Self-portrait

"You're quite the character."

That's what my mom said whenever I'd play a practical joke or pop off an anecdote that was too risque for my young age.

And I'm sure my follow-up question -- "What kind of character am I?" -- proved her original assessment.

I figured my question was valid.

Even at eleven years old, I knew the variations found in characters. Practically an only child (my sisters are six, nine and ten years older than me), I surrounded myself with fictional characters from books, movies, cartoons and television shows.

Other people's fictional characters helped establish a foundation for building my own for stories I'd write later in life. Through those characters, I discovered a definition of the word I hoped my mom meant.

I wanted to be beautiful like Daisy Duke. I loved pretending to be the only Duke girl, helping my cousins solve problems that the law couldn't. (Although in my fantasy world, I didn't like Ennis. What on earth was that girl thinkin'? Seriously.)

I wanted to be tough like Princess Leia -- twin sister of the chosen one, Luke Skywalker. Who wouldn't want to be the girl who fights epic battles against Storm Troopers and an evil empire? How could a girl not want to tame a scoundrel like Han Solo? (But kissing my brother? Contrary to popular thought, we don't do that here in Nebraska either.)

I wanted to be mysterious like Jem, the cartoon pop star who led a double-life. I was older by the time Jem's popularity grew, but I fell in love with the idea of a tough rocker-chick heroine with identity issues. The deepest heroes/heroines have flaws to which everyone can relate. (But it really bugged me that she never minded her boyfriend's purple hair and the fact that he cheated on her with her other self. I mean, c'mon girlfriend. Have some R-E-S-P-E-C-T for yourself!)

Perhaps most of all, I wanted to possess the innocence of Anne Shirley. Remember Anne of Green Gables? She's my all-time favorite book character. I always likened Anne and her best friend-kindred spirit, Diana Barry to myself and my twin cousin Jill. (We're more like twin sisters than cousins.)

Over-the-top. Melodramatic. Hopeless romantics. Always getting into trouble. Sitting next to each other in punishment with smiles and whispering, "It was worth it."

I'd have a hard time creating a heroine for a story who didn't possess each of these traits in measured amounts. And I hope when my mom told me, "You're quite the character," she was talking about a little of each of these traits.

Maybe I'll go ask her again.

What about your favorite characters in childhood? How have they impacted your writing or life in your adult years?

Me, myself and Imogene Airy

Long story short: After discovering it was made up, publishers cancelled another holocaust memoir. The story prompted a discussion about Stephanie Meyer's books getting pulled from our local Wal-Mart shelves to make room for a new shipment of Spanish dictionaries. (And people wonder why the economy is in the toilet?)

The conversation initiated a visit to Meyer's website. Something Meyer said on her website prompted today's blog topic. (Just in case you're wondering where this topic came from.)

On her site, Meyer mentioned her love for Bella and Edward and the rest of her imaginary friends, and I started thinking about the truth (albeit embarrassing truth) about a fiction writer's relationship to characters.

Without a doubt, I believe many times that relationship can be classified as that of one with an imaginary friend.

Remember having imaginary friends as a child?

Growing up in the sticks, I had no children next door with whom to play, and my sisters never wanted the baby in the family tagging along with them. I developed imaginary friends.

I had two -- Danny and Tracy (No. I was never into The Partridge Family and my obsession with Michael Damian on The Young and the Restless came much, much later in life). When I was four-years-old, I ended up in the emergency room because Danny "tripped me" when we were playing tag in the house. I busted the glass on the door of the grandfather clock . . . still have the seven-stitch scar above my left eyebrow.

I still laugh about my imaginary friends with my cousin and her husband. She had two -- Pong and Ting, Her husband had one -- Grass. (Make of it what you will.) Our imaginary friends provided hours of entertainment, always agreed with us and were the only person our parents couldn't keep us from when we were sent to our rooms.

Think about it...a writer's characters are a lot like that. They talk to you. You talk to them (although in my case, it's rarely an outloud conversation). Their emotions project upon you. You laugh with them, cry with them, feel embarrassed with them, get them into trouble and blame things on them. (Heather and Nick have made me late for so many appointments, I now set my clock 45 minutes ahead just so I can get places on time.) You are the angel/devil sitting on their shoulder telling them what to do. They are the angel/devil sitting on your shoulder telling you what to write.

No one else can see them. No one else can hear them. More often than not, I believe writers are simply grown-up children who want others to introduce others to their imaginary friends.

So, tell me about your imaginary friends. Maybe we'll all get together and have a play date.

:-)

News of the weird

Pop Quiz: What do you get when you cross $10,000 with Bubble Wrap, fruitcake and a surly kitty cat?

Answer: Some strange stories from the wire.

An Irvine, Calif., woman found an envelope stuffed with $10,000 in a box of crackers she bought from a grocery store. Instead of keeping the money, they family called the police, who told them the stash could have been part of a drug drop.

But the police later heard from store manager at Whole Foods in Tustin that an elderly woman had come in a few days earlier, hysterical because she had mistakenly returned a box of crackers with her life savings inside. Luckily, the box of crackers had been purchased by Debra Rogoff who had discovered the crisp $100 bills in an unmarked envelope.

Ew. Restocked crackers?

Rogoff never heard from the woman and didn’t receive a reward, but she returned to the store a couple of weeks later and asked if she could have another box of crackers.

The store obliged.

Let’s hope they weren’t recycled this time.

Need any belated gift ideas for an obsessive relative?
A New York City man has designed a calendar that will drive Bubble Wrap fanatics wild.

Stephen Turbek is selling a poster-sized calendar with plastic bubbles. Buyers can pop a bubble each day to mark the passage of time. He’s already sold thousands.

According to The Associated Press, Turbek said the calendar – which is available online for prices ranging from $30 to $50 – is perfect for obsessive people.

Excuse me, Mr. Turbek? Your calendar sounds like a great gift, but do you really know any obsessive people? For an obsessive-compulsive person, nothing is more true than the old Pringles jingle: “Once you pop, you can’t stop.”



The Shasta County, Calif., Department of Environmental Health is cracking down on fruitcakes.

That’s bad news for 86-year-old Jack Melton, who has been baking and selling his pecan-laden cakes from his Churn Creek Road home for more than a decade.

Melton, a disabled World War II Navy veteran, has been told to quit selling his popular word-of-mouth fruitcakes from his home because state law forbids the operation of an unregulated retail food business from one’s private home, said Fern Hastings, a senior environmental health specialist.

But let’s be reasonable. Who really eats fruitcake anyway?

And finally, as it turns out Santa Claus won’t need rabies shots after all.

It turns out that a large kitty that drew blood after biting a volunteer Santa Claus at a charity event in New Jersey earlier this month had been properly vaccinated.

The cat’s owner, Christine Haughey, came forward and produced vaccination records after learning that 47-year-old Jonathan Bebbington, the Santa, might have to receive the shots.

Bebbington said the cat, a mix between a house cat and a bobcat, bit his wrist and hand after becoming terrified because dogs were nearby at the Santa Paws photo event for an animal-rescue group.

I wonder if Santa’s reindeer are up-to-date on their shots.

If your Christmas tree base is made of welded steel...you might be a redneck

It's too bad I didn't take a picture when it happened.

Of course, a camera and my blog was the last thing on my mind when Elizabeth entered my home office and said, "Mom, I was just standing in the living room watching TV and the Christmas tree fell over."

Honestly, only one thought popped into my mind: "I knew it!"

In an effort to save space in our living room this Christmas season, I stuck our artificial tree in the corner. To further save space, my husband suggested that we not place the lower three tiers of branches on the back of the tree.

"No one's going to see it anyway," he said.

With much apprehension and hesitation, I agreed. But as the 7-1/2 foot Wal-Mart fir filled out in front, I thought I began to notice a slight inward lean. That lean became more and more obvious as we decorated it with all of the precious ornaments that I'd saved from my family throughout the years.

"It's your imagination," my husband said, admiring the finished product. "It just seems crooked because the angel on the top of the tree is sitting cock-eyed."

"OK," I said, and then continued to decorate other areas of the house.

Two weeks later, the three still stood with no more noticeable lean than before, and I simply dismissed the lean in my artificial tree as product of an optical illusion created by that cock-eyed angel.

And then -- panicked, disconcerted -- Elizabeth came in and told me it had fallen over. Knowing she was too upset to be playing a practical joke on me, I rushed to the living room and discovered that, indeed, my tree had tumbled.

Enter my husband -- the skeptic to whom I quickly said, "I told you so!"

He took one look at the busted base of the toppled tree and in his best Tim 'the toolman' Taylor voice said, "I can fix that."

After spending two hours in the garage with his welder, my husband returned with the mother of all Christmas-tree bases -- solid steel welded into an "X" shape with the attachment pole sticking straight up from the center.

"This sucker ain't goin' nowhere now," Dana said as we moved the tree upright again.

He's probably right. With a new base as big and heavy as the monstrosity he created, we may have a tree in our living room year-round.

But that's what you get when you marry a man that barks at tools.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Pssst...tell me something I don't know

My friends send these via e-mail all the time. Since it's a Christmas-themed getting-to-know-you, I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to get to know YOU more.



1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both, but I prefer wrapping in bags. (Ironically, I prefer opening paper.)

2. Real tree or Artificial? fake (look for Thursday's funny blog post about this)

3. When do you take the tree down? January 7

4. Do you like eggnog? eww
5. Favorite gift received as a child? See yesterday's post

6. Hardest person to buy for? My seven year old.
7. Easiest person to buy for? My 13 year old.
8. Do you have a nativity scene? Four (counting the one in the yard).
9. Mail or email Christmas cards? I'm horrible about this. Sorry.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Forks.

11. Favorite Christmas Movie? Home Alone/Christmas Vacation/A Christmas Story
12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? September

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes. A bottle of alcohol.
14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Frosted sugar cookies & peanut butter balls. Mmmmm.

15. Lights on the tree? Asolutely!
16. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night/Mary Did you Know?
17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.

18. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes.
19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel
20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning

21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Rude sales people
22. Favorite ornament theme or color? deep red
23. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Turkey

24. What do you want for Christmas this year? To wake up having a body that looks like Beyonce's.
25. Who is most likely to respond to this? I hope everyone.

26. Who is least likely to respond to this? Everyone who doesn't read it.



Now, you tell me about YOU. Leave YOUR answers in the comments.

A gift from the heart

Every little girl wants a pony for Christmas.

After visiting my cousin in Kansas over the Thanksgiving holiday one year, my desire for a pony grew to monumental proportions.

Granted, the one I wanted didn't have fur and it wouldn't carry me through a sunny meadow. The pony on my wish list needed to a have a base and springs and be able to provide hours and hours of bouncy entertainment.

I wrote letters to Santa. I told my mom and dad. I scanned the Sears toy catalog. Like the Ralphie on "A Christmas Story" lusting after that Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, I told everyone I knew about the spring horse I wanted Santa to bring me.

I made sure I was on my best behavior so Santa had no reason not to bring me that horse.

That Christmas, I attended midnight Mass with my parents and sisters. Returning home, I knew Santa had visited. He always came while we were at church.

I climbed to the top step in our split-level home and peered around the stub wall to see if there was a package under the tree that might have even remotely had the same shape as a spring horse.

Glory of Glories! It wasn't even wrapped!

It didn't even matter that I had other presents beneath that tree. I hopped onto that spring horse and rode off into the sunrise (since it was nearing dawn before I finally settled down enough to sleep). I played with that horse day-in, day-out for months.

I never thought anyone would ever top the delight I felt that Christmas eve.

But somehow my mother managed to this year. Before my family's Christmas get-together on Saturday, my mother had warned me and my sisters that she wasn't going all-out on gifts this year.

When I opened the large gift bag she brought for me, I couldn't believe my eyes. Before my grandmother died 20 years ago, she had begun sewing butterfly patches for quilts. Lung and bone cancer took her from us before she could finish them.

This past year, my mom finished those quilts and gave them to my sisters and I for gifts.

I've spent the last 36 hours wrapped in the warmth of memories of my grandmother and gratitude for my mom for giving us such a wonderful gift.

And with temperatures well below 0, it's much-needed warmth.

What has been your most memorable Christmas gift?

Taking over me

Kat's mind is a mess today.


So, she asked me to take over her blog. Well, she didn't really ask. I just decided to take over because she's too busy dreaming about vacation, white Christmases and having what her friend, JC, calls a write-fest for the next five days.


That means she'll be paying attention to me -- Heather, the MC in her novel.


That's my picture on the left. It's pretty old, taken before all that stuff happened (circa 1980). If you read the novel, you know what stuff I'm talking about.


I'm feeling much better now. Just in case you're wondering.


Since Kat gets such a kick out of writing about the sordid details of my life, I figured I would write about her.


I started bugging Kat a long time ago. She might have been in sixth grade. Lord, what a geek she was in junior high. I have pictures; someday, when she's famous (yeah, right Kat, in your dreams) I'll blackmail her with them.


I started telling her my story back then already, but it took forever for her to sit down and listen to what I said. She'd write stuff down, but she didn't get the story straight until she let me tell it in first person. (Duh, I've been sayin' it for awhile, Kat.)


So, anyway, I started bugging her to tell my story because her family reminded me a lot of my husband's. Her parents are really cool, and she's got these sisters that are awesome and laugh ALL the time when they're together. It's such a night-and-day difference from the way I grew up, I was immediately drawn to it.


Not only that, but Kat has an interesting sense of humor and has dealt with some of the major issues that made my story interesting. Well, she hasn't dealt with them, but she has helped her husband struggle through them the way I wish my husband would have been able to help me.


Kat's also an okay singer and songwriter (but not nearly as good as me and Dave Vacanti). I mean, she hasn't put any of her bands on the Billboard Charts (like I did), and she's too old to make it past Simon Cowell on American Idol, but she holds her own.


Did she ever tell you about the time she met Def Leppard? Funny story. She was so smitten by their bass player she couldn't even talk!


Oh, I think I see her coming this way. I have to log off before she catches what I've done.


Later...

Songs for the season

The high in my neck of the plains this morning was -9. I won't mention the 25 mph winds and snow.

So, what do you do on a frigid December day in Nebraska?

Completely immerse yourself in the season!

You bake Christmas cookies. And to really add to the feel of the season, you turn on your favorite Christmas tunes.

I have very few Christmas cds, but the ones I like, I like a lot.

One of my all time favorite Christmas songs is the one in the video above. Although I'm not fond of Clay Aiken's version. (I've heard more passion opening a can of tuna.) I heard "Mary Did You Know" the first time in church when Rick and Cheryl Higgins, a lovely couple from my community, sang it.

My skin textured with goosebumps when Rick hit that big note. Yeah. Good stuff.

An Omaha musician by the name of Heidi Joy recorded my favorite version of "Mary Did You Know."

I have other favorite Christmas tunes, too. My daughter, Molly, and I often sing O Holy Night together in church on Christmas Eve, but I'm not sure we'll ever top The Judds version of that song. I've also been known to jam out with Burl Ives while decking the halls; who can resist "Holly Jolly Christmas?"

I mean, c'mon.

Tonight (even though the windchill index will dip well below zero again) my 13-year-old daughter, Molly, will sing at her school's Christmas program. Although I'm not a huge fan of sitting in a crowded gymnasium with 1,500 other parents, I'm very excited about hearing Molly sing again.

Last year, she sang Stille Nacht (scroll to the bottom of the page when you follow the link), and I still tear up listening to her.

Christmas music doesn't get much better than than...in my honest mom-pinion.

What's your favorite Christmas song?

Seven girls, fifteen feet, one big fall

As this balcony collapsed, six of my
friends and I plummeted to the ground.

This morning, aspiring author Lynn Rush percolated some old memories when she blogged about falling out of a tree.

Her story ended with a ride to the hospital and some bruised ribs. My story about falling ended in the birth of a phobia.

Twenty years ago this week (Dec. 9 to be exact), an incident that started 15 feet in the air planted the seed of my debilitating fear of heights.

That Friday started out in a depressing fashion. Mourning the death of my kitten, Sagorski, I went to school wishing the weekend had already started. My day became worse at noon when I discovered that one of my "so-called" friends had planned a party at her brother's apartment but had not invited me.

(This was one of those "I'm not friends with her today, but I will be next week" kind of stories you might remember from high school.)

By the time gym class wrapped up, my emotions felt so raw that the slightest remark pushed me over the edge.

And it did.

In the locker room, I exploded at Cami for having the audacity to lie to my face about the party.

"What are you talking about? I'm not having a party." She told me.

I ended up in the guidance counselor's office bawling my eyes out because of my cat, because of my frenemy drama, because I thought my life was going to hell.

When I climbed into my dad's truck after school, Cami and Susan had felt a change of heart and decided to invite me to their party anyway.

But since Cami lived with her brother in a small apartment above one of the old buildings along Main Street in my hometown of 25,000, my mother told me, "Absolutely not! I just don't have a good feeling about that." (Being 1988, cruising Main Street was a huge source of entertainment for a lot of kids who were up to no good -- and almost every other kid, too.)

I begged. She caved and let me go.

Cami's apartment could only be accessed from the outside of a two-story brick building. A metal fire-escape staircase and balcony led to both of the doors, and I remembered Susan and Kristin telling me how scary the stairs were.

"You can see through the floor, and it feels like you're going to fall," one of them said.

I wasn't too worried about it. Not much scared me at the time.

Arriving at Cami's apartment, we dropped our duffel bags in her room and returned to the balcony to watch the cars cruising up and down main.

While Kristin, Lori, Cami and Susan stood at the north edge of the balcony, I leaned against the yellow stucco wall and looked down through the ornamental decking of the metal balcony.

I remember thinking, "Man, it's a long way down."

Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw my friends Susan M. and Angie approaching from the other side. That's when we heard a loud pop! pop! pop! and the one of my friends screamed, "The balcony is collapsing!"

This is it, I thought, there's no way we're going to survive this.

Miraculously, we all did. I awoke several minutes later in a garden of mulch sitting next to a pine bush. Still overwhelmed by shock, my eyes closed again. The next thing I remember was standing in the middle of the parking lot asking Steph, a high school classmates who hadn't attended the party, (by now several people were milling around the scene) if I had a scratch on my back. She flagged a paramedic to help me.

Turns out, I'd slid all the way down the stucco and didn't have a stitch of skin left on my lower back. Another one of my friends, Kristin, had chipped a bone in her elbow and required surgery.

I spent the night in the hospital. Kristin spent several days in the hospital. The rest of my friends were treated and released.

And I think Susan M. got a scratch and tore her coat.

Two days passed before we could get access to the bags we'd left at Cami's apartment. More than a year passed before I could muster the courage to step onto the back deck at my parents' house; it's only about six feet in the air.

To this day, I shudder at the thought of walking over bridges, balconies and on staircases in tall buildings.

Maybe I should have listened to my mother.

Angels on the Moon

I never really liked being an entertainment editor all that much.


Yeah, being able to say, "I interviewed (insert celebrity here)," is cool, but so few of them ever had anything really interesting to say.


Although, I do admit Shannon Larkin from Godsmack and Rikki Rocket from Poison had good stories to tell, and irritating Nickelback's publicist ranks up there in the top 10 most memorable things I've done as a reporter. I'm sorry Ryan Peake, I didn't mean to offend you. I really wanted to know if a band considers it a bad or good thing when MTV starts picking on your lead singer.


Anyway, relief adequately describes the feelings that swirled inside me when I stepped away from the entertainment portion of my job.


Unfortunately, I haven't been able to step away completely. I still receive e-mails from publicists, promoters and agents asking me to review a band's latest cd. It's pretty rare when I find one that I like enough to listen to more than once. Since 2003, only three cds have plucked my goose bald enough for me to say its a winner.


The first was Another Journal Entry by Christian rockers Barlowgirl.


The second was Damaged Goods by Lennon Murphy.

The amusing thing about these cds and my like for them is the incredible difference in messages by the artist. Barlowgirl talks about purity and how people should never lose faith in God.

On the other hand, Lennon's bawdy lyrics include the line, "So if I take you home, we'll leave our names at the door, I don't want your number, I won't bother to call. It's just another for another..."

Yeah, quite the difference.

What does my love for both of these cds say about me? I'd like to think it's indicative of my acceptance of people for who they are and how I struggle with the line between realism and idealism.

Regardless of what it says about me, the one thing I know is that the lyrics of both artists speak to me. They tell me a story.

That's what I like about the third cd on my list, as well.

Thriving Ivory's publicist sent me its cd, and the lyrics to this song shook me to my core when I first listened to it. It's called Angels on the Moon.




Have any songs or cds had such an impact on you recently?

Surviving vs. Living

A brief note from Kat: I did an interview with a woman that really touched my heart last week. The story I wrote for the paper can be found on the Norfolk Daily News Web site. This post is written in response to that interview.

*********************************************************

I should have been offended.
While paying for a meal at a local pizza restaurant several months ago, the owner and I became distracted by the news channel offering reports of another politician entangled in a sex scandal.

“Reporters, I swear, they’re the biggest scum of the earth,” he said.

At first I bit my lip, but when the pressure of restrained laughter rattled open my clenched jaw, he asked why I thought that was so funny.

Of all the strangers coming into this man’s restaurant, he had to mutter his opinion to a reporter.

Watching the way this particular news channel air this politician’s dirty laundry ad nauseum, I couldn’t disagree with the gist of his statement. But I didn’t want to fall into that generalized “scum” category either.

Contrary to popular thought, (most) reporters (all of them at the Daily News) do have feelings. Remember Walter Cronkite’s tears when Kennedy died?

We try not to show them. We try to be tough and present unbiased facts in news stories, but sometimes feelings aren’t so easily held back.

Interviewing Katrina last week, my feelings got in the way. Sobbing throughout most of the interview, she made the desperation she felt for her family’s situation clear.

Christmas wasn’t Katrina's concern. Survival was.

Imagine standing in her shoes.

Whatever savings you may have had were depleted when surgery removed your ability to work. Your spouse, who has been eking out just enough money at his new job to take care of your family of six, suddenly finds himself a victim of the economic downturn. Unable to receive unemployment, you swallow your pride and visit the Department of Health and Human Services to see if they can provide assistance. Returning from the trip, the only reliable means of transportation you have is totalled in an accident, and insurance offers no help on a vehicle with negative equity.

What do you do? Where do you turn? How do you put food on your table? Pay for heat and electricity?

How do you tell your youngest child – who turns six on Christmas Day – that Santa can’t make it and mommy and daddy can’t afford a birthday gift either?

Katrina’s description – a living nightmare – couldn’t have been more accurate.

As a reporter, it’s difficult to get through an interview like this and not shed tears. I wanted to reach out and help.
Hopefully, there are people out there who will read Katrina’s story and feel the same way.

You don’t have to step too far outside your back door to find other families struggling for survival the same way the Ostrand family is.

Those people are in your town.
Right in your back yard.

They need help. They need prayers. And they need to know they have not been forgotten.

Tagged to tell the truth

Tag! I'm it.

Abigail at blogging experiments tagged me. Now, I must tell seven random/weird things about myself, and then tag seven more people.



Weird things. Let me see.


1. I have several unnatural, debilitating fears, including heights, snakes and riding in cars.

2. I can bend my pinky finger so far back it nearly touches my wrist.

3. One night when I was eleven, my cousin and I stayed up until 2 a.m. writing fan letters to Duran Duran and gushed over how they would actually hold those same pieces of paper in their hands.

4. I agreed to go out with my first boyfriend because I needed a date for prom. (I was holding out for Nick Rhodes' marriage proposal.)

5. I can recite (verbatim) the lines from all three original Star Wars movies. (I wanted to marry Luke Skywalker, t00.)

6. I've listened to Lennon Murphy's "Damaged Goods" cd so many times I've worn grooves into it.

7. If ham and pineapple pizza was the only food left on the planet, I'd be good to go for 70 years.

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Here are the bloggers I've tagged.

Lynn at Light of Truth

JC at Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Sue at The Slag Hammer

Terri at Terri Rainer

Ali Katz at PracticalKatz (Also check out Miss Snark's First Victim to critique the first chapter of Ali's mss.)

Courtney Walsh at My Reasons

Rosslyn Elliot at inkhornblue

Have fun. I look forward to reading these.

I still have a dream

Last week I interviewed a woman from my hometown who is now a Radio City Rockette.

She's been dancing with the troupe since 2005. I initially interviewed her shortly after she started performing with them.

At the time, Rachel told me walking into the theater and associating herself with being part of the Rockettes felt surreal. These were the same dancers she saw on her grandma's television set when she watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as a child.

Four years later, Rachel told me she's still struggling to wrap her mind around how wonderful it has been to live her dream.

As I wrote the story for the newspaper, I started thinking about what that meant -- living the dream.

How lucky are we, as citizens of a free country, to pursue our dreams?

How lucky have I been to enjoy the experiences I have received working as a reporter and writer?

If someone had told me 12 years ago that in a relatively short amount of time I would write more than 6,000 obituaries, earn awards from the Nebraska Press Association and The Associated Press and come into the homes of almost 20,000 people every night, I wouldn't have believed them.

And if someone had told me that I would have the opportunity to interview people like Weird Al Yankovic, Poison, Third Day, Godsmack, Tesla, Evanescence and an entire host other well-known entertainers, I'd have called them liars.

Twelve years ago, I was at rock bottom and couldn't fall any farther into depression. Without prayer and a complete change of attitude, I never would have found the audacity to believe I could accomplish what I have.

There's a poem that hangs on the bulletin board in my kitchen that talks about the importance of believing in yourself that serves as a great reminder of all of the things one person can accomplish by keeping faith in self and God.

This fiction writing gig is a tough nut to crack, but I believe -- I envision -- that one day it will be as real as my byline on the news stories I write.

I guess, what I want to say is, if you want others to believe in your dreams, you have to believe in them first.

Why not believe in yourself? God does.

I have a dream

Some people have nightmares.

I have night comedies.

I once started to have a nightmare about a creepy guy following my family home from my sister's wedding. After quickly driving the car into the garage and closing the door, my mother ushered my sisters and I through the basement door with an armload of food leftover from the celebration.

Her frantic voice still echoes through my head: "Hurry, get in the house before this strange man catches us."

But we screamed when the man knocked on the window. Frozen with fear, my family stood in the center of the utility room -- the leftover food still in our grip -- and debated about what to do with this strange trespasser.

He may have an axe and want to kill us.

My father stepped forward, opened the window and demanded to know why the intruder stalked us.

To which, the intruder replied, "All I wanted was a piece of cake."

Er-duhr? Huh?

That's not scary. In fact, I remember that I woke up laughing.

I woke up laughing again on Wednesday morning. You guessed it, another one of those comedic nightmares.

I dreamt that Duran Duran's publicist had set the band up to do an interview with me before their next show.

(Now, I've done a pretty good job keeping it a secret on this blog, but I used to drool rivers over Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes and John Taylor. Their fresh faces were to die for in the 80s. Mmm, yummy.)

Anyway, back to my dream. I showed up at the hotel where the interview was to take place. The publicist led me into this tiny room with a full-sized brass bed with a tattered comforter covering it. (I actually interview singer-songwriter Max Carl in a room like this before, so this wasn't odd to me.) However, when Mr. Rhodes entered the room with a box of Kleenex in one hand, a cup of tea in the other and a Rudolph-red nose sitting in the center of his face, the dream became surreal.

Following him into the room were two of his other bandmates who helped him climb into bed. They settled in for the interview, but every time I asked a question, Mr. Rhodes would start snoring. Every answer I received was in yes or no form -- even when they weren't yes or no questions.

After two minutes, the interview ended when the publicist walked into the room and said: "I'm sorry, the guys have to get ready to go on stage now, but you're welcome to perform with them if you'd like."

While this irritated the reporter/writer in me, I couldn't pass up such an opportunity. So, I stepped out onto the stage with them and discovered our audience was an entire room full of Geico Geckos dressed in top hats and carrying canes.

Apparently my subconscious had had enough because I woke up just then...laughing at the absurd images playing in my mind.

I've always been proud of my ability to interpret the meaning behind dreams. It's been said they're metaphoric and can help a person make sense of how they perceive the way life goes on around them.

I believe that.

But I'm now sure I want to know what this dream means.

Tunes for Tuesday

I'm a child of the '80s. Can't help it. Always have been. Always will be.

Not only am I a child of the '80s. I'm a child of music.

Music has influenced me since the first time I heard the Bay City Rollers and Fleetwood Mac play on my sisters' Panasonic turntable.

When I'm writing, music opens a channel between me and my characters. Like white noise is said to enable the voices of ghosts, music clarifies the voices of my characters and the scenes around them.

One of the most influencial musicians in my life has been Patty Smyth. When she burst onto the scene wearing all of that make-up in her video for "The Warrior" with Scandal in the early 1980s, I wanted to be like her.



I loved her hair. I loved her make-up. I loved her voice. Most of all, I loved her rebel attitude.

And yet, Patty showed a vulnerable side, too.



Alas, I realized I could never be Patty Smyth. But the music Patty sang had an incredible influence on how I shaped Heather in "Long Road."

So, today, I want to tip my hat to Patty, and thank her for providing a wealth of emotions through song.

Yes, Elizabeth, there is a Santa Claus

It’s the beginning of the end, but I don’t want to face it.

I’m in denial.

I refuse to acknowledge that after this year, Christmas as I know it will never be the same.

After this year, Santa Claus will no longer be a magical elf who sneaks into everyone’s house on December 24 to leave shiny packages for good boys and girls and lumps of coal for the ones on the naughty list. His luster will be lost in the reality that he’s a made-up character who simply adds mystique to the holidays.

After this year, my seven-year-old will no longer believe Santa Claus is real.

The questions about his existence began last year: “How does Santa fit all of those packages on one sleigh when we can barely fit ours under the tree?”

They were followed up with doubt about the Easter bunny: How could one bunny carry all of that candy?

Questions about Santa Claus began again over the weekend as we decorated the tree: How does Santa fit down our chimney?

Call it selfishness on my part, but I will continue to make up answers until this holiday season is over.

Why?

Because I remember how the holidays lost their luster after I learned my parents, not a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer, delivered all of those packages. Christmas didn’t take on that magical feel again I realized the true meaning of the season. (But that’s another story.)

After Christmas this year, I will wait until my daughter, Elizabeth, starts asking questions, and even then I will ask her if she really wants to know the truth. That’s how my husband and I broke the news to our oldest, Molly.

Sitting in McDonald’s one day in January several years ago, Molly’s skepticism over Santa overwhelmed her, and she pointedly asked, “Does Santa really exist?”

“Do you really want to know?” I asked her.

When she nodded, I told her that her father and I placed the gifts under the tree at Christmas and the candy in her basket at Easter, but Santa Claus and the Easter bunny stood for good will in the hearts of mankind.

I’ll never forget the sadness in her eyes, how the grimace contorted her face as she said, “You mean, the Easter bunny isn’t real either?”

Christmas has never been the same for her since then either. I’m certain that’s why she protects her sister from the real secret of Santa Claus and helps us perpetuate the myth of the magical elf by continuously telling her little sister, “Yes, Elizabeth, there is a Santa Claus.”

* * *

How did you find out about the secret of Santa Claus? Let me know in the comments!