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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com
Raining Men, via Flash Prompt

It’s Raining Men?

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Raining Men, via Flash Prompt“Well, hallelujah!” Aunt Beulah declared. “It’s just like that song. It really is raining men.”

I glanced out the window to see yet another pair of black-trouser-clad legs slowly descending. “That’s not normal,” I told her. “Less messy than the time it was cats and dogs, though.”

But my aunt, who – in truth – was barely older than me, close enough in age to be my sister, really, was already pinching color into her cheeks and smoothing her cotton calico dress as she bolted for the door.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Yes, come on. This kind of Rain comes only once, maybe twice, a lifetime. You go and catch one before his feet touch the soil, and he becomes the partner you always wanted.”

“What if you miss?” I asked. Some of the forms coming down weren’t exactly compact. I’d noticed more than a couple beer guts beneath the nondescript suits.

“Most of ’em just disintegrate. Makes the garden soil really rich, though. How do you think my mamma grew such luscious tomatoes in this godforsaken place?”

“Water and sunlight, I suppose,” was my drawled response. “Like everyone else.”

But Aunt Beulah just gave me her ‘you know nothin’ honey-child’ look. Then she pulled a barely-there shade of lipstick from her handbag and used the hall mirror to make sure she got it on right. “You coming?” Her hand was already hovering over the lit-up door-plate. A touch of her palm would activate it.

I thought about how Billy Ray had kissed me under the bleachers the other day when we were supposed to be catching critters for the biology lab. It’d been like kissing cold liver. Gross!

Then I thought about my friend Rhonda Sue and how she had the softest, flow-iest, golden hair and got this sweet blush on her face whenever our eyes met during literature class, especially if we were reading poetry. Kissing her wouldn’t be like liver, cold, hot, or drowned in ketchup, I thought.

“I think I’ll have to find my ideal partner the old-fashioned way, like back on Earth. By meeting them.”

“Suit yourself, Lisanne.” And she disappeared out the door.

Me? I went to the computer to call up the Almanac. Rhonda Sue and I might end up better as just friends who practice kissing sometimes. And there had to be a day when the sky rained women, right?

Just Breathe

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Water Portal via Flash PromptThe hardest part, as the water fills your mouth, nose, lungs, is not to struggle. We’re drilled on this when we start the program. “If you struggle,” they tell you, “you could choke and die.”

Instead, we were told, we must stay calm, relaxed.

I start my mantra, chanting in my head before my feet leave the deck. “The ocean is the cradle of life. The ocean is the cradle of life.”  I imagine the sea as a great mother, her blue-green arms keeping me safe from harm.

I plunge backwards into the water. They always push you overboard in the split second when you forget to anticipate the shove. The theory is that if you can’t see the waves coming to greet you, you’re less likely to panic.

But I never panic.

I let myself fall into the ocean’s embrace, and I’m struck by the beauty of the bubbles rising up around me toward the expanding rings of my entry-point. It’s my air forming those bubbles. The former content of my lungs.

The first time I did this, I was terrified. Humans only breathe liquid when they’re in the womb, after all, but once I got past the initial disconnect, the fight against my own instincts, breathing water was as natural as… well, you know.

I feel the gill-slits behind my ears opening and closing – it tickles a little. They pass their undulating movement down my neck, to the two other pairs there. With the bottom one responding to the pressure of the water, I can feel a sort of current in the back of my throat.

The next set of gills – four pair – are on my sides, between my ribs. Those are larger, and just the first one kicking in helps me shake the rapture that is caused by weightlessness, low oxygen, and the salty indigo that surrounds me.

It’s experimental, the body-mod I’m using now, but I’ve been fascinated by mermaids for as long as I can remember, and when I saw the ad in the back of a science magazine, I had to volunteer. Initially, I thought the gills were going to be some kind of external apparatus, but no. They triggered a t-cell here, massaged a little-known gene there, and within a few months I was essentially amphibious.

I move in the water, my nude form completely at home. My gills are functioning exactly as they should. I consider the blue world surrounding me, and feel a pull, a longing to go deeper, to swim further, to stay here in the ocean that has always been in my blood.

The watch strapped to my wrist vibrates. My fifteen minutes are up. I’m supposed to return t the surface, to the boat. Reluctantly, I begin my upward swim, hoping beyond hope that the next trip will be a longer one.

Scream via Flash-Prompt

I Scream

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Scream via Flash-Prompt“Excuse me,” I say to my husband’s seven billionth perfumed auntie, one more in a teeming mass of tiny old women with perfectly coiffed gray hair, in outfits from this year’s collection at Chico’s (we will not address how I know that), accessorized with a mix of paste baubles and antique pearls. “The restroom is available. I’ll be back.”

I weave through the crowd of extended family, narrowly avoiding a collision with a six- foot-tall woman in an impossibly small wheelchair.

The bathroom at this funeral parlor is a single stall. Good. It has one of the newer kind of air dryers – the kind that blow hot air with so much force that it pushes around the skin on the back your hands. Even better.

I use the toilet. Do my ‘paperwork,’ – my mother’s term, which I’ve adopted – wash my hands.

I activate the dryer once to dry my hands.

For the second go-round, I turn the nozzle face up, and scream into the roaring, rushing air. I let out my frustration with my husband’s conservative mid-western family, and my grief at the loss of his mother, a woman who went out of her way to learn my tastes and styles, to include me.

I scream for my stoic husband who CANNOT scream because that’s just not how he’s made, and I scream for our grand-nieces and -nephews who will never get to go fishing with Grandma V.

I activate the dryer a third time. And a fourth.

Finally, I turn the nozzle back the other way. I wet some tissue to clean up smeared mascara. I take a deep breath and finger-comb my hair back into some semblance of order.

I leave the sanctuary of the bathroom.

Almost immediately, I encounter my husband’s youngest uncle. The one who did the eulogy. The one with the stupid sense of humor and the contagious zest for life.

Specifically, he plants himself in front of me. “Well, now, I’m a hugger.” It’s the North Dakota version of a drawl.

He’s a wiry man. Compact, like my husband. His arms are surprisingly strong for someone two years past a stroke that left half his body paralyzed – he barely limps now.

His aftershave reminds me of my grandfather, who died when I was twenty-one.

“Dear girl,” he echoes the phrase my father- in-law used hours earlier. “She was so happy when you married her son. We all were.”

I’m teary again – we both are.

My husband’s uncles are from the era when men still carried pocket handkerchiefs. It’s sweet. Endearing. He tugs his from his pocket, and offers it to me, but he needs it more and I have a packet of tissue in my purse.

“Thank you,” I say. Not just for the offered hankie, but for the hug, and the words.

I forgot, you see.

I forgot that I’m not just here to console my husband and his family.

I forgot that I’m allowed to be visibly grieving, too.

Dice via Flash Prompt

Be Careful What You Wish For

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Dice via Flash Prompt

 

“Fail.”

“I roll to disbelieve.”

“Fail.”

“I roll to disbelieve.”

“Fail.”

“I roll to disbelieve.”

“Fail.”

The room grows colder. The shadows take on form, and reach out to grab me.

Across the table from me, the Other pushes back Her hood.

“Silly boy,” She says, not quite flirting. Her voice is warm and seductive on the surface, but underneath it’s like She’s raking razor blades over my skin. “Even if you’d succeeded, I’d still be coming for you. Disbelieving in Me doesn’t negate My power, only your awareness.”

“But I’m not ready… I’m too young.”

“Not so young,” She counters. “You knew enough to buy the fate dice.” She leans across the table so that Her black eyes are staring into mine, and into my soul. “Try a different wish.”

I think for a minute, and then I know – I KNOW – what I must do.

“I roll to live. ”

“FAIL!”

She kisses me. Her breath is hot and moist but Her tongue is like a dagger in my mouth. I feel Her sucking the life out of me.

Later, I stand in the protection of Her cloak, and watch as my girlfriend Natalie enters my hospital room. I see the woman I love glance at my bed, take in my still form, and sit next to my body. I observe as she pries the dice from my hand.

“I’m glad you’re out of pain,” Nat says. “I know this last year has been hard. The tubes and the chemo… I just wish… I just wish I could be with you.”

Natalie collapses onto my unmoving chest, sobbing. The dice fall from her hand and tumble to the floor, a pair of soft clicking sounds telling me where they’ve landed.

Next to me, She whispers the word I’d wanted to hear. Before. Now, though – if my heart had still been beating, the blood it pumped would have run cold.

“SUCCESS!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee Cups

Sunday Brunch: Thoughts on Community

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Suunday Brunch

Once I month, I write a column called Sunday Brunch at Modern Creative Life. Going forward, I’ll be doing weekly Sunday Brunch posts here, as well.

It’s day twenty-seven of the Dog Days of Podcasting, an annual event where twenty or thirty people attempt to post a podcast episode every day for thirty or so days. Originally founded by Kreg Steppe, it was his attempt to get back to the old-school days of podcasting, when it was very much an indie – even underground – hobby, and shows weren’t as slick and commercial as they are now.

I was not involved in that first year. And I wasn’t invited into the project by Kreg, because I didn’t know him. In fact, at the time, I barely listened to podcasts at all, though I remember attempting to – unsuccessfully – several years before.

In any case, this is my fifth year with the project – challenge – whatever. But it’s only my third year truly participating in the community that has coalesced around the challenge.

And that’s what I want to talk about in this piece.

Community.

We all have several communities that we interact with during our lives. When we’re very young, we have the community of our family and immediate friends. For me, that community extends to people who aren’t biological relations, but who have been in my life, my family’s life, since before I was born. Helen, Robert, Tess, Cheryl, and Alisa you represent the core of that group. I don’t tell you enough – maybe not ever – but I love you all.

As we get older, we have the community of our school friends. Sometimes that community is an extension of the first, but for me, it really wasn’t, and honestly, I haven’t kept in touch with most of my friends from school – from any of the schools I attended (there were many) – but Jennifer from USF,  Geoff, Joy, Juliette, and Robert from Fresno, and Toby from Modesto – even if we don’t talk a lot, even when we don’t agree on everything – I’m glad to have the contact we do.

Our lives often go in directions we never expected. Our interests develop, fall away, change, and grow. In my early twenties, I started playing online roleplaying games – MUSHes – and found a new community among other players. Some of them I only know online. Many I’ve met in person, shared meals with, cried with, laughed with, and hugged (but never enough). I met my husband that way – in fact, I can legitimately say I met Fuzzy on another planet, since we met on a Pern MUSH (but not the PernMUSH).  But Elana, Jeremy, Clay, Veronica, Julia, and Victoria are all in my life because of that kind of gaming.

More recently, I’ve found another game-related community in the Klingon Marauders fleet on Star Trek: Timelines. I’m using their handles because while I know some of their real names, I don’t know them all, but Stones, O Captain, Deli, Rowden, Admiral Scarborough, Khalessi, Videm, Grease Monkey, Q, McCracken, and the much-missed Worf – I don’t think any of you realize how much you mean to me.

Communities come in various forms. I’ve had church communities and choir communities, and a community of fellow improvisers. I have a small community of writing friends – Debra, Becca, and Roxanne among them and I have a group of friends that began as fans of an epic fanfiction series I’m still writing, and have become close friends, advisors, and even, when needed, a sort of Brain Trust: Berkley, Elizabeth, Caroline, Clariel, Fran, Hannah, Karla, and Selena you have been my supporters, my cheerleaders, and my friends, and I’m grateful for all of you.

Sometimes, communities overlap. Clay introduced me to Tabz, and through her podcast dramas in the Buffyverse, I met Kim, Heidi, Robin, Crystal, Brian, Jancis, Mark, and Nuchtchas. (Yes, O Encaffeinated One, we met through Tabz before I was part of DDOP). It was Nuchtchas (and Tabz, but somehow, I remember it being more Nuchtchas) who invited me into the Dog Days of Podcasting, who gave me pointers, and encouraged me until I’d figured out what I wanted BathtubMermaid to be. (I’m happy with the content now.)

Clay and Brian, on the other hand, introduced me to Sage, and it’s through her that I got to know Jancis better, and actually interacted with Kymm (that’s Kymm with a Y) whom I’d been crossing paths with for years doing Holidailies.

And then there’s the Dog Days Peeps. I can’t name any of you without wanting to list all of you, but Kreg and Chuck have been incredibly welcoming since Day One, so they get special shout-outs. You’ve never made me feel stupid for not knowing how stuff worked, or unwelcome because I wasn’t an original member of your circle. Thank you for that. And Jay, thank you for coming to play in my sandbox.

As is the nature of living organisms, Communities ebb and flow. Sometimes you’ll have intense relationships with only a few members of a community and more casual ones with the rest. Sometimes you’ll feel like there are people who don’t ‘get’ you, or you don’t really understand. I’ve come to learn that this is normal. It’s not bad or wrong, it’s just life.

The vast majority of the people in my most frequently inhabited communities, I’ve never met in person. But this doesn’t diminish the connections we have. Together, we’ve been through marriages, divorces, births, deaths, successes, failures, hopes, fears, dreams, and brutal realities. We’ve watched storms together, and prayed for those in the center of those storms to be safe. We’ve mourned the loss of cultural icons together, and shared opinions on new projects (I’m talking about you, Star Trek: Discovery.) The fact that much of this happens online isn’t relevant.

We don’t always agree on politics, on religion, on whether or not Tecate really is the best beer (though the first sip of the day – of anything – is absolutely the best), but when one of us is in trouble, we reach out.

From all of you, I’ve learned, or been reminded, that the only stupid questions are those that go unasked, and that accepting help when you need it is just as important as giving it when you can.

Thank you, all of you, for being part of my communities.

Maximus, 2017

World’s Biggest Chew Toy?

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Maximus, 2017

 

My dog, Max (Maximus) will be nine in December. This story may or may not have taken place exactly as described, about eight years ago.

World’s Biggest Chew Toy?

When my husband finally walked in the door three hours after his usual arrival time, I didn’t greet him with a smile and a kiss, but instead accused, “You’re late.”

 

“I said I’d be a bit late, when I called” he replied, with his usual Midwestern calm. “There was a problem and I lost track of things.”

 

“Three hours is not a bit,” I snarked. “Twenty minutes is a bit. Three hours is unacceptably late.”

 

“What’s really wrong?” He could always see right through my behavior.

 

“Everything I write is crap,” I said. “And my column is due tomorrow. I forgot to pay my cell phone bill and it cost seventy-five dollars to get it reinstated.  I ruined dinner and I’m too tired to cook anything new, and your dog ate my t-shirt.”  I was in tears by the time I finished my litany, but my husband was smirking. “Stop laughing! It’s NOT funny!”

 

“Not to you,” he said. Then after a beat he added, “Come here.”

 

“You were late.” I pointed out. “You come here.”

 

He crossed the room and pulled me into his arms. The tears started flowing again, but he just held me and let me cry out my frustration.  After a few minutes, I felt calmer, and I lifted my head from his chest.

 

“Better now?” he asked.

 

“A bit,” The faintest teasing note colored my tone.

 

He kissed me on the forehead, and then peppered my lips with tiny bunny kisses. I smiled in spite of myself, then began kissing him back. The mood was beginning to shift to something more passionate when there was a canine shriek from outside.

 

“Where’s the dog?” my husband asked, only just registering the lack of a canine presence.

 

“Out in the yard,” I said. “I was afraid I might do something horrible to him.”

 

“You wouldn’t have,” my husband said. “You love your dog, but we should go see what he’s up to.”

 

We walked hand-in-hand through the house and out to the yard. He pulled the door open, and I yelled, “Maxwell, come!”

 

There was no response.

 

“Max! C’mere Monster Dog!”

 

A scuffling noise , closely followed by a frustrated growl, came from the side of the house.

 

“Maximus, come!” My husband had to try.

 

“Looks like we go to him,” I said. I went back inside to grab a handful of treats and we went to investigate the latest doggy disaster.

 

Max, our big, spotted, mutt, was playing tug with the brick veneer at the corner of the house. The porch light highlighted the crumbled bits of mortar on the ground.

 

“Maximus, stop that!” I ordered, as my husband yelled for the dog to come now!.

 

Max trotted over, a chunk of dusty, red brick in his mouth, and a smug expression on his doggy face. He dropped the brick at my feet and sat, waiting expectantly for his treat.

 

I wanted to throttle him, but my husband sensed that, and said, “Good sit, Maxwell.”

 

I tossed a treat, and Maximus caught it effortlessly.

 

“C’mon, Max,” I said, and we went back inside.

 

“Crate him, and I’ll take you out for sushi,” my husband offered.

 

“Deal,” I said. I ordered Maxwell to bed, and accepted his slurpy kisses before locking the door and feeding him another treat.

 

Later that evening, over sushi and plum wine, I quipped, “You know, when the shelter people warned us that this dog would eat us out of house and home, I didn’t think they meant it literally.”

 

My husband merely laughed and poured more wine.

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright: vukvuk / 123RF Stock Photo

Flash-Fiction: Oskar and Harmony

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Copyright: <a href='https://www.123rf.com/profile_vukvuk'>vukvuk / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

This is an unfinished piece written just before dinner last night. I was working on something different, but related, and this is what happened instead.

 

His arrival was always heralded by raindrops.

He would open with a tease, a tickle. Just a tiny hint of drizzle. If she didn’t immediately rise to meet him, he’d turn up the waterworks, make them into a soaking rain over the place in the sea where sirens dwelt between gigs.

Harmony would lift her face and arms into the cascade of bubbles, give a flick of her tail, and twist and turn in the newly oxygenated water. It was common knowledge that sea creatures got a little giddy during rainstorms, after all.

Spiraling upward through the frothy water, she would break the surface just in time to catch phase three of his greeting to her: a single arc of lightning that sent electricity humming through every fiber of her being.

And there he’d be, floating on a mattress of soft fog, just above the peaks and troughs of her beloved waves, her man. Her god. Oskar. Today he was sporting hair and a beard that matched the slate and granite colors of the rocks that formed her favorite jetty, and eyes that were the same bruised-purple as the sky before a storm.

They didn’t talk much, when they were above. His voice was the sound of a sledge-hammer, booming and forceful. It made the waves break far from shore and scattered fish in all directions.

As to her voice. Harmony was a mermaid. A siren. Her voice was meant to lure sailors to their watery deaths. When she used it on Oskar, she was never sure if he was staying with her because he wanted to, or because her voice was somehow compelling him.

Then again, when they were nested together on his bed of fog, they didn’t really need to speak to communicate, especially once they’d determined how thick the bed had to be before it was considered ‘land’ by the elemental magic that allowed her to split her tail into legs.

But when they were in her world, below the waves, then it was a different story. Her voice had no power over him when they were beneath the waves. And his…

Have you ever been swimming and been surprised by a thunderstorm, or been diving and felt a motorboat go by? That’s a taste of the way Harmony experienced Oskar’s voice underwater: feeling it more than hearing it. It was tangible, a physical grumble that was best appreciated when one of them was draped over the other.

Harmony had never planned to fall in love with a thunder god. The bird and fish who fell in love had it easy compared to Oskar and herself. But when they were together, when she was wrapped in his arms, and he rumbled sweet words to her or she felt his joyous laughter, she knew it was worth figuring out.

100Notecards-Day000

100 Days of Notecards – 2017 edition

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100Notecards-Day000

Almost every year between the summer solstice (today!) and my birthday (August 17th, I like bath stuff, coffee paraphernalia, perfume, and funky jewelry. I don’t like blank journals.) I end up descending into a creative slump.

With the Dog Days of Podcasting coming at the beginning of August, and my rule that I have to do something productive and something creative every day (and yes, sometimes they are one and the same) I thought it would be wise to start generating ideas for the daily podcast and other writing.

A few years ago, I participated in The !00 Day Project, where lots of people pledged to engage in an act of daily making (whether that was art or something else) and document it on Instagram. I took a break in the middle, but overall I really enjoyed the project.

Last summer,or… maybe it was the summer before… I tried to do 100 Days of cooking, but kept forgetting to take pictures, so while it was a tasty project, it wasn’t a terribly useful one.

This year, I’m doing notecards again.

I’ve got a bunch of 3×5 post-its, because after I snap the picture of my notecards, they go on the front of the fridge for anyone who visits my house to read. (The visual aspect also helps me keep going, because I get a kick out of the brightly colored notecards slowly taking over the stainless steel of my fridge.)

So I’ve started again. Today.

The rules:
100 Days.
100 Notecards.
1 sentence, scene, or snippet of dialogue per card.

Enjoy!

Awesome Hats

Great Writing Requires an Awesome Hat

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Awesome Hats

This piece originally ran as part of my Sunday Brunch column in All Things Girl on 12 January 2014.

A few days ago, I made a post on Facebook about how while most of the country had been in the throes of a polar vortex which made temperatures plunge into the sub-zero ranges, I had been in the throes of a writing vortex. I gave the credit for my recent habit of writing in excess of 5,000 words a day to a green hat my friend Jeremy made for me several years ago.

It’s true that this particular hat has been my headgear of choice this winter, but it’s not the first “writing hat” I’ve ever had. It’s also true that was not my first-ever writing vortex, but it’s the longest, most productive such period I’ve had in probably a decade, and that includes at least four successful completions of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

For me, both the hats and the vortices began with Jo March, my favorite character from Little Women, which I read for the first time when I was six. At first my mother read the chapters aloud to me at bedtime, but eventually I grew impatient to know what came next, and I improved my reading ability so I could find out. That was the last book we read together in that way; now we just trade books back and forth.

In any case, the image of Jo with her special writing clothes on, scribbling away in her attic atelier, is one that instantly entranced me, and I’ve been using my own form of writerly cos-play to keep the muse active ever since. Sometimes that includes whole outfits; but mostly it involves hats.

My first writing hat was a black velvet beret, big enough for me to tuck all my hair into (at a time when I had long hair, even) and adorned by a red bow. At least, it had a red bow until the bow fell off, and after that I decorated it with a succession of funky pins – gold stars, silver fairies, a bar pin featuring a jazz trio – things of that ilk. I wore that hat forever, and not just to write. It was a trusty friend through my high school and college years, until I finally killed it by accidentally melting it to death with a curling iron.

In retrospect, the curling iron vandalism might have been a sort of homage to Jo March as well, albeit an unintentional one.

My second writing hat was also black and velvet, but this time it was a baseball cap. I love baseball caps because when my hair is long enough for a pony-tail, I can stick it through the gap above the adjustment tab. This one was pretty plain, but I jazzed it up with a giant dragon-fly pin. Once, I wore it to work (it was a hat-friendly workplace) and my supervisor looked at it and said, “That dragon-fly is scary. And awesome. Carry on.”

I still have that hat, but I don’t really wear it to write any more, mostly because my hair is too short for a pony-tail, but partly because that dragon-fly pin is really heavy.

When I was performing with the Dallas ComedySportz troupe several years ago, I shifted my usual headgear from hats to bandannas – do-rags in the current parlance – collecting them in a wide variety of colors and styles. My favorites include a black one with lavender and green dragon-flies, and a white one with black and gold paisley patterns. I like these “kerchiefs,” as my grandmother would have called them, because they keep my hair out of my face without hurting my scalp (like a too-tight or too-heavy pony-tail can) or being too hot or heavy. I also like them because they make pirate fantasies much more accessible, but that’s another story.

So, why am I now wearing a green hat that can be a watch cap or a beret? Well, first, my friend made it for me, and I miss his daily presence in my life, so this hat is a connection to another very cool, creative person. The other reason is that, until yesterday, it’s been legitimately cold here in Texas (and not just in a cold-for-Texas kind of way – it was 23 degrees earlier this week.), and when you keep your head warm, you retain your body heat. It’s never been a secret that I like to have cool air when I sleep, but when I’m awake and writing, I prefer to be comfortably warm, and the hat has helped keep me that way.

Unlike Jo March in her garret, I don’t use the position of my hat to signal the state of my muse or telegraph my mood, but the presence (or absence) of some kind of headgear absolutely alerts my husband to whether or not my “genius is burning.”

Can great writing be accomplished without an awesome hat? Of course.

But wearing a hat, and channeling a favorite character (even if it’s a character of your own creation) makes writing – great or not – a lot more fun.

“Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and “fall into a vortex” as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace. Her “scribbling suit” consisted of a black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This cap was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads semi-occasionally, to ask, with interest, “Does genius burn, Jo?” They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on; in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew; and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor. At such times the intruder silently withdrew; and not until the red bow was seen gaily erect upon the gifted brow, did any one dare address Jo.”

~ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Copyright: bajneva / 123RF Stock Photo

Counting the Days

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Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_bajneva'>bajneva / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

 

I’m not feeling the Christmas spirit. I could blame the severe hypothyroid condition which is sapping all my energy, or the cold I have on top of it, which is just exacerbating the situation, but whatever the reason, I’m just not feeling the magic.

My tree stands in the dining room window, lit, but naked, as if it’s tottered in drunk from the cold, unsure of whether or not it really belong here, and of what might have happened to its shoes, or, for that matter its pants.

I’ve mostly decorated the mantle with my motley crew of Victorian Santas, but it feels like they’re mocking me this year. Like they aren’t interested in anything except being tucked away safely between layers of tissues and bubble wrap, waiting for next year, when I might be in the mood again.

Maybe it’s the political climate that has me feeling this way, like I’m caught in some kind of limbo.

Maybe it’s the Texas weather, chill, grey, murky, but with no sign of precipitation coming any time soon.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Who knows.

I started Holidailies wanting to write fun stories about holiday magic and everyday magic, and I haven’t written in over week. I wanted to do a podcast project with a bunch of other Doggies from The Dog Days of Podcasting, but I feel like there’s no point because I don’t have anything new or interesting to offer.

My characters whisper to me, ever more insistently, to progress their stories, and I just tune them out.

I’m not depressed, at least, not clinically.

I’m just tired. And feeling stale and burnt out.

The cold ashes of a two-days-past fire.

And even opening the doors on the advent calendar isn’t helping this year.

So, I’m counting the days to something new.

I don’t know if 2017 will be better or worse (dear God, I hope it’s better), but at least it will be different…

Won’t it?