Page After Page

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

If you ever had an imaginary friend, tell us about them. If not, make one up right now and tell us what they'd be like.

It was submitted by: http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/

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I never had an imaginary friend in the truest sense though having a Drop Dead Fred in my life wouldn’t have been all that bad all things considered. Childhood wasn’t exactly an easy time, and I found myself living in books, escaping the world I lived in with its darkness and chaos and taking up residence in the creative constructs of others rebuilt in my own mind with any tweaks I saw fit.

The characters from Louis Sachar’s Wayside School series were regular guests along with the kitties from Snot Stew (Bill Wallace). Ramona Quimby made me want to be a little sassier with all the times she made me laugh. Amelia Bedelia first made me wonder what it might be like to have a maid working for me that made me think about my words more carefully, but I stopped having to wonder so much when I had silly conversations with her in my own world spun so carefully out of pieces of others’ imaginations.

I had adventures with Milo from The Phantom Tollbooth wondering through the Doldrums because that’s a place I was most familiar with and I wanted someone to be there with me. I never cared much for spiders in real life, but Charlotte’s Web ensured I had an immortal one that crawled onto my shoulder whenever I needed a friend of the most understanding variety.

I made up mysteries to solve with Nancy Drew and turned my parents shed into a boxcar with The Boxcar Children and shrunk myself to just a couple inches tall to hang out with The Borrowers.

The older I got the fewer real friends I had and the more I lived in books, in the imaginary worlds I constructed and demolished and changed. The more alone I felt the darker my tastes became. I picked up Dean Koontz (who I never really liked) and Stephen King. Characters like the little kid from Firestarter and Carrie started showing up which sounds morbid, and it absolutely is. But, these were dark times in my life. An abusive addict of a parent, my parents divorcing, death threats from my dad against my mom, mom’s new boyfriend beating the absolute shit out of my dad, sexual assault… I mean, it’s a bit more than a 13/14 year old can handle. Not to mention I started drinking and smoking pot which, at that age, probably didn’t help the depths of my gloom.

Even as an adult, I can’t give up on those characters. Some have remained through time, and I have added more with every character I connected with in a major way. Rob Gordon from High Fidelity was, for the better part of 2 decades, the love of my life, though more and more these days I see glimpses of him when I look in the mirror more than anything. The narrating voices of Chuck Palahnuik, Minty Fresh from one of Christopher Moore’s series, so many of Tom Robbins’ characters, Hunter Thompson’s inner voice (sans his love for guns and every illicit substance known to man) all influence who I am the same way an intimate friendship changes you in some way.

In no way do the books I read really replace human intimacy, to real connection, like any imaginary friendship would be, but I honestly wouldn’t be the woman I am today without those friends and those loves.

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And that, my friends, is my swap. Hope you will check out the rest of the submissions. 

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2016/05/secret-subject-swap-i-take-village.html
Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Not That Sarah Michelle http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com

Spatulas on Parade http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy http://dinoheromommy.com/2016/05/06/read-if-you-dare/

My Brain on Kids http://mybrainonkids.net

The Lieber Family Blog http://thelieberfamily.com

Never Ever Give Up Hope http://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Climaxed http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

Confessions of a part time working mom http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2016/04/april-secret-subject-swap-exchange.html

The Angrivated Mom http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/

Starting Over

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: risk, reward, reuse, claim, quit, quiet. They were submitted by: http://Bakinginatornado.com

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I’ve been quiet lately. Seemingly.

My mind has been anything but, though. Outside I am a placid lake on a windless day, but once you peek beyond that surface illusion, you find a roiling storm of a sea amid a civil war of merpeople. Monsters from the deep joining forces with mermen and mermaids battling each other to rule my brain.

Anxiety.

Burn out.

Stress.

Renewal.

Rebirth.

I’ve spent the last few months evaluating every goal I have ever had. It wasn’t an all of a sudden review, but I started noticing how much passion I lost for the career path I have been working towards for a decade now on and off, longer than that if we talk generalities. Anxiety about it began to stake its claim on the beaches of my mind and before I knew it full burnout set in. I have zero desire to learn anything knew, zero desire to do assignments and find myself figuring out just how many papers I can miss to still pass the class. That’s not me or, at least, that has never been me, and I began to see just how unhappy I was looking forward for the first time in years.

Being a not so small personality in a village, looking forward was everything. That I was working towards something better than small town goals made life worth living. It was a reason to keep going, to deal with the drudgery of daily life. Helping others, working miracles, saving lives…it’s all I ever wanted, and finally, maybe, it would alleviate some of the stress of living check to check.

For nearly a decade now, I have wanted to work as a counselor for inmates. I wanted to work with inmates who had life sentences, but I also wanted to work with offenders getting ready for release to give them some kind of chance, hopefully, at actually leading a legitimate life one day. A criminal record destroys that opportunity. Jobs are harder to get as well as loans, housing, credit cards… Everything a person needs to move forward in life crumbles to impossibility with a record.

I have also been writing people in prison offering what help I can for the last, oh, 9ish years. My goals and my writing have always sort of coincided. I wrote because of my goals and my goals evolved the more I wrote.

And then they evolved into a puddle of shit.

The more people I have written and helped and talked to about everything under the sun including the feasibility of my goals the more I have seen how idealistic it all was. I have had to do a risk and reward evaluation. The risks are high--burnout, being overworked and underpaid, little appreciation, budgets, red tape, managed care, stress, violence, real threat of injury or death. No matter how sincere I was with clients they would likely always see me as a part of the institution imprisoning them, as a cop as I have been told. But what of the rewards? Maybe potentially helping a handful of people over a long career in which I make little money and use most of what I do make paying off student loans while I continue to rack up debt from for-profit schools that have predatory lending practices.

That doesn’t leave me with many options hence all the anxiety and stress and a bit of burnout already, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to quit school. I can still work in the justice field if I want with the bachelor’s degree I already have. Maybe. I can still help people the same way I do now—quite honestly it is easier to help people through writing than it would ever be in an institutional setting. It’s not the end of my dream to help people but an overhaul of the way I plan on accomplishing that. Currently, for example, I am trying to get someone into a CDL school for when he gets out in a few months.

Either way, it has been a battle learning to let go which has taken quite a toll on me. Right now, I want to get a part time job in the next 6 months or so, keep on homeschooling the kiddo, and maybe write a little more than I have been in a few months. I came to the conclusion that I would rather work a job where my biggest stressor was an asshole customer that day who reports me to the manager for not letting her keep her coupons to reuse later (though I hope it doesn’t actually come to that) than counseling a convicted rapist who keeps assaulting fellow inmates. I mean, I can’t even do an assignment on handling a rape victim in crisis without getting triggered and having a near panic attack myself. How the ever loving fuck am I supposed to handle that in real life?

If Sharknado and 2012 were combined into one film, that chaos would still pale in comparison to my thoughts, every shark a pang of anxiety driving my pulse rate through the roof and keeping me from getting any sleep. Finally, though, the inside is starting to quiet down to match the outside. I don’t feel like I’m a quitting, like I’m giving up. A weight has lifted and a feel a little more free than before. Starting over at 34 has its benefits.

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Here are the links to the other participants. Enjoy: 

http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2016/04/use-your-words-social-experiment.html Baking In A Tornado

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-fading-of-friendship.html Not That Sarah Michelle

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2016/04/bacon-wrapped-bbq-pork-chops-and-uyw.html Spatulas on Parade

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/2016/04/15/organizing-his-bedroom/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com/2016/04/spreading-wings-poem-nationalpoetrymonth.html Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2016/04/use-your-words-ummmm.html Confessions of a part time working mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham Chronicles

The GFE

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My secret subject is: Tell us about these April showers. It was submitted by: http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com


This really isn't my kind of prompt (no offense to anyone). I don't really give two fucks about Spring. Allergies, rain storms that keep me from being able to dry the clothes, and the fact that I kinda live like a vampire pretty much means Spring is not my season. My legs cause snow blindness if I am in direct sunlight. So, here's a story about a sex worker instead. Enjoy. 

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April Showers. Hmmm. That’s a cheesy name for an escort, Morty had thought. He was sitting in a Vegas hotel room. It wasn’t a 5 star kind of place, but it wasn’t cheap either. The first time he had come to Sin City he had gotten himself one of the cheapest he could find. It was one of those hotels where most of the people were renting by the week for a place to live. He thought he could save more spending money for gambling, but it was the shittiest choice he made that trip. He could see the appeal of living in a hotel by the week if that’s all you could afford, but add Vegas in the mix and most of the folks there were gambling addicts with a side of at least alcoholism and a healthy dose of meth abuse. From the looks of ‘em anyway. That place made the hotel room in Fear and Loathing look like a pristine surgical suite. 

Anyway, this time he had saved up a bit more money and sprung for a better room which must have brought him luck because he had won pretty big playing Craps the first day there. He was up 30 planned on playing it safe. He had no intention of being one of those schmucks who won big, lost it all, and left in the hole.

Instead, he had wanted to treat himself to something he would never have done at home in his regular life as an IT guy for a car and home insurance company that pretty much screwed its clients as often and hard as they possibly could without lube or mercy. And for vacation he wanted to get screwed as often and hard as possible but certainly not by his insurance.

That’s what had lead him to scrolling through images of escorts online. Treat yo’self, he thought, and giggled a little. Always a Parks and Rec fan. It was April Showers that stopped him. She looked to be a bit petite, bleached blonde, smallish lips, smooth calves… She was pretty but not in a conventional sort of way. She wasn’t, by far, the prettiest one on the sites he perused, but she offered something different than most of the others. A girlfriend experience.

“Looking for something more than unrequited passion? Craving intimacy? Want to share more than an hour of naked sweating? Let’s have an adventure together you will never forget.”

In the fine print, the ad stated Ms. Showers would stay for a night for a couple grand or for a week for $10,000. He was only in town for 6 more days but a week with a good-looking woman that promised more than a quick shag. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since college and that had been a bit fleeting. She hadn’t been able to deal with his hours upon hours of World of Warcraft every weekend. Morty felt like he needed that sort of connection with someone for once before the loneliness drove him insane.

So, he had dialed the number on the ad with his hands shaking and a bit clammy and hoped for the best.

“hello?”

“uh…April Showers?”

“Yes, honey. Can I help you?”

“Fuck..I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just I’ve never done this before and I…well…I don’t know how this works.”

“Don’t worry about that. You just give me your address and how many days you’re looking for and I’ll be on my way. Someone will come with me, a bodyguard of sorts to vet ya, but then he’ll be gone lickety-split, and we can get on to having our adventure.”

“Alright, okay… I don’t know the address, but I’m in Room 313 at the Rio on Flamingo Rd.”

“See you soon, doll.”

And with that she had hung up the phone.

Something like 2 hours later, he finally heard a knock at the door. He had been nervous at first, but at this point, it had already been dragged out so damn long, he didn’t care anymore. Then he had opened the door and… what the fuck.

She was there, but it wasn’t exactly what he expected. He had known when he saw her that it was the same woman--petite, bleach blonde--but, she didn’t look ANYTHING like the photo. She had her hair pulled back in a messy bun, no makeup, sweats, socks with Crocs. Still pretty but not at all what he had expected. A guy that had to be like 6’7 and 400 lbs flanked her and blew past him into room. That guy didn’t make a sound, didn’t introduce himself, took a sweep of the room, dug around in Morty’s suitcase, and pushed his way back out just as abruptly as he arrived.

April waltzed her way into the room with a dance of her hips that hinted to the vixen that was pictured online. She stopped in front of him, close, and leaned in to give him a hug that was far too intimate for someone he just met.

“Hey, sweetie, how was your day?” she asked before parking herself on the tiny couch in the room and covered up with a throw she pulled from one of her bags. He had no idea who the fuck needed a throw in Vegas in the middle of summer whilst wearing sweats, but whatever.

“Uh… fine. Do you want me to pay you now or….?”

Her face changed then. That sweet smirk wiped right off and was replaced by something quite similar to a possessed witch high on meth with a side case of PMS. “Don’t fucking interrupt me when I’m in character. Sampson will be back to take your payment. I’m staying all week, and you’re going to love it.”

That innocent look was back before he could blink. What are these goddamn animals, he thought, and smiled at his own joke (well not techinically his joke since it was Hunter Thompson’s words but still…)

“Where’s the tv remote, babe?”

His brow furrowed at her question, and he had hoped that maybe she was putting on porn…

She had grabbed the remote as soon as he pointed to it on the end table and flipped it to Dancing With the Stars before patting the spot right beside her beckoning him to come sit down. He did as requested, but before his ass could even make an impression on the cushion, she was on her cell phone playing Candy Crush. That’s how it stayed the rest of that night, too—the two of them on the couch with her on her phone pretty much ignoring his existence unless she made a snide remark about something she saw on television. If he dared to fall asleep, she let him know in a hailstorm of swears that she wasn’t with him tonight to watch him sleep. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SPENDING TIME WITH HER, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

That’s how it had gone really for the next 6 days of that trip to Vegas, his last trip to Vegas. The guy who was supposed to come back and collect never showed. April only had sex with him maybe once the entire time, and it wasn’t…well, passionate. It felt like the two of them had slept together a thousand boring times. He bought her tampons, took her to dinner, watched her pop her zits… once she even came into the bathroom while he took a dump and acted like she had seen him on the toilet every day for the entirety of their lives, like it was no big deal. He hadn’t EVER dared even pee in front of a woman before much less dropped a deuce.

5 years ago that was. 5 years. And here she is, still in the bathroom with him popping her zits while he takes a shit. The girlfriend experience packed up and left to go home with him even when he insisted he couldn’t get her a flight out. They rented a car and drove instead with her freaking out about his driving and the two of them fighting the whole 18 hour drive home.

Married, they are. And now she calls herself May. May Flowers-Holstein.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:


http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2016/04/secret-subject-swap-what-did-i-ever-do.html Baking In A Tornado

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-laughter-through-our-tears.html Not That Sarah Michelle

http://www.thelieberfamily.com/2016/04/g-genies-atozblogging.html The Lieber Family Blog

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2016/04/bacon-bbq-chicken-swirls-and-sss.html Spatulas on Parade

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/2016/04/08/april-showers-bring/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com/2016/04/denying-my-inner-truth.html Someone Else’s Genius

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2016/04/april-secret-subject-swap-memorabilia.html/ Confessions of a part time working mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

Psychedelica

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.


My words are: stolen ~ parrot ~ coconuts ~ excited ~ drum

They were submitted by: http://dinoheromommy.com/

I just wanted to say this is fiction. Sometimes I get a group of words that seem like they belong together and would be easy to take in a certain direction which means I have to go as far away from that direction as possible. ha. 

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“Down at an English fair, one evening I was there
When I heard a showman shouting underneath the flare

Ive got a lovely bunch of coconuts
There they are, all standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
Give them a twist a flick of the wrist
Thats what the showman said”

I’m not sure why that song plays through my head as I work my way through the flea market tables looking at this and that. Maybe it’s the blue and gold Macaw perched atop a fellow patron’s shoulder that triggers the association. The Lion King and that blue asshole Zazu singing in his little cage…

This blue asshole is tethered by one of its legs instead of caged with the leash attached to the turquoise belt buckle of the mustachioed, cowboy hat wearing gentleman it was perched upon. And instead of a catchy Monty Python tune, it was randomly belting out lyrics to Salt n Peppa’s Push It.

“Ah, Push it. Push it real good” is quite strange coming from a parrot, I think, but I continue on my way digging in dusty record crates and checking out tie dye mushroom incense burners.

Excited, my heart begins to drum in my chest as I considered the possibilities for the day. It is just shy of 9 a.m., early for me, and the infinite possibilities of a quasi-spiritual exploration of the heart of humanity in this dirt-floored market full of potentially stolen goods, other people’s trash, and hand-picked produce has me tingling.

But perhaps it is just the mushrooms kicking in.

A wave a nausea hits me hard and I know that must be it. All I have to do is power through that little bit of discomfort… Buy the ticket, take the ride. I look around me, every little speck of dirt standing out like my eyes have suddenly gained some sort of superhuman magnification power; I see everything so much more clearly than before, every detail catching my attention and holding it long enough to caress my brain before releasing me to enjoy the next tidbit of life. The hazy afternoon takes on a glow, and the crowd of sounds seems to separate clashing like Spartans in my brain and threatening to overwhelm me. My legs work, barely, and I manage to put one foot in front of the other while giggling at something I couldn’t possibly explain (maybe it was still that damned parrot). I stagger outside between two tables while a couple of wary hagglers work down the price of a beaten box of VHS tapes.

A few people who hadn’t been able to reserve inside tables have stands outside selling the same lost treasures, but the air out here is crisp, clean, alive. I can almost feel it rolling around in my lungs with every breath and for a moment I think I might cry at how amazing it is to just breathe. Then I’m giggling again lost in another moment flitting from this thought to that like a hummingbird feeding on the nectar of the day, finding its sweetness scattered among this field of human flora.

The giggles override all sensibilities again as I picture each person with limbs of green and a petal halo like that Daffy/flower hybrid in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. For a moment I wonder if maybe I’m seeing everyone’s true form. I am horrified and awed all at once until I see a patch of grass all by itself away from the clamor and the dirt, a solace of greenery waving in the breeze that calls me to it begging for my company.

Sprawled in the grass letting the sun hit my skin, I am a badass queen. Every pore soaks in the heat, and I feel alive in ways I never have in my entire existence. This is l I v I n, I think, and I dissolve into another fit of giggles picturing Matthew Mcconaughey in a petal halo saying Alright, Alright, Alright when I say yes to his Aerosmith invite.

Who is this person, I ask myself. It’s me I’m talking about. Who is she? I think long and hard about that while images of my life float in and out of my stream of thoughts. What does this girl want? Who will she be?

And I think to myself this girl wants to live not exist. She wants to get her hands dirty and her heart broken. She wants to love too hard and run too fast and lay in bed until late afternoon. She wants her stories etched into her skin like a fine art storybook, and she wants to be completely unafraid to be her true self despite everyone’s expectations. She wants to wear mismatched socks because who has time to match them and bathe in nostalgia. She wants to eat too much sugar and be a little bit fluffy, and she wants to love every inch of herself down to the very last dimple on her thighs. She wants to drink too much whiskey and indulge in other vices because life is short and when it’s all over, hair still purple, she wants to look around at her loved ones or her cats and say, my god wasn’t it beautiful.

I realize in the day glow cacophony of this day that she is me. I am her.

And I smile.

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http://bakinginatornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com Not That Sarah Michelle

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part time working mom

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com Spatulas on Parade

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

New Definitions

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.


My “Secret Subject” is:

If you had to describe your family what would you say?

It was submitted by: http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/

Oh what a week for me to get this prompt. I think I handled this with all the grace I could muster though. 

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Family is a difficult subject for me. I need to be upfront about that from the get go.

I’ve talked about my family, or at least my old family in the past on a few occasions on this blog. I talked about my father…the hellacious childhood he put me through (and not just me) and the way I found forgiveness after he died, closure for lack of a better term, in the pieces of him I see in myself. And I talked about my estranged relationship with my grandmother who did nothing but bring me down as a kid and young adult to the point where it was no longer healthy to be in her life or have her in mine.

I don’t really talk about my family in the present because I don’t really know how to express the way I feel these days.

For the most part, I am estranged from most of my actual relatives, blood relatives, and I am okay with that. It makes my life easier not having to deal with all the drama that a family like that brings to the table, and really I am just not the kind of person who enjoys faux pleasantries on holidays. Love is a difficult thing to fake.

My brother, mother, stepfather, nieces and nephews are in my life, but those relationships are fairly limited. I see them on holidays and we get together once a week typically for a family dinner at my mom’s house, but even those are strained these days for a myriad of complicated reasons that, for once, I probably shouldn’t discuss on a public blog. I don’t want to make things worse nor do I want to hurt anyone’s feelings which is pretty much synonymous for exactly how things go on those weekly dinners. I show up, give hugs, stick to myself, and leave as soon as dinner is over. The tension is often palpable, and I leave feeling anxious and hollow and foolish for having stayed in this town for as long as I have.

But…oh thank god there’s a but…

My kiddo and I are our own family most of the time which often includes one of my best friends in the world, one of my only friends in the area. We have disagreements and tension like any family. The kid has an honestly gotten smartass mouth and he has a tendency to tell some fibs at times, and oh god is he such a little messmaker, but he’s my everything. There’s no strain in that relationship. Even on the worst days and in the worst moments, I want nothing more than to see him smile even if it meant barfing a glittery rainbow of unicorn shit at his feet for his amusement. We can name all the clichés right here and now and they still wouldn’t hold a candle to that kind of love. It’s like nothing under the sun…no romantic love can touch that mix of protectiveness, nurturing, nostalgia for the baby days, pride, love, and adoration. Nothing. Not a thing. That love makes all the dysfunction and tension oft associated with the rest of the family a bit easier to swallow.

He’s not my reason for waking up every day as I have heard other parents say. The beauty of life itself gives me plenty of reason to wake up, make my coffee, and gaze out the window over the kitchen sink, mug in hand, relishing everything being alive has to offer—the little things like sun-dried sheets and maple syrup and cola candy and cats purring on your feet while you write. But, he makes waking up that much better and a fuckton more fulfilling.

Add in the best friend that makes me laugh and shares my love of movies and music (even if he should read more!!), someone to hold my hand when I need it and give me adult conversation about politics and social issues and a post apocalyptic landscape. He’s lovely and bearded and silly when I need it sometimes to his detriment but he puts up with me and knows how I take my coffee and what I can and cannot eat and what my favorite bands are. Perhaps it is unconventional, but family these days doesn’t have a normal definition to most of the population. Family, now, doesn’t have to come with traditional blood ties and a cookie cutter image of nuclear and extended relatives. Family is what you make it, the people you choose to surround yourself with and love unconditionally. Given that definition, I think, despite the madness of my blood ties, I am one lucky lady.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com Not That Sarah Michelle

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://thelieberfamily.com The Lieber Family Blog

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part time working mom

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

This Beast

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: 1,2,3 ~ 4-leaf clover ~ 5 a day ~ 7/11 ~ 9 to 5

They were submitted by: http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

I fully admit that when I got these, I scoffed. Loudly. These were not okay by me. haha. But, a phone call led to some inspiration, and here we are.

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She flips through the channels mindlessly. A kids’ show, 2 girls in pigtails jumping rope and counting “1, 2, 3…,” appear and disappear on to the next one.

A commercial flashes on the next channel, an ad for a new energy vitamin. A ripped meathead holds a bottle and points at the screen saying, “Only 5 a day and you can look like this!” She huffs at that wondering just why anyone would think a few pills will get them magically fitter and keeps flipping.

On the next another commercial appears… a little leprechaun with a 4 leaf clover on his hat talking about a blowout March Madness sale at a local car lot. It’s a creepy little thing and she shudders a little before flipping on.

The next channel shows some kids in a 7/11 type store at a Slushie machine, two teens in ripped jeans and faded metal band shirts discussing the cultural relevance of Pantera in some kind of indie comedy. She almost pauses, slightly intrigued, then sighs and changes the channel again.

Movie channel this time. The 1980 classic 9 to 5 and she’s almost tempted to stop. A bit of a feminist tale, of course, and that almost makes her settle on something, make up her mind and stop flipping incessantly with that restlessness she feels inside, that dissatisfaction with everything. Almost. But she flips on then clicks the television off and tosses the remote on the couch beside her.

She feels uncomfortable in her own skin. It’s just one of those days when nothing or no one will fill a space that only she can, when every little thing is an exercise in patience. She wonders if everyone has those days when everything is an aggravation and nothing makes sense, and she realizes that it’s probably true. No one is as perfect as they make themselves out to be on Facebook and Twitter.

The throw she has over her legs is a little too warm on top of the leggings and flannel shirt she wears, so she tosses it to the side unable to really get comfortable today, everything pushing her buttons. She can’t even get lost in her own head, and maybe that’s the problem today… maybe avoiding that safe space has her wound up and unable to relax. There in her inner world is a perfect romance that could never really exist in life. She fell in love with a unicorn, an imaginary beast that was equal parts myth and reality…a beast that would never really be able to give her unhurried moments of unbridled passion that left sheets sweaty and hearts melted. Because life intervenes.

Life intervenes.

Instead, she is here on her couch alone, flipping channels and unfulfilled. Longing for something that she can’t have which is one of those ironic parts of life…wanting what can’t be and not finding fulfillment in what is.

Perhaps the universe really is a troll.

Perhaps she just likes to troll herself.

She pushes off the couch and makes the walk to the kitchen, clicking the light on and surveying the room. She washes her dinner plate, stacks it into the too-full dish drainer and wipes the counters off. She grinds some coffee beans and goes through the motions of making a cup of coffee. The process soothes her nerves a little, the familiarity of it, and the work involved. She pours liquid comfort into her favorite mug—the one with the owl on it. She adds the sweetener and creamer like always and leans back against the counter to take a sip, loving the heat of the mug in her hands.

She shakes her hair out of her face, biting her bottom lip in thought. A phrase she read recently comes

https://www.instagram.com/j.raymond/?hl=en

back to her in that moment, “And she grew tired of being asked if she’d ever fallen in love. Like she wasn’t complete otherwise. With a world full of insecurities and short-sighted sheep, she was a wolf with her chin held out high. She took its worst, and she took it with a smile that made the bravest take note. Ask that questions to someone, anyone else. This beast decided long ago that everyday she’d fall in love with herself.”

She repeats the last line of it once again savoring the way it rolls around her mind, and she smiles that knowing smile while she lifts the coffee up to her lips again.

Everything will be just fine.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:


http://bakinginatornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com Not That Sarah Michelle

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/ The Angrivated Mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part time working mom

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com Climaxed

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

That Lamp Really Ties the Room Together

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

Tell us about something that you have either repurposed or something that you’re currently using but could see repurposing in the future when you’re done with it.

It was submitted by: http://Bakinginatornado.com 

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One of the things I like to do most in all the world is get up early on the weekend (early for me) and go hunt for treasures and old vinyl at thrift and vintage shops. Maybe the flea market. I can buy pretty much any record I want or find any particular treasure I may be looking for on the Internet, but sometimes you don’t know you need something until you spy it sitting there on the shelf or in the bin in all its dusty glory beaming at you from its spot and beckoning to you with promises of imperfections and just the right amount of quirk. Something clicks and you just know it has to come home with you. Sometimes I’m even like that with new records. You go digging through racks when you see some miraculously in a store and next thing you know, you are 100 bucks in the hole and 4 more records have been added to your collection. It’s black (and sometimes colored) circular magic of the sort that begs to be bought calling to you with its siren song of nearly orgasmic pleasure and who are you to refuse such magic? 

I, for one, know that refusal is absurd.

It was sort of like that the day I found the bowling pin 

in my favorite vintage warehouse. That’s right… I said warehouse. You can’t see it all in just one trip and the best part is that by the next time you go, so much has been added that you fail to see everything again. No two trips are ever the same even if you go 13.45 days in a row.

So there I was scanning dusty shelves, turning over boxes, checking prices, and getting lost in nostalgic bliss filled with plastic 90s lunchbox dreams when I saw it. It was just a regular bowling pin to the untrained eye. But for me, it begged to be brought home and, under my careful creator's vision, turned into something amazingly necessary.

But what?

Décor?

A bookend?

A pair of bookends if I find another?

A doorstop?

A lamp?

A fucking lamp.

That.

Is.

Genius.

It was rather genius actually. See, my favorite movie in all the world is The Big Lebowski. Jeff Bridges as The Dude living a serene life of Creedence, White Russians, and weed is about as iconic

as it gets, and I have to admit he is a bit of an idol of mine. Who else could deal with kidnapped trophy wives, cut off toes, harassing policemen, wrecked cars, fucking strangers in the ass, a batshit crazy converted Jew with PTSD, marmots, fucking nihilists, porn, and a pissy rug with such decorum? In the midst of insanity, I want to be able to drink my beverage, man, and to look someone dead in the eye with the calmest of demeanors, my hair partially pulled back to stay out of my drink and say, “This aggression will not stand.” The Dude, El Duderino, His Dudeliness… The man is a testament to appreciating the little things in life and letting go of all the bullshit around you. And I can dig it. So, it’s no wonder one of the first things that popped into my mind when I saw the bowling pin was The Dude himself, the avid bowler and Eagles hater, and that infamous scene where he dives between the lovely legs of some lady bowlers to enjoy the view.

The film itself is a Coen Brothers cult classic that sort of left the critics in shock after the gritty and violent Fargo the previous year. Lebowski had all the portentousness, wit, and quirkiness that the Coen brothers bring to every film they make, but it lacked the violent overtones and splashes of gore. I mean, Fargo did feature a murder by wood chipper scene after all. In place of those, we got a peace loving bowling enthusiast flanked by a weird-looking underdog and an over zealous ball of fury. In a way the two films juxtaposed one another. Fargo seems to be a commentary on the failings of the American Dream in small town USA or perhaps what that dream might look like to the different archetypes found in the middle of nowhere, in Bumfuck. The lengths one man will go to find some modicum of success and the finer things as interpreted by his bumpkin idea of culture is exaggerated as are the accents and the characters, but they still tell an all too familiar story to anyone who knows the struggle of how differently things work in poverty stricken Nowhereville. The story is manic and driven and all about the depths of depravity. In contrast, The Dude is the story in Lebowski. The plot jumps and hems and haws along with very little actual storytelling, but that's not a bad thing. The significance lies with the characters, with the distinct message that no matter how much shit gets thrown your way, you ask for some Kahlua, man, and you let it ride. You still have a hot bath to soak in with a bit of weed and a beverage at the end of the day.

I abide.

And so there are some very distinct Lebowski features in my living room decked out with its movie theme with this repurposed bowling pin lamp being a bit of pride and joy for me especially since I made it by hand. And if you don’t like it… well, that’s just like your opinion, man.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/ The Bergham Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/ The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com Not That Sarah Michelle

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/ The Angrivated Mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://mybrainonkids.net My Brain on Kids

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part time working mom

http://thelieberfamily.com The Lieber Family Blog

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius