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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| It has been a long, tough week and I have watched the prompts go by with dismay because I've not been able to write..at all. On the eve of a much deserved weekend, I'm taking a few moments to put in some time with my electronic ink. Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1184 February 12, 2016 Prompt: It's said that the cover-up is worse than the crime. Do you agree or disagree? I can attest that when my siblings and I were growing up, covering for one of them was defined as an equally punishable offense as whatever wrong had been done. In the eyes of my parents, the cover-up was as bad as the crime. Even so, this did not brand us into tattle tails. I clearly remember many occasions when my sister and I would sit silent or fain ignorance when my parents discovered something my brother had done. My father once peeled a strip of masking tape from a window pane and discovered a bb-sized hole underneath. My sister and I had been called to 'testify" and through some unspoken code of sibling honor, we disavowed any knowledge of how it had come to be there. Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise DAY 706 February 12, 2016 Have you ever gotten involved with someone you shouldn't have had a relationship with? I actually laughed out loud when I read this prompt. This sentence describes nearly 95% of all my relationships for one reason or another. I have not had the best track record when it comes to love and relationships - my current husband excluded of course! The reasons why I should have been in relationships in my life runs the gambit from too old, too dangerously rebellious, too controlling, too addicted. I like to think that each bad relationship led me to a better understanding of self and that all the scars were worth the knowledge gained. In the very least, all the bad I've experienced has led me to find sincere appreciation in all the ways my husband is good and worthy. That's something to be thankful for. |
| Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise Day 697 February 3, 2016 Prompt: A star has been named after you. What an honor! What is special about your star? My star shines bright, brighter than the clouds that press it darkly from all sides. My star sits higher than the man-made marvels sitting boldly on the deforested hills. My star is luminescent, even as the harvest moon glows, my looming neighbor in the midnight sky. My star is fierce and dazzling, blazing a nearly timeless track through the heavens. That's all I got! Interesting prompt though. Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1176: February 3, 2016 Prompt: What inspired you this week? This week, as most weeks, my growing daughter has inspired me. We made the leap from children's salon to my own this week. She received her first real haircut from my own stylist, something we both were a little apprehensive about. She wanted a substantial cut so I let her call the shots. She opted to have almost four inches taken off, three of which were necessary given the condition of her long locks. When she was done, I watched her gaze in wonder at her reflection. She turned side to side, admiring herself. She looked at me, her eyes full of wonder and said, "I look like a big girl now Mommy!", clearly very pleased and happy. Truth be told, the simple cut did change her somehow. She did look more grown up, less like a kindergartener and more like a second grader, standing before the mirror in her navy and white school uniform. My daughter was so proud, bouncing on her toes into the house to show her Dad her knew look. This morning, she donned the same uniform but took far more time picking her shoes and accessories. I watched her twisting and turning, flipping her fresh new waves, smiling at her reflection in the full length mirror. She was excited to show her friends. "They might not recognize me Mommy" she laughed, obviously delighted by the possibility. I'm happy that she feels so comfortable in her own skin, I'm happy that she sees the new haircut as another step in her journey in growing up. I don't believe she understands how unique and beautiful she is, but she likes what she sees in the mirror and that's good. |
| Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1175 February 2, 2016 It's February and soon it will be Valentines Day, an numerous tributes to romance. With that thought in mind, what do you think are the ingredients of a successful romance novel? Are the ingredients different from other genres? I don't write romance very often although I tend to produce erotica with some romantic elements on a regular basis. I would think that the same things are important in both genres to convey a romantic relationship, mainly one thing...passion. I think if a writer can describe a relationship that is passionate, it will be engaging and inviting. I don't think it always has to be the same kind of "Fabio-on-the-cover-torn-bodice" type of passion, but rather something that feels real and credible. They way the couple feels toward one another makes the reader care about what happens to them. I don't read romance novels as a rule, I think I'm probably too jaded to accept it, but when I write romantic scenes I always focus on the emotions, not the actions. There is great romance in intimacy, but also in longing and loss. There is great romance in a freshly minted couple, but also between partners who have been together for many years. One of my favorite writers is Gabriel Garcia Marquez and he writes so beautifully, so sublimely about love. He is a true romantic though his stories might never be classified as traditional romances. My favorite quote describes how a man feels about a love interest in a way that I find extremely romantic... “To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera Just amazing! To love this way, and then write about it...that is a true gift. Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise DAY 696 February 2, 2016 Prompt: Groundhog Day. Have you ever wished spring would come early or hoped that it would be delayed? What if you were a groundhog? Would you ever predict zero winters? I'm one of those New Englanders who loves the winter...even the bitter ones. I love waking to that fresh, power white snow that seems to renew the world overnight. I love the crackling fires. I love crashing through snowdrifts and then rushing inside to warm up with a mug of cocoa pressed between my palms. I'm not one who moans and complains about winter. I also think that the whole Groundhog thing is charming but wildly ridiculous! |
| Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise Day 690 January 27, 2016 Prompt: Do you believe that if you went to Ireland and kissed the Blarney Stone, it would bring you good luck? I think the legend of the Blarney Stone is a charming one. I do however also subscribe to the school of "one makes their own luck" and so I would have to say its difficult for me to put much stock in what the Irish believe. There is something appealing though that you could make a pilgrimage to such a place. Its entertaining to think that you could embark on an adventure that could, with one little kiss, change your luck. I think its made of that same eternal hope that makes people buy those Powerball tickets, even as the odds decrease with each monetary increase of the prize. I don't buy lottery tickets either. Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1169: January 27, 2016 Prompt: Write a short story or poem that ends with "And so the day ended." Be creative and have fun. The southern New England winter bore down on me with all its brutality the instant I jumped from the car and made my pilgrimage to the gym doors. I stood, with all the other parents, waiting in the icy wind. At last a teacher appeared at the double doors and barely managed to lock them open in place before the frigid crowd rushed through them. The kids were all lined up, red-faced in their full winter wear, eagerly craning their necks to look for their incoming parents. I found Danny among them, her winter coat zipped up to her chin, her eyes red and puffy, her cheeks flushed. I signed her out and opened my arms. Instead of running full bore into me as usual, she lurched her to feet and trudged over. She looked up, rubbing her eyes with one gloved hand and smiled weakly. "I don't feel good" she announced, and leaned into me. I hurried her out into the cold. After I removed her coat and got her settled in her booster seat, I pressed my lips to her forehead, an almost pantomine gesture I remembered from my old childhood. She did feel abnormally warm. We rode home in relative silence, it would be a brief respite for us both. Within the hour, my normally mild-mannered daughter had turned a common cold into the plague from hell. She cried after every sneeze. Screamed when her eyes refused to stop watering. She magically forgot how to blow her nose, resorting to snuffling the snot rather than expelling it. The soup was too hot, then it was too cold. The blankets would not stay on her. The commercials were too long. The dog bothered her. When I finally managed to get a dose of cold medicine in her, no easy task because it was cherry flavored and not grape, she had worn us both out with the drama and angst. It wasn't until I had her tucked into bed, the box of tissues and her stuffed elephant by her side, that she began to calm down. She curled against me as I read her bedtime stories. With my fingers stroking her shoulders and back, I felt her little body begin to ease. I knew it wouldn't be long until she slipped off to sleep, granting us both some well deserved peace. "Thanks for taking good care of me Mommy, " she suddenly said in her sleepy little voice. Danny wrapped one arm around me, dropped her face onto my belly and began snoring softly. And so the day ended, with my little diva curled around me. I thought to myself how difficult it was to see her sick but how much I missed moments like this one, moments when she still believed I had the magic recipe to make her feel better with one kiss, some chicken noodle soup and a few bedtime stories. |
| Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1167: January 25, 2016 "There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition" - ROD SERLING Prompt: Write a story, poem, or personal experience based on this quote. I have had a few experiences in my life that I would say touched on the think veil between worlds, primarily those of the living and the dead. In all instances, my experiences were more intimate, meaning, I believe those spirits were known to me, not random visitations but for a specific purpose. On more than one occasion during a particularly dark period in my life, I would suddenly and inexplicably surrounded by the smell of smoking tobacco. The odor was so strong and familiar, I would swear I would see my grandfather sitting here, the tortoise-shell pipe clasped between his lips, one hand clutching a tumbler half filled with amber-colored liquid. As soon as my mind would register the scent of his tobacco brand, it would be gone - vanished completely, as if it had never filled my senses so fully. In its wake, I would always feel strangely comforted. One time, when my daughter was about eight months old, I was sitting in the rocker in her room, balancing her on chubby, bouncing legs. All of a sudden, my daughter when still. She locked eyes with something behind me, just over my right shoulder. I whipped my head around but only saw the empty corner behind my rocker. My daughter began to toggle her head from one side to the next, giggling and smiling, her bright eyes darting back and forth in time with the movement of her head. "She's playing peekaboo," I thought, and then, "but with someone else." I tried to turn her attention back to me but she was fixed on her game, fixed on that space in front of her. She waved her arms and emitted little shrieks of delight. Startled, I watched my daughter for a few more minutes, holding onto to her animated body with fingertips that felt cold as ice. Then, Jaden Melanie turned her head as if to follow someone passing from behind me, pass my right side. Jaden's struggled to watch their progress, I had to turn her toward the door so she wouldn't strain her next. I remember actually turning her body toward the open door of her room. She never broke eye contact, never stopped cooing or smiling. After a few moments, she turned back and looked at me. Her attention again was all mine, her apparent visitor having moved on. I recall this moment with not fear, despite my pounding heart, but with a strange mixture of grief and joy. My daughter, I believe to this day, was visited by her own special guardian angel. We had lost my cousin Melanie five months before my daughter was born. Despite our prayers, Melanie never lived to see the birth of the little girl who bears her name in honor. I believe she watches over her as much as I belief that day Melanie stepped through the delicate veil of the spirit world to pay my little girl a visit. It brought my heart immeasurable comfort. Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise DAY 688 January 25, 2016 Here are 4 locations New York, London, Beijing and your location. Tell me what you expect and don't expect in each location. Are there any commonalities that jump out at you? Could you relocate there easily? My good friend recently moved to Manhattan. While she is incredibly happy and well-suited to the city life, I am always overwhelmed to visit her. While the city offers seemingly endless opportunities to be dined and entertained, it does seem to swallow you up. The pace of life there seems to run too quickly for a person like me to catch up, to keep up. I expect that things are bigger and better in the Big Apple. I also expect that it isn't for everyone. I think New York is a place you dream about living while you are young enough to imagine life there but its a place that can make you harder if you stay there too long. Before my brief visit to London, I imagined it a charming place filled with bustle and pomp. I imagined that Big Ben appeared in life as it did when Peter and the Darling Children flew past its glowing face in Peter Pan - larger than life and fantastical, a signature of the city itself. We visited London during Spring Break when I was in college. We took on the city's hostels, crowded markets, doubledecker tour buses and stoic faced Buckingham guards armed with our backpacks and youthful exuberance. It was, as near as I can remember, how I pictured it and more. Beijing - I've not traveling to Beijing but I imagine it a place of rich colors and customs. I think it must be a city that is both equal parts modern and ancient. I picture beautiful and slight women just as fitting posing beneath a red bamboo parasol as they would be in a sharp business suit. I imagine old structures tucked between great, glass skyscrapers. I would love to visit one day but confess I am daunted by the vastness of such a place. I make my home these days in Southern New England, not far from Mystic, CT where the river and its drawbridge have been forever memorialized by one little movie and it's big star. Mystic Pizza is, in reality, not the best we have to offer in our state but its what many of the seasonal tourists want when they descend on us each summer. Connecticut, at times, seems easy to dismiss as the last great suburb of NYC, but it does have some lovely attributes and certainly an attitude all its own. There are lots of quaint, New England towns like Essex and Old Lyme where you can see the pride of the Yankee settlers that forged life here on the rocky land. Shore towns like Old Saybrook and Noank are picturesque, a blending of old fishing village meets the new and modern. Big houses overshadow the old capes and colonials that sport unrivaled views and Historical Register signs on their antique facades. The Connecticut River valley in the Fall season is breathtakingly beautiful as you coast past beautiful properties tucked into thick forests of trees bursting with reds, golds and yellows. There is a lot of diversity here in this state, from one corner to the next. As much as I often threaten to relocate, its hard to picture myself anywhere but here. |
| Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1161 January 19, 2016 If time and money wasn't an object, what would be your chosen form of exercise? With the luxury of more time and money I would have one of those indoor pools built with an attached sauna. I think I could swim laps each and every day and not be tired of that type of exercise. There is something really fortifying about swimming repetitive laps in a isolated environment like that. I particularly like the visual of it being housed in a glass room/greenhouse type structure where I could exercise in perfectly temperate water even as heavy New England snow falls all around me. Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise DAY 683 January 19, 2016 Prompt: Most of us have been to a convention, a networking event, a writers’ conference, or any other professional meeting. What are some of your ideas for making the most of these events not only for writers but for anyone in any profession? I have been in the corporate world now for almost twenty years and have attended a fair share of training events, conventions and meetings. The rule of thumb for me is to actively participate. I think by joining the discussions and panels, by being an active attendee you stand to gain the most benefit. Kudos to the organizations who make these type of events engaging because I'd unfortunately attended some that were not. No one responses favorably to being "talked at" for hours. There is only so much information anyone can absorb in that kind of setting. As far as writing-specific events, I recently attended a Book Expo here locally. Attendees could go to their choice of sessions that included at panel of authors in a specific genre. The end of each 45 min session included an open and extensive question and answer period. I think I learned more during that portion of the program than any other, mostly from the questions that my peers where asking. |
| Tomorrow my daughter turns six. In the quiet corners of the day I have found myself marveling over how rapidly we have both reached this milestone, my baby girl and I. The last year has brought a host of new adventures and challenges and each one Jaden has embraced with a fearlessness that has both surprised and delighted me. She has blazed through kindergarten so far, adapting to life in her sprawling, bustling urban school better than we could have hoped. She has begun making friends, all the right kinds, and has set herself apart in the eyes of her teachers as a kind and contentious student who works hard and has the desire to participate and always do her best. Her father and I are very proud of how she is learning and maturing. She is not always sunshine and smiles however, for with her independence, there has come defiance and rebellion. Jaden is coming to understand that as an only child she wields a fair amount of control over our daily routine, something she is learning to exploit for her own advantage at times. Challenges come, and we all do our best to navigate the lessons that life gives us with minimal frustration and fewer screaming fits. So, on the eve of her 6th birthday, what can I preserve about my daughter at this stage in her life? What testimony can I leave in this electronic ink for her one day? Jaden, at nearly six, is still our cuddle bug. She loves to park herself between us on the couch or lever herself in between us in bed. She prefers to fall asleep next to us, wrapped protectively around one parent or another. She is a fitful sleeper and I often wake with one of her legs thrown casually over one of mine or her elbows pressing into my ribs. She loves to sleep in when she can, snuggling up against us or inviting the dog to burrow under the blanket with her. I have to drag her from the bed on school days, often carrying her into the bathroom, still groggy and grouchy. She's discovered the joy of slipping on her toasty uniform after its sat warming on the bedroom radiator. She would eat Nutella and toast for breakfast every day if we let her. By the time I get her to the school, she's rushing from the car too soon, shrugging her backpack on and heading toward the doors. She never looks back anymore. She's making new friends but still prefers the company of her preschool crew, eager to reconnect when she can. The affection she shows them is testament for me of how sincerely she forms bonds and treasures friendships even at this young age. Jaden loves art and music, constants from when she was very young. She is serene when she's working, connected to the creative part inside her. I watch her with my grandmother, the artistic force in our family, and I know they are kindred spirits and nothing makes me happier. She also loves science and math. She is interested in experimentation and I can see she responds to the rules and form of mathematics. Her favorite new show is Project MC2...a show about tween girl science geeks and inventors who's motto is #smartisthenewcool. This also makes me very happy, as I continue to shamelessly promote and plug the STEM agenda in our household. She is also reading, falling in love with the library as I did myself at her age. We read each night and I love listening to her sounding the words out under her breath. Jaden loves being outside with her Dad. In the wave of unseasonably warm winter weather, she has spent long days kicking around in the yard and walking in the woods with him. She misses the boating and the ocean as much as he does even though she's eagerly awaiting snow angels and building snowmen in the yard. She is a child of the seasons, finding reasons to delight them all. Jaden, at nearly six, loves her family most of all...her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins, her parents. She loves with abandon, drawing pictures and giving colorful, vibrant life to the stick figure representations of all the people she loves. She is affectionate and caring. She has an amazing sense of her place in our family. She's her cousin Kyra's biggest fan, the little sister to her beloved Desi, she is Tyler's devoted audience, never failing to deliver laughter at his antics...she is something unique to each of her cousins, older and younger, learning with them and from them at every opportunity. Tomorrow we will celebrate another birthday with our growing girl. Despite all the changes and challenges to come, I hope all the things that are true about her nearly-six self are always part of her personal landscape because they are lovely and wonderful. She is lovely and wonderful. "A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future." ~Author Unknown |
| Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise Day 677 January 13, 2016 Prompt: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Maya Angelou Do you agree? I agonize over this all the time mostly because I feel I can't really process anything until I write about it. Writing is my last stage of dealing with anything important in my life, when I write about it I can then let it go. A few years ago, before my marriage and my daughter, I experienced a very intense relationship with an addict that ended in his death. That story, my story of that experience, is one I've only told in isolated pieces. The entire journey however is something I always planned to memorialize for myself but also for people like me who have loved and lost through addiction. The experience changes you fundamentally, in good and bad ways. The fact that I've never gotten the whole story out like that haunts me. I don't know if it agonizes me, that seems so strong a word to use when so much time has passed, but it haunts me as something I've yet to do for myself, for Seth. Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1155 January 13, 2016 Prompt: "Tire tracks in the desert sand." Write a story or poem using these words somewhere within it. Be creative and have fun. It had been a long time. He had lost count of how many times he had pulled his phone from his pocket to check the time. It had alarmed him how slowly time was passing. William cracked open his paperback and begin reading, desperate to ignore the shaking in his limbs and throbbing thirst. Agent Hurst bent down to examine the strange pattern of tire tracks in the desert sand. They looked deep, as if made by a heavy vehicle, maybe one of those over-sized SUVs or even a cargo van. He looked over at the still smoking remains of the victim's convertible Cadillac and the team of forensic techs swarming over it like carrion bugs in their white suits and booties. Agent Hurst took out... William's phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him out of his story. He fished it from his pocket and looked at the incoming call. His mother, of course. The woman had a uncanny and wholly unwelcome way of calling him at the worst possible times. Before he could answer, a petite nurse dressed in blue scrubs stepped into the waiting room and called his name. The nurse seemed surprised to see how young William was, she had clearly been expecting someone older, someone sicker, someone more obviously in need of the medication she dispensed. She held open the doors to the clinic's inner sanctum and beckoned William to follow her inside. The bleak hallway smelled like antiseptic and something else, something William could not name but it turned his guts to water all the same. He loathed this place, all the more because he needed it so badly. Without the clinic, without the drugs they allocated him, William was only one bad afternoon away from the next epic relapse. William had come too far to fall back again. Aside from that, he knew with every fiber of his fragile being, that he would not survive another relapse and he would go to his grave bearing the agony of his story untold. |
| I am waking up this morning to the sad news that David Bowie died after an 18-month long battle with cancer. I have been a big fan of Bowie since the beginning, having cut my diverse, music-loving teeth on his 1970's era eccentric rifts and glam rock. I was born in 1974 so it would be almost a decade before I sat watching, transfixed with the footage of Bowie's performance of Starman with this teal guitar and lip gloss. And while it took me some time to make the connection between the cool, bouncy Bowie of "Dancing in the Streets" and this glossy, alien Ziggy Stardust and his spiders from Mars, the genius of the man and his music registered indelibly on my soul. While, I always remained largely devoted to his classic catalog of songs, I delighted to see he continued to innovate and reinvent over the years. His collaborations with Freddy Mercury and Queen with "Under Pressure", to his "I'm Afraid of Americans" hit with Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor - were nothing short of amazing. David Bowie had so many great songs, "China Girl, Rebel Rebel, Changes, Man who Sold the World, Fame", songs that defined generations, songs that were ahead of their time. The music world lost one of its most brilliant stars today. There was no one like David Bowie, never before and not since. May he rest in peace. Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise DAY 675 January 11th, 2016 Prompt: Does extreme eccentricity add to a story’s literary value, as in an eccentric character, plot, or setting or is it just a cute trick? I believe a talented writer can make good use of eccentricity, even as a "cute trick". I think making life is more interesting with eccentric characters and plots, so in the right author's hands, those elements can really engage the reader and carry them along in the story. As far as bringing literary value, Lovecraft is someone that I would consider used eccentricity to the extreme and it was more his voice or his style than any trick he employed. I think with any extreme element, a writer runs the risk of isolating some readers. Blogging Circle of Friends DAY 1153: January 11, 2016 Prompt: "Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand." - Neil Armstrong Is wonder the foundation of humanity's desire to understand? Does mystery create wonder? What do you think? I love this quote really. I think two of our most admirable human traits is our desire to understand and our ability to wonder. I think mystery is magical and the existence of mystery in the world is an endless, beautiful possibility. I love the fact that people are still hunting Bigfoot and Nessy and that with all our technological advances, we have not been able to solve such mysteries. I love the mystery of faith, how it binds people to something most have never seen evidence of. Wonder is our last gift of childhood, the last vestige of what makes us unique and keeps us humble. My daughter is starting to reason through the existence of Santa Clause now. I figure we maybe have one more year left of that wonderful Christmas window when children believe its really possible to pop down chimneys and visit every child on the plant with a team of flying reindeer. She will engage her maturing mind and discover that, there is no such thing as Santa. The wonder will be gone. Thankfully there will be other mysteries in her life that will not be so easily explained. I wish for her a life of mystery and wonder...where each possible discovery will leave her to desire greater truths for herself. |
| Blogging Circle of Friends Day 1149: January 7, 2016 Prompt: What hobbies do you have other than writing? Is it important to have multiple hobbies or should you perfect one before moving on to another? I believe that if I could find more free time I would easily be able to fill those hours with new hobbies. I am interested in a great many things but really only have time to pursue one hobby at a time, which has always been writing. If I suddenly found the time though, I would love to take up Roller Derby, learning to play piano, photography...just to name a few! Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise Day 671 January 7, 2016 Prompt: Have you ever kept a New Years Resolution that you made? The fact that I really had to think about this hard means that most likely, and shamefully, I have never kept even one resolution. I stopped making them in earnest a few years ago. Finding balance in life is hard enough some days without the added pressure of an expectation that is often beyond the means of my daily aspirations. I like to think I'm taking life by chance now. |
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