Tag: life

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the road through 15 years

I have a confession to make, I love the television show Supernatural.  Sure, it has its faults.  Yes, it’s had some less than stellar story lines.  Or course, some of it is over the top outlandish.  Yep, the characters are all deeply flawed.  I think maybe that’s part of why I love it.  For all that it’s about the supernatural, it’s about the very human family at the center of it. And not just blood family.  It’s about that, but it’s also got a very strong understand of made family, the family you chose.

I’ve just finished a rewatch of the show from the beginning through the end of season 13.  When I started my rewatch, I didn’t know that they would soon be announcing that season 15 would be the end of it, but it made me glad I had decided to go back to the very beginning.

I can remember when we waited, heads bowed and praying for them to announce that we’d get another season…back before it became the juggernaut of fan-conventions, before the fandom rose up to perform some truly amazing acts of charity (despite all of ITS flaws and backbiting and judgement).

Marathoning through 13 seasons in the last few months gave me some insights I probably wouldn’t have gotten any other way.  It made me appreciate those flawed characters and the amazing actors that bring them to life even more.

I’ve never been to a Supernatural convention due to my agoraphobia and the cost it would involve to get me what I need to cope, but there’s a part of me that wishes I could.  I’ve come to love, not just the boys Jared and Jensen, but the entire family of actors who inhabit the Supernatural universe.

I’m glad they get to go into the final season knowing that it’s the final season, and I hope that it provides them to give us a fitting end to 15 years of hunting trips.  And if they wanted to give us another episode with Jeffery Dean Morgan popping by, I wouldn’t complain.

I’ve been mulling over what I might like that ending to be, and I have a few ideas, but I think I’ll keep them to myself for now.  Feel free to drop your ideas in the comments.  I’d love to know!

Now, the coffee is getting cold, so I best get to the drinking of it, and start putting some words to the page.

Photo lovingly borrowed from Entertainment Weekly.

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running against the clock

A bit of oatmeal, some coffee and we ease into the day.  Well, not so much.  By the time I got to the oatmeal and coffee, I had already walked 1.2 miles, with a train ride in the middle, plus the whole getting out of bed and getting dressed and all of that, including makeup and jewelry.

It’s a whole thing.

I have a Samsung Galaxy watch, and one of the programs on it allows me to set a “must wake up by” time, which is set to 4:30 am, and then it monitors my sleep cycle and wakes me at the end of an REM cycle closest to that time, provided that there isn’t time for another complete cycle.

For the last 3 days, it’s gone off at 4am.  It’s amazing to me how much better my mornings have been.  I’m up and out of bed, dressed and answering emails before my 4:30 alarm goes off.  If I had gone that extra half hour, I would have gotten up groggy and cranky and slow.

Time is a funny thing, really.  A human construct that lets us function within a society, a measurement of when rather than what.  At one point in my life, I was so addicted to knowing what time it was, that I looked at my watch about 20 million times a day (an estimate, of course, probably slightly overstated).  I had to stop wearing a watch to get past it.

In fact, I went without a watch for close to 8 years before I got my first fitbit.  I’d broken the addiction, and didn’t fall back into it, but I came to love having that fitbit.  I’ve only recently upgraded to the Galaxy watch as my Fitbit Charge HR 2 was on its last legs.  I love the versatility of it, I only wish the associated Samsung Health app was a little more robust, like the Fitbit app.

Speaking of time, it looks like I should get myself back to my work.  Emails to respond to, pages to write…you know, the usual.  And I don’t want my coffee to get cold.

Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I hope time is on your side today!

 

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash

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making up with makeup

I’ve always had something of a love/hate relationship with the concept of cosmetics.  On the one hand, I love how they can help me present an image of myself, on the other, I hate the work involved.

In my teens, I never left the house without the minimum of foundation, mascara and eyeshadow.  As I got older I added lipstick and eyeliner.  Then I hit a period of not wearing anything.  I think that came as I was working on how to love the face in the mirror.

I had to drop the pretense, I guess.  And that took a long time.  I only did my makeup if I was going “out” or getting my picture taken.  Suddenly, however, almost immediately after my surgery, I started putting makeup on to go to work, and if I was leaving the house for the doctor’s office and such.  Not everyday, mind you, but often.

This week I cleaned out my admittedly very old collection of makeup, trashed a whole lot of it.  I need to clean my brushes and what nots, but yeah, it was time to drop the old stuff.  I broke my own no buy rule recently and splurged on some higher end cosmetics than I would normally buy and they arrived yesterday.

I’m excited for Monday morning when I get to try it all out for the first time.  Silly as that sounds.

Well, my coffee is waiting for me and there are words to capture, so I’m off.  Tell me, Readers, what is your morning routine like?

Don’t forget, I’m running a special offer over on my Patreon:  join me know at the $3 per month or up level and you will get a postcard from my personal collection covering 50 years of my life, chosen just for you with a nice note from me.

 

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

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happy spring?

It’s another rainy, rainy day here in San Francisco.  Just walking from BART to the office has my legs soaked from the knees down.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain, and gods know we needed it, but after a solid month of the stuff, I find myself craving the sun.  My cats are also completely over the rain.  This morning, instead of getting up with me, they sat on the bed staring at the pet door.

The streets are turning into rivers and the ground everywhere is just saturated.  I am sure all of the plants are thrilled that we have escaped drought status, but I think I am quite over the rain at this point.

Enough of that, however.  Today is Ostara on the Pagan calendar, the spring equinox.  Today is the tipping point that dumps us out of winter and onward toward summer.  From here out the days start to get longer, at least until midsummer.

It is a time to plant intentions, to begin new things.  Get those seeds in some dirt and let’s grow something profound!

Of course, it’s also Wednesday, so here I am in the office like a good worker drone.  Lots to do, coffee to consume, etc, etc…

How about you, Readers?  What are you looking to grow this season?

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come play with me

I have rededicated my efforts to build on my Patreon, and decided that a good way to kick that off is a special offer.  For the next 30 days, through 4/16, all new patrons, and anyone increasing their tier, will get a personalized, hand written postcard from my stash of postcards, some of which date back to before I could read, write or appreciate the value of a good postcard.

You can come join the fun for as little as $1 a month, but to qualify for the postcard offer, you must choose the $3 tier or up.  And what do you get for that money?  Well, let me tell you!

At the lowest tier you’ll get the occasional glimpse into whatever I’m working on at the moment, and as you climb the tier you get access to bigger and better things including fresh-from-my-pen poetry, a look at moments in the life of a writer with an insane muse, flash stories, short stories written specifically for my patrons, first chance to see announcements, video content from time to time and even copies of my books.

All the money that comes in from Patreon is specifically earmarked into my “buy books” fund, which I will use to keep physical copies of my books on hand for signings and events.

So, come visit my Patreon page and join the fun!

 

 

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the elusive nature of unconditional love

Back in the day when I was an evangelical Christian (yes, really), I  spoke a lot about unconditional love.  I believed that I acted inside that love.  I believed that I understood what unconditional love really was.

The truth is, I was clueless.

It took a lot of changes in my life to realize that.  It took leaving behind everything I thought I knew, everything I believed.  It took discovering myself under all of the layers of learned behavior and belief/fear conditioning.  I often liken those days to days spent in a cult.

Unconditional love is something that springs from inside you and because of that, nothing external to you can change it.  Nothing someone does, nothing someone says can change that kind of love.

That’s a really powerful thing.  It’s the kind of thing that changes lives.  It changed mine.  I’m not saying I practice it perfectly, I am, after all, still human.  And I’m not aiming for sainthood here.  I still make snap judgments about people.  I still criticize things I know I shouldn’t.  But I try to embody unconditional love to all.

It’s what drives me to act with kindness.  To meet people where they are, as they are and try to be helpful without inserting my own prejudice and needs into their life.  It’s why I can be friends with people so very different to me. How I can give of myself where others won’t.

Sure, sometimes I miss the mark, but the longer I practice this idea, the longer I choose to put love and kindness ahead of judgement and fear, the better I get at it.   I just keep hoping to one day get it right.

I hope your Saturday is filled with the light of Love, Readers, and that you radiate that love back out into the world around you.  Let’s light this place up!

 

 

 

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

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Gram’s Town

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had a love of horror novels.  I found a John Saul book at a garage sale when I was around 14, and having already cut my teeth on Steven King’s Salem’s Lot and Carrie, I was hungry for more.

That book was Comes the Blind Fury.

comes the blind fury

I’m not a huge fan of most horror movies, mostly because it’s the psychological horror that pulls me in, not none stop blood with no real story to induce the fear response.  But books?  Yes please.

It should come as no surprise then that I have had my own horror story floating about in the darker recesses of my brain since about the time I was 17.  It has never really made it to the page, because I had trouble finding my voice.

However, recently I wondered if I could condense it into a short story for an upcoming anthology, and words started to pour out.

Yes, this makes three novels currently in some stage of creation on my computer.  This is me, after all.

I doubt it will be short enough for the anthology, now that I’ve gotten into it, but that’s okay.  It’s fun to be writing something very different from my usual.  The constant rain here is very atmospheric as well.

Speaking of rain, I had to wade through rivers of run off to get into the office this morning, and I should probably dive into the ever present, ever growing pile of work.

Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I hope you find yourself someplace sunny and warm, with kindness as your companion.

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#amwriting Saturday

I am working on a short story this morning, a foray into the world of horror.  The story itself has been floating around in my head for years, and I figured it was time to bring it into being.

It’s another rainy Saturday here in California, and I’m still down with the cold that attacked me last week.   I’m feeling better, but as usual, the cough lingers and is slowly stripping me of my voice.

It’s hard to believe it’s March, and with the coming of March comes the time of year where my time is increasingly filled up with Pride duties.  Add in an anthology to edit and other fun and my days become filled with stuff to do.

At least it keeps me out of trouble, more or less.  Plus the day job has a lot going on this month too.  When it rains it pours.

That’s all I’ve got this morning, though Readers.  Time to get some coffee going and some words flowing.

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go, go gadget girl

I’m the first to admit, I am a lover of gadgets.  If I could, I would have all the gadgets.  Well, maybe not all of them.  I’m not an Apple lover (but I couldn’t find a freely available picture of a collection of Samsung gadgets).

Some gadgets I came to late in the game.  My first MP3 player was a gift from a company I was working for at the time.  My first fitness tracker was a gift from my mother.

This week I stepped up from just a fitness tracker to a smart watch.  My hesitancy to make the jump had more to do with battery life than anything, and I am still trying to find my rhythm with when and where to charge it.

I’m still wearing my Fitbit for the time being too, as I figure out the differences between them so that I can interpret the results on my Samsung watch in relation to what I am used to.  For example, as I sit here at my office desk, my Fitbit says I’ve put in 2846 steps, while the watch says 2196.  The other area I notice a real difference is in sleep tracking.

The whole point of the watch was to replace the Fitbit, which is having serious issues since I cracked the screen in Italy.  Doing it before the Fitbit dies completely was important to me, so that I could make the transition the way I am.

Of course, the problem with all this connectivity is that I get notifications for things on my computer, my phone and my watch now, and they aren’t perfectly in sync, so they buzz, buzz, buzz at me!

Anyway, it’s another rainy day here in San Francisco.  I hope there’s some sunshine where you are, Readers!  I’m off to have some coffee.

 

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash

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wedded bliss

All around me people are planning weddings.  I must know at least twelve couples getting married this year.  I’m happy for them, if that is what they truly want in their lives.  Love is, after all, a wondrous thing. For myself, however, I can love freely without needing to be defined as a half of a couple.

I’ve known since I was in my early teens that marriage was not something I aspired to.  I have nothing against marriage, I just never saw myself as a married woman.  As I aged and discovered that there were options outside of straight, monogamous marriage and I started to understand myself better, I realized that the reason I had no designs on finding that one true love is that, for me at least, love is so much bigger than that.

I was introduced to polyamory as a concept nearly twenty years ago.  It made so much sense to me, for me.  Not that I am seeing anyone right now, but when I am dating, it will be a relationship built on mutual love and trust, and the understanding that he or she is not my one and only.

I haven’t tipped my toe into the dating pool in a while, and I don’t plan to any time soon, though as wedding season rolls around, it would be nice to have someone to take with me, even if just to forestall the conversation about why I’m not dating/coupled/engage/married.  Somehow complete strangers seem to think they have the right to ask me about these things when I show up to events alone.

If I had a dime for every time I’ve been told I just haven’t found the “right person” I could retire on my own private island.  At fifty years old, I’m having the time of my life, just like I am.  I don’t need a husband or a wife to complete my life.  Love infuses my life, and when I feel the pull toward a person, I explore it, without hitching my ride to another’s existence.

Either way, love wins.  Love should always win, marriage or not.

Happy Saturday, Readers!  I hope love infuses your day, and happiness fills your pockets.

Photo by Marc A. Sporys on Unsplash