Better writing

Did you know about the snazzy token system our ancient ancestors created to keep track of sales and debts? They made tokens out of clay and used them as a unit of measure. A sphere represented grain, an egg was used for oil, and so on.

The accountants of the time carried their tokens around in clay baskets and after a few thousand years of lugging around heavy baskets, someone had the bright idea to press a token against the outside of the container. …

I sit here at my desk, concentration eluding me as I look out the window and pine for Spring and the joy of Mother Earth’s rebirth.

I’m wishing she comes sooner than the thirty-odd days the calendar shows me but I know she’ll get here when she gets here, and wishing her sooner makes no difference to the ill-tempered winds of Old Man Winter.

Here in southwestern Ohio, there’s snow on the ground and frigid air above it. A hateful wind beats seven degrees of air into the slow burn of negative numbers and shrieks in its delight of finding…

Time

A friend asked me the other day if I’d like to be 25 again. I laughed. Um, hell no, I don’t want to be 25 again, you couldn’t pay me enough money in the world.

I would, however, like to look 25 again.

I want to live forever. Twenty-five was just the first bump in the road to greatness. I flew past that milestone and then jumped right into 40 as gracefully as a robin landing on the high line wire next to a squirrel.

Next was 50, and then 55, and now, 57, when my body fell apart. But…

Fiction

Bobby Ross was my high school sweetheart. He and I were best friends in grade school and then we fucked it all up by sleeping with each other. I don’t know what I was thinking; I guess I was lonely. And scared. My family fell apart when my mom died, I just didn’t know the fracture from her brutal death would evolve into a full-on break within a few short years. My father was lost without my mom, even more than me. …

Fiction

Hank acted like nothing more than a regular dog since that day in the park in Cincinnati. No more words in my head, no stopping of time, no hazy heat waves rising around us. He was just a dog.

But oh, what a dog!

He was all shepherd, double-coated with soft and shaggy fur unfurling down his neck, a black saddle draped over a salt and pepper coat, and a long, bushy tail. …

. amFiction

It wasn’t the first time I died, and it wasn’t the last, but it would always be the hardest

I’d appreciate your feedback on this entry. Please, be honest, let me know if you’re interested in reading more, or if it’s a dud. Thanks, friends!

I woke to the sun, same as always. I never need an alarm, no matter the season, my eyes opening to the sun and closing when the moon is high in the sky. This morning was no different and as the first light of the day drifted into my room, Hank snuggled closer to me, sniffing my neck, and thumping his ridiculously long tail against my bare leg.

I sighed as I ran my…

I was skeptical of adding an About Page because I didn’t think I’d have anything interesting to say. As it turns out, I have sooooooo much to say, interesting or not. My husband would agree with that since I rarely shut up. (When he tries to mansplain things to me, I ask him one hundred questions, and usually end up pissing him off. Go figure.)

I’ve written since I was a kid, but it never occurred to me that I had what it takes to write professionally until a few years ago when a girl I knew at work quit…