Notes from the Red Bird House

Here are ten things I learned, figured out, observed, or discovered today, Thursday, May 31. It's not that today is any different than any other. I try to learn something about either the world-at-large or myself everyday. Today, though, I'm procrastinating what I should be writing by writing this (i.e. what I don't need to be writing). And that leads to the first 'thing' on my list. As always with these kinds of posts, the order is completely (and probably oddly) random. (1) I can procrastinate writing with writing with the best of them. Writer's block? Eh, I'll just write something different. There are almost always words swirling around my head. More often than not, they aren't the right words, but writing is writing, right? Well, sort of. Unless it's a business. Which it is. Today, unfortunately, it just happens to be an unproductive business. Hey, the other day I fucked off on my own dime planning a vacation. At least today I'm producing

I don't know why it took so long. Thinking back on my indecision, the obvious answer was right in front of me the whole time...and yet, I couldn't see it. Maybe it was peer pressure, the repeated questioning why. Why do you keep going to same places? Why haven't  you been to London, Paris, Madrid, Rome,{fill in the blank with a major European capital not in Scandinavia}? Why Scandinavia? Why are you going to Sweden...again? Not that I've ever been one to cave to peer pressure, but I guess I just felt like I should go somewhere different, i.e. non-Scandinavian. I vacillated between Croatia and Malta, contemplated Portugal for a half a second, and even considered Poland. Then after a conversation with a friend I realized exactly how stupid I'd been. The trip I'm planning is for my fiftieth birthday next March. It's a major milestone and I want to do it justice and celebrate it right. The big decision is where I will spend my birthday, the actual day - where

Last week when I was on vacation, I read an entire book (Dan Brown's Origin ) in four days. I haven't read a book that fast since finishing grad school. Time was of the essence. I borrowed the book from my sister's vast collection (most is much more literary than Dan Brown, by the way) and, though she probably would have been ok with me bringing it back to Texas, it was a hefty hard cover and would have been difficult to fit in my small carry-on. So, I read and read and read. Morning, occasionally afternoon, and all evening. On the morning of my last day, I turned the final page. Done. With a sense of accomplishment I hadn't felt in a quite awhile, I put the dust jacket back on and returned it to its place on my sister's book shelves. How did I do it? How did I read nearly 500 pages in four days? Something I would never, ever, ever attempt at home? Ready?  I didn't watch any TV . Ok, I watched one movie ("Dunkirk") one evening, but that was it. Ok, I

I suppose it's time. I've long maintained that being honest about who you are is the quickest route to respect. And, while I've been able to easily speak most of my truth, there's one small piece that has proven more difficult. I suppose I thought I'd stop, do something different, write something different. Eventually different ideas would come....but they haven't. The stories that rattle around my head, the ones I get down on "paper", all have one thing in common. One. Well, two. And both are a bit...well, embarrassing. To me. I have two university degrees and I'm almost fifty. I should be above this, past it. However, as I sit here mere inches from the official release of my first novel, I realize that it might end up my claim to fame. I should probably own it. All of it. What two things do my stories all have in common? I have issues with both so let's take each in turn. (1) Romance. When I was a teenager, and a near light-year away f

"Even though I'm wide awake my dreams are coming true..."  [It's from my favorite Anne Murray song (She was one of my mom's go-tos during her brief country phase) and I'm sure that makes me a HUGE NERD. Won't be the first time, though...or the last.] Dreams have taken center stage lately. They aren't all the vivid, searing, wake-you-up-keep-you-up-for-an-hour-after-get-lost-in-daydreams-the-next-day kind of dreams (not that there haven't been a few of those tossed into the mix), but they are there and they are coming true with an alarming rate of speed. We don't (yet) need an egg timer - the Gregorian calendar still works just fine - however four years ago I had no idea how far I'd come in such a short period of time. Hell, even six months ago I couldn't have predicted this. And truly, I believe to the depths of my soul, the sky's the limit. ~~ Once upon a time, my dream was to write a novel... It doesn't take any

I've learned something about myself and vacations the past couple of days. I'm on my third week of vacation in less than two months (I won't get another until October and then the next will be March 2019 so don't be too jealous) which gives me a unique perspective on both of us (meaning me and vacations). And here's the thing - I don't take them. Not like a normal person anyway. My sister, for example, is in Hawaii this week and thus far she has hung out at a cool resort, been on a boat excursion of some kind, and now today she's snorkeling. That's a vacation. She's not grading papers (she's a university professor) and I don't think she's gone to a Body Pump or Body Combat class (her preferred workouts) since leaving the mainland on Tuesday. Pam is normal. What have I done with my Las Vegas vacation thus far? Let me explain it this way - Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop writing this. Ok, so the material is about vacationing

I know I've been writing about more serious topics lately, but I need to touch on another topic just for a moment. I don't want to keep you long so I'll get right to it. Something's gotta give with this hair. Seriously. I shaved my head (If you're familiar with clippers, I used the #4 guard so I didn't SHAVE my head. Mom, please don't panic) about a month before I went to Europe in March. I wanted it to grow out a little before I left but still be short enough that I didn't have to pack a brush and could get away with using crappy travel shampoo for two weeks (Look, when you only pack one pair of shoes and a week's worth of underthings, there's no way you're going to take up space for hair care). It worked out well for the trip. My hair was long enough not to draw unwanted attention for being an American skin-head freak but short enough it didn't require product other than a 2 in 1 body/hair soap. Now, it's mid-May and I've go

I'm in Las Vegas this week with my dad. My sister, who normally provides his once daily daily care - meds and eye drops - is in Hawaii. A year ago, my dad was living in San Diego and I would have discovered that my sister was in Hawaii on Facebook. A lot has changed in a relatively short period of time. I can't say we're all ecstatic - I really enjoyed my annual trips to San Diego and my dad said just yesterday how he wishes he was there and not here. We resolved...well...more me than him...that there are times that we have to embrace what is and make the best of it. Truthfully, we don't have many options. Dad is where he needs to be - a very nice assisted living facility less than a mile from my sister's house in Las Vegas. My sister visits him once a day to make sure that he gets his eye drops and his medication (at ninety, he's only on two prescription medications). I visit every six weeks or so and, like this week, provide coverage so my sister can take va

Let me begin by saying that I'm beyond blessed. "Blessed". It's a common phrase here in the South. I don't know if I ever heard anyone refer to themselves as "blessed" until I moved to Texas fifteen years ago. Now, I hear it all the time. "Have a blessed day." In response to "How are you?" "I am blessed." And apparently I've heard it so much that I've begun saying it. Part of me must believe it. Of course, I DO NOT believe that my blessings come from a higher power, like 99.9% of the people around me who say it. I'm simply using the term because...well, I don't know why. Maybe I should say that I'm beyond lucky. But, you know, it's more than luck. Or not quite luck. It's something else. Yes, I'm lucky. But I'm also blessed. Because, God knows, I'm not lucky. I never win at random stuff. I win at things that come from hard work. Not that blessings necessarily come from hard work... Or t