Describe a perfect day that would combine everything you have to do and everything you want to do, including writing. What changes can you make this week that will get you a step or two closer to being able to enjoy days like that?

I’m a night owl, so I guess my perfect day would actually be my perfect night. And I’m trying to think of a perfect day that’s not including a day at Disney World, because face it. I wouldn’t be doing any writing after a day in the Parks.

But… if I’m playing by the rules and making it a DAY thing, it would be like this:

I’d sleep until about 10:30am, peacefully without my bladder screaming bloody murder every two hours. I’d get up slowly, and actually be hungry for a breakfast of Cream of Wheat and bacon (or sausage). So I’d have that, and I’d play on my various social media sites. I’d cuddle up with a cat and read for a while, and not have to worry about litter box stank. And I’d fit in a yoga practice, either at home or at the studio. And I’d be so used to writing every day (thanks to WFMAD) that I’d crave my writing time and do anything I could to make sure I get it. (I remember when it used to be like that–I’m so happy that it’s coming back.) But, as I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m writing, nor do I like it when people are around in general when I’m writing, I’d need to wait until I was home by myself.

I’d have an amazing writing session, busting out the words like crazy. Thousands of words, with my only taking time to use the bathroom and grabbing some spaghetti to eat. GOOD words too, not junk that I need to cut the next day.

I’d also have time to play a video game or watch a DVD if I chose, or to just mess around on tumblr or something. I’d also get to hang out with Aidan.

I can easily make changes for some of these things to happen NOW. I can carve out more writing time in addition to the WFMAD prompts. (Hmm… does idea boards and brainstorming count as writing? Just wondering if it needs to be a hard word count.) I can set my alarm and actually get up at 10:30am (if not earlier), but that means getting to bed at a decent time. *Looks at clock* Too late for that now! As for the appetite in the morning, I can’t really control how hungry I wake up. It’s very rare that I wake up ravenous. Most of them time, I am not hungry for hours after I wake up. So I can have the Cream of Wheat and sausage another time in the day. Litter box stank is avoided when I stay in my room all day, which will be the case once the cold winter hits. And I can do yoga anytime, any where, so there is no excuse for me to be skipping out on that.

So…basically, I have all the tools to have a perfect day. I do most of my work from home, except for the occasions when I am called into an office or off on a film shoot. The yoga studio is a six minute walk from my apartment, or I can drive there fairly easily. I have a laptop, so I can write anywhere. I also have notebooks and pens which I always carry with me.

I just need to make it happen. For REAL, not just for play. Not just in a fantasy, but for real. It’s here. I just need to grab it.

Write about a time when you were injured or ill. Focus on the adaptations you had to make to accommodate whatever the problem was; walking on crutches, writing with your other hand, only seeing out of one eye, etc. After digging out highly specific details, explore how the experience changed you.

I don’t look like it here, but I’m in some pretty serious pain.
I had just got a new laptop for Christmas and was probably drunk,
so that may account for the smiling.
Also… wow my teeth were white.

Back at the end of 2007 going into 2008, I got what I call the Four Month Sore Throat. I’d started getting sick at the beginning of October, but because I’d had a lot of trips scheduled, I had a lot of plane rides ahead of me. Plane rides + sore throat + painful inner ear = BADNESS. It didn’t help that I worked at a place that offered very little sick time (vacation time was easier to earn but was still like squeezing blood out of pennies), so I was in the freezing cold all day and I never had time to rest and recover. I was stressed at LIFE in general as well, and round after round of antibiotics did nothing to help.

I was in pain all day and night. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain, and I was popping ibuprofen like candy. So much food went bad over those four months because I couldn’t swallow without a lot of pain. I ate sparingly. (By the time the ordeal was over, I was able to wear size 14 in girls jeans.)

I had coughing fits, I had migraines, I had pink eye, I had bronchitis. It just went on and on and on. I was a hot mess.

I coped the best I could… but it was difficult. I finally got cured in early 2008, when I went to a new doctor who actually listened to what was wrong with me, prescribed me the proper medicines, and even some pain pills. Things got worse before they got better. All the gunk that was in my head and causing me so much misery (turned out to be a chronic sinus infection) started to drain and my entire face felt like it was on FIRE. The one day, the pain felt different. I knew it was coming to an end. And as the days went by, the pain lessened until that whole nightmare was over.

The main adaption I had to make was eating less. It just hurt too much to swallow. Fortunately, not eating much was pretty easy for me for reasons I won’t go into. I also had to spend money I really didn’t have on doctor visits, time off (when things became extra unbearable), and expensive medications. I suppose I just took money from the grocery budget to cover it.

This experience has made me not take my health for granted. I got terrible sore throats every quarter when I was a little girl, but nothing of that magnitude. Any time I get a sore throat now, I monitor it carefully and try to take precautions to keep it from growing to the mammoth nightmare it was those four months. Now I think I have the tools to avoid such things now. I am much less stressed, and I have medicines (holistic and traditional) that will be much more effective at helping me fight something of that magnitude, were it to dare come back again.

Write about the tools you wrote with in elementary school. Give details of your classroom, the people in it, and what kind of kid you were. Mix in action with the descriptions.

I went to two different schools for elementary school, and both experiences were as different from each other as night and day.

My first school, Corlett, was awesome. It was a small school, K–3 only, and the teachers were nurturing and I learned a lot. I loved my first and third grade teachers–Mrs. Ortman and Mrs. Oden–like I loved my mom, and I even liked Ms Dukes, my second grade teacher, even though she was more strict than the other two. My principal’s name was Mr. Sunshine. What a great name for a principal right? He really was a ray of sun. I loved when he’d visit our class or I’d see him in the lunchroom. He always called me Harmonica. I remember Ms. Lindsey, the lunch lady who’d bang on the table with a broomstick to quiet us down. I hated when she did that!

First grade was on the first floor, down the hall from the girl’s bathroom. It was kind of a dark room. Mrs. Ortman would sing songs to us like “head, shoulders knees and toes, knees and toes.” We had grey desks that opened and held all of our stuff, including oil cloths, which smelled SO GOOD. Mrs. Ortman’s desk was in the corner of the room. Sometimes she’d do this weird exercise where she’d stand in one part of the room and say “May I have your attention please?” and we’d all look at her, and then she’d go somewhere else and say “May I have your attention please?” and we’d turn to look at her there. I am still not quite sure the point of that, but I certainly remember it. I also remember winning second place in a citywide writing contest. The essay was titled “What I Like Best About Cleveland.” I remember one of the prizes was McDonald’s gift certificates. I still have my actual certificate for it.

Second grade was also on the first floor, on the other side of the school. I remember the room being very bright. I also remember getting the Weekly Reader and being very excited the week that Michael Jackson was on the cover. This was the year I got paddled. It didn’t hurt, but I made a big to do anyway. I also got my first detention in second grade.

Third grade was golden. I loved everything about it except looking up words in the dictionary. Vocabulary was so boring, tedious, and hard. (Funny, now I LOVE looking in the dictionary.) I remember the room having a warm glow, but that may have been how I felt when I was in there. Mrs. Oden made a wonderful learning environment.

I remember writing with a laddie pencil in first grade. Big, blue, no erasers on top. I was so excited to move on to No.2 pencils in second and third grade! And sometimes… even pen!

Age 9

People were surprised that I loved school so much, but I had fun there. No one picked on me, I had friends, and the teachers liked me. The work came pretty easy to me, and I was always doing cool jobs like being the messenger or student leader.

Things changed when I switched schools.

I lived in Cleveland, so I was bussed to the west side for grades 4–6. Here, I learned what it was like to see other children get favored. I started learning about racism and discrimination. I learned that some teachers are mean and that they pick on students that trigger their own issues within themselves. I also learned that students can be mean and heartless.

But I also found unlikely friendships, and started nurturing my creative side. I took up orchestra, playing the violin. I started writing. I developed an insatiable thirst for reading that my mother was all too happy to keep supplying for. I was learning French and long division and all sorts of advanced things because I was in the honors program.

I’m sure I used pens and pencils through those years. I remember in fourth grade, Ms. Theis’s room being really bright and open. She had a picture of a hippo with a speech balloon that said “I don’t care how you do it, as long as you do it my way.” She taught us to say “ask” instead of “ax” and “library” instead of “liberry.” It was in her room that I read The Secret Garden–the good one where Mary says “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what they think.” It was also in her room that I fell in love with reading. She had a library and I’d check books out all the time. The one I remember the most was called The Secret Circle, but it wasn’t the Vampire Diaries one. I used to read it over and over and eat these cookies that Duncan Hines made. They were crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside and FREAKING DELICIOUS. I was so sad when they were discontinued–they were far superior to Soft Batch cookies. (Is Soft Batch even still around?)

me in fourth grade

Fifth grade was hell for me. I hated it. I hated the teacher, I hated most of my classmates, and I felt that the room was oppressive and dank. I cried almost every day over something and everyone made fun of me for it. I had exactly one friend. Everyone else couldn’t stand me. The teacher would provoke me to make me cry, and then make fun of me for it, and encourage everyone else to join in. It was awful. She enjoyed humiliating me and putting me on the spot. My son is in fifth grade now, and I pray every day it’s a million times better for him.

I escaped into books every chance I got. My mom would do her “big shopping” at Giant Eagle and they had a great children’s book section. I loved “big shopping” days. I’d come home from school and the place would be stocked with treats and there would be a huge stack of new books for me to read. That’s when I started reading books by Janet Adele Bloss, Judy Blume, and Barthe DeClements. BOY could I relate to her title “Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade”.

Sixth grade was better. Ms. Doycich was a fantastic teacher. She’d get so mad that steam would pour out of her ears, and it was fun to watch. I wasn’t much more adjusted than I was in fifth grade. I never figured out why I was so much more sensitive than usual. (I’ve always been highly sensitive, but fifth grade was terrible). Maybe it was because I’d had two deaths in the family and I was fragile. I don’t know. I managed to get by somehow. Maybe it was because I finally managed to make a few friends. I was so comfortable with people that I wrote my first story, about a bunch of us trapped in a haunted house. I wrote it in a Michael Jackson notebook.

Maybe it was the new principal we got named Mr. Trask. Mr. Trask was amazing. First and foremost, he LOVED Mickey Mouse. I mean, you think *I* lke Mickey Mouse? This is child’s play compared to this man. Secondly, he was FUN. I loved when he came to visit the classroom. He was always laughing and smiling. He would arrange amazing events for us, like giving us the afternoon off so we could watch Mary Poppins, drink pop, and eat popcorn. NO SCHOOL WOULD EVER DO OR ALLOW THAT NOW. He’d often gather us for an “assembly” to watch Laurel and Hardy movies. It was a great way to break up the monotony of class and keep us engaged.

mr trask, mrs arnold, and me
good lord, that dress

I often wonder what happened to Mr. Trask. I hope he’s retired and living in Celebration, FL, a hop, skip, and a jump from Disney World.

I’m not sure if this post told much about ME. I suppose you can gather that I was sensitive, creative, and a bit lonely. I didn’t write a lot in those days, but I read like crazy once that door was opened to me. I’ve never lost my passion and love for reading, so in that aspect, I’m still the same. 🙂