The Dare

"You're not really going to do this, are you?" He looked nervous, as if somehow, the calm ocean in front of them was only capable of doing something horrible to her.

She stood in front of him clad only in her little blue bikini with its tropical flowers strategically placed, head up, looking him in the eye. "What kind of person would you think I was if I backed down from the challenge that YOU issued! I am going in that water and that's that. Although at this time of the year, I am sure that it's freezing cold. I can't believe you dared me to dive in. My nipples are hard enough to cut glass just thinking about that freezing water and here you stand in your warm comfy robe laughing at me."

Glaring at him for only a second, her face broke out into a wide grin when she looked into his sparkling green eyes. They weren't quite the color of the pale water in front of them, but good God, they still had the power to melt her and interfere with her thoughts. Shaking her head to clear it, she let out a whoop and a yell that would have made her warrior ancestors proud and raced into the water, diving under a wave. Instantly, the frigid cold of the water stole her breath away as her head broke the surface. She was used to the cold, but holy shit, this was enough to cause one of her chattering teeth to chip.

She ran back out of the water, droplets clinging to every curve and dip on her skin. Sparkling in the early morning sunlight, those little bits of water made her look like she was covered in diamonds. As she walked toward him, they both started laughing. He wrapped her in a robe as they fell onto a chaise lounge and held her to him tightly, warming her all over.

"I win, she said. And now you have to pay up."

"Name your price lover. You can have anything you want. You win and I lose." He leaned down so that their foreheads were touching and then pulled back and kissed her on the nose. When he saw the glint in her eyes, he knew he was in some serious trouble. What he heard next were the words he had waited his entire life to hear and he never tired of hearing them.

"You. I want you. Now and always."

She smiled as he scooped her up into his arms and carried her up the beach and back into their cottage. Too bad, she thought. Those breakfasting on the beach could have gotten an extra treat with their morning coffee and bagels. He laid her onto the bed and then she stopped thinking at all.

One Place, Two Place, Bad Place, Good Place

I've packed a lot of living into the first 32 years of my life. I've lived in 10 states and 1 other country. I have been to 40 states and about a dozen other countries. I have moved over two dozen times. Changed schools. Met new people. Worked new jobs. Lived, laughed, loved, cried, mourned, changed, evolved. I have made babies and begun the process of raising them to be good, caring, compassionate, productive people. I have been a bitch. I have made mistakes. I have prayed. I have LIVED.

But I don't think I have ever experienced the roller-coaster of emotions the first 31 years of my life that I have experienced over the last year. The great thing about blogging is that I get to pick and choose what I share, and I haven't shared much of what I have been going through. That isn't going to change. But today I feel a bit like I woke up in the middle of a Dr. Seuss book and the world isn't what I thought it should be at all. Except Dr. Seuss books are bright and cheerful and there is always a moral to those stories and I woke up this morning in a world where there are no colors and no direction. I am feeling very lost today. Cast adrift without paddles if you will. I don't know what way to go or where to turn or even who to turn to right now.

I want to huddle up under a pile of blankets until it all goes away.

I really felt like I was in a great place this time yesterday. How quickly can things change in 24 hours. I have a lump in my throat the size of a softball. I am fucking miserable. It isn't often that I dream of being a kid again, because, hello? crappy childhood, but today I wish I had a snow day. One where the world is bright and white and pure. Before there are any footprints in the yard. Before the first sled goes down the hill. Shaking with the anticipation of fun things to come. Knowing that there is that drop in the stomach - but in a fun way - feeling right around the corner when I whizz down a sledding hill. Not having a worry or care in the world about the next day. Playing and laughing and jumping in the snow and throwing snowballs and building forts and just being a kid. I was a child for 18 years, but I barely remember ever being a kid.

I am quite maudlin today. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and it's a snow day.

Where I Find the End of the Rainbow - Killing Someone

Holy shit! I just realized that writing is such a great outlet for aggression. Especially when you get to kill people. In a book or a short story or whatever.

*Evil Cackle*

I might totally suck at this, but I HAVE to try. It is like a siren's song in my blood. Urging me onward. Everything in the universe is pointing towards this. All of the support from my loved ones says it is the time to take the next step towards my biggest dream and also my biggest fear.

I love the written word. I always have. I suck up books like a vampire drains blood... avidly and with great enthusiasm. It is as if I would die if I didn't get to take some time out of my day to read. I own thousands of books and I have read every one of them at least once and a lot of them twice or more. For me, getting lost in a story is about being entertained not only by what is written, but by what hasn't been said. The things that I think about. What happens to this person or that person AFTER the story ends?

This feels almost like waiting for a baby to be born. You know that it's coming, but you don't know how it will turn out. Being an incubator for something that could be amazing, or average or even horrible. All I know is that I am dying to give birth and since I can't have physical babies anymore, at least now I can nurture and grow the things living inside of my own head.

I just realized that I might sound a little bit crazy. But that's OK. I have visions of Hemingway and ghosts in my head. Stories of what I know writhing inside, fighting to get out, but only on my terms will they be allowed to do so. I wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts jumbled in my mind. Dreams in color and visions so bright that I KNOW deep inside of me, it is my inner self screaming to be heard.

Hell yeah.

I am excited and terrified at the same time. Both reasons I haven't made even the teensiest baby step toward something I have longed for since the 12th grade when my BEYOTCH of an English Teacher put down my writing as mediocre and rambling. She made me doubt myself and I let her feed the insecurities that I had grown up with. I let other people constantly tell me that I wasn't good enough to do - fill in the blank.

No longer.

Now it is up to me to do what I want to do. And thank God I have the cast and crew supporting me all of the way. People who not only believe in me, but who are pushing me to go outside of my own comfort zone and follow my dreams. To stop talking and start doing.

Back Off Bitch

I just deleted an entire post of crap. Total and complete crap.

I was going to write something witty about personal space, but as I kept reading and re-reading it, I realized that it was total shit.

So I deleted the whole freaking thing.

Le sigh.

I am a little bit directionless today. But that's OK. I am learning to roll with it when life doesn't quite go my way. I am no longer living in fear of embracing happiness. I am following the advice of others and learning to grow and expand and laugh and love like I never have before.

So when before, I would have written this post over and over again until it was perfect, I am now just putting up something different. Because? It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be something that I like. Something that comes from the heart. Something that is what I am feeling and is for me and me alone. And it no longer matters if what I write is enjoyed or laughed over. It only matters that this is by me, for me.

Frankenfinger

Lord in heaven!!!

So....... I spent a large part of Tuesday night in the ER. Why you ask? Hmmmmmmm.

I love to cook. Because I love to cook, I own very nice, very sharp knives. In all of the years that I have been using said knives, I have never cut myself while cooking. Not one time. Which is really hard to believe if you know me because I am basically a walking disaster of clumsiness. I fall UP stairs. I fall down stairs. I trip. I run into walls. I get bruises I have no recollection of ever getting in the first place. But I think because of my ineptitude, I am hyper vigilant while using knives. I get these flashes of severed fingers running through my brain and since I like all of my fingers, I try really hard not to cut one off.

Any other time though? Not so careful. Obviously.

I was washing dishes on Tuesday night, when an extremely large, brand new knife that I bought myself for Christmas decided to eat the end of my left ring finger. We are talking blood gushing all over the place and me shaking and crying like a crack head going through withdrawal. The cut was so deep that I couldn't even see how deep it really was. I called my girlfriend over because my first aid kit was empty and SHE told me to go to the ER. This is a person who avoids hospitals at all costs.

Long story short? (Because that is what writing is all about right? SHORTENING stories.) I ended up with four stitches and a tetanus shot. The worst part was the numbing shot. The dude stuck the needle right into the end of my fucking finger and I thought I was going to jump out of my skin it hurt so badly. My finger now looks like it was sewn together with the skin of the various victims of Buffalo Bill from "The Silence of the Lambs."

"It rubs the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again."

It still hurts. Really hurts. And I am a big baby. And I don't fucking care.

But the BEST part of the night was that my 13 year old daughter went with me and the Triage Nurse thought she was one of my friends. When I explained that she was my daughter she was flabbergasted. So that was nice.

Please view the Frankenfinger ONLY and not the person behind it. I am a hot mess in this picture:

At least I will get a cool scar out of it!!!