Twelve True Confessions

So FIRST I want to give a few celebratory shout outs... Happy Winter Solstice to Y'all! It is a holiday MEANT for nudity because that is how one communes with nature and moonlight. It's a special one, too—how often is there a lunar eclipse on the winter solstice? Maybe it will open an era of enlightenment if enough people JUST GET NAKED! (it can't hurt, yeah?)

[side note... solstice really WAS originally about enlightenment... in a way... as the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, the daylight hours begin to grow... it only gets lighter from here.]

And it is ALSO the BIRTHDAY of my fabulous friend Jan (who I know supports the nudist movement and just yesterday posted pictoral proof she was one with trees, so it all goes together, see...) So be sure to go over and wish Jan a Happy Birthday, and PROMISE HER you will get naked to celebrate the solstice the way it was meant to be.



So in honor... a little soul baring...

1...Michael from The Office (US version) makes me actively hostile. Like I want to scream or choke somebody. That kind of ignorance is not amusing. Ever. Yet my family all loves the show. I am subjected to it regularly. If you ever see me online acting like a real bitch, it is because somebody at my house is watching The Office.

2...At age 11 I had a deep and abiding Shaun Cassidy crush. My entire bedroom wall was covered in posters, mostly torn from the center of Tiger Beat Magazine. When my aunt had a baby (her second) and couldn't think of a boy's name, she asked me and I suggested Shaun. She didn't want it, but DID go for Andy (suggested for Andy Gibb—a second choice crush who had fabulously sent back an autographed picture to my friend Peggy—Peg, you still have that Andy Gibb pic?--you've been OUTED by the way). By 7th grade celebrity crushes were no longer cool. I don't know if my friends gave them up earnestly or not. I only went into hiding.

3...I had pet rats as a kid and have maintained a soft spot for most rodents (in fact pretty much all but the sewer rat and the ROUS). My uncle, to raise a little money, used to breed white lab rats and so I had a stream of them as pets. They typically lived about a year, but I had one that lived about three (which according to Harry Potter and the pet store worker at the Magical Menagerie is about normal). Not one of them ever turned into a beady-eyed traitorous man, but BELIEVE ME, I felt Ron's shock when it happened to him.

4...The primary theme to the second book of my trilogy was largely inspired by the Offspring Song 'You're Gunna Go Far Kid'. It is pretty much about a kid who joins a group of art thieves because he thinks they will lead to his mother who's been abducted, but he undergoes a sort of Stockholm Syndrome transformation while he's with them.

5...When I was 21 there was a Grateful Dead Lost Weekend where I tried 'magic mushrooms'. In my trip I was 'living the book I was writing'... meaning in my head I was only writing the book as we actually did everything. Yeah... it doesn't make much sense without the drugs... It was a helluva weekend though. And I somehow think only a writer would think it was more fun WRITING about it than doing it...



6...I was a slow reader as a kid—it just was hard for me. And I didn't particularly LIKE it... I was sure it would never be my thing but in 4th grade the teachers split the classes for reading and math into high and low... I was put in high of both (for math, I belonged there) but my teacher would not let me move to low reading. She insisted I was capable but not applying myself. I worked. It got a little better. And then a little better. And then a little better. A couple years ago I had the chance to thank Mrs. Burnham for not letting me quit—she was the teacher who made me believe I was smart. That made her cry.

7...I REALLY REALLY have always wanted to have a paranormal experience... see a ghost... have a vision... even have a spooky feeling turn out to be true... but you know what? NOT. A. STITCH. I am (sadly) completely grounded in the here and now. Whatever that inner eye is... me and Hermione are in the same place. I had a neighbor though, who said there was a woman who hung out with my husband... when she described the woman, Mr. Tart said it sounded like his mom. I wonder if she followed us to Michigan.

8...I still have some clothes from high school. *shifty* Not a lot... a couple t-shirts... leg-warmers... (yes, I still wear them)... erm... did I mention I graduated high school in 1984?

9...My first novel I tried to REALLY WRITE (as opposed to minor plotting and maybe a chapter) was HORROR and based on a computer game I had for my Macintosh... The game was called Creepy Castle... Man I had fun... Had I known how the thing ended, I might have even come back to it.

10...I had a really major earring fetish in high school and college. You know... the handy thing about a fetish like that is people always know what to get you for gifts, so I still have a large collection of very cool earrings... funny... anymore I only have a couple pairs I wear that often... Still, I love to have them.

11...I first emerged as a nudist at age 2. I hated being WET. Mom says I was very easy to potty train. But we had a kiddie pool at our duplex... I would get in the water, sit, stand up, remove my suit, and then sit again to play. None of that wet fabric nonsense for ME! I was first DUBBED a nudist by my friend Candy in high school, probably because she knew I preferred to SLEEP naked. I didn't actually EMBRACE being a nudist (erm... other than the sleeping and the skinny dipping parts) until the formation of the Naked World Domination Tour some four or five years ago...

12...My mom has made 'near snuggies' for my kids... two fleece blankets sewn together... I am sitting in one now...

So there. Now you know my deepest secrets...