Author, Historian, StorytellerSomething wakes me
Some unseen force
I am meant to be somewhere
The warmth of a bed and the luxury of sleep are not for me
Not now
A light calls me
An eerie light I’ve never seen before
I must see beauty, but it’s not beautiful
It should be, it’s supposed to be, but it’s not
It’s plain
It’s the girl next door
It’s every day
But it’s meant for me and me alone
That’s enough to make it beautiful
Eerie Sunrise by lowapproach
http://lowapproach.deviantart.com/
You know you have mono when:
You know you have mono when:
You know you have mono when:
You know you have mono when:
You know you have mono when:
You know you have mono when:
I have been tagged by a fellow writer to participate in the #8TerribleTitles blog hop. Here are the rules:
So without further ado, here are my contributions from In a Time Never Known, my historical fiction novel set during the American Civil War, publication 2015. I, of course, added snarky tag lines:
He Coughed Up Some Blood and Groaned
– A no-holds barred telling of the scourge that was tuberculosis in the Wild West.
This is The Spot
– In a much anticipated sequel, Lady MacBeth gets counseling to help her reconcile what is actually a spot, and what is simply a figment of her guilt-riddled imagination.
Her Father’s Shipping Conglomeration
– This touching biography of Tom, the first FedEx store owner in Sheboygan, WI, will keep you riveted from the first roll of packing tape to the last.
To Approach the Top of the Hill
– In his controversial new book, Dr. Phil posits that not everyone is ready for success, and that there are steps that must be taken before approaching the top.
In Her Mother’s Hand
– Little Janie has always known that her mother is a kleptomaniac, but when Janie herself is accused of stealing a precious keepsake, will she take the blame, or reveal, that like every other time, the answer lies in her mother’s hand?
She’s Bleeding!
– In this heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Claire comes to terms with the fact that she is the last of her friends to get her period, and thus cross over into womanhood.
The Comfort of Kady’s Embrace
– Kady, a mild-mannered prostitute, discovers that she has the ability to heal the sick through carnal embrace. But how can she explain this gift, and will anybody believe her?
The Demons of Our Realities
– Demon hunters Billy and Joe have to act fast when an exorcism gone wrong shifts all of Earth’s demons to an alternate reality, and all of the alternate reality’s demons to Earth.
Hmmm, I think some of those might actually sell . . .
Thanks for inviting me to play Jayme! For more #8TerribleTitles check out her blog here.
Barely breathing beyond the bounds of basic necessity
Reaching, reacting, responding to rhetorical bombast
Ostentation is out of order, out of the obvious realm
Keening of the kind to keep the knell of kin out
Eradicating the emulous effigies that endure kings
Next to the nebulous niceties of the normal bustle
Photo by Jon Shireman
http://www.jonshireman.com/
Life is too short for maybes and what-ifs. It is too short for tomorrows and some days. For mincing of words and holding of tongues.
Life is too short to let work rule your life. It is too short to put off happiness. To wait just one more day to follow your dreams.
Life is too short to spend it with people who aren’t as amazing as you are. It is too short to spend it with those who suck your energy and time. Those who kick you when you’re down.
Life is too short to obsess over every ounce, every blemish. It is too short to fixate on things that are out of your control. To hide because you don’t like the way that you look.
Life is too short for complaints and whining. It is too short for worrying about what other people say. For focusing on anything but the positive.
Life is too short.
My roommate and I have been battling our shower curtain since, well pretty much since we moved into our apartment two years ago. To be fair, it’s not the shower curtain, it’s the rod. It would constantly slip and then eventually the whole thing would come crashing down. Sometimes it took absolutely no provocation, we’d be sitting in the living room enjoying our morning coffee and a loud crash would echo out from the bathroom. Other times you’d be in the shower and tug on the curtain a bit and down it would come. It was good times. Eventually, I went out and bought a shiny new shower curtain rod so that these issues would be a thing of the past . . . exact same problems as before. Either our bathtub is just the tiniest bit longer than a standard shower curtain rod, or we have a ghost that has a serious grudge against shower curtains staying up.
So, to solve this problem I just started resting each end of the rod on top of tile wall that surrounds the bathtub. Problem solved! New problem: now the shower curtain only hangs down into the tub about two inches, which means when the slightest nudge or spray of water hits it, the bottom of the curtain flies out and water gets all over the bathroom. Ugh! Needless to say, my roommate and I have become very careful shower-ers. Until this weekend, when I had a brilliant idea! Emily was at Target so I asked her to pick up the cheapest shower curtain hooks they had. I added the second set of hooks onto the original set and voila, for $1.50, our shower curtain is now long enough that our troubles are over! To double check my work, I stepped into the bathtub and closed the curtain. Emily was holding off taking a shower until I fixed the shower curtain, so I loudly announced that I was finished. She hollered a “Yay!” from her room. That’s when I realized that since she was in her room she had no idea that I was now standing in the bathtub behind the drawn curtain. This is when I had my second brilliant idea of the weekend – I was going to stay in the bathtub and scare the crap out of Emily! The following is my inner monologue.
Okay, she’s still in her room packing to go to her parents’ house, perfect. I’ll stand in the middle of the tub and when she pulls back the curtain I’ll say “Boo!” It’ll be great! Oh, wait a minute. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her scared before. I wonder if she’s more of a fight or a flight person? If she’s a fight person and I’m standing in the middle of the tub, she’ll be able to punch me right in the face before I even see it coming. Hmmm. I really don’t see her doing that . . . but am I willing to take that risk? Okay, I’ll be in the middle of the tub, but I’ll be up against the back of the wall. That way if she tries to punch me she’ll have to over extend and it won’t hurt as much. Huh? You can’t really stand all the way back, the curve of the tub is too much. Okay, I’ll scoot my feet back as far as they can go and lean against the wall. There, perfect! This is kind of awkward. Who cares! It’ll totally be worth it!
***
Good lord! Is she moving out, how much stuff is she packing? Just come take your shower already!
***
Ooo, she’s coming in the bathroom! Should I do a scary face, or a creepy smile? Smile, definitely creepy smile! Okay, she’s going for the light switch, closing the door, any second now . . . any second now . . . any second . . . oh good grief, what is she doing? Wow, you really can’t see anything through this curtain. I have no idea what she is doing. Which I guess is good, because that means that she has no idea that I’m back here. Awesome! Wait a minute. That also means that on an everyday basis, someone could be hiding behind this curtain and neither of us would have any clue until we pulled it open. *shudder* Note to self – start leaving the shower curtain open, so that serial killers who break in will have to find somewhere else to hide.
Second note to self – stop watching Criminal Minds, it’s warping your brain. Oh! Oh, she’s moving, get ready!
Oh no. No, no, no, stop! Stop, don’t do that! Aw crap, she’s going to the bathroom. Now this is just awkward. Should I say something? No, no that would be worse. Stay the course, she’ll be done in a second and all will go as planned. Unless of course, she has to poop . . . oh god! She has to poop! Nooooooo! I should say something, I should really say something. She doesn’t want me in here listening to her poop, I wouldn’t want somebody to listen to me poop. But she’s already pooping, I would be interrupting her poop. You can’t interrupt a good poop, that’s sacrilegious! Crap, crap crap, this is not how this was supposed to go!
***
I wonder if she’d notice if I opened the window? Kat, no! Of course she would notice. Pull yourself together Michels, you’ve smelled worse. In fact, this doesn’t even hit the top ten worst poops you’ve smelled, you’ll be fine. Stay the course, it’ll be worth it … I hope. Actually at this point I just hope that she doesn’t kill me. She has a good sense of humor, she’ll think this is funny … I hope. *Puggles barking* Oh crap! Shhh! Shhh! Puggles stop it. If you keep barking, she going to wonder why I’m not shushing you. Oh God! What if it’s Earl coming home? No, no it’s not Earl. They’ve stopped barking. Good.
***
Oh good lord, my feet are purple! I’ve been standing so long at this awkward angle that my feet have gone purple! Okay, I can wiggle my toes still, that’s good. I should move my feet, switch positions. No! You can’t do that, this bathtub creaks with any sort of movement. Maybe if I bend my knees a little bit. Stand, bend, stand, bend, get the circulation going. There, that seems to be helping some. Oh, oh, she flushed, okay get ready! No! Don’t get undressed first, just pull back the curtain and then this can all be over! Argh!!!! Crap. Now she’s naked, I’ve heard her poop and she’s pulling back the curtain really slowly. *She sees me, gasps and wraps the curtain around her.*
“Oh God! Were you in there while I pooped?”
“Yep, good poop!” thumbs up. She starts laughing.
“You are ridiculous. How did you breathe?”
“I was gonna open the window, but I thought you’d hear it.” She laughs some more.
“I feel like we’ve bonded.”
“Me too.”
“Can I take my shower now?”
“Yep.”
I step out of the bathtub and return to my now cold coffee in the living room. The shower starts, I get a text message, “Can you tweet about that? I think it deserves a tweet, or a blog post.” Oh, definitely a blog post Em. Most definitely a blog post.
I am what you would call a competitive person. I like to be first, or the best, whether we’re talking about who has the lowest grocery bill or who finishes a task first. I compete everywhere and with everything, even if the competition is only against myself. In fact, I’ve learned over the years that most people don’t like to compete at everything, so I keep most of the competitions to myself. The last time that I went to the grocery store with someone, I totally won the lowest bill competition. He doesn’t know that I won, because he didn’t know that we were playing. But I know, and that’s all that counts. So it is with great humility that I concede openly, that I DO NOT, repeat DO NOT want to win if my current situation is a competition. I personally haven’t been viewing it as a competition, but my body seems to have been playing the one-up game with illness all year. So I am stating loud and clear, right now – do you hear me body? – that I concede the one-up game and I no longer want to play.
So far this year I have had: 2 ear infections, 3 sinus infections, extensive dental work, a cancer scare, a hormonal imbalance, an H. Pylori infection, panic attacks, costochondritis and now mono. Not to mention the cold that is going around my office right now as the cherry on top. On the one hand – well done me. That is quite the impressive line-up. But on the other, logical, non-crazy hand – good lord, give me a break and let me be healthy for two consecutive days! I really don’t think that that is too much to ask!
So in that vein, I am putting my competitive side on the back burner and declaring that I do not want to win this competition. ‘A’ for effort, good show, but I’m throwing in the towel. But I guess that means that I’m hoping that someone else’s health is worse than mine, so that they can win the competition. That’s not very nice. I really wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Okay, new plan . . .
I win!
Mono plus a cold takes the cake, the gold medal and the chicken dinner. You win body. You have accumulated the weirdest collection of ailments and put everybody else to shame. You happy now? Good! Now can we stop please? I’m sick and tired . . . literally. To celebrate my win, I’m going to take a nap.
You are the sun to my moon,
I can stand on my own,
Survive on my own,
But I am only bright when you are near.
You are the sun to my moon,
I revolve for you,
Transfer radiance for you,
But I am only light when you are near.
You are the sun to my moon,
I want to get closer.
Soak up all your rays,
But your heat overcomes me when I am near.
You are the sun to my moon,
Your flames tickle,
Fire engulfs me,
But I must feel what it is like for you to be near.
You are the sun to my moon,
You have destroyed me.
I will never be the same,
But I must stay in orbit, where you are near.
This is apparently my week to contemplate moods. A friend of mine asked me yesterday, in all earnestness, how she could snap out of her bad mood. Without a moment’s hesitation I shot back at her a smart ass response of:
“Decide to be in a good mood.”
At the time, I had definitely intended that remark to be sarcastic, but in retrospect, the advice is sound. How do you get out of a bad mood? You stop being in a bad mood. I think it’s actually that simple. Instead of focusing on what is wrong about today, instead of focusing on who is to blame, instead of being hard on yourself, you can choose to focus on something else. I truly feel that whatever you chose to focus on, will determine your mood. It’s really hard to be in a bad mood when you’re thinking about happy things. Focus on how good your coffee tastes. Focus on, and congratulate yourself on, the cute outfit you put together. Focus on the positives of the task you’re working on and all of the things you’ve already completed, and I truly believe that you can walk out of a shit-storm clean. You just have to make the choice to focus your brain on the positives in your life and let the negatives roll off your back. Which is much easier said than done.
I tend to find humor is just about everything. So much so, that I have had the comment made in my general direction that I was being inappropriate. Have you ever noticed how people who make judgments like that will rarely say it to your face, but always say it to someone else in a way that you are sure to hear? Drives me nuts! At any rate, I try to find the humor no matter how bleak the situation. There are times when the proverbial last straw fell so long ago that the poor camel has been in traction for months, yet more straw comes down. There are times when you have battled through so much and overcome so many obstacles, yet your path is still blocked. In these times you are faced with two choices: you can either laugh or cry. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done enough crying. So I choose to laugh.
I choose to laugh in the darkest of moments, the hardest of places. It might be bittersweet, but it’s laughter. So why can’t I do the same on a day to day basis? When my day sucks, when everything seems to be working against me and I’m tired and worn out, who’s to say that I can’t laugh? That I can’t stare down the crappiness and proclaim that I will not let it get the best of me. Not today! That I am going to smile and I am going to find something good to fixate on. To cling to like a buoy in the ocean if I have to, but I’m going to stop feeling sorry for myself. Because in most cases, that is really what is at the root of a bad mood. I wasn’t treated the way that I would like to be treated. I didn’t get what I wanted. I have to do something that I don’t want to do. I am being kept from my true calling, and so I am going to feel sorry for myself. Pity party, table of one. My bad mood and I will each have a glass of wine so that we can stew in our stupor of self-righteous indignation.
Now don’t get me wrong. There are times when it is justified and you truly have been treated like crap, and taken advantage of and been kept from your dreams. However, even in those instances, you don’t have to stay there. You can get up and leave and choose to be somewhere else. I need to work on that. I need to remember to keep choosing to be somewhere better. I need to choose to laugh more often. I think we all do.