Posts

Chicken Drums Divorce Planning

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My Chapter published in Clash of the Couples edited by Crystal Ponti  My husband and I don’t really argue. Every single argument about something important that we ever had goes something like this: I tell him what’s up, he fake apologizes, and then he proceeds to resent me for being right. It truly gets under my skin, too, because I swear I can read his mind now on account of the fact that we have been married for almost ten years, and I get more mad at the things he’s thinking than what he says. Then he starts getting angry at the things he thinks I’m thinking about what he’s thinking. Basically, we have telepathic arguments, and they’re heated, raw, and uncut.  I’m the aggressive one in our relationship. When it comes to communicating, I’m the proactive one. I don’t really complain about him unless I find a humorous way to do so and then generalize it to all men on my blog somewhere  as a way to vent it out. Sometimes, I confide in my mother or best friend, but that’s usually

Angel Bumps: Love Shined Through

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My chapter published in  Angel Bumps: Hello from Heaven , compiled by Anne Bardsley.  I almost missed my grandmother's story because I simply didn't listen well enough when she was alive. I didn't ask questions. I didn't get to know her beyond the woman who bought me a chocolate bar every time she went to get more beer, or the woman who stood up for me when the whole family was against me. Not while she was alive anyway. The most important things I could possibly learn about my grandmother, I learned from her ghost.  Her death was just about as silent as her life.  Sometimes our efforts are about as productive as pouring sprinkles over a dirty dish of melted ice cream. Empty nest brought my grandmother to drinking, and years after she quit drinking, with fierce determination, she was diagnosed with liver problems. At one point, we lost her for a minute. Doctors revived her and treated what they could, but her time with us was going to be short.  My gr

Never Will I Ever: The Dirty Bottle Under the Bed

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My chapter published in  Lose the Cape: Never Will I Ever  edited by Alexa Bigwarfe & Kerry Rivera. I was raised in a Stepford community. You know that town where everyone was perfect? Well, no, they weren’t anywhere near perfect, and some of their stories would make the devil blush, but the town was full of families who plastered their skeletons with makeup: a basic foundation of delusions—of—grandeur and denial (one that matches the skin tone), a little blush on the cheeks for false innocence, the piercing eye effect from the latest issue of Forbes Magazine, a high brow and nose that points up for the pig-nostril look, dramatic eyelashes to overplay the role of the victim, and projection—a basic red lipstick so as to leave a mark when they kiss you. You know, the things every good Baptist wears to church on Sunday Morning. Only thing is, children are gullible. As a child in that kind of community I knew better, but I still fell for it. I fell for it all. And that was the