'Hemlock Grove'

I woke up in the wee hours of Saturday, Oct 31 hearing footsteps on pavement and a young voice shouting, "HELP! Please HELP! She's not breathing!" I woke up a bit, listening, heart speeding up. It was awful and it wasn't over. The shouting continued, "Please help, she's not breathing!" and I was up out of bed, trying to ensure that my breathing stayed calm despite my heart rate. My fingers closed around the edge of a curtain while I visually combed the street outside my window. This was so disconcerting...and then...

Dragon

A friend requested that part of my birthday gift to her be a story.

I wrote her something once. She says it's in one of her yearbooks, which would make sense; we've known each other since ninth grade. But this piece has to be about a dragon. That's the biggest challenge. What do I do with a dragon?

Kill, Marry, Bang: 'How to Get Away With Murder' Edition

I enjoy this show in ways that I couldn't do with Revenge, that particular style of soap having too many suds for my taste, like Victoria Grayson's biological son, a stripper being paid to lie to David, a lot of characters with no chemistry claiming to love each other, blah, blah. American Horror Story hasn't premiered its latest season yet, I didn't want the medical jargon and beeping machines of something like Grey's Anatomy, and as I already implied, Revenge lost my interest after a while. I came back to it just days ago to skip around episodes on Netflix...and put it aside to try the Ali Larter/Sean Bean show Legends. 

About This Dream I Had

First of all, I lived in a very big, spacious house. Tell me, where was I getting that money, Emily Thorn?
There I was, with a big ol' master bedroom and some kind of solo status 'cause Tom and I were no longer together. In the midst of this single life, I slept with some guy; he wasn't my type, either - short, sandy hair with a body and tan one tends to get from landscaping or surfing or something.

Gossiping

So I've just had another of those moments where I came face to face with my ego, and it's all because of the jaw-dropping news of Kermit and Miss Piggy's break-up. Seriously. I understand that we're all just people - interesting, flawed human beings [and pigs and frogs] - even if some of us are famous actors/musicians who are currently going through divorce.

Skipping Through Books

I skipped to the end of a book once. Are you upset with me?

About This Dream I Had

Today I woke up about five minutes before my alarm and lay there thinking, the whole time, about brown recluse spiders. 

Brief Commentary on Working For a Living

      So I set aside a few days to binge-watch Grace & Frankie;

"Gullet" - Writing Exercise

   After weeks of working at a dive bar, six months living in a dinky two-bedroom apartment with a chick who goes by Strawberry but is legally named Amanda, and days of alternating between vegetables and take-out, rum and top-shelf bourbon with my roommate’s blues band and a crappy wannabe-musician who works in insurance, I wake up on a Monday in April, feeling very sick with a line of dried drool winding from my mouth to my jaw.

Writing Action

I want to publish something again. Soon. It should be a short story. I'd love to have it be an action piece with gratuitous violence. How often do I write those?
Never.

Verbal Abuse You Don't Fall For

 -If every/almost every time you make a smart decision for yourself, your very insecure boyfriend/girlfriend/just friend is upset, going on and on about you being selfish. Every time.

-You find that they’re carefully editing stories they tell about social interactions they’ve had when you weren’t around, playing underdog or hero in each one.

Being a Shannon

So I looked up my first name in the image section of a search engine, thinking that since, in the past, I found cute-sy graphics reminding me of the laughable fact that my first name is derived from a Gaelic term for "wise one". I was inspired by an older post by the Bloggess (to which I've left a link below) about her adventures looking up the names "Jenny" and her blog name, so I thought maybe this time I'd get a fun screen grab or two with the name 'Shannon' on it, like a still of Jason in his hockey mask, weapon ready, saying, "Whatayou mean, you're out of peas?" or something, but no. No. I got the smiling faces of a bunch of professional-looking pretty strangers,including some insanely ripped, skinny women, one wearing two gold medals, and one of these:


 This treasure is from David Thorne, much to my relief after clicking on it and seeing the words "Shannon the Human Snake. www.27bslash6.com - Due to there being no petty cash left, with which Shannon was planning to buy her lunch, Shannon is now the sole key holder of the petty cash tin...", which made me think, 'Yes, yes, I share a name with this character. Perfection'.

But that can easily be met with another giggle. Check this out! -->


 Haha - Well, I can see how people could get us confused.


 Shannon Noll, a singer-songwriter.





Okay, now it's weird. Not like the Bloggess, but...weird. In reality, I'm sure this image came up because it belongs to a childrens' book author whose surname is Shannon. I didn't look. But of course my imagination kicked in and said, 'Is this, um, the way my inner child appears?' 


 I like imagining myself owning this pillow because it would just be vain in my case, and friends would make fun of it for every opportunity. 


There's my first name in Irish! 'Sionna'!


A couple of people who share my name have posted either amusing things or quotes from literature heavyweights like Mark Twain, and I figure that if we're putting that sort of image of our tastes out into the online world, that's not a bad thing. Plus some of us have good head shots. 

I See Your Holiday Shopping Stress & I Raise It With Holiday Grieving Stress

It sucks that with love comes loss, but that's unavoidable, I think. When I get emotional about the December 20th passing of one of my loved ones, I repeat to myself a mantra that I've been very lucky to know him, to be influenced by him. He was is was a wonderful person who, along with his wife and son, permeated my outlook on family and community and milking the really good, simple moments out of life.