I’m a sucker for subscription boxes because they’re monthly gifts I give to myself! It’s basically self-care.But please don’t call me “Mama.” I am not your mother. I’m a mother to a little dragon, warrior princess.I make it in a crockpot and substitute the beer for red wine because beer is gross. I wasn’t terrible I just never learned! Anyone can cook if they have the right tools and follow a good recipe. I had an ex who told me I was a terrible cook he never let me in the kitchen. It’s rational because I’ve had multiple “lightning striking in the same place” encounters with spiders that have left me justifiably mortal enemies with them. Music is my other passion it awakens my soul. I sing classical music with my duet partner.I love video games, specifically video games that let me live out my fantasy of farming without actually farming.Bonus red flag points if they’re wearing a wallet attached to a chain or cargo shorts. If a man person tells me they also play DnD but they’re always a rogue, I immediately know two things: 1.My favorite classes were bard (don’t hate bards are amazing) and sorcerer. I used to play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, but I’m retired now.They’re missing some nails, so I’ve propped up the shelves with bobby pins. They started out as white but are now closer to a “smoker’s teeth” white. They’re broken, second-hand fixtures, and I love them so much. I stuff all of my books into two dangerous bookshelves.I never thought I’d grow up to be a literal princess, but the work is exhausting flexible and messy fun and mostly worth it when I make a kid smile. I moonlight as a Disney non-copyrighted princess for an entertainment company.I’m on the board of two community theatres, direct shows, act and sing, but please don’t ask me to dance, it’s for your own sake. They coated the chicken in the devil’s blood, I swear. I’ve only had one thing that was too spicy: some death wings from this tiny pizza place in Pennsylvania. I like ghost peppers, red sauce, jalapenos, cayenne pepper, hot honey, and I add red pepper flakes to almost everything. Spicy food reminds me I’m alive and also that I can die.They’re technically not kittens anymore, but they never got very big, so they’re forever-babies. The other two are rescue kittens named Klaus and Noelle. You can see pictures of her on my Instagram. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at math, so writing it is. When I’m not reading, I’m writing, thinking about writing, lamenting about writing, or wondering why I continue writing when I could be a very successful accountant with a steady day job, a mid-range car, and a mug that says “I hate Mondays” but unironically. I put my finished debut novel (with both endings) on the family bookshelf next to the Bible because that’s where it belongs. Everyone cheers, including the do-nothing lifeguard I drew in red crayon. So, I added an alternative ending where a fisherman rescues Tommy. My book was a bit morbid, even for seven.
Ignoring that Tommy is a turtle and could probably swim just fine, I end the tale with a giant oceanic whirlpool dragging him to the uncharted depths of the sea because I was irrationally afraid of rogue whirlpools when I was seven. Tommy laments the shrinking shoreline, struggles to swim, and encounters a school of fish who mock his pain. He runs away while at the beach, and a rogue wave representing the chaos of death (I assume, as I colored the wave black and wrote “death” with an arrow pointing at it) drags him out to sea. The story was an Aesop’s fable-inspired tale of a wild young turtle struggling with the unfair chains of authority (his mom). I also illustrated the whole thing because I couldn’t afford an artist on my seven-year-old allowance. I wrote my first book at age 7 called “Tommy the Turtle at the Beach.” I wrote it in green crayon on wrinkled construction paper and glued the ends together like real darn published book.