Notes from the Red Bird House

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 Except maybe my sanity, a couple nearly useless college degrees, and one unpublished novel.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'