, and Skechers making butt-toning shoes for 7-year-olds, I’m really not all that surprised.

So yeah, the CDC is jesting a bit, but just in case the world IS ending today, they’re giving some great advice on emergency preparedness for other types of “lesser” disasters like tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and more.

However, upon reading about the undead this morn over my first cup o’ Joe, I couldn’t help but mutter, “Aren’t I already living through a Zombie Apocalypse right now?” Read more

The Royal Wedding: Fairy Tale or Fucking Fromage?

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I was driving to school yesterday listening to what BBC coined their “Royal Wedding Disco” when the DJ pulled out Journey’s classic “Don’t Stop Believing.”

I almost ran my little Beetle right off the road.

How apropos. You see, I myself stopped believing in fairy tales when I was fourteen. My mom had recently married a man who would wake me each morn by yelling, “Wake up and piss, the world’s on fire,” through the railing of my bedroom loft. I would roll over and wonder what my mother saw in this vile man whom, with bitter irony, would get so plastered drinking Milwaukee’s Best that he’d forget where the bathroom was and piss next to the coal burning stove. That pretty much put the royal kibosh on any romantic idyllicism that I had up to that point. Read more