thinky thoughts

First off, happy Beltane to all my friends who believe.



Last night I attended the retirement party for the creative writing prof (she taught the vampire class I took and asked me to come) and the history prof. I've been friends with both ladies for years now. One is staying local. The other is already completely moved to Columbus. My math friend retired 2 years ago and moved to Missouri and another English prof friend probably only has a couple years and she has no intentions of staying here.

I'm getting older. This is never an easy thing but at the same time it's interesting. I'm about to lose a lot of friends. Some will stay in touch. I know from experience others won't. That's how this works. But also, I'm losing family members and I'm losing the sense of self I once had. I'm at that age where you sit back and think, how did I get here? What happened to my dreams? Have I accomplished anything I set out to do? I can at least say yes I did, but I have no idea how I got here and too many dreams died an early death.

In 20 years I'll be in these women's shoes. Some will say that's so far away. 21 years ago I graduated medical school. It feels like yesterday. You blink your eyes, and it's gone. Blink. I'm retirement age. Just a few years ago that seemed like a life time away. Now it's right there in my face. LIke one of the professors, I regret not having kids (some days, not always). One of the speakers told her that all the students' lives she touched are her children. It is a nice sentiment.

And in the getting old department, I got my MRI. I've torn my glenohumoral ligament which stabilizes the shoulder. I have a partial tear of the infraspinatus muscle and damage to the articular cartilage. I'm a bit worried. ligaments are avascular to a high degree and not easily (if at all) fixable. The partial tear might heal. I'm losing mobility of the arm. I talked to my brother the physical therapist about this. he's never seen a ligament repair so I might have to use muscle alone to stabilize the joint like I do in my knee (I blew the ligaments there as a kid). It might be no surgery at all or massive surgery. I need to go back in and see him. I'm not happy.

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Writing News

Come see my cover!!! Seriously guys, go have a look. It's beautiful. Also there's a bonus snippet of the story for you too.


I got my story sent in for Love's Landscape. I'm really happy with how it turned out given how little time I had. I loved those characters and they were amazingly easy to write. I'm not even sure I whined once I don't know what to do with them (well majorly whined at any rate). I didn't even realize they will be editing it (thank god). Thanks so very much to evil_little_dog and drummerdancer for your help and to all the Athens Nanos writers.

Also my Project Fierce story is under edits too. I'm pretty proud of that one too.

Speaking of the Athens nano authors, we got together to celebrate an after party for camp nano. A couple of us went to Jackie O's. We needed beer. Bad move. It's also the second to last day for OU. It was PACKED. I had to eat outside. The service was lousy but the reuben was good until elm seeds blew into it. I hate eating outside. The Dark Apparition Stout was nearly 11% alcohol and was a tad more bitter than I liked. And that was probably still better than the diner. Oh well.