Notes from the Red Bird House

I've determined, after really not much thought at all, that the reason why I don't blog much anymore is because I have become boring. Once upon a time, I was accused of blogging life rather than living life. This was when I wrote what probably seemed near constantly. Stuff happened or came to mind and I wrote it. It had to be moderately interesting stuff - being an out lesbian in the middle of the Bible Belt sure didn't hurt - to create a moderately ambitious following. Needless to say, I haven't been approached by a hot woman in a bar in years claiming to know my name because she's read my blog. Tell me again how I blogged rather than lived life. Now, I'm apparently doing neither. Granted I'm older, more mature, I no longer live in the Bible Belt, and I have a girlfriend. I don't hang out with a bunch of hot thirty-somethings who like to drink and watch porn. I don't go out much if at all and I'm not a shining lesbian star in a homophobic univ...

I had a conversation with myself on Saturday during my weekly long run. I'm training for a half marathon and, on Saturday, I planned to run more-than-seven-yet-not-quite-eight miles. I was in good spirits at the start. The weather was sunny and cool. The trail (the Lady Bird Lake Hike & Bike trail in Austin) was surprisingly not jammed with people. A couple miles in I still felt good which isn't generally a given with me and running these days. Many days I suffer from the first step to the last; luckily Saturday wasn't one of those days.  [I think I need a preface here - When I do my "long" runs, I don't stretch them out into out-and-backs. In my twenties, I'd go out for a fifteen miler and occasionally be seven or more miles from home. I don't do that anymore. The absolute last thing I want it to crap out and have to walk MILES back to my car or house. Instead, I do short loops. For example, the Saturday run I started talking about above involv...

Yesterday, a co-worker said something that I haven't really been able to shake. We were talking about his family. In explaining his father, my co-worker said that he thought his father's problem had been that he never took risks. He played it safe, too safe in my co-worker's opinion. Granted we were talking about the family finances and why his father had often worked three jobs, but that's not why his comment - stated completely in passing on our way to further conversation - stuck with me. I'm not worried about finances (though I probably should be). I am, however, worried that maybe I haven't taken enough risks. Come on, Stacee, really? You moved from Muskegon, Michigan to the near backwoods of East Texas because you were in love with a woman who arguably wasn't courageous enough to love you back. Then after one Sunday afternoon in Austin, you decided to uproot yourself and move to a city where the only people you knew were a crazy ex-girlfriend and her...

Five months from right now, I'll be on a plane to Copenhagen. Today, everywhere I went I saw Volvos. I still see this as a sign that I made the right decision. Of course, I've never doubted myself on this one. Not once. Because really, what could be more right than scratching something off your Bucket List? Many people are aghast that I'm going alone. I haven't traveled abroad since I was in high school and that was with a group of tennis players. Everything was set out for us. All I had to do was follow the group and show up in the right place at the right time. This trip will be completely different. It'll all be on me. I'll have to get myself from A to B and do all the navigation in between. 100% of my time will be spent in unfamiliar surroundings while trying to communicate in a language I can barely speak. All that said, "alone" is my favorite state of being, so why wouldn't I go alone?  It sure sounds like a perfect idea sitting at Lola S...

"At the tennis courts, two young women were in the middle of a match,  playing well, their pleated skirts flying as they raced after the ball." That one sentence changed my life. More to the point, it changed the direction of my art. I doubt the author - Sarah Waters - even remembers writing the words. They describe a scene in a park as observed by the two protagonists in her novel, The Paying Guests . I focused on them because of tennis (obviously) but within my imagination something came to life. The two women playing became Anna and Adah, who had a story all of their own, a story I had to tell.  I was at the inevitable low point that follows the completion of a major project. I'd finished my first novel and, because I was steadfastly procrastinating its editing, I re-started work on another novel project I'd left unfinished while in grad school. After a couple weeks miserably slogging and fighting my way toward an ending, I realized I was deadlocked. I...

I recently started rowing. Like at the gym, not on a lake. I don't know why I started up. I'd done a little in the past, but rowing never seemed to burn enough calories for me. Historically, I have worked out purely for the caloric deficit it creates. Burn a paltry amount of calories for the time spent? Yeah, no. I'm not going to do it. Or rather, I never would do it. Then I hurt my elbow and went into rehab. And I was stocking freight at night. I started going to the gym to "warm up" for my shift and thought rowing might accomplish a couple things - (1) a full body warm-up and (2) get the elbow ready for action. It seemed to work great. Then I quit the night freight thing and kept rowing. I know. It makes no sense. Other than I actually like rowing, crappy calorie burn aside. As crazy as it may sound, my body is changing. My arms, even though the elbow prevents a lot of lifting, are showing decent definition. And my legs... My upper hamstrings and gluts seem ...

It's been nearly fifteen years. For some reason, October sticks in my mind. Even though I knew the instant I saw her that my life had changed, that I would never be the same again, I didn't take note of the date. I wish I had. You see, that was the day I experienced what I thought I would never experience. I thought it was the thing of fairy tales and romance novels and complete bullshit. Then I saw her and I knew. Love at first sight happens. It actually happens because it happened to me. I've written around our story many times - some say too many times - so I feel like it's common knowledge. It took months to work up the courage to speak to her, but merely an instant to fall in love with her. I can still see that moment as clearly as if it had just happened last night. There are those who will read this and insist that I am still in love with her. I can assure you, I'm not and I haven't been for quite some time now. That was a tough one for me - the fal...

I think more and more about going home. I don't mean to my house. As in, "I'm going home now". I guess to distinguish, I should use a capital H when speaking of Home versus a little h when speaking of home. The latter being the house where I currently reside. The former... Well, the former is a bit more difficult to define. You see, I've been searching for Home (the one with a capital H... See how I did that?) for the majority of my adult life. I know I've said it before - probably more than once in this blog alone - I grew up in the same house from the age of 3 until my parents divorced when I was 24. I went away to college and one year of grad school, but that house on Wanesta Drive in Poway, California was Home. This is by no means a diatribe against my parents' divorce. I'm good with it; have been for quite some time. They are both happy. My sister is happy. I am happy. I'm merely saying that when my parents divorced and sold my childhood h...

I spent the last week on a farm-cation, a fancy way of saying I helped a friend on her alpaca farm. She billed it as a 'writing with the alpacas vacation' and I bit. What could be better? A week on a scenic farm in Western Washington where the weather promised to be a lot cooler than in central Texas? The decision was easy. I didn't even care that I might have to do some 'farm work' around the writing and researching I planned to focus on. What I didn't count on was Valentina. She was about two and a half weeks old when I met her and three weeks, two days old when I had to say good bye. I knew her a sum total of seven days. That's it. And she completely changed the way I view my life and my survival. Valentina was born with a nasal abnormality that affected ability to breathe and eat. As alpacas breathe almost exclusively through their noses and only use their mouths when agitated or excited, Valentina's prognosis from the beginning wasn't very...

It's been a rough month. One day I was playing tennis, breaking in a new doubles partnership, and working at a job I liked. My pay check stretched far enough to allow me frequent meals out and coffee at my favorite coffee house. My anxiety was in check; my stress level seemed to have settled into an new-found low. I was happy most days, even on the days when I yipped my way through multiple double faults and on the days when the amount of work at work seemed insurmountable. I was riding a wave, a really good wave. And then I hit a forehand wrong and felt a sharp pinch and burning sensation in my elbow. A week later I was out of tennis and back working a stressful day job. Trips to various doctors and physical therapists quickly drained my bank account. My social life (what little the introvert in me craved) ended when tennis ended. Meals out and coffee became a memory. And with all that, my stress level rose to what surely feels like an all-time high. ~ Imagine for a moment a...

I've decided that I have an answer for the oft asked question (paraphrased here) - Why am I going to Sweden? Ready? It's not earth-shattering. Not really, I guess. Maybe to some it will be. Those whose lives are so filled with purpose that they've become swollen, lethargic, and unimaginative won't get it any more than those who don't actually, well, live at all. In the few short months since my grand announcement (read my blog "Sweden or Bust 2017" for details), I've grown tired trying to explain something I can barely explain to myself to people who live their lives as if it was a paint-by-number. Blue here. Brown here. Yellow there. Stay in the lines. Don't improvise. Look, all of our paintings look the same, just like they're supposed to. News flash... They're not supposed to look the same. The past week has brought a few welcome realizations. 1. A friend posted something to her Facebook today. It was a Word Porn meme that I'...

There is a place I go. I am almost sure of it. Every night when I sleep. I dream. But beyond the dream, beyond the immediate subconscious, there is something...more...different. A feeling, a comfort, a familiarity, a knowing. A place. A life? Lately, as I ponder bedtime, sleep, and dreams, I am often confused. I don't want to sleep, but I don't want not to sleep. Am I worried that I won't find my way there? I think maybe. Which is real? Here or there? Asleep or awake? Do minutes pass as hours...and vice versa? Or is it just a dream? An illusion? A subconscious trick? I can vividly recall my dreams, but not what lies beyond them. I am frustrated. I should know, I should remember.  I should . As I lay my head down and pull the blankets tightly around me, I feel it. Peace. Peace is coming. In the morning, it will be gone, this I know for certain. And in that moment, when I silence my alarm, throw the covers off, and face a new day, I curse that I am once again...here.....

I started a new story the other day. And honestly, the worries I'm having are probably why I'm planning to write historical fiction in the future. My current story is set in the (relatively) present day in Austin, Texas. As with my other stories, there's tennis and at least one lesbian protagonist. Write what you know, right? It'll give your writing a ring of authenticity, right? Well, I know tennis, lesbians, and Austin. Can't get any more authentic than that. Let me just get it out there. After all it's the purpose of this blog. I have a few concerns. Oh, I'm good with the story and my ability to tell it. Those are usually my biggest worries when I start a new story. Am I worthy? Can I get it down on paper in a coherent fashion? Check and check. I also have the plot and main characters nailed down. Check. Check. So, what's my problem? Reality. Yes, reality. Let me backtrack. About ten years ago when I was blogging a lot and had a pretty goo...

There's a point when sanity stops being easy. Done right everyone will be fooled. They won't see the unraveling, won't even guess. It won't make it any better. Ok, maybe slightly better. Nothing worse than seeing people see the unraveling. Trust me on that one. It'll change a friendship. They say it won't. But it will. It will.   I structure my life a certain way. I haven't always but after teetering on a crumbling precipice a few years back, I don't have a choice. If I want to stay on this side of...well, if I want to stay on this side. Let's just go with that.   My goal is always to 'win today'. Not next month or even next week. One day. Today. Truly, it's all that matters. And once I win today, I can move on to tomorrow. Winning isn't always easy. Even with the most rigorous vigilance, things happen. Elbows get hurt and jobs change. In an instant, two of the three things that ensure sanity can abruptly di...

I'm odd. I think it goes without saying. I've never fit the standard textbook definition of "normal" and, you know, it's seldom bothered me. Oh, I'm not weird or strange. I mean not so much that people recoil from me or are embarrassed to be seen with me. I'm odd...like a square peg with rounded corners that almost ( almost ) fits into the round hole. I'm accepted not because I'm like everyone else; I'm accepted because I'm different. Odd, if you will. I'm not like anyone anyone will ever meet. Luckily, I've met a lot of people who like that sort of thing. I used to think that I was a truly square square peg. Don't get me wrong, I was ok with it. I was ok with never fitting in, being so different as to not be universally accepted. Because I was accepted enough. Usually by others who were a bit squared-off themselves. And that was ok, too. But just ok. I want to get it out there early that I have never willfully changed mysel...

I'm an introvert. For those who've met me, this is often hard to believe. I speak even before I'm spoken to. I use complete sentences. I don't run when I see people.  I have a high social IQ (and incidentally a high emotional IQ as well). I can speak to anyone and find something to talk about. I'm seldom at a loss for words. I have spectacular intuition and I'm good at reading people. I can be witty, sarcastic, and down-right fun to be around. Makes me an extrovert, right? Wrong.  I'm a textbook introvert. People drain me. I crave solitude. Too much distraction leaves me untethered mentally. I dislike being the center of attention. I prefer small groups over large ones (at a party, I'm usually the one petting the dog in a quiet corner) I have a small number of close friends. See? I'm an introvert.  Here comes the shocker.  I'm a fake. A pretender. An actor. I've gotten really good at the imitation game. I know wha...

She counted stars. One. Two. Three. And so on. Sometimes she feared that she over-counted. How was one to know one from another? She supposed she'd best go on faith. And, really, what would be the harm in counting a particular star or other twice? Or even three times? She reassured herself that it was the counting that mattered, not the accuracy of the count. Regardless, who was there to check her work? No one. Absolutely no one. It was impossible to know how many stars were in any given night sky and she had no time for anyone who presupposed that knowledge. Exactitude was boring and unnecessary. At least when it came to stars. Gas tanks and bank accounts. They needed exactitude. There was room for error in a night sky. She thought maybe that's why she liked to count stars so much. Maybe it was. Of course, maybe it wasn't. Sometimes it was better not to ask. She knew this. Yes, she knew this.

Alright, so I'm more than a non-reader. I hate it. Actually, I more than hate it. I despise it. Does "despise" indicate more than "hate"? It sounds like it does. Maybe if I read more, I'd be better able to tease out the nuances. But I digress... I'm sure the folks at the coffee place where I 'office' think I love to read. Hell, I do it all the time. When I'm not writing, I mean. Or flitting around the Internet. And there I go again... Digression at it's best. I'm stalling. I need to confess and I'm apparently not quite ready. Bless me Father for I have sinned... Isn't that how it goes? I did a bit of research on the Catholic Church when I was writing my novel, but I never delved into the confessional. I figured I'd seen enough movies to guess that part. Ok, ok. Here we go. I'm ashamed to admit this and I'm asking for absolution. I started reading post-graduate school for research purposes only. And I do mea...

There comes a point in life when we just gotta stop talking about it and start doing it. I know I'm not the perfect example of a life perfectly lived. I've made a number of questionable choices - mostly involving women, cross-country moves, and spending money (those may or may not be mutually exclusive). I've been a hot mess and a train wreck. I've herded cats and rounded up my share of monkeys, largely unsuccessfully. I truly don't have much to show for the first forty-seven years of my life. Except maybe my sanity, a couple nearly useless college degrees, and one unpublished novel. Trust me, though, when I say it's time to stop talking about it. What it? Any it. Or all of them. It may be trite to say that life is short. But it really is. And you only get this one. I guess that's trite as well. In this case, and I'm sure in many others, trite is true. Life is short and once it's over, it's over (Please don't make me debate religion here....

I have what most people would call a "dead-end" job. I work for a major big-box retailer. On the bottom rung. I'm not a manager, though I once was. I'm not a supervisor, though I once was. Two years ago, almost to the day, I left all that behind and became a worker. What I do for a living (ie. how I make my money) matters little to me. I mean as long as it's legal, pays me enough, and I enjoy it. Others seem far more concerned than I am. Oh, they rarely voice their opinions, but I can see the "look". It's part pity, part incredulous, part cognitive dissonance. Something doesn't add up. Surely Stacee is smart enough to have a better job. She sounds smart enough, intelligent even. I'm quite certain that I'm smart enough to have a "better" job. Incidentally, I'm also smart enough not to have one. I encourage others to do the same. Get this. I have minimal stress as I'm not "in charge" of a damn thing. I go to ...

"...we're all a part of nature. Some day the world will realize this, but meanwhile there's plenty of work that's waiting. For the sake of others like you, but less strong and less gifted perhaps, it's up to you to have the courage to make good..." ~ from The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1929, p. 205) Years ago a friend said something similar to me. I'd run into a few issues after posting a blog called "I'm a Girl, Part 2". Many of my readers, the closed-minded ones, didn't like my re-vision of what it meant to be a woman. When I threatened to quit writing, quit blogging, quit posting, she told me that I had to write, I had to blog, I had to post. Above all, I had to stand. Because unlike many, I was strong enough. And people needed my words. The closed-minded ones, sure, may never truly understand, but the ones like me...they needed to know they weren't alone. And so I kept writing. And I keep writing. Those who ha...

I have a lot of cool things going on this weekend - a wedding, a party, a trip to Sea World - and yet as I got off work last night (well, technically this morning), what I found myself looking forward to most was a book. A book. Seriously. Oh, not to worry. I'm still not a reader. I seldom read for pleasure; I read for education. Truly (and sadly), there are only so many ways to gather information about the world and its history. Reading happens to be the easiest and most accessible of those options. As much as I may hate it and begrudge it. So, this weekend I find myself anxiously (read: excitedly) on the cusp of a new book. And, incidentally, a bunch of new discoveries that will hopefully inform my writing. Ok, let's clear something up, lest anyone think I'm reading and thus educating myself for purely altruistic reasons. Get ready. Ready? I READ FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. If it looks like I'm having fun or I say I'm excited, it's only because I...

I've decided that I'm going to Sweden next year. I'm sure this statement begs a ba-jillion questions. I mean seriously, Sweden? Yes, Sweden. For real. Why??????? (1) I'm Swedish . Nope. Not like even 1-128th. Near as I can figure (without the assistance of genetic testing), my ancestors are mostly from lands to the south and east of Scandinavia. My mom's family came from Hungary and Romania but called themselves Germanic. My dad's family... I think some were German and others Scotch-English. But Scandinavian? Yeah, not so much. (2) Jag talar svenska . Again, nope. I'm hopelessly American and speak only English. That said, my goal is to learn enough Swedish to get around and not seem hopelessly American. After just ten days of lessons, I can already count to twenty, recite the days of the week, ask how you are, tell where I'm from, and say 'I love you'. It's a process and I'm traditionally not good at languages (just look at the way I ...

I still get asked occasionally why I went to graduate school. After all, I'm working at the same job for the same company. I didn't get a raise or a promotion or a new job. I guess to most people, the two years I spent getting a Masters in Liberal Arts (affectionately called an MLA) at St. Edward's University were for nothing. "So, what you're saying, Stacee, is that you got a $53k diploma to hang on your wall?" Sure, that's what I'm saying, if that's what you want to believe. Many people think that everything undertaken has to have financial purpose or at least boost one's standing in the world. My degree does neither. I knew it wouldn't. It was far from the point when I started. Interestingly, I went to St. Eds to get back into academia after more than twenty years away. I had my sights set on an advanced degree in divinity (specifically an MDiv from Harvard University) and I was going to need a few academically oriented recommendations...

I suppose there may come a day when I will think I'm too old. What age will that be? Fifty? Sixty-seven? Eighty-two? One hundred and five? I wonder... Because...there's a part of me that believes, if I keep moving, keep thinking, keep creating, I can be truly ageless. They say it'll catch up to me, though I'm still not sure what "IT" is. Age? Frailty? Weakness? I can't believe it'll happen. I can't. I have to believe in the exact opposite. I have to believe that it won't, that it can't. The mind, the brain - they get in the way. People say, "I'm twenty five. I'm too old." Then they're forty and still too old. Then sixty, then... It never ends. I'd rather take age out the equation. Since turning forty - an age when many are packing it in - I restarted my tennis career, wrote my first short story, completed my first novel, finished my master's degree, ran four half marathons, and donated ten inches of my ha...