Microfamous

An imaginary conversation with Elizabeth Wurtzel...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:28:00 +0000

I "get" difficult women. I know a lot of them. I've worked for some and am related to several. I am one. I appreciate the stick-to-her-guns fuck you mentality of not caring (at least, appearing not to care) about what people think about you/her/us.

I read Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation, when it came out. I was in college. It spoke to me. I even saw the movie. It didn't speak to me. In the late 90s, I (still in college) read Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. You probably heard me cheering about it at some point. I read her second memoir, this one on addiction, a few years ago. I don't remember a lot about it, but I know I identified on some level. I've never met Lizzie (but in my mind I call her Lizzie because I follow her on Twitter and that's what she calls herself and I think if we met in person she'd be cool about it), but in the past couple of years - since she's popped up again writing pieces for The Guardian and New York Magazine - I've been paying a little more attention. She seemed to drop off pop culture's radar for a bit, and I had the sense that she had gone through something similar to my own (hate to call it mid-life because I know I'll live past 80) crisis. A loss of voice. And these pieces, varied as they were, attempts to find her voice again. Kind of like I've been doing for a while now. Except a lot more public. And with comments. On the internet. It feels like an odd question to ask about someone who wrote a book in praise of difficult women, but I also wondered why all the hating on Lizzie?

She's a little bit older than I am, but I consider her a sort of contemporary. And when I read her most recent piece in The Atlantic, "I Refuse to be a Grownup," I promised myself I wouldn't read the comments. Then I read the comments, or the first 20 or so. I wished I knew her in real life so I could tell her that she's doing the right thing, this writing she's doing to get her voice back. And this is the most "back" I've seen her since the 90s.

If you know me personally, you probably know that I rehearse conversations in my head (and come on, you do too, right?). On my way home from work, during that cursed/blessed worst Austin traffic drive time, I had one with Lizzie. It went something like this:

Me: Hey, so good on you for the Atlantic piece. I hope you didn't read the comments.
Lizzie: (leaves her sunglasses on, which is fine because I am kind of the sophomore to her senior in this scenario) Nope.
Me: I mean, I don't know who has time...but the one from the "TL:DR what's the point?" guy...he didn't even read...
Lizzie: I don't read the comments. I don't care what people think.
Me: Hey, that's really great...so, you of you. There was that one "psychologist" who comment-diagnosed you with narcissistic personality disorder and that isn't even a thing anymore; it's not even in the latest DSM...
Lizzie: (icy silence)
Me: I wanted to tell you that I get it. I hate that you have to see criticism all over the freaking internet when you're just being honest, I mean who isn't a narcissist? What's wrong with not wanting to grow up? For those of us who choose not to get married, not to have kids, to remain emotionally...um, I want to say... immature? Why do people care so much?
Lizzie: I don't. So I wouldn't know.
Me: I wanted to say that I'm on your side. Write all the crazy. Just write. Let the haters hate and do it anyway, even if it's just for lines like "I wish people were judging each other a great deal more, and more carefully, but they are not. Knowing this, I have no trouble being myself. It works well. I will die screaming." BECAUSE ME TOO, LIZZIE, ME TOO.
Lizzie: Calm down. (exhales vapor from her e-cig)
Me: OK, so I'll let you go, but just one more...
Lizzie: No.
Me: DidyoutotallyfreakoutthatChristinaRicciplayedyouinthemoviebecauseherforeheadOMGherforehead...
Lizzie: No.

And that was it. She probably wouldn't like me in person. Nor should she. I wanted to tell her about that one time I was on Prozac because my best friend died when I was 23 but it didn't work and how my mom is a therapist and told me the worst thing with mental health issues is to "be in the system" so I always made sure I saw private shrinks, off insurance, sometimes under assumed names, and I think talk therapy is overrated and that most people think I'm younger than I really am too because I don't really have responsibilities, but I do have one cat and one dog just like she does but the cat has hated me for 14 years now and also sometimes I am ridiculous too. When people grossly underestimate my age, I assume it's not based on my appearance, but on my behavior. I don't behave like a person who has the weight of other people's problems on top of my own, rather, I behave like a person who thinks her problems are the only important ones. And, BAM!, right back to narcissism.

Hate her or don't. Hate me or don't. I have had worry. I have had grief. I have had despair. None of these things permanently damaged me. Not even a line on my forehead (yet, but totally fine when it does happen, because it will). So to the critics, to the commenters and trolls, to anyone who cannot follow her stream of consciousness while she reaches for the voice she might think she lost by detouring to law school and relationships and doing things other than writing - pay attention. You're not. She is. And she says it better than I:

"Nothing is more bracing than not being concerned about what other people think. I have no idea why anyone cares. Trust me: No one is looking. I know: I am looking. People are self-involved."

p.s. If you don't know who Elizabeth Wurtzel is or if you were in a coma in the 90s, here are all the Tumblr posts in the world tagged with her name. Enjoy.

You can sleep while I drive...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:56:00 +0000

I can't think of anything more comforting than having someone you love offer to take over for a while, even for just a few hours. I love road trips, but not solo. I love the kind of road trip where you have someone to talk to and share driving and take turns napping.

One of my dearest friends visited last week for SXSW and, while we did get out and about, my second favorite thing about her visit (my first favorite thing was just seeing her damn face in person for the first time in a few years) was that she kind of took over. On the first night of her visit, as we sat in my living room eating salads from La Salsa, she looked around and said, "I really want to organize this area." And of course, I said "not on your vacation."

But here's the thing. She really wanted to. She's the kind of person who can take $50 and turn it into a showcase living area worthy of HGTV. She likes order. She cleans her kitchen before she goes to bed because she likes to wake up to a photo-worthy kitchen. So I let her drive. And she spent two days rearranging my furniture, office area, and electronics, plus picked up some globe lanterns (these were a mystery to me) and tab top drapes (and a tea kettle, mostly because she was aghast that I did not own a tea kettle considering the amount of tea that I drink). Let me add that the whole process was not without hilarity, as we resumed the roles in which Erin bosses me around and I let her, see this post from 2006 when she put my bicycle together for me.

It felt like she waved a wand and turned my relatively comfy living space into a showcase, but there was a lot of work and a lot of dust and other things I couldn't explain (like why my TV was in the corner of my living room or why I kept my desktop computer hooked up even though I don't use it). The photos don't do it justice. But here's one:

What this photo does not show: The "mental illness drapes" that had been my mom's in the 70s or 80s that I (literally) NAILED to the wall in a fit of pique my first summer in Austin because THE SUN, THE SUN, IT WAS TOO MUCH. They went into the bin and the trash man should be picking it up today so they will be gone forever.

So my dear friend, who breezed into my life and out again, leaving me this lovely place to come home to every day, probably doesn't know how much this meant to me. Even though I made feeble attempts to explain. What it is, really, is comfort. When I watched this past weeks' season finale of Girls, Hannah said the following mid-meltdown, trying to explain:

You know when you’re young and you drop a glass, and your dad says, like, “Get out of the way!” so you can be safe while he cleans it up? Well, now, no one really cares if I clean it up myself. No one really cares if I get cut with glass. If I break something, no one says, “Let me take care of that,” you know?

When Erin was moving my couches around, she found broken glass. Because months ago, my cat knocked a really heavy lead crystal bowl off of my desk and it basically exploded into a million shards. Some of it went under the couch and, although I swept and vacuumed and mopped and thought I had gotten every little piece of glass, it was still there. So yeah, that's what it was like, having someone come into my life and say "let me take care of that." It made me feel like I could breathe again, like someone had my back, like someone cared if I got cut with glass.

/end sappy

What I do when I'm not here (besides watching TV and painting my nails): I wrote a guest post for my favorite organic beauty blog, Indigo+Canary. You should read it. Especially if you live in Austin.

When politics gets personal...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 18:21:00 +0000

(aren't all politics personal? Just wanted to share something here and then I'll shut up until after Tuesday.)

After I lost my job in 2008, I paid for COBRA for as long as I could legally do so. I did it on a freelancer's salary. I had little savings, which I was forced to use for stupid things like rent and food during the lean months. Then I moved to Austin for a job with a small agency that didn't offer health insurance (but hey, a regular salary and living in Austin? All good).

So in early 2010, my "healthcare" involved crossing my fingers, praying, and skipping medication (I take Metformin for Type 2 Diabetes) and meals to keep my blood sugar down. I lost 20 lbs. in the first couple of months after I moved, some due to stress and some from skipping meals to keep my BG low.

People who oppose "Obamacare" (mostly Republicans but I don't want to say ALL Republicans) think that people who don't have health insurance should just go to an emergency room if they get sick. There are a lot of problems with that logic, including the fact that taxpayers have to eat those costs when the uninsured person cannot pay an emergency room bill. Also, reactive healthcare is NOT THE SAME as proactive healthcare. I found out the hard way in March of 2010 when I ended up in the ER with acute pancreatitis.

I had been sick for weeks with nausea and pain in my abdomen. I was dizzy a lot, but attributed it to skipping meals. I had cut my dose of Metformin in half so I could make it last (my doctor in Charleston prescribed a few month's worth because she knew my COBRA ended the same month I moved to Austin). Even when it got so bad I could hardly stand up to take my dog outside, I didn't do anything. A few days later, I was working in my office at the agency when the pain in my abdomen was so bad I couldn't take a full breath. I called an "ask a nurse" hotline and they told me to get my ass to a hospital immediately.

I drove myself to the closest emergency room, which happened to be in the Catholic Healthcare system here in Austin. I don't remember a lot about it, other than I took my driver's license out of my bag and held it in my hand in case I passed out while driving. I remember parking in the garage, walking through the doors of the ER, handing the woman at the desk my ID, and nothing after that until I woke up with wires all over me hooked up to machines and tubes in my nose.

They took blood and x-rays and scans and finally told me I had pancreatitis. I knew it was something I was at risk for as a diabetic, but I didn't know how serious it was. Acute kidney failure. Respiratory distress syndrome. Heart failure. Before I even saw a doctor, the financial rep from the hospital came in and got my billing info. I was still in so much pain I was tearful, and even more so when I had to tell the money guy that I didn't have insurance. He told me not to worry because they "discount" bills for uninsured patients.

I had been in the hospital for less than four hours when they gave me some medication and told me I needed to stay overnight for observation. No. There was no way I could rack up an ER bill for an overnight stay and still keep my head above water financially. I wasn't keeping my head above water very well as it was. So after another hour of negotiating, they let me sign paperwork saying I wouldn't sue the hospital if I died and sent me home with medication and a three-page bill. For $4,500. I drove myself home and cried the whole way. I slept that night with the deadbolt unlocked and my phone in my hand in case I needed to call 911, but let me say at this point I had been sick and miserable for so long, I felt pretty ambivalent about whether or not I woke up in the morning. Just being honest.

So as a person without health insurance, the hospital also gave me information for one of its clinic affiliates so I could follow up and get medication and lab work for a co-pay based on my salary. I went to that clinic for almost two years, up until just a few months ago when I could use my new health insurance from my job (I had to pay into it for a year before using it because at the time they could still deny anything related to a pre-existing condition, in my case, diabetes). I was grateful to have any healthcare at all, but the healthcare you get at a "free" health clinic is vastly different from what you get when you have health insurance.

It wasn't waiting for hours for appointments, having my blood drawn by nursing students, or never seeing an actual doctor (I saw nurses and physicians assistants the entire time). I was accustomed to following doctor's instructions. When they prescribed a new medication, I took it. I had no other options.

Which leads me to now. Just a few months ago, I was able to make an appointment with a doctor in my preferred care plan with my health insurance. I found out a few things. One: I took two medications prescribed by the health clinic for over a year that are known to cause liver damage when taken together. Two: At one point earlier this year, I took a new medication for a couple of months (the clinic gave me a bag of samples) that my new doctor told me had been recalled in 2011.

I am lucky. I am OK. I have liver damage, but it isn't permanent because the liver is great at repairing itself. I have to give myself shots in my stomach for a month or two or three, depending on how long it takes, but I can afford the medication I have to inject myself with because I have health insurance. If I didn't? $470 a month for the medication, plus needles, sharps containers, etc.

Again, I was grateful to have access to ANY healthcare when I was uninsured. I finally finished paying off my ER bill early this year. And I survived. What makes me angry - furious, actually - is the way many people dismiss Obamacare by saying uninsured people can go to an emergency room or free clinic. The clinic I went to wasn't out to murder me, they have such a large patient load that they literally cannot keep up with things like recalled medication or which medications interact negatively with others. The PA I saw probably met with upwards of 50 patients a day. They're doing the best they can under the weight of a huge increase in uninsured patients (job losses = people who cannot afford COBRA, lengthy unemployment = COBRA runs out after 18 months). I am by no means a worst case scenario. I almost died. I was so sick I wanted to die. But other people without insurance really do die every single day because they don't have access to adequate healthcare.

The Affordable Care Act fixes these things at the root of the problem: Insurance and pharmaceutical companies. If it had gone into effect a year before it did, I would have been able to get my own insurance without being denied for having diabetes. I wouldn't have been charged more than a man my age for the same insurance. The medication I need to take would have been affordable. Every damn time I hear a politician dismiss Obamacare by talking about the "uninsured masses" that should just go to an emergency room when they get sick, I think about the people I saw in the waiting room every time I had an appointment at the free health clinic. Sick elderly people, pregnant women, children...I want every politician who opposes Obamacare to give up their own health insurance for one year and try to get healthcare. I want to see them with their sick kids, tearfully waiting for hours to see a nurse who may or may not help. I want to see them give up their fucking Ambien and Viagra and try to get help from an ER when they cannot sleep because they voted NO on a "let's help the poor people please" bill.

I haven't told a lot of people what happened to me when I was uninsured and what I am dealing with now as a result, so I think sometimes people get confused as to why I so adamantly support President Obama and his healthcare plan. To the Republican politicians who dispute the fact that uninsured people often DIE WHILE THEY ARE TRYING TO GET CARE, I say fuck you. Fuck you and your white collar golden fucking parachute health insurance. Fuck you and your salary. Fuck you and your summer home. Fuck you, your private plane, your wife's facelifts, your show horses, and your complete inability to relate to what the American public is going through every single day.

There are a lot of reasons why I voted for President Obama in 2008 and during early voting last week. The fact that he has a workable plan and genuinely cares about what the average person in the U.S. faces on a regular basis is just one. It will probably take more than four more years to fix the mess the Bush administration created, but I know he'll do his level best. For me, and so many, many others like me, it can mean the difference between life and death.

End rant. Thanks for listening. This is just my story and I'm glad I'm still here to tell it.

Yes, I celebrate my dog's birthday...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Every year. And I kind of make a deal about it. Like pupcakes and tiny hats and wrapped gifts. It's not because I wish I had children and I'm trying to fill that place inside of me (shut up) by lavishing my dog with affection and anthropomorphizing her every move. I do it because my dog is pretty awesome. I don't have to be fake maternal with her (because if you ever see me being maternal, I'm faking it). Lulu has happy coming out of her ears. She makes me laugh every day. She gets me out of bed every morning. And today, she's four.

Last month, I attended a super cool event called BlogathonATX (a whole day of blogging and meeting other bloggers and learning from experts...if you don't have something like this in your city, you should start one) and I met Allison from Printcopia, one of the event's sponsors. We had a nice chat about swag and Yelp's fingerless gloves (pretty sure the best goodie bag item ever). After the event, Allison sent me an email and asked if I'd be interested in a promo offer from Printcopia to try one of their new canvas prints (of course I was!).

Since Lulu's birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted a canvas print of her, but because I have a million thousand photos of my babydog, I thought it was going to be a really difficult decision. Then I discovered that you can browse through your own Instagram and Facebook photos during the canvas print design process. Once I linked my accounts, it was easy to preview what they would look like on canvas. I played around with the design options (wrapping, colored borders, even enhancing the image quality). I finally decided on one, placed my order, and hoped it would come in before Lulu's birthday. It arrived just a couple of days after my order, early last week, and I was so excited that I opened it in front of Lulu and ruined the surprise. (Kidding, I actually know she's a dog and she gets excited about me opening anything. She doesn't even really know that it's a canvas print of her.)

The finished print is really beautiful. I haven't decided where to hang it yet because now I want to order four or five more so I can have a favorite Instagram prints collection. I thought about hanging in my office, but I already have it as the background on my computer and I work at home about the same amount of time as I spend in my office. So it's in my home office for now, waiting for a spot on the wall and a few more prints.

Happy fourth birthday to my sweet girl. I can't imagine not seeing this face every day.

Like a bird...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:38:00 +0000

I've been working in art journals/mixed media/collages for almost as long as I've been writing. My art journal is where I go when I can't make words that make sense. Making them visual breaks something open in my mind so I can write coherently again. Sometimes I use my art journal to "art" about things I don't want to write about ever, or just yet. (Yes, I will turn any word into a verb if it suits me even if it makes me insufferable. And now I'm going to art about that.)

I follow lots of artist blogs in my RSS feed and every now and then there's a challenge. I have done a few, but haven't shared them. Until now. A Year in the Life of an Art Journal is one of my always-read favorites. Over the weekend, Rachel posted the following challenge:

THE PROMPT: Bird is the word
THE STUFF: yarn, twigs, sticks, feathers, leaves, things you would find in a nest.
THE TECHNIQUE: Doodle/Construct yourself as a bird. You can draw (with or with out color) or paper piece a photo of yourself and some bird parts. How would you look as a bird?

This one appealed to me so much because birds are in and out of my life in weird ways. Dreams of flying. A stranger telling me a story about an ex who murdered her parrot (is it called murder when it happens to an animal? If it isn't, it should be). That I won't eat outside at Whole Foods because I fear the aggressive grackles. I've been chased by ducks, geese and swans both as a child and as an adult. Telling my therapist that my heart felt like a wounded bird some of the time and a frightened bird the rest of the time. That the wings beating in my chest make me feel like I am going to die. Being able to let go by releasing imaginary birds to the sky. Birds are fragile and birds are strong. How my heart feels now, light, light, light.

This is my heart. My fragile, weightless, strong bird.

Can you believe it's been almost three years?

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Since I moved to Austin, that is. I arrived in January of 2010 and I'm still finding my way. But it's easier now. I like my life here. I've shared things here before about exploring the city (which I am still doing), but superficial things; not so much about what my world is like here because there were a lot of things from which I needed some distance in order to write about it.

These days, I am never bored. You know those places in just about every city that are great for people-watching? All of Austin is great for people-watching. Like every single bit of it. I've seen men riding bikes in nothing but a thong. I've seen cars covered in glitter and cars driven by hoarders (no shit, you guys, it is a frequent sighting around here, a CR-V packed with so much crap that you literally cannot see in to any window except the windshield. The first time I saw it, I remained astonished for at least a week). Frisbee golf.

I've eliminated most of the stress, drama, etc. from my life and I can't believe I thought I'd be bored without it. I'm not. I really love how safe it feels, to have so much control over what goes on in my personal invisasquare (if you were here and could see me, this is where I do the hand gestures of drawing an invisible square around my immediate person). I also have some control over what happens peripheral to my personal invisasqaure, but really, who wants that anyway? I love that I can still be surprised, amazed, inspired, shocked, appalled, giddy and guileless.

I've met some cool, smart, funny, creative, earnest and kind people. I didn't die from heat exhaustion in the summer of 2011 (a.k.a. "The Devil's Summer"). Fall has arrived. My windows are open. Temperatures drop 20+ degrees at night in this part of the country. I often wear a hoodie when I walk the dog in the early morning or late evening.

So this is me, promising to over share. With stories. Probably with photos. Some of them are going to be of my dog. None will be of my cat. Some of them will be of my feet post-pedicure. Many will be wonderfully weird. You are welcome in advance.

And howdy from Texas, y'all.

If you're happy and you know it...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:29:00 +0000

Good for you. Last year around this time, I was looking for it around every corner. Sometimes I found it.

Declarations of happiness are a mixed bag for most people I think. There's a part of me that is very superstitious (maybe Puritan English roots?) and I catch myself being careful about shouting out loud about happiness and good fortune. The rest of me is comfortable saying that I'm happier more often than not these days.

People who know me well, or maybe just the ones who have known me for a long time, have to hold back laughter (or something else) when they hear me say things like this. I'm happy. I feel positive. I look forward to what the future will bring. I'm excited about what will happen next. The angsty sardonic me hasn't gone anywhere. She's been fighting a losing battle for a while and knows to lie low. And it's not like I'm skipping everywhere, whistling, or high-fiving myself on a regular basis. I haven't had a lobotomy. (and am I the only one that sometimes thinks happy people are happy because they're not very smart and therefore never worry about things? Is that just me? Am I a terrible person?) See. Angst. Still there.

It takes work to maintain a positive state of mind. I know when I should stop watching/reading/listening to the news. I know I have to keep the pen moving even if what I'm writing will never see the light of day because that's one of the things that saved my sanity. Speaking of, I'm not exactly focused on maintaining sanity. I think it's overrated. The people I love spending time with most are all a little crazy. They don't mind if I am.

So generalities out of the way, this has really been a great week. It's been below 90 all week, much cooler (low 70s) at night, and for the past couple of days rainy and below 80 degrees. If you don't know what last summer was like in Austin, you are probably underwhelmed. But I'm whelmed and my windows are wide open because it's breezy and cool and feels like fall. I went for a 45-minute walk with the babydog and didn't sweat. At all. Glorious. My neighbor and her dog Sonny went with us and we talked and walked.

Sushi for dinner tonight (if I had to choose a last meal, it would be crab rolls and escolar sushi). Tomorrow I'm joining a bunch of Austin bloggers at the 5th annual BlogathonATX and I'm excited about going (which is so much better than trying to think of excuses not to go). The weather should hold through the weekend. My roommate moved out at the end of August and I love (love!) having my house back. I found a wrap dress at Old Navy that fits me well AND was on sale for less than $20 (in store with 20% off coupon).

If you're happy, please share. The Universe isn't waiting anxiously for your declaration to drop the other shoe on your head. I remind myself every day. And I think I need another adorkable poster for my office. Clap your hands.

From Chick Lingo Signs

On diving into the wreck...and climbing out of it

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:25:00 +0000

I've loved the poetry of Adrienne Rich since high school. I discovered her work around the same time as Plath and Sexton and read her poems with the same morbid fascination (and wondering how she survived when the other two did not). When I heard the news of Rich's death in March of this year, it struck me again, how she lived on to write the obits of moody colleagues suffering the same dark disease, diving over and over into the depths, making it farther and longer each time, being the only one who knew how to rise again. She published her last work just a year before her death.

In my own writing, I always knew when it was good. It was good when it hurt, when it felt like hell. I wallow in nostalgia, dipping down and then rising again to find bleak humor in failure, in embarrassment, in broken hearts. Diving into the wreck for material, surfacing to turn words into paragraphs into essays. I've carried a copy of Rich's "Diving Into the Wreck" with me for years. It's what I think of every time I have to do the work of dredging up my own past, and often what I share with writers with whom I work when they are struggling over and over to plumb their own depths. The wreck is always there, I tell them. But you don't have to live there. You don't have to drown.

Rich meant something different, we learned in Lit 101. It's about patriarchy, gender politics, feminine bondage. Says the professor, but I choose to believe that it's a metaphor for returning to our own crime scenes, picking over the husk of memory to find the gold, taking care not to run out of oxygen and become part of the wreck. You can decide for yourself.

Diving Into the Wreck
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

It has been a struggle for the past few years, trying to find my voice again, wondering if it was gone forever. I spent more time than I should have diving into that wreck, deeper than I had gone before. I set up house there for a while. I sank to the bottom and let the water fill my lungs and take over. I am tearful as I write this, remembering how hard it was to find it and stay whole, the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck.

I wanted to write about the damage that has been done. The evidence of damage. I want to write about what surrender felt like. It was easy to let go. It was easy to live down there, so much harder to climb out. And besides, you breathe differently down here.

But I did. Climb out. And I find it harder every day to go back. By cowardice or courage. I still know the way down. The ladder is always there. I try to stick close to the surface, skimming the water, not allowing myself to sink this time. We know what it is for, we who have used it.

Link love for fall fever

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Here in Austin, early mornings are cool and breezy. We're not finished with 100-degree days, but the heat of the summer is mostly just afternoons. I've been getting up extra early to take Lulu for walks and mornings are just starting to feel like fall. Growing up in the south suffering through summers, September is always when we can breathe again. I get "fall fever" like some people get spring fever. I have more energy, sleep less, get outdoors more. There are so many things I love about this time of year:

Back to school shopping and what a new box of crayons smells like.

Pumpkin lattes. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin seeds. All things pumpkin. My friend Charlie has an annual pumpkin carving party and contest just before Halloween. Last year's entries. I hate putting my hands into the squidgy pumpkin guts, but love eating roasted pumpkin seeds.

My birthday is in November and I love my birthday. Last year, I marked the occasion with a new tattoo. I think I'm going back again this year.

Cooler weather means sweaters. And layers. And over-the-knee socks. And lovely scarves. Since I'm still trying to lose the lbs. I gained last holiday season, I am all about dressing in cozy layers.

More: My favorite slouchy sweater. My favorite tall boots. My old/new Doc Martens. Cozy blankets. The farmer's market is fall amazing. I'm not the only one falling; this Tumblr is all fall, all the time. A Facebook page for fall lovers. ACL Fest (2012 lineup is amazing, Rufus Wainwright and the Civil Wars at the top, more on that later). I could go on. And on. But I spent this holiday weekend cleaning and cleaning and now I'm going to sit on the back deck with a latte and my Kindle (almost finished with Chelsea Cain's second book, Sweetheart). I hope it feels like fall where you are.

Inspiration here, there, everywhere...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:14:00 +0000

While I love my Kindle (the instant gratification got me), I'm still on the fence about buying books. When I moved to Austin, I culled my five bookshelves down to one bookshelf full of favorites and first editions. I love to run my hands along the spines, turning them over in my hands, flipping through paper pages and reading my notes in the margins (yes, I like to underline things and write in my books). Sure, I can keep thousands at my fingertips with my Kindle Fire, but I cannot bring myself to get rid of these last shelves, these paper memories, these literary giants that sit side-by-side in tidy rows. Vonnegut lives here. Hemingway lives here. O'Connor lives and lives and lives again.

I stumbled across this Etsy shop recently and fell in love with the inspired illustrations with quotes from literary greats. I want to buy them all, hang them so they can be seen from where I work most often (living room, couch, laptop).

These two are my favorites, but it was so hard to choose. F. Scott Fitzgerald makes my heart beat faster. T.S. Eliot makes me want to spill all of my secrets. Jane Austen makes me want to write letters that I'll never send.

I went to Barnes & Noble earlier this week with a friend and we ended up sitting on the floor of an aisle in fiction, leafing through paperbacks (even as we looked up e-books on our phones), pulling books from the shelves based on covers alone, putting our faces close to the open pages and inhaling the paper and ink and wondering if we're going to be the last generation who knows what book stores smell like. Will we someday try to describe it to younger people, our reading glasses perched on noses twitching as we struggle to bring the sense memories back, wishing we would have bottled it way back when, closing our eyes as we remember what it felt like to turn the paper pages? I think yes. We writers love our books. We writers are going to have to be curators of paper museums, preservationists of ink smudges, storytellers of the printed word.

Housekeeping? Housekeeping.

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:38:00 +0000

After waffling back and forth about whether or not to archive my old blog and start a new one (it felt like throwing away a lot of memories), stop blogging altogether (but I have sooo much material waiting to be loosed upon the world), or do "something" with my existing site to make it fun for me again (it felt so clunky forever and I had gotten in the habit of heading over to Twitter or Tumblr when I have something to say), I picked door number three.

This is my toe in, re-introduction, new beginning, the opening of the floodgates (I like that one the best). It's been three years since I've blogged on a regular basis, and I want to thank my friends Angie Mizzell, Aleigh Acerni, Doretha Walker and all of the blogs in my reader (so many) for inspiring me and inspiring me and inspiring me once more. I've been testing the waters for a long time and I'm ready to get my hair wet (and if you know me well, you understand that this is kind of a big deal because me getting my hair wet in a chlorinated kiddie pool is equal to most other people diving from a high cliff into the ocean).

If you're reading this post in a reader, you are probably confused. Click over to my blog and see the "something" I did with my site. I'd love your feedback, even if you just want to throw out the spirit fingers (Angie). And since the actual work on my part was choosing a designer, let me add that Carrie of CarrieLovesDesign.com is responsible for all of sexiness up in here.

So with renewed vigor and enthusiasm, let the navel-gazing commence!

The magical things we find with no destination in mind...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 05:52:00 +0000

"Golden Glamour" by Vanessa Bley.

Inspired by the documentary film BEAUTIFUL DARLING: The Life & Times of Candy Darling.

Candy was an Andy Warhol Superstar. Chloe Sevigny plays her in the film. It's fascinating. From the web site:

Beautiful Darling, a documentary film, pays tribute to the short but influential life of an extraordinary person -- the actress Candy Darling, born James Slattery in a Long Island suburb in 1944. Drawn to the feminine from childhood, by the mid-Sixties James had become Candy, a gorgeous, blonde actress and well-known downtown New York figure. Candy's career took her through the raucous and revolutionary Off-off-Broadway theater scene and into Andy Warhol's legendary Factory. There she became close to Warhol and starred in two Factory movies that still shock and amuse today: Flesh and Women in Revolt. Candy used her Warhol fame to land further film roles, and her admirer Tennessee Williams cast her in his play Small Craft Warnings. She dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star, but tragically died of lymphoma in the early Seventies, at only twenty-nine.

I wear a lot of black...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:37:00 +0000

But I try once a year, on average, to add a little color to my wardrobe. I honestly couldn't tell you what happened to that pretty emerald green dress or the hot pink ballet flats, but I can share this season's attempt at some color.

The challenge: one complete outfit, no black (or shades of black, i.e. gray). I went with Old Navy for the whole thing because I didn't want to spend a lot with the chance these things might end up living in the back of my closet forever and ever.

So what I'm trying to figure out now is how to wear this to work. Without people keeling over from shock because they've only seen me wear black and gray for most of the past six (okay, eight) months. Even in July. I wear a nude pinkish cape thingy every now and then, but it's a neutral so I don't think it counts. This outfit isn't just "not black," it has "color!" (and I don't use exclamation points gratuitously.)

I'm thinking a gradual introduction (since this is really a "spring" outfit) of color over the next month or so, then break out the whole shebang. I also picked up a bright pink tank, a green cardigan-type layering shirt, and a lightweight spring scarf with pink in it.

So yeah, out of the fashion rut, I rise! (that one was pretty gratuitous).

A playlist for my shoes...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

Boots, actually. I got my first pair of Doc Martens in high school (oxblood, laces half done) and wore the hell out of them until I was out of college. It was the 90s. We watched Singles and dreamed of moving to Seattle or New York. We loved Nirvana and Mudhoney and L7 and Soundgarden and Sleater-Kinney. We got our noses pierced. We dyed our hair Tori Amos red. We got tattoos. My Doc Marten boots took me all over campus, waded through standing room only crowds at the Music Farm (the old and new one), drank vodka cranberries at AC's (the old and new one), ground peanut shells to dust on the floor of that shitty little club off of market street where we first saw Billy Pilgrim, stood so close to the stage at a Ramones concert that we're still a little deaf in one ear, sat outside the door during hurricane season after hurricane season, fell in love, fell out of love, smoked cigars and sang the blues at that basement club in Savannah, fell in love again and again and one more time after that. And then we grew up. We lost track of our Docs. They ended up with a friend or at Goodwill or left behind in that great second floor apartment on Alexander Street with all of those windows and hardwood floors and a fireplace in the living room and one in the bedroom.

These new boots are not like my old boots, even though they're the classic 1460s. They're black, for one (oxblood is hard to come by these days). I'm not ready to wear them to work, but I wear them almost all the time when I'm not working. They feel like the old ones, but don't make me feel like the old ones. I know the 90s are long over and I'm not sure I could fall in love again, at least, not so hard again. I can feel them pulling, though. They want to go see We Are Augustines next month at Antone's. They whisper, "listen sister, you live in Austin now and there is so, so much you haven't seen and heard." So I made a 90s nostalgia playlist for both of us (links are to individual Youtube videos but you can get the whole thing here).

Mudhoney, "Touch Me I'm Sick"
L7, "Pretend We're Dead"
Concrete Blonde, "Joey"
Nirvana, "Lithium"
Violent Femmes, "Good Feeling"
Mazzy Star, "Fade Into You"
Mother Love Bone, "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns"
Tori Amos, "Crucify"
Nine Inch Nails, "Closer"
Hole, "Asking For It"
Porno for Pyros, "Meija"
Seven Mary Three, "Water's Edge"

There are things we can let go of and things that become ingrained. My hair isn't quite so red. I wear my nose stud when I remember to put it in. I'm still getting tattooed. My heart is healing. I know it's OK to admit it when I'm scared. I'm just as self-involved. I admit that now too. The 23-year-old me has been painted over so many times it feels like her windows will never open again. But she's there. She doesn't want to wear torn jeans and plaid flannel, but she loves the shit out of our new boots. We can hear the music.

"In one more hour I will be gone
In one more hour I'll leave this room
The dress you wore, the pretty shoes
Are things I left behind for you." (Sleater-Kinney, "One More Hour")

Putting friendships to the test...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:27:00 +0000

I always feel like I have to check in with friends from time to time to make sure they still love me. I have tests...sort of like the GMAT, except really annoying and not that hard. Like the "will you drink my spit" test from If Lucy Fell, I like to see how far the limits of a friendship will go.

I can't count how many times I've asked certain close friends, "would you still be my friend if I?" questions. Like "would you still be my friend if I TALKED LIKE THIS?" (imagine cartoony high-pitched voice...or a thick Minnesota accent). Or "would you still be my friend if I weighed 400 lbs.?" (and the ensuing Part B, "would we still go to restaurants together?"). Variations follow, such as "What if I [insert really annoying habit here]?" and "Would you tell me if...?" ("would you tell me if my hair looked like 1999?" and "would you tell me if I was as self absorbed as [THIS PERSON]?").

I know I do it because I'm insecure, because I have trust issues, because I need the occasionally declaration of "this is why I love you." And if I think about it too much, I'm not even sure I'd want to be friends with me.

Lucy: Would you drink my spit?
Joe: Can you take your weird survey somewhere else?
Lucy: Answer.
Joe: I´ll answer your question...but this is the last time I´ll talk about it.
Lucy: The last time.
Joe: You swear?
Lucy: Mother Theresa and the missionaries drink the lepers spit. I wondered if you´d drink mine.
Joe: I wouldn´t be interested.
Lucy: Really? You don´t love me enough?
Joe: Of course I love you. I just don´t want to drink your spit.

Still here at year's end...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:28:00 +0000

I haven't been far from here, the cruise control has been on and I've had a lot of little moments. I've had the words but not the time to share, so before the year runs out, let me leave you with:

we don't want these days to ever end,
to ever end,
to ever end,
to ever end.

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

Waiting for winter...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:19:00 +0000

We get a few cold days in Austin here and there, just teasers really, when we oh-so-hopefully drag out our boots and sweaters, throw an extra blanket on the bed, and wonder if we should go ahead and buy firewood. Rationally, we know that it's going to be 85 and humid tomorrow afternoon, that it will probably be warm on Thanksgiving, that the weather is going to be schizophrenic until at least January (and then we'll have two months of cold weather and it might even snow).

snow weather by kellylovej

In Texas, I've learned to wait it out. I put the holiday lights on my fireplace mantel on Saturday. I had the air conditioning on because the high on Saturday was 90 degrees. I persist, and affix a red bow to the outside door.

I have an active imagination. I squint and see leaves turning gold and brown with the season (and not dying trees because we're in a 10-month drought).

I buy sweaters online from the comfort of my chilly, air-conditioned office. And scarves. Because there will be at least two days this year that I can wear both. I briefly considered these boots...for the one day of snow we might get.

I surf Flickr for images of covered bridges, autumn in New England (I was born in Massachusetts, spent time in Newport and rural New Jersey before moving down South).

I dream of wintery, blustery nights in front of my fireplace, wrapped in a cashmere throw (the heart wants what the heart wants). This wallpaper could give me winter wonderful all year.

I love my winter clothes so much more than the others for their forgiveness, for their layered cozy comfort, for the 10 lbs. of Thanksgiving overeating they're going to hide. I have three perfectly good (and lovely) winter coats, but I think I need this one. I'll wear things in layers in the wintertime that I'd never wear alone, like this dress. The only hat I wear in the summer is an ugly wide-brimmed thing I wear to walk the dog. In the winter, I wear hats and feel very stylish (and they also cover up "day two" unwashed hair).

One or two more humid days of 80-something degrees before the next cold front comes in. Today I am wearing a cable-knit sweater in my air-conditioned office, drove here in my air-conditioned car, and will sleep tonight under an extra blanket in my air-conditioned house, dreaming of winter winds, warming my hands around a pumpkin latte, knocking the snow off of my boots on the front porch and warming my feet by the fire. Brrrr.

We call it "veggie casserole..."

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:44:00 +0000

...but there's nothing healthy about it. About 10 years ago (maybe more...) I started making "veggie casserole" for Thanksgiving. It was a hit and became my annual contribution, along with sweet potatoes and spinach dip in a bread bowl. Since I've already missed one Thanksgiving with family and will miss the second with them this week, I've gotten requests for my casserole recipe from my nieces, Lauren and Keri. I originally made it from a recipe I found in the Charleston Unitarian Church cookbook and it was called "company casserole." It morphed into "that vegetable stuff with crackers on top" to "Ritz cracker casserole" to simply "veggie casserole." And I can't remember ever having more than a spoonful left over.

In case you're looking for another yummy side dish that you can make last minute, here is the recipe verbatim as I sent it via email to my nieces:

(you can double this recipe - I usually did so I could make a big one)

1 can french style green beans, drained
1 can shoe peg corn, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup sliced mushrooms
salt & pepper
1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed
1 stick butter, melted

Mix all ingredients except crackers, a little bit of the grated cheese, and butter. Pour into casserole dish. Top with crushed crackers, the rest of the grated cheese, and melted butter. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

I always chopped the celery and onion pretty fine so there weren't any big pieces. And when I doubled the recipe (which means 2 of everything on the list), I still only used ONE stick of butter on top because the butter is really just so the crackers would brown. The year I used 2 sticks of butter the casserole was really soggy and kind of not good. You can also leave out the sliced mushrooms if you don't like them and sub cream of celery soup for cream of mushroom, but I think most people liked the mushrooms. Don't used canned mushrooms - you can buy the fresh already sliced if you want, but the canned mushrooms taste like crap.

I love you, I miss you, I wish I could be there with you. My heart will be.

Making my outside match my inside...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:21:00 +0000

...is what I did for my birthday this year. And I love the results. I had a wonderful birthday weekend: four hours sitting for my new tattoo, sleeping late, shopping, my new Kindle arrived, having brunch, shopping, afternoon Family Guy marathon that went on into evening, pizza delivery (I haven't eaten pizza in almost six months), being lazy, doing a little holiday decorating. My new tattoo is my new favorite thing.

The art was done by Nate at A Million Tattoos based on a loose description (vintage lace...1920s) and some photos. I love it; it's feminine and girly, but it's still a tattoo (and it goes ALL the way around my arm, so just imagine how it felt underneath...Nate said I "sat like a champ" - which means I'm a tough girly-girl). It took almost four hours and the pain was totally worth it.

I'd need a lot more time and several thousand words to explain what it means to me. Suffice it to say that I've overcome (so many) obstacles in the past couple of years. I've lost and found and lost myself again. I don't know very many things about the me that I am, but one thing I do know is that she is not ordinary. Life is short. It should also be extraordinary. It's such a relief to discover that the me I've been trying to find is one I like so very much.

I no longer care about the destination...the journey is what takes my breath away.

I run to the mailbox every single day...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:41:00 +0000

I'm awaiting the arrival of a sterling silver necklace I ordered as an early birthday present for myself. I found it through Fab.com (daily email bargains!) and fell in love.

I can't wait to wear it.

Money can't buy happy...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:05:00 +0000

But it can bring on a smile or two. I went to the Austin Craft Riot Holiday Show last Sunday (teeming with crafty Austin Etsy artists) and got this sweet new collar for Lulu from LizzieBeesThings:

I own a television and sometimes I watch it...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:36:00 +0000

My friend Lisa finally convinced me to give (the return of) Beavis and Butthead a go (I loved it way back whenever, but I'm a grownup now). I'm glad she did because I laughed more during the first episode than I have in the past week. It's the same - same creepy high school dweebs, same t-shirts, same couch, same except now they're making fun of Jersey Shore (seriously) and vampire movies.

"This is like a family tree if your family was made of whores," (Butthead while watching Jersey Shore).

"I will fight for you until your heart stops beating…can I have some of your popcorn?” (Butthead to a chick in the movie theater).

Rolling Stone has a rundown. Since I'm one of those people who miss MTV when it actually played videos and I believe that The Real World peaked in Seattle, the new Beavis and Butthead isn't going to make me watch MTV again. But I'll probably catch up On Demand when I'm in the mood. Also, I can make myself laugh right now just by saying "you were moved."

Why I love the internets...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:58:00 +0000

(I accidentally typed "live" instead of "love" and almost left it that way...I am face-in-computer 99% at work and about 50% at home, if my iPhone counts as internets.)

I'm laptop-bound, smart phone saddled and soon, cuddling a Kindle (the version I pre-ordered doesn't come out until Nov. 21). I've caught myself (maybe twice) wanting to point my phone* at the stocked shelves in a grocery store so it could find the particular brand and product (shampoo, whole wheat couscous, balsamic vinegar) for which I was searching. Ten years ago if you'd asked how much time I thought I'd spend online, I would have thrown the word "luddite" at you. Today I'm wondering just how long before I can download my dreams port-to-port.

[insert segue here] I love llamas. The llama is my spirit animal. One of my dearest friends got married in Asheville on a farm with llamas. I attended her wedding with two other dear friends. These things are not related, except that one of my favorite pictures of that day is me + llama. And because one of my favorite time-sucks online is Pinterest, I love knowing that I am not the only one who loves llamas.

Speaking of weddings in Asheville, my super smart and savvy friend Aleigh shares her organic beauty love and insight with the world at Indigo + Canary. It completely makes sense that what you put on your body goes into your body, but I never really understood how it can negatively affect my health. I now use chemical-free shampoo, makeup and skin care (and she's hunting down some great at-home hair color that passes the organic test for an upcoming post).

I've been mulling over my next tattoo for almost two years now. I keep returning to this one (quote by Kurt Vonnegut). I shared it with my BFF from college who still lives in Charleston and now she's mulling it over too.

We're finally getting cooler weather in Austin - it dropped 30-something degrees quickly last night and was in the high 40s early this morning. I celebrated by buying this gorgeous weekend sweater online from The Gap and can't wait for it to arrive.

I picked up my new glasses earlier this week and love them. While they don't exactly make me look like Zooey Deschanel, they are slightly adorkable.

Also, fall makes me happy, I love my job and I feel healthier after just under a week of packing my lunch for work. The weekend's almost here. I'm wearing my favorite boots today. My dog has two Halloween costumes. A library book I've been waiting for (Laurie Notaro's latest) has finally arrived. All is right in the world.

*If you take this idea and make an app for it, consider this my copyright claim and trademark. Please get my name right when you send the check.

The return of Mr. Bento...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:19:00 +0000

I fell in love with Mr. Bento in 2007. I had unhealthy lunch habits and he inspired me to make healthier (and more attractive) decisions. I used Mr. Bento frequently and even joined Flickr groups for Bento lovers. After I left my job as managing editor for a magazine to work in politics (lunch was usually carrot salad and grilled chicken from the Chic-fil-A next to the campaign office, if I had time to eat) and later, worked from home, I got out of my Bento habit.

Tuscan white bean & tuna with cottage cheese, fruit, mixed greens.

Now that I have a regular schedule again (and have had one for almost four months), it was time to break out the Bento from storage (the cabinet above the fridge where no-one ever looks) and stop eating lunch like a 12-year-old. Yes, Lunchables are an affordable and easy way to control calorie intake, but turkey + cheese + crackers - any green vegetables EVER = an ass that doesn't fit into my skinny jeans. I have also gotten into the habit of shopping for produce at farmer's markets on the weekends and saving all of that healthy stuff for home eating just wasn't practical.

Spicy noodles, yogurt and fruit, granola, avocado.

So I'm cooking again. I made a Tuscan white bean tuna salad last weekend (and even soaked the beans overnight and cooked them myself). I made spicy whole wheat noodles yesterday. I have a list of Bento-friendly recipes to try. My goal is to Bento my lunch every day between now and the end of the year. Two days in, I already feel healthier. My ass expects to wear my skinny jeans around the end of next week. And I have lovely, lovely lunches that I'm not embarrassed to break out in front of coworkers. Proud of me!

Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Linus: "Tonight the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch. He flies through the air and brings toys to all the children of the world."

Sally: "That's a good story."

I will dress my dog in her bee costume, hand out the cute little boxes of temporary tattoos (CVS!) for the kidlets, watch a marathon of American Horror Story on FX and wait for the Great Pumpkin to arrive.

Happy Halloween!