Meet Joe

Starting high school is hard enough, but when you are walking the halls as a brand-new freshman amid pointed glares and whispers of "cold-blooded" and "murdered", and the halls part in a V before you, school takes on a special brand of dread.  The ice began to thaw by lunch, when he found a couple kids from baseball, but you try finding a homecoming date when your big brother killed the prom queen.

Of course, Cherie didn't know the reason Joe was off limits.  By senior year, no one talked about Ashley anymore. But the tepid air around Joe turned into icicles about 6 feet from him on all sides when his team or his family weren't around.  To Cherie, he was just undateable.  Too bad, he has really pretty eyes.  Judging from the way he glared at her new crew, the feeling seemed pretty mutual.

She felt his gaze piercing into her back all through lunch, and considered calling him out.  When she mentioned as much to The Twins, they responded with their eyes.  Message received.  Off limits.  She couldn't help but wonder why.  She seriously considered committing social suicide anyway, but knew such a faux pas would be detrimental.  It's not worth it. Cherie knew the game, and how playing it just makes life easier.  School is the one place life can be easy.  No boat rocking.  At least not yet.  She shrugged him off, turning again into the conversation, laughing easily at the obvious jokes and twirling her hair around her fingers. Not yet.

Too White to Write?

When I told my friend, a writer, that my fantasy novel's main character was an 18-year-old black girl, he cut me off right away.  "You can't do it."  I fought, I resisted, I got defensive, but I knew he was right.  After all, Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark is one of two reasons I majored in English.  The other reason was the Vietnam War, which I'll elaborate on in another post.  My ancestry is French and Irish. What would I know of the inner life of a teenager raised in Hollywood by her Haitian ex-model mother and Brazilian producer father? But is the question of whether I should write this book a cultural or racial one?  I don't think my hesitation, and my friend's warning, goes much further than skin deep.  Cherie's experience isn't rooted culturally in the African-American community.  Or is it?  How much of her life in Beverly Hills would be different from her blonde besties'? I don't know.  She is a mystery to me. Every bit of her life is a mystery to me, as I have only been to LA once.

The reasons I am writing this book includes the reasons it shouldn't be written at all. I don't know if I can pull it off.  I don't know if I will make some egregious errors that I am inherently blind to, by my whiteness.  It's entirely possible.  Probably probable. Caucasian writers have created characters of color for years, that is nothing new.  But how successfully?  There is a range.  Zora Neale Hurston, whom I consider my literary grandmother, for her writing has most changed my life, has most given me permission, no, an invitation, to write, was horrendously panned for her attempt at writing about a Southern white couple in Seraph on the Suwannee.  This is her one piece I can't bring myself to read. Ironically, I should read it immediately before I get any further in FaerieWolf.  We are all limited by the lens through which we see the world, and that lens gets manipulated and distorted based on how society treats us.  I can take a hammer to my lens, and try to see the world through a myriad of perspectives, but it is my eyes, always, peering through.

The problem is, I don't just want to write a book about Cherie, who appeared to me, fully formed, on Ft. Myers Beach, I want to write her successfully.  I want Cherie to be seen clearly by the reader for the person she is, not just the things about her.  There are pieces of her that I don't really understand, can't really relate to.  She is, after all, a fictional character, and not me.  Most of those pieces have nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or culture.  They have to do with her personal worldview and the way she interacts with the world around her.  Our race, ethnicity, and culture inform who we are as people, but they are not who we are as people.  We do not exist in homogenous groups based on demographics.

At the end of the day, we all write what we know.  But we challenge ourselves as well.  Isn't that what writing's about? Challenging the norms of the day? Seeking to elicit some fragment of truth within ourselves and share it with the world? Find one, just one, honest sentence? What I know of the world, the story I choose to tell that world has to do with many things, not simply race.  This is not just a fantasy novel about a black female heroine written by a white female writer.  That's something about it, but it's just one thing.

Welcome to Summerlin

Cherie found herself in a cave surrounded by little naked winged people.
"Am I dead?" she asked.
"Not yet, but maybe if you don't stop yelling." One of them said.  She faced the little squirt and opened her mouth to retort when she heard it.
A baying wolf.  Then another.  That shut her up.  She took a second to breathe in her surroundings.  Fifty or so little bug people and some birds.  The ground felt dry like dirt.  A couple fireflies lit up a corner across from her.  The cave didn't really look like a cave now.
"Are we in a tree?" she asked.
"SSSSSHHHHH!" came the reply.  From outside.  And above.  Like the tree itself was shushing her.  She touched the tree where it hit her in the back, like rubbing someone's shoulder in condolence as a sign she'd gotten the message.  Shutup.  Loud and clear.  The tree itself felt like it was shaking.  She took some deep, calming breaths she'd learned in yoga and willed the tree to chill out.  Willed all the damned buzzing things to just chill the fuck out. She breathed slow and deep like the gulf at the beach.  Closed her eyes and went there, all the while stroking the huge ass tree giving them cover.  She didn't know what was out there, but she sure as hell didn't want to.  She thought about what Thalia told her about her weird dreams and wondered if it were true.  Can you get hurt here and stay hurt in real life? God, she hoped to hell not. After what seemed like hours, when the baying seemed to have drifted much further south (is south still south here?), the creatures moved silently up the tree, beseeching her to join their ranks.  She complied.  What choice did she have?  They moved as one body up and to another branch.  It was dark, but she would recognize the smell anywhere.  She was in that grove of trees again.  The one with the weird fruit.  She didn't have much time to ponder anything.  The group kept moving.  At one point, she looked down.  It was dark, but she could tell it was quite a drop from where she stood.  Cherie's legs began shaking and she pitched forward before she felt herself being lifted by her shirt and jeans (did she fall asleep in her clothes again?), little claws tickling her arms, hips, knees.  She suppressed a giggle.  This situation did not call for giggling and tried to wish herself as light as possible.  These little bug people were weird, for sure, but she didn't want one of them getting hurt trying to save her.  They were already scared out of their wits, poor little guys.  They plopped her at a V in the trunk of a tree in the center of the grove.  She felt the branches sort of move out of the way to catch her fall.  These trees seem to be so alive here, it was freaky.  But, when in Rome--"Thank you," she whispered.

The tree relaxed in response.  "No, thank you." It seemed to be talking.  She didn't know if she was hearing the tree for real or only in her mind.  The thought she was dreaming, but didn't know for sure.  She'd just convinced herself that she wasn't going crazy when the tree spoke again.  "Thank you for saving my sister.  I could feel she was very frightened.  The wolves must have been very close.  The People's Guard worked amazingly well.  It doesn't always.  Tonight would not have been a good night for a glitch to occur."
Cherie mulled this over, trying to make sense of it all. "You're welcome." was all she could muster.  The bug people seemed much more relaxed here, but still regarded her with guarded eyes.
"Perhaps if you stopped calling them bug people to yourself, you'd find the People more friendly toward you.  Before Cherie could deny it, one of the little bug--the little people stepped out of the crowd and flitted onto her knee.  Cherie took the time to really notice her.  If these things can hear my thoughts, they are going to like what they hear.  This wasn't hard.  She was breathtaking.  Her skin was like camouflage, shifting colors before her eyes.  All shades of brownish-orange with flecks of green thrown in.  She had all the colors of the tree.  Her wings were like moths, one with a big hole, right in the center, but when a firefly flew closer, she saw that it wasn't a hole, only transparent.  The hole was filled with a clear skin, veined like a spiderweb.  Breathtaking.  Her little eyes sparkled just like Jewely's.
"Jewely, yes", the little girl whispered.  She giggled.  "Little girl, really? Not bad for 586." She did a little spin and finished with a curtsy.  "Aidan Lavende, at your service. Please allow me to be the first to welcome you to Summerlin."
***

Meet Anastasia Acosta ---From FaerieWolf

Anastasia Acosta is tired of lies.  She is tired of her Junior League efforts to keep her philandering husband's political career afloat.  She is tired of watching her kids watch her keep up with the lies.  Her son sees her as a second-class citizen, her daughter looks upon her with placid disgust.  They have both pulled away so much that time with them feels as fake, plastic, and phony as "2 'tini Tuesdays" with her friends and going to bed with David.  She makes it real easy for him anymore, anticipating his after dinner phone call (always between 8:30 and 9:00) and cutting him off before he lists the excuse by giving him one ("Oh that deposition ran late", or "You have to prepare for court tomorrow").  While it is true that he is next in line to make circuit court judge, and is on a number of philanthropic and community committees, she knows that it isn't his big heart keeping him from home night after night.  What she also knows is that she is the core villain in the demise of her family.  Nothing has been the same since the accident and, while she continues to go to therapy, it's just a show.  There is something still horribly wrong in her mind, but bringing it to light and dealing with it would be more embarrassing for David than her quiet exit will be.  This is the only lie she isn't tired of.  The only reason she gets out of bed each morning with a smile.  This is the only lie worth telling.  She is faking it so good that no one will see it coming.  Because no matter how big of a lying son of a bitch her husband has become and no matter how hatefully her children treat her, she truly loves them with everything she has.  The problem is, she doesn't have much.  That's why this time with them is so critical.  She knows they love her too, and that they are as tired as she is of faking it.  She can't imagine growing up with a crazy mom, or trying to be intimate with a depressed wife.  Her suicide is a mercy.  This won't be like last time.  The kids were too small then.  She'd been too distant.  They knew something was wrong and when their greatest fears were realized, the whole world came crashing down for them.  For all of them.  David talked about going back into the public defender's office, the kids slowly dropped sports and dance.  Everyone was as miserable as she'd become accustomed to being.  Not this time.  This time, everyone will be blindsided.  Old friends will show up again to bring casseroles and all who knew her would breathe a silent, guilty, sigh of relief.  Her death will hit Laural the most, but it will be better than the alternative.  She will be drawn into the world of kids her own age who will accept her as is.  The "mother" part of Laural's story is a tragic one.  Always will be.  At least with her gone it will be a tragic history.  Perhaps people will love Laural  a little more, being left behind by her selfish, crazy mother. Yes, better to be the leaver than the leavee.  Anastasia knows she needs to be institutionalized, but she knows what that would mean for her family--it would be admitting defeat.  It would be dull Sunday afternoons with unsalted green beans and warm milk on their obligatory visitations.  It would be a death sentence for them--a lifetime of looking after Ana, who never really could pull herself together. Nope.  Not if she has anything to say about it.  She hears Laural slide the other chaise up next to her on the roof, the one place she and Laural still feel like mother and daughter.   She squirts some SPF 8 onto her hand, handing the bottle to her left without looking.  "How was school, dear?"

Why Like Pina Coladas, and I'm Not Lying!

Growing up in Florida, some songs were ever present.  Among them, anything by Jimmy Buffet and Rupert Holmes' "Escape". You may recognize it as "The Pina Colada Song".  As a kid, I liked to dance to it and dream about sipping a Pina Colada and seeming mysterious, but I never really listened to the lyric.  The song later filled my house as my children watched Shrek again and again.  At this point, I listened. I judged.  I couldn't believe how the coupled chuckled away the other's indiscretions so easily.  I could wrap my brain around people eventually getting over infidelities, imagined or otherwise, but in the song it was so off the cuff that I found it unsettling.

The song was on the radio this week and again I listened closely while, of course, singing along.  What struck me this time was the idea that we hide from those we love out of fear that they won't like those parts of us.  This was a familiar fear of mine.  I was the youngest of 7, but I always felt very alone.  My parents had three children each when they married (like The Brady Bunch) and later had me (not like The Brady Bunch).  Joking that I was cousin Oliver was how I expressed my discomfort with the whole arrangement.  I grew up feeling like an anomaly. I saw my siblings as having tribes and I was the anthropologist, the outside observer. I have one brother who was a singleton, like me, having a different set of parents than the rest.  I used to call him the "other only child" in the family.  But that was a lie.  Shawn was absorbed into the Lisa/Gary tribe, and I was the only one alone.  Part of my loneliness was imagined, but some of it was valid.  Like many blended families, ours had a rich history of hurt feelings, disappointments, and favoritism.  That history preceded me, yet I felt the one responsible. Now, before I receive an onslaught of calls from my very loving siblings who would never want to hurt me, let me jump ahead to the point.

My childhood isolation, real or imagined, created a fear to disclose my truest self.  Anything my family would pick on me for betrayed a level of them knowing me that I wasn't comfortable with.  So I lied. Compulsively.  I lied about everything, and the dumbest things and, like many terrible actors, thought I got away with it.  Withdrawing myself from family and ducking out on friends before they got too close were the only ways I could keep my secret identity, well, secret.

Fast forward to the present.  I let someone in.  All the way into the darkest recesses of my soul.  And it felt great.  My husband showed me the freedom of honesty.  I have come to abhor lies the way ex-smokers view restaurants that allow smoking.  This is not to say I don't have my secrets.   Don't we all.  But the mask has fallen away and I am less likely to smile when I'm hurt or angry or lie to make others not feel so bad when they hurt me.  Lying is not my default any longer.  I have, of late, ceased any attempts to hide my nerdy, quirky, anti-social tendencies and having come clean, have realized that my attempts to hide were futile all along.  I failed to hide myself, and the pieces of me that I have hidden are met with open arms by the people who've loved me all along.

Writing, for me, has been just that, for me.  But some of what I write is so infused with my mother, and I'm not the only one who misses her.  I would be remiss to hide my secret memorials from those still spellbound by Julie's smile.  The rest, the stuff just for me, well it is my honest-to-goodness self buried beneath countless lies.  It is silly to think that my friends who laugh at my dumb jokes and hold my hand when I cry wouldn't love the people I've created in my strange little mind.  As a teenager, I made silent threats to write books that would show the world how completely dysfunctional my family was.  As I've gotten older, and gotten to know other families, that threat gets increasingly less threatening.

The truth is, I feel relieved to discover that people who care about me want to know what I think and want to like what I have to say, a silly excuse for an epiphany, I realize, but here it is nonetheless.  Exposing our true selves is terrifying, especially when the stakes are high, when we are afraid of someone walking out of our lives.  But the truth, always, sets us free.  At least, isn't that the moral to every romantic comedy known to man? When people love us, they love us, warts and all.  I think the moral of the song is to not hide.  Instead, trusting that when our hidden selves are discovered, when we share who we really are, the people we love will smile and say, "I never knew".

Our Hero Meets Yoda: or Enter the Butterfly Queen

Cherie opened her eyes, startled. She was on a couch in what looked like a living room. Candles were lit and the open windows let in the balmy night air. Sitting up, she saw an older woman calmly working on a crossword puzzle. "Oh, you're up already," she said, taking a sip of coffee.
"Who are you? Where am I?" Cherie threw off the blanket covering her and ran to the door. As she glanced back at the couch, she saw the blanket move. To be precise, there were images on the blanket, like a tapestry.  A moving freaking tapestry.

While Cherie was distracted, the strange woman made a phone call. "Oh yes, she's fine.  She just woke up, actually." Pause. "Okay. We'll see you then."
"Cherie? That was your mama. She'll be here in a minute. Would you like a snack while you wait?"
Cherie's stomach rumbled around the same time she remembered that she didn't know where she was.  However, she was a city girl. "How do you know my name? How do you know my mom?"


***
Cherie pushed the strange dreams out of her mind, but the moving pictures on Jewely's blanket haunted her that night.  So did Jewely's eyes. They were mesmerizing, the way they danced.  She seemed nice enough, but there was something very not normal about her.  What bothered her the most about Jewely is that her mother seemed to know her.  Seemed to know her well.  That in itself wouldn't be so odd.  Her mother knew a lot of people.  As a hospital administrator, she has to.  As a former model, people are naturally drawn to her.  They seem to almost recognize her, but Marguerite always plays it cool.  Honestly, who would imagine that her quiet, serious mother was the first face of color to grace Elle, Vogue, and Redbook in the same month? When Marguerite first pitched her plan for escape to Cherie, she was skeptical.  How was the child of Hollywood's Golden Couple going to slip into anonymity at a public school in the middle of a Florida swamp.  But the plan worked.  Almost too well.  Not one person has asked her for her autograph.  Not one!  That's understandable.  But no one has asked her mother either.  How did these backwoods hicks forget the first black face of Covergirl? You'd think that would be memorable.  The upside of hiding out here on the Gulf is that no one knows who her dad is either.  They avoid watching the news, as a rule, but Cherie knows that news of her dad is going to be on everyone's tongues when school starts in the fall.  That is going to be hard to ignore. How is she going to play that?  Back to her initial thought, who is Jewely and why does her mother, her mother, trust her?  That woman doesn't trust anyone anymore. Not even her own daughter.  Which would explain why she was so tight-lipped on the drive back to the condo.  She didn't say a word.  Like usual.

Thalia's Confession

Thalia stopped, her face pale, eyes wide in fear and shame. Cherie knew what her friend needed. She knew she should put her arms around Thalia and tell her it's all right, she did what anyone would do.  What anyone would do.  That's when she snapped.

"Jesus, Lia, you just stood there?  And then you asked her what they did? What does it matter what they did!?" Cherie turned away from Thalia and to the mirror. "They held her down and she was crying and you let them do whatever they wanted to her. That's the point! It's not about what they did, it's that she couldn't stop them." Cherie closed her eyes.  She couldn't see her friend's shame. "They took her control.  And you just let them." Cherie stopped,  allowing her voice to echo through the stalls.
"They took mine too!" Thalia's scream was a whisper.  "I was scared too. I was scared of what they were doing and scared they'd do the same to me."  Thalia fell to her knees, crying into her hands.

Cherie turned to Thalia, lifting her chin with a finger so Thalia had to face her. "That's my point, Li.  You could have died.  You both could have.  She was powerless, but you could have done something." With that, she let Thalia's chin drop. She steadied her voice. "What  if the tables were turned, and she was by the door.  Don't you think she would have ran? Called someone? Jumped on one of their backs and started scratching their eyes out?" She challenged.

Thalia held Cheries gaze.  "You weren't there.  You don't get it." She glared at her before turning her face into her elbow.

Cherie softened again,  hating herself as she did. "That's just it, Thalia.  I kind of do.  I know what it's like to be scared and alone." Her voice rose. "I've been in a bad room with a bad boy and wished there was just one person to see, to acknowledge, to get help." She shook her head, casting off the memory.   "I've been there, and I'd do anything to save someone from living through that kind of fear." She let her forehead fall to the stall door. Her voice came out measured, even. Thalia needed to hear everything word.  "Because whatever fear you felt from the doorway, you know is nothing like the fear Sarah felt on that table." She spat  You knew it wasn't, which is why you didn't have the balls to stop them.  Just the thought of going through what was happening was enough to make you let them do that to your friend.  Your best fucking friend.  Unbelievable."

With that, she pushed open the bathroom door with her palm, leaving a sobbing Thalia in her wake.

Of course, by the next day, after someone saw her emerge from the girls' room red-faced and pissed, and someone else saw Thalia run to the nurse's office crying with her hands covering her face, and her homeroom noticed Thalia was absent, the rumors flew again about Cherie and her violent temper.  This only added to the general vibe of fearful awe from the general public at South Coast High, and Cherie's stock continued to soar among "The Group".

For the rest of the week, Cherie's dreams continued to haunt her.  She was just running with these faerie-type things, running and flying and running from tree to tree.  It didn't matter that she couldn't fly, they mostly ran.  Treetop to treetop.  She tried to get their attention, ask what they were running from, but something about their silence spurred her ever forward, and fast.  To what she didn't know.  From what, she didn't want to.

Cherie woke up every morning with her legs shaking in violent tremors.  She didn't get it.  She'd cut out all caffeine.  Cold turkey.  No Frappes, no more Diet Cokes.  She slept like a log all night, with these weird-ass dreams and woke up every morning with her legs shaking worse than Bella's whenever a new dog came up sniffing from behind.  It got to where she started lacing up her sneakers as soon as she could crawl her way out of the bed.  She literally ran the shakes right out of her legs.  This freed up her afternoons.  It was around this time that despite the fact that her nights were dominated by monster-under-the-bed nightmares and her friendship with Thalia was in crisis and her mom was getting worse and Kai was starting to really get worried, that Cherie experienced the first real sense of calm she could remember.  These morning runs created for her a sit-rocking-in-mama's-lap kind of calm.  The hot,sticky air hugged her to the road.  Her feet thudding out a slow, lazy heartbeat.  Thud, slap, thud, slap.  The birds.  God, the birds.  It was so loud here, between the bugs and the birds.  She couldn't be lonely here if she tried.  Bugs and birds flew along with her, past Genesis house, left at the ice cream shop, past the firehouse where, thankfully, Tomas had yet to spot her. Across the entrance of the weird "Edgar Allen Poe" Gated Community, and back home in time to wake up Kai, jump in the shower, and head to school.

The Catgirl. Awake. This is maybe the heroes' second call.

Cherie hauls Thalia into the nearest girls' room by her upper arm. "OOUUCCHH! That hurts!" Thalia yelps.
"I know.  And I think I know why." Cherie says. She pulls up the girl's hoodie sleeve to expose the deep lines of scratches."What the hell is this?  Are you cutting?"
"What?! No!"
"How do you know?"
"What do you mean, how do I know?  Wouldn't I know if I was? Wouldn't I have a kit like Laurel?"
"Laural has a kit?! Wait, back to you.  How do you think you're getting these?"
"I just wake up with them."
"How do you know you're not sleep walking?"
"I guess I don't, but they show up after my freaky dreams."
"What freaky dreams?"
"I'm just sort of running through these trees.  It's like a video game.  There are all these creatures that get in my way and I have to fight them off the branch.  I'm getting really good.  In fact, I took a programming course this semester and am thinking of creating a game based on my dreams."
"How do you know it's a dream?"
"Are you kidding me? I'm asleep."
"Okay, but how do you know you're not really fighting creatures, for real? How do you know it's not a parallel universe or another dimension?"
"Let me get this straight.  I wake up with a few scratches and suddenly I'm an intergalactic fighter, for real, during my sleep?"
"Kind of.  There's this scientist who thinks that the universes or dimensions or whatever are like sheets on a clothesline, sort of swaying in the breeze, like this." Cherie hangs her forearms parallel with each other.  "And sometimes they zzzzzzpt." She touches her arms together for a second. "How do you know your dreams aren't a zzzzzzpt?"
Thalia laughs.  "When did you become the weird nerd?"
"Oh, no.  You are not the normal hotness right now either, Catgirl."
"What did you call me?"
"What, Catgirl?"
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"How did I know what?"
"That the scratches are from me, mostly.  That in my dreams, I have claws."
***

Becoming Todd Jarren Andersen *** Short Fiction

Becoming Todd Jarren Andersen

December, 2010

No one was there when the boy appeared on the swingset at Palm Ridge park, but if they had been, they wouldn't have believed it anyway.  Pat and Teresa Andersen were the ones to discover him, which made it all the more strange, especially that night.  He was in shorts and flipflops and it was December,a cold one at that. They were walking home from dinner, on an anniversary of sorts, at around 11 oclock when they saw the boy.

He was unresponsive about who he was, where he'd come from.  They didn't quite know what to do with him.  They were more apprehensive than most adults in their situation would have been, but no one faults them for it.  They finally agreed on taking him to the hospital to be checked for trauma and later, the police department to see if the boy fit any descriptions of a missing child.

Detective Burkie arrived at the hospital while the Andersens were still checking the boy in.  She couldn't believe what she saw.  It was striking, the similarities. She'd been at the call 7 years prior.  More important than that, their boys' had swum together.  TJ had joined them on vacation to Disney.  He called her "other mom".  But she was no rookie.  The years had to swim together in the back of her mind, tomorrow morning on her day off, tonight with some wine when she could talk it over with Jack.  Not now.  Especially not when they have to be dying inside.  All business."What's your name, sweetie?"  she asked.

"TJ", the boy answered.  He seemed oblivious to the gasps.  To the clacking of a passing nurse's clipboard.  It was a small town, after all.

Teresa turned inside Pat's arms and folded herself into his chest.  She felt too wobbly to walk and as though she might get sick.  Gulping big half sobs, she allowed herself to be led away.  They stopped in front of a vending machine.  She was too racked to ask the question on her lips, he was too consumed himself to answer.  They rocked and swayed as Sarah questioned the boy.

They followed her to the precinct two hours later to reaffirm that he was not a missing persons case.  Sarah called Judge Hack out of bed to determine placement.  The social worker assigned to the case agreed with the judge: there was no better home for the boy than the Andersen's.

They traveled home in silence, which the boy seemed comfortable with.  He smiled when they showed him his room, with TJ painted on the wall in bright blue letters.  They tucked him in, by now moving in stiff detached motions, and stood by the door until they heard his soft, loud, almost heaving slow into a dreamstate.

They walked in a dreamstate of their own and crawled noiselessly into bed.  They fell asleep facing each other, holding hands, knees drawn up as though in prayer, their tear-stained cheeks providing stripes of cool even as the furnace blew on their faces.

They awoke to the smell of burning toast, running out in time to fan the over-vigilant smoke detector.  As if it were stage choreography, they each take a towel and begin to shake them in the air.

"What are you doing?" TJ asks.

"Fire drill", they both reply between giggles.  They used to laugh all the time, but the years have drawn their mouths down into serious crescents.  This old joke, from Before Disaster is the only thing that ever draws a smile these days, aside from the old stand-up tapes they have from college. They don't even have a player to play them, but they don't need one.  The best clips are regularly sewn into their conversation.  One last vestige of normal.  In fact, that easy conversation point, that one parlor trick, saves countless uncomfortable moments around town.  They provide the illusion that for Pat and Teresa life had the ability to surprise them, had joy infused in the small moments.  Little did their townsfolk really understand that it was more muscle memory than a genuine response to life's little quirks.  They didn't have much time to appreciate life's little quirks, ever since they became part of life's big joke.

But this was different.  The sun shone in through the window just so, and their laughter had a bubbly quality of one truly amused.  Not by a clever observation, but of the simple irony of the situation.  This was a truly novel moment.

They laughed themselves into tears, and it took them until the eggs were cooked and the juice poured to bring themselves to explain the joke.

"I don't get it," TJ said.
"Okay" Pat tried again.  He swigged some juice. "You know how when you have a fire drill at school, everyone lines up and the teacher gets the keys and you head outside to a designated spot?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Well, our smoke detector has always been hyper-sensitive.  The builders put one on either side of the stove, so it goes off almost every time we cook."
TJ starts to laugh.
"Get it?"
"No, but I was afraid I'd ruined the morning with my terrible cooking."
"Don't get me wrong the toast is awful." Teresa choked out, struggling with a charred end.  She smiled when she saw TJ's shocked face.  "Just kidding, kid.  This was sweet.  Reminds me of something our boy would do."

"You have a son?"

"Yeah, and that was his first real joke.  When the alarm would ring, he'd run and get a towel and yell 'Fire Drill!' The first time my mom heard him, it took us even longer to explain that TJ understood the concept of an actual drill than it did to explain the joke to you."
"Wait, you have a son...and his name is..." TJ chugged the rest of his OJ. "TJ?"

***

August 2003

TJ entered Ms. Sanchez's first grade classroom slowly.  He was a good enough reader to know that none of his friends from kindergarten were inside.   He found his desk and began putting his supplies inside, organized by color and smell.  The smelly pencils belonged in the back, away from jealous eyes.  They were his emergency pencils, for when he would undoubtedly need a pick me up.  He worked methodically like this when he was 'scoping out the scene'.  One of cool Uncle Jay's terms.  He hadn't felt grown up enough to try it out loud yet, and was hoping today would be the day.  Maybe in lunch line with Alex Dumfries or Serge Romansky.  Not likely now that he's checked out his class.

 "You dropped one."

TJ didn't look up to see the speaker, instead he eyed the ground for the missing pencil.  He stole a look at the shoes, ratty gray converse high tops, before drawing a deep breath.  "Thanks."

He looked up and saw a kid that could have been his cousin.  Longer eyelashes maybe.  Thinner lips, for sure.  But enough similarity for him to smile wider than he wanted to.  He stuck out his hand.  "TJ".

"Kevin."

He used his phrase and three others of Uncle Jay's that day at lunch.  Kevin cracked him up and ate the dried apricots mom insisted were as good as fruit by the foot.  They weren't.  Kevin was kind enough not to notice.

***

How to Create Writer's Block Out of Nearly Anything!

I am a very creative person.  I love to create things: appetizer dips, paintings, landscaping designs, people, strange desserts.  But my secret passion is creating Writer's Block!  It is so much fun and very easy to do.  I've gotten to where I can do it in my sleep.  What's really great about creating Writer's Block is that it is so versatile.  There are so many ways to make it, and you can make it out of nearly anything, anytime, anyplace.  I've gotten so good at it, I wanted to share some of my favorite ways to create Writer's Block, so you can get started not writing too!

Isn't Writer's Block fun?  I love nothing more than finding myself in an empty house all day with ideas just busting out of my head and plenty of paper and pens lying around (not to mention my PC or phone) and not writing a blessed thing!  Don't believe me? Let me show you how it's done!

100.  Find something to clean.  It can be anything, a shower, a counter.  Doesn't matter as long as you're not writing!
99.  Find something to eat.  Nothing kills the creative juices like a big salty bag of chips!
98. Watch a marathon of a show you marginally like and don't normally record.  This is vital because you must have at least 10 episodes you haven't seen.  My favorites are Bridezillas, anything on HGTV, and What Not to Wear.
97. Read.  They say to improve as a writer, read more.  Not always true. Getting sucked into a great book can kill upwards of 10 hours of decent writing time.  Just think: reading equals time not spent with loved ones, working, working out, or working around the house.
96.  Make fun friends.  They will fill up your schedule in no time.  You'll have so much fun that when they ask how your book is coming, your only reply will be, "Book? What book?"
95. Preen.  Detail yourself.  Ladies, this could include painting your toes. Gentlemen, think Manscape.
94. Take a nap.  Dreams can help you with your writing when you wake up, but a real pro will just roll over and take another nap.
93. Play with your pooch.  Dogs don't care about deadlines, so go ahead, throw that squeaky toy!
92. Puzzles.  Those addicting games or old-fashioned crosswords.  Pick your poison.
91. Organize your closet.  I don't know about you, but I can get lost in there for days!
90. Hit the gym.  working out is great for your overall health, which is important when you want a long life of avoiding getting anything accomplished.

Stay tuned as the countdown continues.  All this talk about Writer's Block has gotten me inspired.  Happy not writing!

Writing with the Door Ajar.

The writing advice from some of my favorite authors that I have the hardest time following is to write with the door closed.  I don't doubt that it is the secret to success of the successful writers I love, and feel like a failure for not listening to their sage wisdom.

That said, I am not a successful writer.  I am a successful wife, mother, and teacher who writes.  I don't have a room of my own or money to ensure a quiet door to write behind.  I am writing between appointments, soccer, work, dinner.  My writing is a hobby, at best.  How do I grant my life's work the respect it deserves in scant intervals?

I am hoping that by breaking the rule to write with the door closed, that I honor the intent.  I have joined a small community of writers like me: teachers with full lives and the yearning to write.  I will hold my door ajar for them.  This blog will enable me a space where my work is given a room.  My few critics will give me insight so I don't (in the words of the Indigo Girls) "miss 10,000 miles of road I should've seen".  I know the work is best done hashing it out on your own, in your own time, in your own space, but who has time for that?

Suzy Q

Susie remembers when it started. She shook her new teacher's hand at open house and saw the accident that put his bride in the hospital and killed his newborn son.  Just a flash, a moment.  She remembers what she was wearing when she ran out of the room.  Her red cordoroy romper with brassbuttons and the red and blue plaid shirt with short sleeves felt suddenly scratchy and burned her skin.  She would have run straight home if she were certain she could find her way.  She settled for the bathroom down the hall.  She was too little to know she didn't need to unfasten them in order to undress when she realized she had to go really bad.  She was crying big gulpy sobs that made it hard to catch her breath.  She fumbled with her buttons through her tears, but it was too late.  She tried to wash up but that only made her wet spot worse.  Her mommy came in and picked her up without a word, just "shhhhh" and kisses in her hair all the way to the car.

Moments like that haunt her every day. Moments like that are the reason she left Toronto the second she graduated.  She drove her little GM down I95 and didn't stop until it did.  Over the next few years, she'd waited tables in every restaurant the Shidel's owned and touched a lot of customer's hands.  A lot more than she'd like.  Despite her move to a sunnier climate, moments like that followed her.  They are unpredictable as hell, and they come every day.  Sometimes she's right, as in Mr. Bluhd's sons rattle found on the side of highway 57 a mile north of the blue chevy Mrs. Bluhd was driving that night.  Or the way she saw her own smile, sunlight glinting off her own hair the first time she touched John's hand. Yeah, that one was pretty cool.  Sometimes, though, she's way off.  Seriously, wolves chasing Thalia in a catwoman costume? Yet she saw it clear as day.  And Renaldo's boy, PC, leading the charge with the arm from a werewolf costume holding a broadsword, his right arm, mind you.  The one that can't hold a stick of gum.  She is starting to think she really needs to lay off the coffee.

She's really ready for the snowbirds to head home in May, to be left alone with her visions, to be able to watch Days of Our Lives in the shop without families dripping saltwater and pralines and cream all over the tile.