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.
My life is exactly as I pictured a year ago. Life doesn’t change much when you’re sixty, unless it changes in tragic ways with a death. My life hasn’t changed a lot. I write, I publish, I teach, I hope my medication works. I monitor my health conditions.
It is not an exciting life, but I’m okay with that. My life when younger was exciting, but also chaotic and at moments unsafe. I did not always make good decisions. Which is why I hope my medication works.
I don’t expect to win the Powerball (a big pay-out lottery). I don’t expect to make it onto the bestseller list. I hope nothing bad happens. I expect next year at this time to be much the same.
I haven’t talked about my books in a while, and it’s an exciting season.
Kringle Through the Snow, my latest Kringle Chronicles book, came out on October 1. It is a Christmas romance involving Sierra DuBois, an energetic event manager and Wade Nelson, an affable engineer and nerd. They bond over his selection for the Chamber of Commerce’s first Annual Grinch, and his inclusion into Sierra’s highbrow charity ball. Sierra has a secret that very well may derail the relationship, and she runs away to hide it. They will have to weather some storms if they want to walk in the snow.
The other book coming out on January 1st is Reclaiming the Balance. This is the latest in the Hidden in Plain Sight series, which is either contemporary fantasy or magical realism depending on who you ask. In this story, Janice Wilkens flees Chicago by teleportation with two strangers who know more about her abusive ex-boyfriend than they should. At her refuge, Barn Swallows’ Dance, she finds out about the immortal Archetypes like her ex, and their half-human Nephilim offspring. While plotting for the return of her Nephilim son from her ex, she grows closer to Amarel, an androgynous Nephilim. A journey of transformation beckons both of them as they strive to remedy the collective’s prejudice against Nephilim and rescue Janice’s son.
Both book series have other books published. There are five total books published in the Kringle series: The Kringle Conspiracy, Kringle in the Night, It Takes Two to Kringle, Kringle on Fire, and the current publication. Hidden in Plain Sight series has three published: Gaia’s Hands, Apocalypse, and the upcoming Reclaiming the Balance. There’s also a published short story collection based on the Hidden universe, Stories Within Stories.
There are three upcoming books in the Hidden series: Avatar of the Maker, Carrying Light, and Whose Hearts are Mountains. Those are waiting to be published in the future. There’s also another short story book coming.
There’s also a standalone book waiting to be published, known as Prodigies.
Of course I would like you to pick up one of my books and read them. That’s what they’re there for.
I am an introvert; I tend to spend a lot of time on my own because people leave me overwhelmed at times. But I also seek aloneness because I grew up with bullies saying ugly things about me, and I’m always on the verge of remembering that again, especially with the specter of bipolar hanging over my shoulder.
So it’s a worry in my mind what people say about me. I hope, though, that they say I’m a good person.
Too much of mental illness is seen as being bad. And when I am in the middle of an episode, I can be seen as neglectful, overly emotional, and capricious. Not a good look, although I don’t get manic enough to be truly destructive and frightening. I worry about the consequences of my episodes. And I hope that, despite this, I can be seen as good.
My life, at age 61, has been calm. Big events have not happened this year; every day has been pretty much the same. I live a low-key life, and I think that makes up for when I was a high schooler and young adult and life was eventful with many events (some positive).
Events in my life are small now, with negative events like drained batteries and almost passing out (the latter a daily occurrence). Positive events are much the same; tiny things that get me through a day. Yay! I got through my least favorite class! Yay! It’s nap time!
There are two things I can think of that are major positive events. One is that I have gone another year without either hypomania or depression. Another year without throwing a wrench into the gears of my life. I can thank a good psychiatrist and good medication for that.
The other is that I have gotten Reclaiming the Balance through all the stages to publishing a book, from proofreading to cover to inserting it into the KDP (Kindle Desktop Publishing, I believe) system to be published on January 1. I didn’t think I would have the guts to publish this one, because the male protagonist is, in the most physical sense, non-binary.
As I said, not at all an exciting life. But overall positive with tiny little things and one big accomplishment.
Over 30 years ago, I started my first faculty job at State University of New York College at Oneonta, mercifully known as SUNY Oneonta. I had moved out east from the midwest and had noted some of the changes in scenery from the flatness of central Illinois to the hills surrounding Oneonta, but I didn’t really feel the culture shock until I met my students.
After I learned how to use a mimeograph machine (complete with its blue-purple master stencil), I stepped into my first classroom and stood in front of the class. One woman asked me what sounded like: “Aw yew a stew-DENT?” (If you have heard someone from Long Island, this is the best I could render the voice.)
“Is this Consumer 257?” I asked.
“Yeaah.”
“I’m the professor teaching this class.”
“I thought yew were a STEW-dent!” In her defense, I was 29 but looked really young for my age.
I discovered that day that about one-third of my students were from New York City and its suburbs, and one-third were from rural counties surrounding Oneonta, and the remainder locals. Downstate students are very different than rural New York students. The downstate students are livelier, while the rural students are a bit more reserved.
Some of my favorite stories come from that period of my life, the five years I spent as a new teacher in upstate New York. But it started that first day, when I was mistaken for a student.
When I was in high school, I did a lot of acting in high school plays. I got the funny roles and did well at them. My approach was to act big and to leave enough time for people to laugh. I didn’t do so well with serious roles, and I never understood why. Probably because I put up a funny front because people made fun of me.
I gave speeches, mostly in the speech class we took sophomore year. I was on the speech team, but was not very good in my event, with no help from the coach, who liked his naturally talented folks. The highlight was winning the county competition Voices of Democracy with a speech advocating conscientious objection. “Did they even listen to this?” my mother asked when I won the award. I think they really liked my voice.
I liked being in the front of the room; this is probably why I became a professor. However, I stepped away from acting and speech when I went to college. I knew I was a big fish in a small pond back in Marseilles, my home town. But when I went to University of Illinois, the pond was full of big fish and I knew I was a relatively small fish. The University is a huge campus, with 40,000 students or so, and is a selective university. We were all smart and came with different talents, and I realized mine were not in the direction of acting. So, other than that speech class in college (which was easy for me compared to the one I took sophomore year of high school), I did not go back to speaking or performing in front of large audiences. Unless you count teaching college.
The one thing I would change about myself is my weight. I am, in a word, obese. My lifetime struggle with weight has caught up with me and I am fat.
For people who have never struggled with their weight, the simple answer is “just quit eating so much.” It’s not that easy. I have arthritis in both knees (hereditary weakness) and hips (car accident aftermath) and a lot of weakness when walking certain distances because of a minor cardio glitch. I’m sure I could exercise better if I lost weight, but it’s this catch-22 — I can’t lose weight unless I exercise. Even then, it’s glacially slow, and I’m sure it’s only gotten worse with age.
Photo by Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist on Pexels.com
I can’t afford Ozempic or Wegovy or one of those other miracle drugs, because weight loss is not considered a medical need. This also means I don’t qualify for bariatric surgery. The only weight loss program that doctors can offer me is a stern lecture.
I am very good at motivating myself, because I do it for my job and for writing and all my daily duties. I can’t seem to motivate myself for weight loss because it’s an impossible task. I will never get to the weight I should be; I never have been able to. And it is, at this point, my greatest wish.
I’m jealously guarding my last day of break because I have a lot of grading to do these next couple of weeks. And I mean a lot. I’m getting a major assignment in on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Grading Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and an essay exam next week.
My mini-vacation in Kansas City is coming to an end. It was our kind of vacation — Thanksgiving dinner at the Savoy, Hotwire lodging at the 21c Art Hotel, breakfast at Broadway Cafe, Black Friday people-watching at Oak Park Mall, lunch at Choga, cats at Whiskers Cat Cafe, and another breakfast at Broadway Cafe.
We bought this year’s Hallmark ornaments at the mall, and these set us back a bit because each of us had three ornaments in the series we collect. I’m not really a Hallmark person, but I do like Mischievous Kittens and Birds of the World. Not so much the dominant culture tie-ins. Richard collects Star Trek ships.
Sunday is my day to recover. Next weekend will be brutal with a lot of grading to do before finals. And then there are finals to grade, so expect me to be scarce. But after these two weeks, I’ll be free for about 3 weeks. Maybe it’s time to write again.
Words Like Me 