I am an associate professor of human services at a regional Midwestern university. I am also a writer of fantasy and romance, hoping to get traditionally published. I have one husband and am owned by four cats.
This is not going to be a very exciting answer. If I were a better person than I am, I would say something like meditation or reading, or walking. But the truthful answer is that I come home, recline in the recliner, and surf the Internet on my phone. I kill time in the most prosaic way possible.
I am a voracious reader of minutiae. It comes from wanting to absorb information and having a short attention span. So I binge-read Wikipedia, science websites, and Quora, looking for things to learn. I also like to read advice columns, because I like to know the right things to do in an awkward situation.
Sometimes I fall asleep in the recliner. I guess this is how one really winds down.
When I was about 11, the music director at the church had put together a children’s choir for Easter. There weren’t many of us, to be sure; it was a small church. We rehearsed in the choir loft on Wednesdays.
On Easter, my friend Kay, who was in the choir, was set in charge of her cousin Denise. Denise was older than us, but she had developmental disabilities and the maturity of a six-year-old. Therefore, she ended up in the choir loft with us. The choir director, Mrs. Rose, said it was okay as long as Kay didn’t let Denise sing because Denise would “ruin the music”.
Denise was crushed. One of her favorite things to do was to sing. As I stood singing, I felt a creeping sense of remorse. This was God’s house, and we were denying Denise an opportunity to worship the one way she knew how. We had decided Denise wasn’t worthy to be heard. This didn’t sound like the God we learned about in Catechism. It didn’t matter to me that Denise would ruin our rehearsed music. I felt the music would be perfect if all our voices were heard.
At the end, Mrs. Rose gave each of us a dollar coin. In those days, a dollar coin was an impressive size and was considered special. I took mine, ashamed of myself for having been one that had rejected Denise. This was my fifty pieces of silver. Soon, I left the choir, and it didn’t last for long after that because there weren’t enough of us.
I tell this story, and most people don’t understand what the big deal was. After all, we had rehearsed for the opportunity, we had a specific sound that Mrs. Rose wanted to capture, and Denise would have ruined it. But I believed that God loved everyone, and that everyone was welcome at God’s table.
Later, much later, I became a Quaker because everyone is welcome at their table. And, if liturgy had been part of their services, they would have let Denise sing.
There are six words that someone can say that make me so nervous, I have to work not to panic. They’re not uncommon words either. All it takes is the phrase “I need to talk to you.” It doesn’t matter if it’s my boss, my husband, or a friend — the phrase makes me spiral.
In my mind, nothing good comes from that phrase. It speaks of being called into the office and reprimanded, or worse. My heart rate goes up, my stomach churns, and my mind searches for what I may have done wrong.
It’s even worse when someone says that to me and they can’t talk to me until the next day. I spend that entire day in near-panic mode. I can lose whole days to the nervousness.
Usually, however, the actual message is not nearly as nerve-wracking as the wait. It’s usually about something like taking on an extra class for the semester or leaving the bath mat on the floor. Nothing worth two days of terror. My mind, however, refuses to believe that the next time someone says “I need to talk to you.”
I advise anyone who says “I need to talk to you” to give me a synopsis of what we’re talking about so I can prepare for the meeting. But really, it’s so I don’t lose my mind worrying.
This is probably me having a Discouraging Moment TM but I’m not feeling that obsession to write. I have three partial novels and one novella, all of which have stalled.
The latest document — I know what’s wrong with it but not how to fix it. I sit and think about how to introduce what it needs and my brain dissolves into mush. I feel like my brain cells are devoted to work and my future garden, the seedlings in the basement and the research proposals on the computer.
I might take some time this morning to talk with my husband and see what I come up with. Then again, I might grade papers. That’s what writing has been lately.
There are several types of social media I use to try to drive readers toward my books. This, my blog, is one of the primary ones. It doesn’t seem to succeed very well. I don’t plug my books very often on my blog (Look here if you’re interested) so that might explain my lack of success.
I also promote my books through Loomly, a social media manager. With Loomly, I can schedule blurbs in Threads, Facebook Pages, and Instagram at the same time. I plug my books much more often on Loomly. This also doesn’t seem to succeed very well.
I don’t do a great job at plugging my books. Maybe it’s because my books are one in a million — literally. Just one in a market of indie books that grows exponentially by the year. I think people are innundated with ads for indie books, and there’s no way to know whether they’re good or not. I can’t seem to make mine stand out. I’m not sure anyone can.
It’s not so bad. I think I do a good job writing this blog, which is a reward in its own right. I don’t have too many readers, but they’re increasing. Thank you for reading.
My mind is cluttered with memories. I feel overwhelmed with the weight of them sometimes. I remember life before computers, the occasional soda fountain, the years of new wave music, times sitting on the Quad at the University of Illinois, my telephone number growing up, the first time someone gave me flowers.
My mind is like an attic, with boxes sitting in dusty corners, and sometimes something reminds me of a box that is up there. I rummage through the box and find the memory and a lot of other things that lived in the box with the memory. So I remember the Drovers’ concert in the student union, sitting with some friends in a little-used stairwell in the same student union, catching the bus outside the Union, my broken leg that necessitated lots of bus usage in grad school … I’m there exploring a moment of time with a cloud of memories and my feelings at the time.
At age 61, there are a lot of boxes in that attic, Some have been placed more recently than others, and those have less emotional resonance because those boxes are newer. The old boxes, the ones from my childhood and college, are the more poignant to go through. I was younger then, the world has changed from those days, and I can’t bring them back. But I can remember them.
When I was in high school, I wasn’t very popular. It had gotten better from the constant harassment I had gotten in previous grades, but I was not the student with a boyfriend ever.
It was my junior year, and of course when prom came around, I didn’t have a date. In physics class, the girls who had dates for prom were chattering non-stop about who they were going with. I knew the purpose was to show off their popularity, but it still brought me down.
Our teacher for physics was Mr. Miller, and he talked about more than physics in his class. He would impart nuggets of wisdom, calling them “Miller’s Unsubstantiated Opinion”. He had one for the girls in the class, which sobered them up. “Do you think you’re going to marry your prom date? Do you think you’re going to remember who you went to prom with in three years? Probably not. You’ll have gone on with your lives, gone to college. This might seem a big thing now, but it won’t be in a few years.
I don’t know if the popular girls had learned anything from that, but I did. My high school years, it turned out, were not going to be the be-all and end-all of my existence, the cornerstone of my memories. I could see how quickly the memory would fade. And from that moment on, the girls’ chatter didn’t bother me. This was just a moment in time, after all.
My favorite restaurant hasn’t existed for years. A restaurant that was simultaneously fancy and playful, quirky and upscale, Bluestem in KC was a place I had only gone to once, but wish I had gone to at least another time. By the time I had an opportunity to go again, it had closed.
I remember an amuse-bouche (a nibble of curiosity), a wonderful cheese tray, and a comforting atmosphere. I felt like I didn’t have to be someone else to enjoy the place, I didn’t have to play dress-up in a black dress or a red suit, and I could enjoy imaginative and upscale food without impersonating someone sophisticated. I appreciate great food, but not so much pretension.
Another favorite restaurant which is still open would be Waldo Thai, again in Kansas City. They do Thai and Thai fusion food. Their dishes are authentic and show the best of Thai food: the melodious use of spices and citrus, rich coconut milk and sweet soy; all the things I remember from cooking at a Thai cafeteria in the late 80s. Much more sophisticated, though. I would like to work my way through their drink list.
A restaurant doesn’t have to be fancy to capture my fancy. I enjoy going to Swagat north of KC, which is a very solid Indian restaurant with an excellent buffet. I especially love their goat curry, although that is always served bone-in, so it takes some care to eat. If it were closer, I would try to eat there weekly. There’s also Raku in my town, where I go for their relatively non-brothy ramen, which has become one of my favorites.
I am always looking for new favorites. If I were to visit you, what restaurant would you recommend?
The place in the world I never want to visit is Dallas, TX. From everything I’ve heard, it’s big, excessive, and ugly. And rich. With cowboy culture, which does nothing for me.
The entire state is offputting to me — “Everything’s bigger in Texas? Never mind.” I don’t like rugged individualism, bravado, or bluster. San Antonio was nice, however; I especially liked the Riverwalk. I’ve been to Houston, which seemed generic with a lot of medical facilities.
I enjoy visiting places with lots of coffeehouses, eclectic people, great ethnic restaurants, an arts scene, a lot of diversity, a chill attitude. Dallas at least has the arts scene, and Tex-Mex restaurants (I’m not motivated by Tex-Mex). But it’s not enough.
Finally, there’s the politics. Texas is as deep red, Trump-loving as a state could get. I can’t deal with that these days, with Trump tearing down the country out of his usual sense of spite.
When someone asks me what I want to be, my flip answer is “retired, published, and a cat.” I have already been published, if self-publishing counts. Realistically, I will never be a cat, although a lifetime lounging around and not paying the mortgage appeals to me. That leaves retirement.
I should be retired by 10 years from now. I’m 61, and I could retire now if I wanted. I could have retired two years ago, but I wasn’t ready. I plan to retire at 67, so by 10 years from now, I should be retired.
What will retirement look like for me? Probably writing and gardening, like life looks now, only without the classes, meetings, and internship visits. A lot calmer. I look forward to time that is mine.
Words Like Me 