In honor of my glorious 41 years of being alive, I thought I’d share 5 Weird Stories About the Author
- One of my first memories is being 3 years old, and waking up from a nap on my parents bed to the sound of weird screaming. We lived on an acreage, and the barn was on fire. The screaming was our terrified horses, who were stuck in a pen beside the barn, and my Dad using a chainsaw to cut down the fence so that they could get out. Don’t worry, no horses or animals were harmed. Time flashed forward, and they rebuilt the barn. My parents held an honest-to-goodness square dance up in the hay loft, with an actual fiddler and a guy calling out square-dance moves. I was obsessed with a red gingham dress one of the women wore. I swear I’m not from the 20th century, it was just a farm thing LOL
- Speaking of farms, when I was a teenager, I invited my friends over for a Halloween sleepover in our barn. We set up sleeping bags in a strawbale fort, and we dared each other to walk along the pitch-black gravel road in groups of 2. I still remember the screams of my friend, terrified by the creepy-ass sounds that nature makes in the dark. Such a delight.
- In second grade, I was an excellent reader. The books were first grade books of course: ‘Dick has a toy.’ ‘See Jane run.’ That kind of thing. We had a classroom chart to track how many books each kid read, and I was always in the lead… Except for this one kid named Darrell. No matter how fast I read those books, Darrell was always one step ahead of me. I hated Darrell.
- I got married at the age of 20 (I was just a baby!) and joined a friend group of other married goddesses. We called ourselves the 8 Gothic Vaginas, and made custom t-shirts for ourselves, which we wore to our gatherings. Mine said “No, I’m not having kids yet” LOL. We did stupid shit like watch movies and heckle the characters, go McBoarding (use a McDonald’s tray like a skateboard as you hold onto the door of a car and let it drag you across the parking lot), do photo scavenger hunts across the city, and stop in at our favourite restaurant, Boston Pizza. We all claimed that we worked at Dennie’s, a competing restaurant, so that we could get a discount on the food there. I don’t know how that worked, but our regular server played along. I miss those crazy ladies.
- When I was in my mid-20’s, I was getting a haircut and making painful polite conversation with my stylist. She kept asking questions and the other stylists were joining in and chatting, until she asked the dreaded, “So, do you have kids?” I don’t know what came over me, but i panicked. I told her that yes, I had two children, not revealing that they were fur-babies and not human. She then asked how old they were, and I answered 3 and 8. That lead to a whole discussion amongst the stylists about what joyful ages those were, and how it must be struggle sometimes. I was fully committed to the lie by that point, so I just went along and soon found myself the mother of a son in Grade 2 and a daughter at home being watched by a friend.
WRITING UPDATES
Not much progress in Shift since last time, other than re-writing the first scene several times. It’s funny how I can write an entire novel in like, a month or two, and then the revision process takes years. Why does this happen?
On the plus side, I have an appointment to get an ADHD assessment, and we’ll see if I can get some meds to help with the Executive Task Dysfunction.
PERSONAL PROJECTS
I always take my Birthweek off, an entire 7 days of doing nothing except the things I want to do. So I put off doing taxes, ate a lot of ramen, and binged on some manga and horror shows. I also designed some stickers, because I have a thing for paper crafts and graphic design.
RECOMMENDATIONS
MUSIC
“Trillion$” by Malibu Babie ft. bludnymph has been on my playlist for weeks. I don’t know why I find it so catchy, but I just can’t get it out of my head. I’m going through all the songs of Jennie’s new album “Ruby”! I’m really impressed at her evolution as a musician, from kpop princess to pop scene queen. I’m not a fan, per say, but I do think this album is awesome (my favourite is “Zen”). “Tough Luck” by Jolina Louise, and “Cherry Chapstick” by Liberty Ava Walker are some intriguing new finds as well.
BOOKS
Full disclosure, I haven’t read any books in the last month. I have book club coming up, so I need to get that one read, but “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” by Jonathan Haidt is a dense read. Fascinating, but I need to take time between chapters to let it sink in.
If you’re into manga/webtoons/graphic novels, give “Paranoid Mage” a try on Webtoon. I also enjoy “Schoolbus Graveyard”.
SHOWS
Last month I recommended a C-Drama, and this month are K-dramas, but in the horror genre.
A while ago, I watched “Happiness” on Viki, and loved it! So I tried some shows that were recommended as similar, with mixed results. “Duty After School” is about high school kids getting drafted to fight aliens. The first half of the show was really well done, but the second half was such a let-down, with the lamest deus ex machina ending. “Night Has Come” is another horror show featuring high-schoolers, and it was interesting, though there were some plot holes. Still, if you’re looking for something different and don’t mind sub-titles, give these shows a try and let me know what you think.