Pride Photos 2015

I know, it was months ago. I'm way behind. Lost SD card, busy summer, it all adds up.

What have I been up to all summer? Well, I'm editing and helping with social media management for BGP Publishing. They are a joy to work with, and I'm having a blast! Also, I'm offering an editing deal in the month of September, so check that out on their website.

My short story Degenerate Island was published in the Arlington Literary Journal this summer. I have mixed feelings about this story, so I'd love to hear your opinions!

Also, I'm going to start trying to blog more regularly now that summer is officially over. I want to start doing a kind of advice column for writers. Any suggestions on starting topics? What do you want to know?

So, here's my photos from Pride 2015:

Fires and Stress: Subtitled "Amanda Palmer Review, Part 2"

Sunday night, the same day I posted my review of Amanda Palmer's new book about relying on strangers and asking for help, I get home to the apartment we've lived in for less than a week, after working a 10 hour shift. I'm attempting to fix a washing machine that won't run and suddenly someone is banging on our window yelling "That house is on fire!" I look out our door and the third floor of the apartment building directly behind ours has flames billowing out of it. 

We all spring into action. My wife is yelling, neighbors are trying to help us catch and crate the animals. They are all hiding among unpacked boxes. I fling a tool box (broke it, oops) and push the washing machine aside to get one cat. A stranger upsets one of our beds to get another cat. A bookshelf is toppled and books are everywhere. Our sixteen year old niece is standing on the sidewalk crying into a stranger's arms. Another man is on the sidewalk getting his arms scratched to shreds by our cat who hates strangers (but thankfully he isn't letting her go. He's a hero). And my wife is in the car counting cats. She's screaming. "We don't have Poppy. (her mother's cat we are babysitting) Where's Poppy?" I'm trying to remain in action and calm my family, counting animals. Counting again. We are definitely missing Poppy. One of our crates has broken and the door isn't secure so a stranger removes her shoelaces and ties it shut for us. Another stranger is giving my wife candy and water to help her glucose levels. So many people helped us. So many.

Then they turn on a firehose. It surrounds my car. I can't leave.

I go back to the house three times. At one point a group of high school students leads me through a path they know that gets me to our place faster. A chunk of burning charcoal falls right in front me. I've never seen anything so terrifying and beautiful. I get shoes for my wife and niece. I get my laptop. I get my wife's laptop. I get my grandmother's coffee cup, the only thing I own I would cry over if it was lost. But I can't find the missing cat. I describe her to a few neighbors, ask them to watch for her. I shine a flashlight under every porch I pass. Finally, I call a really good friend who lives nearby. She comes down and parks on the other side of the firehose. We put all the animals in her car. We take my wife and niece to her house. My wife at this point looks like she's about to collapse She has chronic health issues, we hadn't eaten dinner yet, and she has done more in two hours than she can physically do in a week. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. 

My friend lives upwind, but the smoke is still thick enough that it's starting to collect in her house. She has a one year old who was a premie baby so she's worried about his lungs. She has two very stressed out dogs. And all of our animals in her basement/spare room. 

And we are still missing a cat. 

So, I go back to the house. A fireman stops me, "You can't go in there right now. Your house isn't going to burn, it's safe from that, but there was a gas line explosion in the burning building and it's too close to be safe." Thinking fast, knowing he may not let me back in for a cat, I say, "My wife is at a friend's house up the street, she's got asthma. I need her nebulizer." He says okay, but he's going with me. (Sooty boots on my brand new white carpets! Did I mention my OCD? Even in this insanity I worried about his boots.) He follows me in. On instinct I reach behind the couch and pull out the missing cat. I don't know exactly how I knew where she was, I just knew all of a sudden. I crate her in a cloth crate and fling it over my shoulder. The fireman laughs at me because he realizes I lied to him to get the cat. I walk back to my friend's house with the cat, through the smoke, through throngs of people, with a 17 pound bag of cat food on one shoulder and a nine pound cat on my other. 

Our wonderful friends, who I've known since high school, order pizza and loan my wife an asthma inhaler (since I still hadn't grabbed her nebulizer.) They give me clothes to wear (at one point I ran through a firehose, so my work clothes are drenched.) 

I pack the wife and asthmatic niece up and take them to the hotel I work in. And we all crash. We are able to return the next day. We open windows and run fans. Can't park in the driveway because it's covered in broken pieces from the burnt place. A friend and a coworker fix our washing machine and get our dryer hooked up.

So, again, I had to put all that Art of Asking to work. Thank you Amanda Palmer, for making me feel okay in trusting strangers. I trusted them. And they delivered.

The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer: Book Review

I hate asking for help. I don't like asking for someone to loan me money. I don't like asking to borrow a vehicle. I don't like bumming a ride. I don't like asking for a shoulder to cry on. I am a chronically independent person.

I think it was kismet that while I was reading this book I was also moving into a new apartment with almost no notice and no money. In the last week I've asked to borrow vehicles, washing machines, time, hugs and muscle power. I've had to ask for more favors than I ever cared to ask for. Luckily, I had Amanda Palmer's love of the world to help me in humbling myself and trusting my amazing family and friends, my personal network, in this process. (By the way, thank you to our friends and family who helped!)            

The Art of Asking

I've been a fan of Amanda Palmer, indie rock star turned author in this memoir/self-help-book/business-guide, since her Dresden Dolls days. I performed as the "Coin-Operated Boy" in a drag show performance of her popular song just months after I turned twenty-one and could legally go to bars. She has inspired me to put my art out there, to be true to who I am and to be okay with exposing my darkest and deepest self to the world in the way an artist must. Many people have discovered her through her endlessly inspirational TED Talk.

Amanda Palmer loves. She has an ongoing love affair with her fans, her husband, the world itself. She loves people. She loves life, even when she hates it. She loves the entire human family. And her love of the human family, the things we are capable of and the things we sometimes fail at, seeps out of every line of this book. This book will make you want to trust, want to love, want to feel comfortable relying on people, even in moments when you are making yourself incredibly vulnerable.

Palmer details her controversial experiences with media and social media. She describes some of her big mistakes in life, and some incredibly difficult positions she's been put in. But throughout the whole thing she is telling a story about how to rewrite our relationship with artists, and our relationships with fan if we are artists. She is allowing us, as a society, to entertain the idea of returning to embracing our artists, welcoming them back into the arms of society and off the pedestal, off the red carpet and from behind the velvet rope. She is telling a story about embracing the Indie artist as valid and real without a label or publishing house or art review telling us they are valid and real. She is telling artists to rely on their fans to help them, financially, emotionally and in building a rewarding career. To build a rewarding network of fans and followers that can catch the artist when she falls and boost her up when she succeeds.

Palmer is validating the artist who only sells a few hundred prints as just as important to the world as the one showing in art galleries in New York or Paris. She is validating the musician who performs for free at their friend's birthday parties as just as much a musician as the one topping the best-sellers lists. She is validating the self-published blogger who is just as much a writer as the one being reviewed in the New York Times.

This book is going to be a part of a collection of books that I return to often when I need a social and moral boost. Palmer reminds the reader that we are all human, we are all connected and we all need to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to be flawed. To be exactly what we are and to be proud of that.

The Art of Asking, like so many books, came to me exactly when I needed it, and I'll forever be grateful for it. I can't wait to finish unpacking my new apartment and place it in its rightful place beside the other books that inspire me to love life.

Next I'm reading:

Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World

Calendar of Regrets

Key Largo, Montego, Baby Why Don't We Go...

South of the Border in South Carolina

I am a woman of routine. I get up, make coffee, check my social networking, shower, dress, go to work/school, read, write. When I do something out of the routine it is well-planned. I make lists. I look at maps. I research and read and plan.

Which is why when my wife called me at work on a Saturday and said, "we need to leave tonight for Miami," I had a mini-heart attack. Until that moment I had managed to spend twenty nine years of my life in New England. I have always wanted to travel further, but the opportunity (and money) never arose with the amount of planning and forethought I require.

Due to a series of unfortunate events my mother-in-law needed to travel quickly from her sailboat in Key Biscayne to Maine. Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances there was no way for her to fly the distance back. She (and her two cats) needed a ride.

So in what is either the smartest or craziest thing I've ever done I asked my (very kind and understanding) boss for two days off from work, came home and did some mad-rush packing. Found someone (a couple of people actually) to care for the animals left behind. Packed up the ones who weren't staying home. I cooked, cut and prepared every bit of perishable food in our fridge and put it into two coolers. Packed clothing for all four seasons and by seven that night we were in the car.

Sunrise in Islemorada

This little guy spent breakfast with us (I think my wife took this shot.)

Over the next fifty three hours we drove from Old Orchard Beach, ME, to Jupiter, FL. In one day I drove through NYC, Washington DC, Baltimore. By the third day I had driven in Jacksonville and Miami, FL.

View of Miami out the back of the sailboat

We spent one day at a resort on Islemorada in the Keys. We did a little kayaking, I'm not quite sure how my muscles put up with that after all that driving but it was beautiful. We swam in a lukewarm ocean, then soaked in a hot tub. We talked to people from Iowa and Canada and Georgia who were staying in the resort.

Chia is lookout.

The next day we drove up to Key Biscayne and picked up mom. We took a dive off the back of her sailboat into the bay, saw a few porpoises, collected a few shells and finally loaded up all the kitties into the car for the long drive back.

In one week we put over 3,000 miles on my fabulous Nissan Sentra. (I love my car!) So glad we had just put new tires and had an oil change and fluids checked a week before this random trip!

Along with pneumonia (grr) I came back with a dozen story ideas, but more importantly a few ideas of how to fix a few I'm already working on. And some idea of what is most important in trying to portray the feeling of Maine in my historical fiction collection versus the feeling of other places. It was a wonderful, kind of scary experience but I'm glad we did it. Hopefully next time we can actually relax in a few places along the way and perhaps hit a few museums or theaters.

Craft On!

Our house has been a mass of holiday crafts for the last four days. Yarn, leather, beads and buttons. Glue guns and thread and paint. This, to me, is Christmas.

I grew up in a home where we didn't have money. We didn't always have the supplies I needed for school or the extra money for souvenirs on a field trip. In fact, we didn't always have electricity or heat. We spent some time when I was a teen living in my grandparent's camp, complete with outhouse and oil lamps. 

But we always had art supplies. For Easter I got a sketchbook and for Christmas I got crayons. My grandmother's taught me to sew and make latch hook rugs and my grandfather showed me to tap trees for maple syrup. My father turned the tops of tin cans into Christmas ornaments and used dried apples to make angels for tree toppers. Everything we owned or could find in the woods was a potential craft item.

We also, of course had the library where I could check out ten books at a time. Many things were variables and the ground didn't always feel steady, but I always had books and crafts to turn to.

So the other day when a particularly obnoxious commercial played during Big Bang Theory my wife and I began talking about how much we dislike shopping. (Speaking of which, a message to all advertisers: If you could stop badly rewriting the lyrics to Christmas songs and making people sing them in a round that'd be great.) She said, "ya know what? I'm Native American. I have been taught to make clothes and make drums. So really, why buy it when you can make it?"

That's been running through my head ever since. I really wanted a green winter hat to go with my green scarf so I made one… Unfortunately it was my first time knitting in the round and it's a bit too small for me. But I have a nephew it will fit and I have more green yarn!

I read this article in the Boston Globe last week and found it really encouraging. I hope it is a sign that there is a growing interest in crafting. Just last week a ten year old girl walked through my lobby carrying a skein of yarn and two knitting needles. Craft on, little ones! Why buy it when you can make it?

Just Give Me Stories

My paternal grandmother used to say that all the time. "Just give me stories." My aunt, 10 years old when I was born, first introduced me to music on television. Country Music Television, MTV, live concerts on Public Broadcasting. I felt really cool, like a cool teenager, when she watched these with me. 

I distinctly remember being 7 or 8 watching a music video with her while Gram was working on Thanksgiving pies and Gram saying, "I don't want to watch this, give me stories." We tried to convince her the videos had a story but she wasn't interested. Music was for singing, television and books were for stories.

(That's Gram singing with my grandfather.)

Gram didn't really care what the story was. She would watch soap operas just as willingly as watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with me. (I kind of idolized April.) As long as whatever was on her television was a story. A clear, beginning to end, story. A story she could get wrapped up in, believe in.

I have been thinking a lot about the kind of writer I want to be. Recently I have read quite a bit of experimental fiction, the entire Harry Potter series over the summer, and I just finished Stephen Crane's "As I Lay Dying." I also have been reading a lot of literary journals/magazines. As I have been working through all this reading from these distinctly different genres I have been thinking about the kind of writer I want to be.

I, just like my Gram, like stories. Fiction or nonfiction, it doesn't matter. If it is clear, descriptive and I can get lost in a different time and place with characters I can love or hate I am happy. It is important to me that I write intelligently. It is important to me that I make some sort of impact on the world, even if it is just that one person one time sees something in a brighter light because of one of my stories. 

But it is mostly important to me that I create stories. 

I don't need to be a literary writer or a genre writer. I don't care if my pieces are worthy of awards or turned into made for TV movies. I care about stories.

Just give me stories.

Side note: my maternal grandmother was a librarian. In it any wonder I am addicted to the written word when women like those two were influencing me when I was young?

Selling Rings & Scams

One night my girlfriend met me at a restaurant in a city about an hour away from the apartment I was living in. She presented me with an unopened rose and said she was going to buy me dinner. "It's been a long drive so this rose is kind of wilting, I'm going to put it in water," she said, hustling off to the bathroom. She came back with the rose in a water glass of warm water.

We ate a lovely dinner, I believe I ordered salmon. That sounds about right. About halfway through dinner she said, "smell that rose, it smells amazing." I leaned over the rose, which had started blooming in the warm water on the table and the light glinted off it. In the center of the rose was this beautiful ring.

I said yes, of course.

Within weeks, however, I remembered that I'm a bull in a china closet. I walk into walls, slam this beautiful ring into my forehead. Anything I can to injure myself or the ring, basically.

So we decided to sell the ring. I listed it on Craigslist, a wonderful site I have used many times before. I've had two bites. One backed out within a few hours. The other one is a bit more of a story.

I received the email just before one of my classes began yesterday. "Is your item still for sale?" My hackles went up. My "item" and not my ring? Hm... Seemed fishy. But I texted the man per his instructions in the email. Yes, it's for sale. 

What happened next was a series of text messages about how he wanted it as a birthday gift for his girlfriend, he would PayPal me the money, plus a little extra for shipping. Once I received the money I would ship it right to his girlfriend's house. I played along. 

I received the email he said I would, however since I have used PayPal many times before I am fully aware of what is and isn't supposed to happen in a PayPal transaction. I know PayPal has never sent things to my junk mail before, the emails always come through with a PayPal header and html and PayPal knows my name, they don't address me by my email address.

At this point I knew my suspicions were correct. This was a scam. However, he didn't stop. He continued to text message me telling me I just needed to click on the link in the email. Desperate for me to click on it, almost. So I took my last step. I went to Google with his phone number.

This is what I found: 800 Notes.

And many other sites showing the same exact thing. 

Aside from the fact that I wasted much time emailing and texting this jerk, I also was very disappointed to have still not sold the ring. I am financially strained right now anyway because of a series of health issues in the household and I really was hoping to sell it, move on to getting a new ring and use the extra money for some school supplies and such that we are lacking. I am now on to different ways of trying to sell it. It's listed on Ebay if anyone is interested. Of course, if a reader approached me about it the price may be more negotiable.

Be Your Own Advocate

The last two months have been crazy. I am at the new job at the hotel, which I love and we had final exams. The week before the exams my partner ended up in the hospital and eventually had surgery. Now we're at the long ever exhausting healing part of the surgery, however it appears there were two issues going on at once and they haven't yet identified the second one.

Financial nightmare, btw.

Since I haven't been able to post (or do much of anything) the last few weeks now that I can I figured I would share the lesson I've learned in medical care.

BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE.

We went into the hospital April 15th pretty sure that we already knew what was wrong. All her symptoms said gall bladder failure. The doctors told us that it wasn't her gall bladder because there was nothing on the ultrasound. It had to be something else. They sent us home and told us to wait for a visit with her primary care physician.

Two weeks and four hospital visits, three doctors visits and multiple specialists later and the doctors finally agreed with us and removed her gall bladder. It was failing the entire time but they didn't run the right scan until we insisted on it. Her mother, sister and I told the doctors exactly what scan they needed to run to prove what we already knew.

Through years of working with Autism I have seen a lot of evidence as to why someone must advocate for themselves, but never to this extent. We were actually told by one doctor that it was just gas and that the extreme pain she was feeling must be in her head.

Do not let a doctor's opinion be your last call if your instincts are telling you otherwise.

(Oh, and somewhere in that few weeks I got an acceptance letter on a poem I wrote which will be published in an annual journal this winter. More on that later.)

Gram's Coffee Cup

Whenever you are asked that ever popular party question, "if your house was on fire what would you save?" What is your response?

Mine is this coffee cup. Of course given enough time I would also want to save my external hard drive and my trunk of journals. And the pets come above all material objects. But this coffee cup is what I would save.

I would save it because when I hold the handle I remember what her hands looked like holding it, and the sound of her laughter while she played a game of Yahtzee.

When I see the coffee stains in it I remember how her house smelled always of coffee and the woods.

I keep the obituaries of all my grandparents, my uncle, and a few other special items in it.

I miss my gram, some days more than others.

Another Year of Blogging

This will be a quick post as I am quite sick and plan to ring in the new year on the couch with a giant stack of books.

I created my first blog in 1999, around the same time the term "blog" was being coined. Since then I have gone through multiple websites including LiveJournal, MyDiary.org and Blogspot. I have had numerous blogs, some focused on a particular topic, some personal. 

This blog has become a mash-up of all of the other blogs. It includes some of my  poetry, photos, my personal life, my political views and my career aspirations. I kind of enjoy that because I don't feel like I am tied down to a topic, nor do I feel pressured to write on a topic that I've lost interest in. 

In 2013 I am hoping to blog more often and I would like to create more dialogue between myself and my readers. 

With that in mind, what would you like to read on my blog in the upcoming year? I have posted much of my political views on Facebook and Twitter, primarily because it is quick and easy. I could move more of those to blogspot or I could stick with more about my writing and my personal life.

You tell me. 

Stay safe as you welcome in 2013!

"Here's my Christmas speech. Ahem. 'Thank you all, and Merry Christmas.'"

For today a lighter topic. Some of my favorite Christmas ornaments and the story behind each.

Trisha's electric guitar ornament I bought for her.

My wine glass, because red wine and Christmas just go together.

Although I don't have many people who call me Trina anymore, I did as a child. My grandmother made this for me when I was little.

I am a bit obsessed with holiday villages. I began to collect mine my first Christmas on my own when I was eighteen years old and I continue to add to it whenever I can.

Viewing my grandmother's Christmas tree always had two steps. First we had to view it with just the Christmas lights on, and then we had to turn those off and try to spot all of her tiny glow in the dark cherubs. 

I love giraffes.

And, our stag tree topper.

Happy Holidays!

Peace to all!

Sad Songs Say So Much

The six year old bounced in front of me on the balls of his feet while loudly exclaiming "French fries are my fa-a-avorites," over and over. Behind him an older woman stepped up, waved hello to me silently and tapped him on the head. She grunted a little to be sure he knew she was there before squeezing past him to her table with her big mac and fries.

"Why did she do that?" he asked.

"She wanted to be sure you saw her and didn't run into her."

"But why did she make that noise and touch me?"

"Well," I said, "she is deaf, which means she can't hear and communicates with sign language. She tapped you to make sure you knew she was there so you didn't bounce into her."

"Oh."

He was quiet as he meticulously chewed each chicken nugget, his little Asperger's brain working through this new experience, fitting it into his world.

Half an hour later I was buckling his seatbelt when he said, "I'm really smart with science."

"Yes you are," I said.

"I bet when I grow up I can find a way to make it so she can hear again. She should be able to hear the world."

~*~

I was sitting on the floor of my client's bedroom with case notes spread out around me. Five years old, blind and diagnosed with Autism, he was in the other room listening to his mp3 player. Caught up in my paperwork, I didn't realize he was in the doorway until he let out a small, "Katrina?" 

I looked up at him and saw tears rolling down his cheeks.

"What's the matter honey?" I abandoned all professional boundaries and pulled him into my lap in a hug, wiping away his tears. I strongly believe professional boundaries go out the window when a small child cries.

"It's really said," he said between sobs. "The people in the song. They have problems in their love."

I took his mp3 player from his small, chubby fist and turned it toward me. He was listening to Sheryl Crow. 

~*~

When you read an article claiming that the Connecticut shooter had Aspergers please do not believe that this diagnosis made him a killer. Aspergers and Autism do not mean a person has no empathy. In fact, I strongly believe it is the exact opposite. I believe they have so much empathy that it is overwhelming and they don't know how to express it. Or they shut it down, stifle it, in order to function in the world the way we expect them to.

Pull Out That Glue Gun! Holiday Crafting Time!

I've finally fallen in love with my Pinterest account. I knew it was coming if I ever sat down and spent a little time on there.

I'm using it to create my holiday gift ideas. As I said in my last post, I'm not interested in giving gifts just for the sake of giving them. This year I'm not only putting thought into gifts, but they are all hand-made. Because I'm getting started on this late (used to be I was done holiday planning by now) I am loving Pinterest for quick and beautiful ideas.

I grew up in a house where the smell of a hot glue gun meant Christmas, even if that hot glue gun was turned on in July. With craft fairs and theater productions and parades to create for my family never stopped crafting for the holidays. Nothing has really changed in my adult home.

These are some of my favorite Pinterest craft finds for this holiday season with links to them. (Can't post too many because most of my family reads my blog...)

Gifts for teens or kids:

Some ornaments:

Some wrapping ideas:

And some some antiqued tags.

Here is a link to my boards if you want to follow me.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering... I'm in love with these and would love them in alpaca wool with green embroidery:

What Are You Buying This Holiday Season?

It has been brought to my attention that may people feel Christmas is a "rich man's holiday" and it is only good for the wealthy. Perhaps I was raised on too many episodes of "Little House on the Prairie", or maybe it is my lifelong love of "A Christmas Carol" but this concept is quite sad to me. Is that all that Christmas has been reduced to? A holiday for the people who can buy gifts? 

A few years ago I refused to buy holiday gifts. Every gift I gave that year was homemade. I made chalkboards for the kids, jewelry for some, painted mugs or ornaments for others. I spent $100 that holiday season, and it was entirely at a local craft store where that amount of money wasn't uncommon for me. Each gift was personal and it felt good to give them.

However, if the television is to be believed people only say they like homemade gifts to be polite. In their minds they are not pleased.

I found myself wondering today what we are buying these gifts for.

On Friday millions of people will stand in freezing cold parking lots and force their way through doors to get cheap gifts for their loved ones. How much will those gifts really mean to those loved ones?

Are we buying in order to see people light up when they open gifts? And does that piece of plastic junk from China really mean that much to them? Or are we buying gifts to dodge the embarrassment when that officemate gives us a gift and we don't have one to give them? 

Personally, I want my gifts to mean something. I want to give gifts from the heart, not from the wallet or the guilty conscience. 

How silly and sentimental of me.

Apple Picking

Apple picking with my girls.

Aine and Me

Reading a book with the dog.

3D Coloring Book Pages

This is Trisha's homework for her Observational Drawing class. Ink and water on coloring book pages.

Home...

Is where I fill this mug.

My Summer in Photographs

Orr's Island

My brother and niece enjoying some big Maine coast waves.

My brother-in-law with one of my nephews.

My oldest nephew also known as Monkey-Child

Trisha... being Trisha in Salem, Mass.

Salem, Mass

Aine

Butterbeer from the new Harry Potter store in Salem, Mass.

Three beautiful children at a wedding in Aroostook County

Trisha fishing while I read a Linda Greenlaw book nearby

Ani Difranco and Melissa Ferrick

Orr's Island

Somewhere in Mid-Maine