Over a year ago, my mom said, “I’d like to hike somewhere with you before I’m too old.” I semi-jokingly replied, “You find the budget, I’ll find the time!” Cause let’s be realistic, broke writer here. Tonight we get on a plane on fly to Dublin. The trip has changed a little in that time. The original plan was for the two of us to hike across the country from Dublin to the West coast. A stress fracture in my mom’s foot derailed that plan fairly quickly, and we decided it would

I haven’t come out of my writing cave a whole lot lately. What I AM coming out for is the Women’s March this weekend. My best friend and I took a road trip to Washington D.C.. Tomorrow, on January 21, 2017, we’ll join hundreds of thousands of people there, and more across the world, to say that we don’t agree with the current direction our country is heading. You can call it a protest against Trump if you want but it’s about a lot more than just him. It’s a message to everyon

To see Pt. 1: The Rant, click here. Last night, I got a message from a friend who lives out of state. He was in the area and asked if I was free and wanted to grab dinner. I’d actually canceled a date (the guy turned out to be racist and xenophobic, ugh) so I met my friend in Ann Arbor instead.  Although we touched briefly on the election and the consequences, our conversation primarily covered everything else. We stayed at the restaurant until they kicked us out and it was a

I had a knot in my shoulder and zero motivation to do anything yesterday evening when my dad reminded me that we had plans to go see This Changes Everything, a film (based on a book by Naomi Klein) about climate change. I almost cancelled, but I am glad I didn’t. My dad is an active member of the Sierra Club and they were co-hosting a film screening. I’ve seen plenty of documentaries—I’m as likely to binge watch PBS nature documentaries as I am a show like Breaking Bad or Fam

Life is weird when you’re going through a divorce.  You break down crying over random receipts, anniversary cards you’ve saved make you inexplicably angry, and as you sort through the spices you’ve meticulously put into nice jars and labeled, you think, “fuck you, I’m keeping the fleur de sel we bought on our honeymoon in Paris”. Spices shouldn’t be one of the hardest parts of this, but somehow they are.  You both love cooking and for years you did it together.  You remember

I’m not entirely sure what the next chapter of my life entails, but some of it is starting to come together. I am going to quit my day job, stay with my parents for six months, and see if I can support myself with my writing.   I considered about a thousand different plans, but this is the one that feels like it’ll lead to a happy, healthy future for me.  Getting an apartment of my own was tempting, but I still would have been juggling two jobs on top of adjusting to living a

As you know, things have been a little crazy around here.  I managed to get three days off work that fell at the same time as my normal Friday off, so I have a nice chunk of six days off in a row.  Unfortunately, I’ve been running myself so ragged it was too little too late, at least when it comes to my health.  On Friday, I spent sixteen hours writing like a madwoman and now have a nasty case of bronchitis.  *sighs* Someday I’ll get better at this balancing thing, I swear. O

Scent is a funny thing.  It triggers so many memories and there’s no controlling them.  The memories leap out when you least expect them. I work for a hospital but not in the hospital, so when someone is seriously ill or injured in the building, paramedics get called to transport the patient over to the Emergency Room.  It happened today.  Part of my job is to use an override key for the elevator to get the paramedics to the patient and back as quickly as possible Like many c

In early July I visited the Potter Park Zoo with one of my closest friends.  With as busy as we both are these days, we don’t get to spend much time together.  But we’re both trying to make an effort so when she said she was going to be in Lansing on one of my Fridays off, I shuffled my plans around and made it happen.  She had been planning to bring her two boys to the zoo and Potter Park is great for smaller kids.  The Detroit Zoo is amazing, but it’s the kind of place you

I am several months behind on posting this one *ahem* but in May my husband and I finally tackled the massive project of landscaping the front yard.  When we moved into the house eight years ago, the yard looked pretty awful.  The bushes out front were long overdue for pruning and were scraggly and uninteresting.  The awning was hideous.  And the rose bushes along the west side of the house were overgrown.  That first year, we took down the awning, pruned the rose bushes and

I’ve pretty much been going non-stop since last December.  Work and writing don’t leave much time for relaxing so I made a conscious choice before I left for a long weekend in Canada.  No phones, no internet, no laptop, no writing … for three whole days.  The idea was painful.  Forcing myself to leave my laptop at made me twitchy.  I love writing.  Deeply.  But I know if I’m not careful I will burn out and that won’t do me any favors as a healthy human being or as a writer.  

When “Pain Management” was accepted by Dreamspinner last fall, I came out to my parents about writing gay romance. And (somewhat spontaneously) came out as bi. When it was published in February, they told me how proud of me they were and gave me a beautiful card and wooden jewelry box to celebrate. When they asked to read it I had a mild panic attack and a few weeks ago, I finally gave them a copy. Tonight they told me what they thought. Apparently my mother had thought it wa

Well, I’m only two weeks behind with the Easter pics, so that’s an improvement, right? Because it was such a late spring, there wasn’t much in the way of plants and flowers outside, except for the daffodil bed, so I took advantage of what my parents grow inside. Oh, and that wooden carved egg?  My dad made it for me.  He’s made one for me almost every year since I was a kid so I have dozens of them.  Hmm, maybe when I (eventually) set up an office for myself that’s a little l

The last few days have been exhausting.  About a week ago, my husband and I noticed that one of our cats, Mercury, seemed a little subdued.  We kept an eye on it but didn’t really notice anything different until Sunday.  On Sunday it seemed like she was exhausted and even going up the stairs took a lot of effort.  When we took her to the vet on Monday they found out she was severely anemic.  There were several theories as to why; possibly some kind of intestinal perforation o

I ran across this video today and it really resonated with me. I’ve watched Ash Beckham’s videos before, and she’s always funny, always clever, and always makes excellent points in her speeches. This particular one is about being closeted. Not in the strictly gay sense, but in the sense that all human beings are closeted in one way or another when we hide our true selves from the world. At some point or another, all of us have had a moment where we’ve stepped out of the close