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About the 17-year-old...
I need to vent today, and maybe even get some advice. And although there is no way to catch you up on what has transpired in however many years, I'm reminded that this is a pretty safe place for this ( Read more... ) -
ABNA: Second Round
I got cut out at the quarter-final stage of the novel contest. It's O.K. Now I'm free to take this novel to the Writer's Institute next month, during which I'm scheduled to give an 8-minute pitch to an agent. If Getting It Right, my "coming-of-age novel about faith, fear, family, and love in a time of historic cultural upheaval" were still tied up ( Read more... ) -
Word of the {Year}
vicissitude
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How can I be only 6% unique, but weirder than 92%??
So, zoe_1418, your LiveJournal reveals…
You are… 6% unique (blame, for example, your interest in western two-step), 39% peculiar, 32% interesting, 19% normal and 4% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy walking). When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are wary of trusting strangers. ( Read more... ) -
Some good books for mourners
Healing the Adult Child's Grieving Heart ( Read more... ) -
Eight Sundays ago
It's been eight weeks since my mother died. And as I often have done on those Sundays since, I was awake around 5:30 this morning. But my mourning mood has mostly come to me later, as I've been spending the day alone, cleaning and doing laundry and doing dishes and doing little things for the sake of grief and remembrance: sent a message to a ( Read more... ) -
Ruth Joan Brechbill Lehman. 1920-2012.
Dear friends,
My mother's spirit went with the angels into God's loving embrace, this morning at about 5:15 (eastern time). I got here around midnight and spent some time talking to her, although she was not conscious. I joined two of my brothers (John and Fred); our brother Don is on his way.
Mom's blessing (she pronounced it upon everyone who ( Read more... ) -
Wait -- he thinks we CAN'T? What?
Last night at Target, I overheard a perky young manager talking to a couple of shelf-stocker employees: "And after your lunch break, I want you to...blah, blah..." Then some murmuring back and forth (grumbling?). Then the manager again, in his best encouraging voice: "I want you guys to know that I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think you ( Read more... ) -
First sentence of first post in each month in 2011 thing...
January: On the first day of 2011 I stayed in my pajamas until 3:30 pm, and wrote three pages in my (paper) journal.
February: On Feb. 14, 1998,
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The stomach bug that ate my conference
I'm home from NWSA in Atlanta. I missed a lot of it due to the bug that hit me, rather mildly for the first couple of days and then with a vengeance for the last two. Yikes, that was un-fun. I'm home again now (a day later than planned -- had to postpone my flight home and extend my hotel stay because I wasn't well enough to travel on Sunday) and ( Read more... )