Thought Candy

Today is Tuesday, March 25, and I’m thinking, “Oh my God, I’m leaving home in three days– and I still haven’t done my taxes– I need to get on that!!”

Because I– like a great many other wonderful people– tend to push off doing things I don’t want to do until the Last Possible Second, and the idea of leaving home at the end of March without filing my taxes yet is a tad stressful. I envy everyone who has already completed this chore. I plan to join the my-taxes-are-done club in the next two days– because on Friday, I’ll be taking the train to Sacramento, California, so I can visit my adorable niece, Elana Belle.

This is she: the adorable cutie.

I get to hang out with All That Cuteness this weekend. Pretty fantastic cool.

I just have to put up with a 24-hour train ride. In coach. With my mother.

Which I know I can handle, as I am macho and tough, a regular Rambo in the guise of a writer:

I’m just not quite as ripped as Sylvester Stallone.

But still kinda badass, with my stick-arms and eyeglasses. Cause it Takes All Kinds, especially when the task at hand is riding coach with one’s mother.

Don’t get me wrong– I love my mom. She’s a good mom. And I’m glad to help her get a chance to see her first grandbaby, who will turn one this summer.

It’s just that my mom is going to want me to eat with her on the train, which means, eat the same food that she eats. Ice cream, and sandwiches, and french fries and potato chips. Train food. Food I don’t want to eat, but which my mom will insist, in a voice that grows increasingly louder, and then louder, and then LOUDER, that I Need To Eat.

It’s never cool for me to open a container of homemade seed mix (pumpkin, sunflower, flaxseeds) or almonds, or whatever it is I’ve chosen for sustenance. If I’m not drinking a Coke, having a sandwich and fries, and eating ice cream with her, I am acting like a baboon, and my mom isn’t cool with hanging out with a baboon for a daughter.

I wish she could be like, “You eat whatever you want, I’ll eat whatever I want, and that’s just fine.” Cause that is my motto, and I think it is awesome.

But no. My mom doesn’t live in that world. She’ll insist that I eat the ice cream and fries with her until I either cave in and eat it, or time ends. (In this case, time ends when we get off the train… because then we’ll be with Elana Belle, and my mom will forget about pestering me, because she’ll have a new target. Cause grandbaby trumps daughter, every time.)

When it’s time to board the train again for the return trip… the “You need to eat! What is the matter with you?? You’re anorexic! You’re starving yourself!” song and dance will follow me home. But maybe my mom will have a grandmomma-high from seeing Elana, and will be more chill about my pumpkin seeds then. So I hope.

One food item I might take with me on this trip:

Cherry Vanilla Almond Butter. This is made with dry roasted almonds, dates, cherries, coconut oil, vanilla, and sea salt. I discovered this product on Saturday, and then discovered I can eat it like ice cream. (Well, I sorta eat it like ice cream. This stuff is too filling to just chow down on. A little bit goes a long way. Cause even when I’m eating gelato, I can usually eat more than two spoonfuls at a time. So this stuff is the high-fat/high-calorie version of ice cream.)

And I will also be taking my laptop with me, even though the battery no longer holds a charge, and will be worthless on the train. I can always write in longhand, and then type up the pages in California.

Or I can read Catch-22 on this trip. Cause if I ever teach creative fiction in graduate school, I will need to have read this book. Chapter One of Catch-22 has a great pair of opening lines:

“It was love at first sight.

The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.”

I couldn’t tell, by the end of the first chapter, if this was going to be romantic love or not, but the idea of reading about gay men in the military had me excited. So excited that I finished the first chapter in one sitting, even though the jokes weren’t enough to make me laugh out loud and the hospital scene was so creepy and sad and the dead man was disturbing.

But this is Great Literature: so often creepy and sad and disturbing.

And I am obsessed with checking certain classics off my “have not read” list, and Catch-22 is in first place this month.

I also fell in love with Rainbow Rowell’s YA novel Fangirl this month.

I *loved* her first novel, Eleanor & Park, but it felt so different than my love for Fangirl. Fangirl had me equally hooked, equally addicted to turning pages, but I just gushed and teared-up and LOVED this book on a whole different level. Fifty billion hearts to this book. It’s making my Ten Best Books list of 2014 at the end of the year.

Anyone who loves YA– get your paws on Fangirl and devour it!

(Though, technically, Fangirl is New Adult/Emerging Adult, because the main character is in her first year of college… but Fangirl reads like Young Adult, so I think the college setting is just a ridiculous technicality. The Etiquette of Wolves is New Adult. Fangirl is YA.)

And one last note:

My work in progress,  Mark of the Pterren, hit 1,000 pages yesterday– for a minute– before I went on and kept typing. I have 1,010 pages now. That’s over 300,000 words.

It felt surreal to see the number 1000 at the bottom of my Word document. Because normally, I don’t pay attention to page numbers while I write. But something about the zeroes must have felt off in my mind, because I glanced down and noticed.

I didn’t understand, when I originally conceived of this story, that it would be so long. Sometimes I think it’s my best story so far, and sometimes I think it’s the dumbest thing ever, and mostly it just feels like this giant mountain I’m climbing… and climbing… and climbing… But I think 1,600 pages will be the stopping point. I get the sense I’ll be done with the characters by then.

Also, my beta readers might kill me. And that would be bad. I’ll never find out how the story ends if that happens.

The past seven days of my life have been So Incredibly Cool!! My first print book has been released for sale– and people are buying it– and maybe they will read it, too– which is even cooler!!

Here is Funshine Bear with my first novel:

I took this copy of the book (the final proof copy) with me to my inaugural meeting of Writers and Scribblers last week, a writing group I co-founded here in Durango. I gave a craft presentation titled “Writing Sex Scenes: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” which went really well. There were twenty or more people there, which was awesome. My writing tips and information about the new group might also feature in an article of The Durango Telegraph soon. (So cool!)

Then I spilled a bunch of water all over my proof copy (whoops, guess I should have made sure I had the lid screwed on my water bottle before I chucked it into my bag!) but the damage to the book wasn’t too bad.

And it didn’t stop me from taking the book to Sandy Irwin, the Assistant Library Director of the Durango Public Library, and asking her if she’d like to read it. Answer: YES!!!!!

Here is Sandy with the book Funshine Bear hung out with before I spilled water all over it:

Sandy is wonderful — she helps put on the Durango Literary Festival each September, and she is super supportive of local authors and acquires great books for the library. She even mentioned that if my sister and I wanted to wear our superhero costumes into the library, we could do a reading for the children’s group that meets there– you know, promoting our “Literacy is a super-power!” manic/zany/crazy energy. Dressing up as superheroes and promoting book-love– in a library– well, that is just cool.

And then my alpha and beta reader, April Duclos, sent me this picture, which put me over the moon into a new world of awesome:

Long before this book ever saw print, April read, and read, and READ these chapters– lord, I don’t even know how many times. And she was still this excited to see the book arrive in the mail!!

I’m so lucky I have friends and readers like this!!!

And my Awesome Author friend, Adriana Arbogast, came to town last week to hear my presentation, go out to dinner, chill in Durango, and we went for a hike the next day in Mesa Verde– which was so fun! Here we are, in the first selfie I’ve ever taken (I feel so modern now!):

We went on the Petroglyph Trail, and took this picture in front of the glyphs (which are above our heads, out of sight). Such a beautiful day!

I’m trying to convince Adriana to hike Devil’s Garden with me, in Arches National Park, Moab, Utah– one of my most favoritest hikes ever. I love red rock. There is an energy in red sandstone that just hums through my body, which is why I never grow tired of that park, no matter how many times I hike the same places.

Here’s hoping we get to go! *hope hope hope*

My self-appointed Super Fan, Leslie McCabe-Holm, also Tweeted about my book– and St. Lawrence University retweeted her Tweet– to their 3,279 followers– that is really cool! (hashtag, I love my Super Fan!!)

None of these events are the same as having a Book Launch Party, or Giving a Reading, or having an Actual Marketing Campaign– but I know, in my career, I will build to those things– I will get there, I’ll reach those goals– and for me, the past seven days has BEEN a party, whether wine was served or not.

Plus, I have eight awesome subscribers to my Author Blog– how cool is that??

Answer: SO cool!!!!!

Last weekend, I was able to read the book Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar– Your Brain’s Silent Killers, by David Perlmutter, M.D., and it was an amazing, transformative experience. Here’s a picture of the book, along with Perlmutter’s other published books:

I wasn’t motivated to read Grain Brain because I have health concerns. My body has always been able to do whatever I need it to do, without pain, and I like keeping it the same size, because then I don’t ever have to buy new clothes. All through my life, I’ve preferred to spend money on stuff like books and ice cream and more books, cause a girl has to have priorities.

Reading Grain Brain also came right after I read about the Atkins eating program, which is all about learning how to limit your intake of carbohydrates in order to stay lean, muscular, and healthy.

My husband read the Atkins book first (in January), then started the first phase of the eating program, which is called Induction, when you limit your carbohydrate consumption to no more than 20 grams of carbs per day. He had AMAZING results. The pounds started falling off (his goal is to lose 70 pounds)– but, even better than that, his debilitating leg and back pain went away. Before Atkins, Greg was in so much pain that he couldn’t sleep at night, and even though he had surgery on his lower spine this past August, the operation did nothing to help him.

Following the Atkins eating program achieved what a surgeon (and something like $8,000.00 in paying our insurance deductible) failed to do.

So I picked up the Atkins diet book and I read it. Then I did Induction with Greg, not because I wanted to lose weight, but just to team up with him, to help him restock the kitchen, help keep the fridge loaded with proteins and fats, and lots of fresh vegetables, and manage the diet with him.

Surprisingly, this was a win-win situation: Greg had help maintaining his new eating program, and the two of us had a sense of camaraderie in the kitchen that felt new and different and fun. It was a good time.

Two weeks passed, and I ended up losing eight pounds– eight pounds!! That’s a dress size! That means my clothes don’t fit anymore!

Holy Not Good!!!

So after two weeks of Induction, when I saw the scale, I bought a bunch of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, gelato, and pineapples, even ate things like oatmeal and cookies, which I normally don’t eat at all, and within two weeks, my weight was back at 138, which is my normal.

Phew! Crisis averted. Thank you, Cherry Garcia.

I was still eating healthy, low-carb meals with Greg, but when Greg wasn’t around, I ate whatever I felt like. I don’t have noticeable food sensitivities– indigestion, trouble with dairy, caffeine, fried foods, whatever– if it’s food, I can eat it. I’m the grown-up version of a toddler, who will pick up anything and stuff it into his mouth, and then reach for more. And I pretty much stay the same size, no matter how much or how little I consume.

Then I read Grain Brain.

And learned that a diet full of carbs, sugar (even natural sugar in whole fruit) and gluten is actually silently and steadily killing my brain cells.

My brain cells!!! I am damaging my brain!!! My most favorite body part EVER!!!

Holy Not Good!!!

And I went right back to Atkins. Starting on Saturday morning (March 8), which was when I started reading the book.

Like, that second. I read chapter one of the book, and it was an instant switch. I do not love Cherry Garcia so much that I will sacrifice my nervous system and my brain cells to eat it. You know those moments when you make a decision, and feel something like a door slam shut in your mind, signaling there is no going back? That’s what I had when I read Grain Brain.

It hasn’t even been a week, and those 8 pounds I put back on with ice cream have already been halved, because my weight is dropping again, I’m at 134, and I know it will keep dropping. Because I put my body through this before, and I know I can’t keep myself at 138 unless I eat a lot of carbs.

But my 150+ grams (or 300+ grams) of carbohydrate days are over.

Cause I’m not ending up with dementia when I’m old. Oh, hell no.

If I listed my biggest fears in life, ending up in a nursing home in old age with Alzheimer’s or dementia would be at the top of the list, maybe even contending for first place. Few things freak me out more than picturing myself as crippled, lonely, all my memories gone, and peeing on myself in a wheelchair, staring at the white, chipped paint of a nursing home wall, waiting for some poor underpaid LPN to come change my diaper. No way do I want that kind of future.

When I’m in my 90s, I want to be fit, happy, and spry– the same me, only a me with more wrinkles and white hair. A me who is still writing novels, discussing writing with people, maybe even teaching college classes on creative writing at the graduate level. That’s the 90-year-old I want to be.

I’m sure not everyone will feel that way if they read Grain Brain. I totally understanding that limiting carbohydrate consumption to no more than 60 grams each day, cutting all gluten out of your diet, and limiting fruit consumption to one serving per day (or none) is just NOT something most people want to do.

I did Atkins, after all, and I just thought, “Well, it’s nice to know I can drop pounds, but I like my pounds, so I’ll keep them, thanks.” And I did– I promptly went out and put them back on.

But sacrificing my brain cells for food is just not gonna happen. So I’m now gluten-free, my diet is low-carb, and I haven’t had pasta or bread in over a month, and never will again. And you know what? I look at that stuff now and just think: poison. I mean, I am a girl who LOVES her brain, who worships her brain, I would do anything– ANYTHING– for my brain. Changing my diet is peanuts, compared to the lengths I would go to protect my functioning mind.

But my pants don’t fit anymore. I’m giving a presentation to my writers group today at the bank, and I went to put on my “professional clothes” but the outfit I wanted to wear looked horrible on me. My pretty purple slacks, which I’ve loved for years, just looked baggy and saggy and awful. Boo.

I’m sad about that. I’m lamenting the fact that my clothes aren’t going to fit right anymore. I don’t like having to mess around with my wardrobe.

But the 90-year-old me, waiting to arrive, is ecstatic. She is like, “Thank you!! Thank you, thank you!!”

So I am happy for her. And for me, who will get to grow up to be her, because I know she is awesome.

I was able to watch the Oscars on Sunday night, which I thought was fantastic, and I just can’t express how many insanely happy hearts I have around Ellen DeGeneres and this selfie Bradley Cooper took. I mean, how can you not love the stuffing out of this picture?

Also, watching Brad Pitt photo-bomb another selfie later that night: priceless. And Ellen collecting money for the pizza???? Loved. Just totally loved.

Celebrities are so glamorous and hounded by the press– but they are also very real, with bills to pay and cash (or no cash) in their pockets, and I loved the fun and the silliness and realness Ellen brought out at the Academy Awards. So great.

And the fact that 12 Years a Slave won for Best Picture was the whipped cream on the strawberries, for sure.

Speaking of cash and no cash in my pockets–

As you may (or may not) know, the house my mother and two of my brothers live in has an $85,000.00 mortgage, which is in the name of the Estate of John Cook, the estate in a probate case I’m the personal representative of. John Cook was my uncle, and he is still my uncle, even though his ashes are scattered on a mountain in Silverton.

Side note: if anyone in your family ever asks you to be the executor of their estate, be forewarned– if you accept this task, you will see a dark, evil side of your relatives you never knew existed. You will be hated. You will receive daily, vicious emails from relatives who call you a failure and demand money from you. You will be charged with incompetence by people who don’t understand anything about probate and have no idea what they’re talking about. You will, basically, find yourself in a real-life version of Zoolander.

Cue Mugatu and his Crazy Pills, because your relatives will find the bottle and eat all 12,000 of those sugar-coated tablets at once.

Then they will find even more bottles of Crazy Pills, and keep eating them. For as long as probate is open, which is typically three years.

That’s the world you will find yourself in.

I sometimes have a hard time navigating this world. It’s a tremendous amount of work, and if you’re managing an insolvent estate, the way I am, there is no financial gain, but only personal financial loss, that comes from doing your job. Add to that all the bottles of Crazy Pills your relatives can’t stop eating, and it can be hard to keep your chin up and push forward through the years it will take to close probate.

Side note #2: if you have prior warning that your death is imminent, I suggest you give away your possessions before you kick it (especially if you own real estate), and avoid the need for probate. Granted, only the toughest people can do this, as it means facing the insane wrath of your greedy relatives, rather than someone else doing it for you. But if you can manage this, I recommend it.

Unfortunately, my late uncle could not have done this, as his house was already mortgaged. Hence, the whole dilemma.

If I had $85,000.00 right now, I would of course pay off the mortgage without even stressing. I’ve already put so much of my own time and money into managing this probate case, wiping out a debt like that would be nothing. It would make everything about my job as executor so much easier.

But I don’t have that money sitting in a bank account, though I DO have enough money to self-publish two more novels. So I’m not sitting here crying about being broke. I’m not broke. But I do have this lack, this thing looming over me, that I wish I could eliminate and solve.

Which made me realize some things I think about money. Some not-so-good things.

For instance, focusing on this lack, this debt, this baneful mortgage, is not good.

Anyone who focuses on what they don’t have in life only brings more poverty into his or her life. It’s simply the way the world works. I don’t make the rules.

I admit, for the past year, I’ve been guilty of doing this. My mind has seen this debt as only a hole I don’t have the power to fill in. That’s not healthy.

Another thing that’s not healthy is having an emotional attachment to this debt. I promised my uncle I would do everything I could to save his house, and that set me up to have some serious heart-trouble over the whole situation.

So I let that go. I severed the connection between my heart and this house, my heart and my promise to my uncle, my agony over this debt and my own sense of integrity. Snip, snip. Done. I feel a lot better now.

And I realized I still had some deep-rooted hang-ups about money. Even once I could face losing this house, and not be all stressed out over that–

even then, I still had issues.

So I sat down and wrote a letter to money. Because I’m in a relationship with her (or him, I think money can be either gender, or both genders, or transgender, or whatever is easier to visualize this) and it’s not good to be in a relationship with someone when you have a bunch of internal baggage getting in the way of being happy.

I don’t know if I’ve worked out all of my issues with money yet (I seem to be quite the neurotic… but then, I’m hardly alone)– but I do know this letter is a good start.

So here is my letter, which I share with you in case anyone else has some subconscious hang-ups with money they might want to get rid of. You might want to have your own little sit-down with money the way I did.

Dear Money,

You and me, it’s been complicated. You are a tool I am ashamed of sometimes. I know when this started. When I was a child, my family had none of you, and some of my earliest memories involve your name, or different versions of your name, a lot.

For all of my life, my mother has used the expression, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” as an insult for anything. Often, to make an attack on something not even money related. For instance, when I brought home straight-A report cards, my mother would use this expression. This began when I was small, and I always resented it. I hate this expression. My family had no money, but that didn’t mean I thought we were stupid. And to be five years old or nine years old with no money didn’t mean I was stupid.

I also looked around at the world, and saw a lot of smart people who had no money. Our childhood friends tend to be made up of people from the same socio-economic class, and I didn’t think any of my friends were stupid.

So I know this expression, which only exists to be used as an insult, ended up making me resent you and hate you a lot. You were always this thing looming over my head, proof of how stupid I was if I didn’t have lots and lots of you.

I learned to ignore you. I learned to be happy without you. Whenever I’ve needed you, I’ve brought you into my life, but not in abundance. Not with joy. The hate and the resentment were always too strong. I have always fought you, to prove I am smart whether I have you or not. I have played a stupid game because money and intelligence were linked in my mind as a monolith I needed to separate, and maybe (hopefully) I’m old enough now to stop doing this.

Money does not come with intelligence. It comes with belief. Money itself– your very essence– is only a belief to begin with. It is a sense that people have faith and trust in a piece of paper printed up in a factory, and nothing more.

Because you are faith itself, of course you only come to people who have faith, who believe. When people believe in themselves, and believe they can have what they want, then you find a way to come visit them. You are a very dynamic, fluid force in the world, and similar to a lightsaber: when used by the good guys, you glow blue or green. When used by a bad guy, you turn red.

But a lightsaber is still just a lightsaber. It cannot possess evil. Only the people who wield it can transfer the powers of good or evil upon it.

So here is the thing, money. Here’s why I’m writing you this letter.

Having you does not make me, or anyone else, smart. Nor does not having you make anyone stupid. I have always known this, which is why I resent you. But I don’t want to resent you anymore.

I want you in my life to be my blue lightsaber. As a tool, I have always used you this way, but now I want you to know that I no longer resent you or try to put up a wall in my mind to tell myself I don’t need you.

Jedis believe in the Force, and people must have faith and believe in money in order to bring you into their lives. You are a lot like love, actually. You operate in relationships that aren’t always balanced, or fair, and yet there are laws of attraction that will manifest more of you.

So I just want to say, I’m no longer worried that if you come into my life, then I have sold out my ideals. I’ve found a way to get over my resentment and hatred.

Like love, you are out there, everywhere, and there is a lot of you. More than enough to go around, and to shower on every person who lives on this planet.

You don’t flock to the smart and shun the stupid.

You arrive to those who believe in you, who believe they can have you, and unspoken resentments will drive you away.

For our future relationship together, I want you to know that Jedis are far more effective when they have their blue lightsabers. And money, for me, you will always be blue.

With love,

XOXO

Today is March 2, and I’ve been contemplating watching the Oscars this year. I haven’t watched the Oscars in eons. But this year, I want 12 Years a Slave to win for Best Picture, and I’m torn about who should win for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

I mean, I’d love for Cate Blanchett to win, but I didn’t care for the movie Blue Jasmine. It was simply one of those films I never want to sit through again. I didn’t think it was Woody Allen’s best, I’ll just put it that way.

Sandra Bullock could certainly win for Gravity, which was a beautifully-filmed movie. I liked all of the artistic in-the-womb montages that riffed on the opening theme: “Life in space is impossible.” I liked how those scenes gave me a deep appreciation, not only for how wonderful earth truly is, but that earth was born in space, in this environment that is so openly hostile to life. I loved Gravity for its thematic elements, though the story itself, I thought, was simple enough that the movie felt weak. Gravity is the story of one woman digging deep to find her survival instinct, that ferocious counter-force to the brutality of outer space, and her life is meant to be a stand-in for all life on earth. I can understand that in a cerebral, I-appreciate-this-movie-way. It just didn’t really flood me with emotion, is all. I wasn’t deeply moved by that picture.

I can also appreciate that Gravity wasn’t trying to force-feed me any treacle sentimentality. So props for that. Unfortunately, the drawback was that I wasn’t really invested in the main character’s life. Watching the film, the protagonist’s life or death felt given, so that either outcome was fine by me– watching her die or watching her live– I wasn’t rooting for her to survive. I was just watching a beautifully-filmed picture with lots of in-the-womb montages that were visually quite stunning. My heartstrings were not being wrenched.

As to the Oscars, Sandra Bullock already won a statue for The Blind Side, which makes me doubt she’ll receive another for Gravity. But if she does, that would be awesome.

The film August: Osage County received such a scathing review from The New York Times that I can’t bring myself to watch that movie. I would be fine with Meryl Streep winning an Oscar for her role in that film, as I adore Meryl Streep (who doesn’t love that woman, seriously?), I just can’t bring myself to watch the film.

My friend Pat loved Philomena but the premise seemed so sad that I pulled my I’m-a-movie-wuss crap and didn’t watch it. (I know, I can watch 12 Years a Slave, but I can’t watch Philomena— understandably bizarre, but so it goes.) And the previews for American Hustle just squicked me out enough that I don’t want to watch that movie either, but for different reasons. Not because the movie will be depressing, which I’m sure it probably is. But because the people will be doing dumb, mean things throughout the whole movie, with nothing to redeem them at the end.

I had my fill of that when I watched The Counselor in the fall, and I don’t want another dose, thanks. I can’t get back those hours of my life, and I don’t need to resent having my time wasted. Better just to pass.

My second-favorite movie on the Best Picture list is Captain Phillips. But I want Captain Phillips to lose to 12 Years a Slave, or else Hollywood will seem to me like its award ceremony fell on its face this year.

As to the other films on the list, I’ll watch Her and Nebraska at some point, when I can rent them for $1.29 at Redbox (such is my self-publishing life, that I have to budget film-watching to this extent). My sister is going to bring over Dallas Buyers’ Club some night, so we can watch that together. And The Wolf of Wall Street is a complete pass– I have no desire, none, to watch that movie.

My friend Hannah shared this gender-swapped trailer for The Wolf of Wall Street yesterday, which you can watch here. What’s really funny is the fact that I would watch this movie, with the reversed-gender roles. That film would be fascinating. The Wolf of Wall Street is just an extravaganza of greed, with a man who takes a big fall for being a selfish dick, and I know it’s based on a true story, that still doesn’t mean I want to watch it. The world is full of dicks who take huge falls– and I don’t need to spend my time with two-bit Wall Street hustlers when movies like The Last King of Scotland show the same type of man on a much larger scale. But to each his own.

I’ve been writing up a storm the past few days, trying to get to the end of my sci-fi novel, so if my muse is calling tonight, I won’t be watching the Oscars. But I am keen to know who wins.

Who will you be rooting for tonight? And which film do you think should go home with Best Picture?

Today was a busy day for me. I had probate work to deal with in the morning, probate errands to run, I think I still managed to add 1,000 words to my current manuscript, and I had to clean my house this evening to host a critique group meeting tonight. Cleaning house always makes me a bit anxious because my husband is a chef who pretty much throws food everywhere when he cooks, so it’s a regular slop-fest when he makes his magic each night. But I was able to return my kitchen to its sparkly, happy self, which is always a relief before company arrives.

I got a little sidetracked this afternoon though. I remembered this essay I had read in The Huffington Post a few months ago, which some of you might have seen, as this essay went viral in a huge way. “This Is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense” by Linda Tirado, posted November 22, 2013.

Don’t ask me why this picture of her is so pixelated, as I haven’t a clue.

Doesn’t she look really pretty? I think so. But in her essay, she talks about her skin being bad and how her teeth are messed up, but looking at this photo, she just looks beautiful to me. And of course, her baby is adorable– what a cutie!

Now, because I love to listen to Tony Robbins so much, reading Linda’s essay about bad decisions and poverty was like listening to a Tony Robbins video on Opposites Day. Here’s why.

Tony Robbins does not talk about success as something that drops out of the sky, as a big event that just hits you. Success is a product of tiny, day-to-day choices over a number of years. Miniature decisions don’t seem very important in the big scheme of things, but take a lot of them over time, and they add up like compound interest. The smallest decisions actually have big consequences, even though they don’t seem to.

Since Linda’s essay was dealing with failure (along with failure’s buddies, such as hopelessness, poverty, and depression), she’s discussing the negative side of all those little decisions. What happens when you make the wrong choice time and again, on things that seem so inconsequential. Tony Robbins focuses on taking those little decisions and realizing how important they are. Linda’s essay is about understanding how someone can take those little decisions and give up on them day after day, because they work within a belief system that says things will never get better, so there’s no point in trying.

But one of the big truths in life is that, if you don’t believe in something, then no one else will, either. If you want to change your life, you have to believe change can happen. You have to believe in yourself before anyone else can jump on your bandwagon.

Today, I felt like reading Linda’s essay again. It’s a great essay. Then I followed the link to her blog. I read her blog posts. But I was sad to discover that she hasn’t posted anything since December 3, 2013. Which feels like ages ago.

I discovered some fascinating things.

After Linda’s essay went viral, she set up a gofundme site and people donated $61,630.00 to help her get her teeth fixed and write a book. Soooooo awesome!!!!

A literary agent also contacted her and offered representation for her unwritten book, certain that a publisher would buy the manuscript. More awesome!!!

So Linda had the surgery to fix her teeth, and decided she would find a way to help other people in poverty, the way she has been helped. Very cool!!

Now, I don’t know what Linda’s been up to the last few months, but I’m really hoping she’s working on her book. I also emailed her today to let her know I looked forward to buying a copy when it was published, and I sent her my e-book, Love and Student Loans and Other Big Problems, because it’s a piece of art I made that deals with poverty, and I hoped it might make her laugh. She is collecting stories of poverty from people who visit her website or contact her because of her essay, and my characters in my second novel fit the theme.

If you grew up in poverty, or grew up with a family categorized as the working poor, you might want to send Linda an email and share your story with her.

Which leads me to my final thought on this topic tonight, which is summarized by You Are a Badass author Jen Sincero, who is another one of my favorite peeps to touch base with online.

This is Jen with a camel. She is awesome.

She was the keynote speaker at the UtopYA conference last year, where she talked about what it takes to change your life and go for whatever it is that you want:

http://utopyacon.com/harness-your-inner-bad-ass-and-create-the-writing-career-you-deserve/

She’s talking to a group of writers in that video, which is cool.

According to Jen, there are two key fears that follow us around in life. “The first fear is that we’re not good enough. The other fear is that what we want is not available to us.”

Typing out her words doesn’t have the same impact as listening to her does. (The same can be said for Tony Robbins.)

But when I reflect on the psychology of poverty, and why bad decisions make perfect sense, I know that those two fears need to show their sad, ugly heads for hopelessness and poverty to really make sense. Linda doesn’t mention these two basic fears in her essay, but I know they are there, unspoken but present in every sentence.

People who have given up are people who, consciously or unconsciously, do not feel they are good enough (i.e., do not feel they are deserving of love), and do not believe that what they want is available to them.

You can be poor and have nothing, and not be impoverished. Because poverty is a state far, far worse than being poor. Poverty is a trap. It sinks its teeth in and doesn’t want to ever let go. The difference between being poor and being impoverished is fear. Fear we’re not good enough, and fear that the world cannot provide what we need.

It can though. It can, it can, it can. But you have to be the first to believe.

I recently attended a party in town with my husband. He knew everyone there, and I knew a few people. Well, I knew two people. The rest, I was either introduced to, or it was assumed we should already know each other, which is basically the same thing.

A lot of people had painted their faces that night (there was sort of a fairy theme going on), or they were wearing strings of beads. I wasn’t wearing any effeminate war paint or show-me-your-boobs necklaces, as Greg and I both spent the afternoon working, instead of pregaming like the other party folks. (Though I wouldn’t have pregamed, even if I hadn’t spent a day working, as I just don’t care for booze. And Greg is on the first part of the Atkins diet right now, which means no alcohol.)

But anyway, back to this fairy-theme party.

There are two things I am always guaranteed to hear at parties. The first is, “Well, aren’t you a tall drink of water!” I have never told a stranger he or she is a tall drink of water, and yet, this expression has hounded me all my life. I mean, I have nothing against water, I love drinking water, I love tall glasses of water, but why must I always be told I’m a tall drink of water? Isn’t this kind of bizarre? I know I can’t stop people from saying whatever it is they want to say, but this expression still strikes me as weird, especially when I hear it fifty times in one night. Women, men, this expression is not gender-specific, it can come from anyone.

The second thing I am always guaranteed to hear at parties is, “Do you have kids?”

But at this party, after the obligatory opening of, “Aren’t you a tall drink of water!” the second line of introduction from my new party friends was not to ask if I had kids, it was to ask, “Where are your kids?”

And I was like, “Uhhhhh…. my kids?”

Which was followed by:

“Yeah! Your kids! How’d you escape them this evening?”

That’s how my conversations went, over and over again. Even though these people knew my husband, and some of them worked with my husband, they still asked me, “Where are your kids?”

And no, this was not drunk talk. This was seven o’clock at night in a huge carpeted room with nice art on the walls, not a one a.m. blitz-fest at slumdog gross-out bar. (No offense to slumdog gross-out bars. I spent many a childhood afternoon in bars like that.)

But the fact remains. I do not have children. I’m not planning to have children. And yet, I found myself being asked, “Where are your kids?” by every person I met.

And I was like, when did I miss the memo that I have children??

And more importantly, what is it about me that makes everyone assume I have wee tots at home?

Then I was like, wait, maybe I walked in here with a diaper bag.

Like this one. Isn’t this a cute diaper bag? Classic, understated. Definitely the type of diaper bag I would probably tote, had I ever in my life wanted to have a baby.

But no. I did not walk into this party with a diaper bag.

Then I was like, wait, maybe I have a baby bump. So I checked my belly for the telltale sign of motherhood, but my stomach is as flat as my computer desk. No baby bump.

Then I wondered if I accidentally lost my mind, bought some kind of weird baby toy at Target, and clipped it onto my purse.

Like this toy. If I ever accidentally lost my mind and went shopping at Target, this is exactly the toy I would buy and clip onto my purse.

So I checked my purse. But no. I did not have any weird baby toys hanging from a zipper, or anywhere else on my clothing.

Now, because I am socially inept, every time someone asked me, “Where are your kids?” I continued to stutter the same response, which was, “Uhhhhh… I don’t… uhhh… I don’t have any kids,” with an expression like this:

When in reality I felt a lot more like this:

I mean, the assumption that I had babies at home, babies that, had I given birth to them, I would have hired a babysitter to attend this fairy-themed party, was just kind of shocking and horrifying, tied up with a big bow of, “Am I in the Twilight Zone?”

I mean, what the flipping hell was going on with these people?

Again and again, I faced this question of what I’d done with my children, and the situation just felt more and more bizarre. Why would anyone even ask about someone’s babysitter? It’s usually a family member or a teenager, so it’s inherently a question with a boring answer, which made me wonder if these people assumed I was some kind of party dolt who would plop her wee babes in front of the TV with a gallon of ice cream and say, “Bye, sweets! Mumsie has to get wasted with the fairies now!” before I rushed out the door.

Which, come to think of it, is what I totally should have said to these people. Because, obviously, I am way too literal, which is what makes me so socially inept. Though I would have needed to slug back a few beers before I was willing to joke about being that kind of a mother… unless, of course, I made it clear that my toddlers were home alone eating Rocky Road and watching Monty Python, which of course would be okay.

In another interesting twist, no one asked Greg where his kids were. Which further added to my confusion. Who was I supposed to be having these kids with, if they weren’t my husband’s? And why did everyone only ask me about these kids, and not the proud papa?

I pondered all of these questions as soon as we left the party, which was sometime around ten, and it took me the entire trip home before I had my Eureka moment of happiness and enlightenment:

and figured it out.

The question “Where are your kids?” existed to serve one purpose–

to let me know I am older.

I am not a young twenty-something anymore, and people can tell.

I’m in my thirties, I’m at that age where reproduction seems a given, and therefore, I must obviously have kids.

So next time I go to a party, I’ll know exactly what to say when I’m asked, “Where are your kids?”

Answer: “They’re on my computer, right where I left them. Novel one, novel two, novel three. Manuscripts, book covers, and print proof files.”

My babies.

I entered a contest this month to win free tuition to the Writing by Writers workshop in Boulder, Colorado this March. The rules? The “short short” story could only be 250 words long, and must mention either a Volkswagen beetle, an actual beetle, or the Beatles.

The workshop is being taught by Pam Houston, Benjamin Percy, and BK Loren. Tuition is $850.00 for three days. I really wanted to go!

But alas, it was not meant to be. So not only was today the day I watched Peyton Manning and the Broncos get killed at the Super Bowl, but it was also the day my “short short” story was rejected. (And the contest deadline was only yesterday– February 1st!! That is some quick turnaround for a no!)

Granted, being rejected is nothing new, and certainly not something I would mope about. Life in itself is much harder to take than any single rejection, especially after a week that felt like this:

I’d be the guy on the left, of course. The one losing.

Though, to be fair, life is a constant winning-and-losing thing, never wholly one or the other. It’s just that receiving large doses of pain all at once can make it seem more like a losing thing, which is the essence of bummer-dom.

Not that losing this writing contest threw me into a state of bummer-dom. No, the reality of this rejection was the more acute awareness that rejection is nowhere near as painful as other aspects of life, especially when the words “family,” “extended family,” and “probate” are involved. That’s the magic mixture for Hell. If you’ve ever managed a probate case, you know what I’m talking about.

But here is the thing about pain. All pain. Any pain. You have to DO something with it. Ignoring pain is deadly. Ignoring mental pain can kill your soul. Ignoring pain in your body can lead to death.

By Friday afternoon, I was ready to do something with my pain. All those hits coming at me. I was ready to cancel them out.

So I found this video on YouTube. “Best Motivational Video Ever of 2013.” And I totally fell in love with it. Running time: seven minutes, eight seconds of Pure Awesomeness.

My favorite, favorite quote from this video is delivered by Sylvester Stallone. I love the life story of Sylvester Stallone. Talk about grit, perseverance, determination and drive. He’s incredible. Here, he’s being quoted in one of the movies he’s starred in (sorry, I don’t know the title of this movie, but I know this segment is used in a lot of inspirational videos) and it’s just a magnificent piece of writing.

He talks about how life will beat you to your knees and keep you there “if you let it.” He also talks about what cowards do: point fingers, and blame other people for where they are in life.

So on Friday afternoon, watching this video, I stopped huddling on my knees and stood up. Because no matter how much cowering you do, the hits just keep coming, and it’s better to take them standing than down on your knees. Better chance of avoiding at least a few of them when you’re up on your feet.

And two days later, I just watched Peyton Manning take the pounding of his life. How can anything really compare to watching Peyton Manning get killed at the Super Bowl? Brutal.

So here is me not down on my knees– just like I know Peyton Manning won’t stay down on his knees, he’ll recover from today, and he’ll keep moving forward. Cause he is awesome like that.

My story might have been rejected, but I can still share it on my webpage. No, that won’t get me into the workshop, but it’s still a celebration– it’s still me saying, “Hey! I don’t care if this story was rejected! It’s awesome!”

So here is my story, which wasn’t good enough to win me a place at that workshop, but is still dark and beautiful and good.

The Dragon

I rode with my father once a week to the junkyard, in the days when we lived in Gypsum, in the year before he died. His teeth were already gone, his green eyes full of misery, his face broken and scarred as ancient Samurai armor. My small presence beside him made everything worse, but I didn’t know that. Not yet.

When we stepped out of the truck, he always sent me away, and I would begin a collection. What I found my last day in the oil puddles and weeds: a blue shard of glass, a wheat penny, a tiger lily, a beetle. I did not collect whispers yet. Or secrets.

My father walked the aisles of old metal and stopped in front of a Cadillac without any doors, its frame sunken into the earth, the dome of its roof an arbor of rust. Beside the Cadillac was a black Barracuda, and my father rested his hands on the engine, staring into the wreck.

He took a Leatherman from his pocket and removed each of the spark plugs, placed them into my hands like gunmetal diamonds. Don’t lose those, he said, his smile now as bright as a djinn’s.

I never saw the small plastic bags in his jacket, or the money tendered in shadows when we came to the junkyard. But we both carried our treasures back to the truck, fate tucked in a pocket or clasped in two hands, and rode home into eventide, into dark.

So here we are, it’s January, and I planned a trip to the Pagosa Hot Springs with my friend and her daughter.

(And if anyone hasn’t had the opportunity to visit this hot springs, let me assure you, it is awesome, and it’s super fun to soak outside while the world is covered in snow.)

This being January, I had to dig out a swimsuit. Normally, I just wear this brown bikini I have that’s looking pretty faded these days. So I was like, well, maybe I can wear something different this time. So I pulled out a different one.

Ten years ago, I was working in parks maintenance at another hot springs, at the pool in Ouray, and one day, as I was walking into the bathhouse to clear a drain, a girl walking out to her car threw her swimsuit in the garbage. The suit didn’t actually land in the trash though, but on the concrete, which was where she left it. So I was like, Awesome! Free swimsuit!

I went over and picked up the suit, which was a bright yellow-blue-orange striped bikini, and discovered it was exactly my size. There was nothing wrong with it, either– no ripped seams or loose strings, no holes. It looked like the girl had worn it only once, and it was perfect.

I wore that bikini for years, until sometime after I turned thirty, when I guess I got body-conscious or something and decided I liked my plain Jane brown bikini a lot better, and made the brown one my go-to suit for the pool.

For this trip to Pagosa though, I felt inspired. I felt like I wanted pizazz. I thought: I’ll wear the striped one! Cause I love the bright colors!

I put on this bikini and prepared to bask in my bright, striped awesomeness in the mirror.

One good piece of news: the top still fit perfectly. Nothing changed there.

Unfortunately, the bottom was a different story. I no longer had the va-voom to fill out my suit, which meant I had diaper butt, which looks something like this:

Unlike the baby in the pic though, my suit wasn’t wet, so I couldn’t blame water weight for my saggy bottom. Also, the suit hadn’t been worn enough to have been stretched out or thinned– it wasn’t like years of pool abuse had damaged the fabric. This horrifying sight in the mirror (and seriously, what’s worse than being a grown woman and having diaper butt??) was a beast of my own making.

A year ago, I got inspired by a Tony Robbins video to keep my blood pH level alkaline, and since sugar turns the blood acidic, I stopped eating sugar.

Now, I can’t say I haven’t had any sugar in the past year. There was a time in June, when Greg and I took a road trip, when I ordered dessert in restaurants and ate things like sugared pecans on my salads. And this December, I received a gift certificate to Starbucks, and had a great time eating cookies and brownies at our local Starbucks cafe, happily scribbling new chapters for my latest book while I binged on pumpkin bread and peppermint mochas. I also had a lot of pie over the holidays, because how can I turn down homemade cherry pie? Sheesh.

But still. The lack of sugar took away a layer of my va-voom this past year, and my bright striped bikini was reduced to diaper butt. Suck.

Horrified now, but still wanting to wear something other than my plain Jane brown bikini, I reached into my drawer for the only other swimsuit I own: a bright pink-and-purple string bikini, lightly dusted in sparkle, that I only wore for one year, which was the year I met Greg, which was more than ten years ago.

I was like, I don’t even know why I kept this thing, it’s not going to fit.

But we tend to do that, don’t we? Keep things that don’t fit anymore. Cause we like the memories that go with them.

However, this swimsuit did fit– and it fit without giving me diaper butt.

Then my phone chirped, which was my friend texting me to cancel our trip to the Pagosa Hot Springs. Suck.

Later, I called my sister, and found out she was going to the hot springs in Durango the next night. Was she going on a date? No. Could I be her date? Absolutely!

So me and my non-diaper-butt bikini joined my sis at the pool, and it’s a long, cold walk to the water at Trimble Hot Springs, but the water was plenty warm and the soaking was still awesome.

It’s Tuesday, December 31– New Year’s Eve!– and what am I doing? Twerking at the bar and downing Jell-O shots, of course!! With four thousand of my closest friends who also love Jell-O shots! Cause I am so AWESOME!!

Yeah, that’s so not my life. But for all the people who live that life: thank you! I couldn’t be a writer if we all enjoyed the same things! There wouldn’t be anything worth talking about– which means we’d never have any stories to tell– talk about suck!

But thankfully, we have plenty of stories to tell, and that’s what I’m thinking about tonight.

I’m evaluating the books I read this year, and trying to decide which stories moved me the most to make a Top Ten List for 2013. What am I drinking? Water. Tap water. Durango has awesome tap water– and now that I’ve proven what an out-of-control party mama I am, who knows what crazy books I’ll put on my list!

So let’s start with some fireworks–

And more fireworks–

Breathtaking, isn’t it? Behold the magic of pixels!

And now on to my Top Ten Books of 2013— I saved my big reveal for after the pixel show, of course!

I read 62 books this year (fiction and nonfiction) and I might have read more, but this was also the year I self-published my first two novels, and that consumed a lot of my reading time. But even with only 62 books to pick from, this was a hard list to make, cause I read REALLY GREAT books. 2013 was a stellar reading year!

I tried to be coldly analytical about this at first, but that got me nowhere. So I chose my Top Ten based solely upon how deeply my heart was moved by the time I reached the last page, and whether I read chunks of the book again immediately after I finished, which is another sign of how oh-my-God good a book is. So here they are, in increasing order of induced heart palpitations:

Number Ten:

This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Diaz, published Sept. 11, 2012

This short story collection by genius-boy Diaz left me starstruck, and none more so than the first three stories that grace this book. Oh so gorgeous. Diaz writes a sentence with such startling ingenuity and control, the words thump inside me like a second heartbeat. There is no other word than amazement for what he can do with language. This book turned my writer-heart into mush.

Number Nine:

Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed, published 2012

Heart-wrenching, just heart-wrenching. I devoured this collection of Dear Sugar essays in two days. The raw honesty, the brilliance, the truth on these pages. Deeply moving. I would get tear-induced headaches though, some of these people with their letters would just rip my heart out. This is a gorgeous book about how dirty and ugly and beautiful life is.

Number Eight:

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz, published 2012

This award-winning YA novel about two Mexican-American boys who become friends and, ultimately, lovers, is one of those books I did not want to end. How much did I not want this story to end? Enough that I re-read the last 20 pages or so about 15 times, again and again and again. I think I kept hoping there would be more pages each time. So then I went back to page one and started reading again. It’s just that kind of book. So good. So rich. So sweet. It deserves every one of those amazing literary awards. This book is a beautiful gift to the world.

Number Seven:

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker, published July 9, 2013

This nonfiction book really opened my eyes to so many dark, dirty parts of America. I learned a lot about what modern prostitution is like, and how frighteningly vulnerable modern prostitutes truly are. I learned how quickly the “big money” they make is spent on drugs, which is a necessity for numbing the psychological pain brought on by their work. And I learned how little their lives are worth, not just by society, but oftentimes by their own families. This book is about a serial killer who is still at large, probably killing more impoverished, desperate young girls right now, and this book is a beautiful piece of journalism. I give so many props to Robert Kolker for writing it. The stories of these young women, and the man who persevered in finding their bodies, had a huge impact on me. This book is tremendous.

Number Six:

We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver, published April 14, 2003

This novel explores the terror of giving birth to, and raising, a sociopath. And not a manageable psychopath child, but a son who grows up to be a school shooter. Readers cannot help but examine the nature/nuture debate over childrearing, because the story is intended to highlight everything we currently know about parenting. Personally, I think Kevin was “born bad” in this book, but plenty of other readers feel differently. What this book made me question forever: how society blames the parents of school shooters for the actions of their children, as if adults can read the minds of their kids. News flash: no parent can read the mind of his or her child. I loved this novel. SO MUCH. It made me feel, made me think, made me change some of my ideas about life. It’s a brilliant book, but oh so painful to read, so full of love and longing and shattered hopes. Lionel Shriver is truly a genius.

Number Five:

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, by Malala Yousafzai (with Christina Lamb), published October 8, 2013

I learned so much about how inept the Pakistan government is while reading this memoir. I also learned a lot about how the Taliban was able to take control of large parts of Pakistan because of the government’s ineptitude, or outright collaboration with, these fundamentalist terrorists. Malala is living in England now and I hope she goes to college. She is a magnificent human being, and I loved reading her book.

Number Four:

Thank You for Your Service, by David Finkel, published Sept. 26, 2013

David Finkel is SUCH a good writer. This nonfiction book is an amazing work of art, and it’s also incredibly agonizing to read. I learned so much about the United States military by reading this book, which follows a collection of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans suffering from PTSD, traumatic brain injury, depression, and every other physical and psychological damage caused by war. This book is unflinching with the truth. The honesty on these pages ripped me the hell up. It’s a book that just made me want to scream and scream and scream, though I didn’t scream, I just kept reading pages, stunned by the complete horror I felt, a horror that never lessened, but only seemed to build and build and didn’t end until I reached the last page. I loved every man, woman and child in this book. I wept for them. I want them all to be okay. But the truth is, they’re not okay. And that is the point of this book.

Number Three:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo, published Feb. 7, 2012

I read this book in June, in one sitting, in one of those fever-states of a book-gasm, and I had to wait many months to borrow the library’s copy, which was why I didn’t get to read this book last year (when it was published). It’s nonfiction, it’s so gorgeously written, and it was my #1 read for most of the year. I didn’t think I would read anything better than this book in 2013, it’s such a phenomenal book.

But then two novels bumped Boo’s book to Number Three, which totally shocked me, as Boo’s book is SO AMAZING GOOD that I didn’t even think that was possible.

But it was.

Number Two:

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain, published May 1, 2012

Oh, Billy Lynn. How much I love you. I will love you forever, Billy Lynn. This is a novel about an Iraq combat soldier. He is one of the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad, and while it’s still early in the war, public opinion is starting to dip. So the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad are sent on a drum-up-support-for-the-war “victory tour” across America before they report back to active duty. And the last day of the trip is Thanksgiving Day, when Bravo Squad is to be part of the halftime show during the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day game. This novel blew me away. Fountain’s prose is so beautiful, so exquisite, so poignant. I’m tearing up just typing this, just thinking again about how much I love this book. It’s so beautiful. So incredibly beautiful. I will love you forever, Billy Lynn.

Number One:

The Lover, by Marguerite Duras, published 1984

Some books are so powerful, they just make your soul hum. They vibrate through your body like you’ve been given new life, like you’re awake for the first time, like you cannot believe you ever existed without these words you are now reading. So it was with me and this book. The Lover is categorized as a novel, but the author has confessed it’s really an autobiography. Set in 1929, in French colonial Vietnam, a young woman who is fifteen and a half falls in love with a 27-year-old Chinese man. The story is not really so much about their affair as about the life of this woman. Her adult life, her childhood, and her relationship with her family. Reading this book left me breathless, amazed, and stunned by a brutal poetry and consuming darkness that I wanted to climb inside and live in forever. I found my own blood in these pages. Reading this book was transformative. Like giving a heathen a Bible and telling him Heaven is real. This book triggered something inside me, and for the rest of my life, I’ll still be figuring out what.

And so concludes my Top Ten!

What’s on your Top Ten Book List this year? I hope you’ll share them with me! (After all the twerking and Jell-O shots, of course. And watching the fireworks!)

Hugs and kisses everyone, and a Happy New Year!!