The art of letting go

I shattered the windshield of my sister's Datsun 710 with my head when I was in eighth grade.

Some lady in a tank -- er, Station Wagon -- pulled out in front of us as my sister drove me to choir practice. With the exception of some nasty scrapes on my knees and a big, gosh-darn goose-egg on the top of my noggin, I wasn't hurt.

At least, not physically.

Emotionally, it was a little different. My sister and I spent the first few weeks of summer break that year trying not to tense up as we entered major intersections.

She eventually got over it.

Me? Not so much.

As with many other things in life, I've struggled to let go of my strange fear of moving vehicles.

On Sunday -- as my oldest daughter turned 16 and ventured out alone for the first time -- that fear morphed into something so much bigger. Pangs of dread rippled through me while I watched her pull out of the driveway. I probably looked something like this...

This is actually Molly during one of her many
 collick episodes as an infant.

I don't doubt Molly's ability to operate a vehicle (although ...)  But I know one day soon a moving vehicle will start up, back out of the driveway and carry my little girl off to college, off to a life of her own, off to a life where mom's input isn't always wanted or necessary. (Not that it is right now.)

Kitty Forman, a character on That '70s Show, once made a poignant statement about the things we teach our kids. It sits heavily on my heart right now.

She said from the moment our children are born, we're supposed to teach them things -- how to walk and talk, dress themselves, feed themselves, and then one day we wake up and realize that all this time the only thing we're really teaching them is how to leave.

Wow. Before that happens, someone better teach me how to let go.

Blog Chain: A matter of priority

It's blog chain time again. Laura asked: Regarding your writing career, what’s the best mistake you’ve ever made and why?

Several months ago, I probably would have said my best mistake involved querying my first ms too soon. Not only did it lead to the realization that my first drafts aren't bricks of gold, it lead me to a great group of writing peers that would provide valuable knowledge and feedback.

But many changes have occurred in the past several months. Those changes have made me re-evaulate the priorities in my life. In that re-evaluation I discovered the worst mistake in my writing career has been focusing so heavily on the fictional characters that in my head that I've missed some great moments with the main characters in my life -- my daughters.

I hear you. You're saying, "But the question was what has been the best mistake -- regarding your writing career -- you've ever made and why?"

Well, the best mistake could not be happening without having made the worst mistake.

In case you haven't noticed, my blog posts have been few and far between lately. It's not just my blog that has been neglected. I've turned my computer on in the past few weeks only to access my music collection (and there were those two interviews I did for work). I haven't typed or sent a query or a synopsis. I haven't built a world. I haven't even cracked into the mind of a character in months. The only writing I've managed to squeeze in has been done with a ballpoint pen in my journal at the end of the day.

Sometimes it feels wrong. Sometimes I hear that voice in the back of my mind nagging me to get back to my computer. Sometimes it feels like a big mistake to put writing on the back burner. Some people might even call my recent acts of neglect a form of writerly career suicide.

Then I think about how rewarding it has been to live my life for real instead of vicariously through characters, and I realize it's been the best mistake so far.

I mean, fictional characters will be there forever, but my daughters will only be young once.

Michelle posted before me. Find out what Christine has to say about her mistakes tomorrow.

Blog Chain: Where did that come from?

Margie started this blog chain with a two-part question: How did you come to write your YA genre (e.g. contemp, fantasy, etc.)? AND (yep, it’s a 2 parter), if you weren’t writing that, what genre would you be interested in exploring?

I write women's fiction. I think it's because I've never been the kind of girl to live in the moment. In fact, up until about two years ago, I lived about 20 years ahead of my age.

When my cousins and I were very young, we'd get together at my grandparents house, where the daily routine included a healthy dose of Days of Our Lives and Another World. (Grandma calls them "her stories.") We probably weren't supposed to watch, but as young girls, it's very easy to get sucked into such drama.

When the parents or grandparents finally shooed us outside to play, my cousins and I would come up with an elaborate make believe soap-opera type story to play out. My grandparents lived on a farm with huge orchards, pastures and gardens, so we'd lose ourselves in whatever make believe world we had created.

It was awesome, and the stories we came up with evolved with our ages and crushes.

During my grade school and early junior high years, I'd visit my twin cousin (that's a cousin with whom you're so close you might as well be twin siblings) in Kansas, and we'd set up a make believe lounge called "Knights" in the basement.

In our pretend world there, Duran Duran would stop in for a guest appearance. She'd fall in love with one band member; I'd fall for another. Then they'd whisk us off to happily-ever-after land. (After seeing this in black and white, my twin cousin may never talk to me again.)

Unfortunately, I came to a fork in the road of life. One direction allowed me to continue playing out such elaborate fantasies but included funny looks from strangers and a padded cell at the local asylum. The other direction allowed me to continue thinking about elaborate soap opera-type stories and living them out on paper.

That choice was easy.

Voila! A writer of women's fiction was born.

As for Part II of Margie's question, if I wasn't writing women's fiction, I'd be writing paranormal stories. Oddly enough, a good ghost story was one of the only things that could distract me and my cousins from playing make-believe. (Well, that and our parents.)

Don't miss the response Michelle H. answered yesterday.

Check out Christine's response tomorrow.

Ten-Word Tuesday: Quick! Someone call Mr. Dyson

Vacuum cleaner broke. Can't tell if that sucks or not.

Gut check

I couldn't fall asleep last night. So I spent the better part of an hour flipping through channels as if the combination of satellite and television would offer some sort of relief.

I ended up on the movie "Dazed and Confused," 1993's version of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" with less plot and more Jeff Spicolis.

It's funny, how profound a stoner movie can be when it's 1 a.m. and you're desperate for sleep.

But when your baby is about to turn nine and college becomes your oldest daughter's topic of choice, it makes an impression when a character says: You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present -- like right now -- as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.

I wrote the words down, and then I looked at my little girl, who had usurped her dad's spot on the bed while seeking refuge from an earlier lightning storm.

Her eyes were closed. Her body sprawled out like a starfish across the bed. Her red hair fell away from her face like a fiery halo. When she was a baby, I had wondered if all of those curls acted as a built-in pillow when they bunched beneath her head.

As I watched her sleep, I found myself searching for the memories of when she and her sister grew up. Although I'd spent almost every hour of every day with them, I could only find a few.

Far fewer than what there should have been.

I suddenly felt like Rip Van Winkle, emerging from a deep sleep after so many years, discovering that I'd lost precious time because I had looked at the present as a minor preamble to something else.

A few nights ago at the supper table, my oldest daughter prayed -- quite pointedly, might I add -- that "some of us" (meaning her crabby mother) would find more patience and stop worrying so much about the future because "God will provide."

I think her prayer was answered last night.

Writerly Wednesday: Or not

Disclaimer: The following blog post is one of the most insanely idiotic things you will ever read. At no point in my rambling, incoherent writing am I even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in who reads this will be dumber for having read it. Feel free to award me no points, and may God have mercy on my soul.

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Due to unforeseen circumstances (Of course it's unforeseen. What do you think I am? One of Dionne Warwick's psychic friends.), I will not be posting a Writerly Wednesday blog.

Unless, of course, you consider it a post that I posted I'm not going to post.

Then there is a Writerly Wednesday blog post. It's just not about being writerly. Well, I did include that thing about the unnecessary usage of the word "unforeseen."

When you think about it, it's not even unnecessary usage.

The word itself is quite useless because, like I said, all things are unforeseen.

Technically.

Maybe I should have said, "Due to circumstances beyond my control..."

That's still off though.

I mean, no one is really in control. Control is an illusion.

We may think we have control. We can take control of plans. We can form an idea of what we'd like to have happen.

But something -- you know, like Mother Nature throwing a bowling ball-sized hailstone at your house or the pizza delivery man showing up at your door with anchovies when you ordered pepperoni but you ate the anchovies anyway and realized later that you're allergic to fish and ended up in the hospital being treated for anaphylactic shock -- can always mess up those plans.

By the way, that didn't really happen.

I am allergic to fish, but I'd send the pizza delivery boy back to get the pizza I ordered before I'd touch an anchovy.

And bowling ball-sized hailstones?

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

At least, I could never see that happening.

I guess that would be unforeseen. Maybe that word isn't so useless after all.

In short, He aced the test

Somebody once told me that hell is the absence of God. If that's the case, then I've been using the right word to describe the past several weeks of my life.

I don't mean to come off as melodramatic. I know there are people out there who have gone through much worse. But for awhile, it really sucked to be me, especially since my ol' cup of faith wasn't runneth-ing over.
It didn't help that I had people trying to convince me that those who believe in God are naive fools.

On second thought, maybe I should be thanking God for those people.
You see, I'm a stubborn girl, and I will hold onto what I believe is right until my heart tells me otherwise. That's what kept me from letting go of my faith in the first place.
That's what made me listen to that little voice in my heart that kept saying: "Faith is all you have left, Kat. If you let go of that, you'll have nothing."
That's what made me do what Christians aren't supposed to do when their anger toward God turns into anger at themselves for believing in God.
I tested Him.

I was pretty upset that night. I went to bed cursing at Him, saying, "Why aren't you listening to my cries for help? I'm beginning to believe all of those people who say you aren't there at all. I'm about ready to give up on you because this is too much, so you better do something to let me know you are still there."

I truly believe that when I picked up my Bible from the nightstand and opened it, it was a last-ditch attempt to salvage whatever faith remained inside me.

I truly believe it was divine intervention, the way my eyes immediately settled on this passage from John 6: "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

I closed the book, shocked.

I went back to the the part about the disciples complaining about Jesus' hard teaching and thought about how it applied to me. I've always said the best place to learn is the school of life.

And yes, sometimes the lessons are hard.

Very hard.

I realized that those are the times when I need to hold fast to my faith.

Looking back, my "long road through hell" reminds me of something a pastor from my hometown once said to me, something so profound it eventually found its way into my first manuscript.

The Rev. Thaddeus Roberson once told me, "Anytime that struggle comes and adversity comes, the devil has made his biggest mistake because he’s knocked you down and thrown you to the feet of Jesus."

I think I'll stay here awhile. It's not such a bad place to be after all.

Writerly Wednesday: It doesn't get any worse than this

It's hard to believe more than 60 days have passed.

In some ways it feels like it's been years since the last time I wrote a true blog post. In other ways, it feels like I've merely blinked.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I've traveled the hardest road of my life during the past nine weeks.

If only I'd quit asking how life could get any worse.

I don't remember the first time that question popped into my head. It was probably about 13 years ago, when I dropped my daughter off at daycare and, as I headed to work, I seriously contemplated missing the turn and disappearing from my life.

It wasn't that I didn't love my daughter and husband. I just didn't love anything about me.

Fortunately, I realized that you can't run away from yourself.

Instead of missing the turn in to work that day, I turned to God and prayed. He led me out of that dark place, right into a job that helped me become a better writer. He led me to a place where I could chase my dream.

And things were good. For awhile. Until the realization of my husband's alcohol addiction and depression settled upon me.

As he went through withdrawal, I started asking myself: "How can it get any worse than this?"

As he struggled through med changes, I thought: "It can't get any worse than this."

And when he was prescribed one med a few years ago that nearly destroyed him, I let myself wonder: "Really? How could it possibly get any worse than this?"

Well, for starters, a new general practitioner's inexperience with bipolar and anxiety disorders could lead him through three med changes in four visits.

That GP could call me at work to tell me she's "worried about Dana."

I could snap at her and say, "I'm worried too. You need to quit screwing with his meds. Don't you realize what that does?"

She could lie to me about the course of treatment she wants to take, and then later have the nerve to write in her notes that I seemed "unconcerned" about my husband's well being.

The situation could actually get so bad I'd have trouble processing my anger several weeks later.

Still, within days I found myself asking: "How could life get any worse?"

Well, my gorgeous teenage daughter could date someone who doesn't respect her boundaries.

A 500-year flood could hit my hometown.

A raging river could rise to within 200 yards of my childhood home.

I could develop such a cynical attitude about writing that my eyes would roll back into my head when an agent would post something on Facebook or Twitter.

I could question whether or not I should let go of the dream I'd been chasing for years.

I could spiritually fall into a place so dark the very existence of God seemed laughable.

Sigh.

Yeah, it got that bad. But I now realize it could have been much, much worse.

I've read that writers aren't supposed to use their blogs as personal diaries.

It could be detrimental to your pursuit of publication.

Guess what? I've decided I don't give a damn.

I'm not bitter (except about the doctor thing). I just realized that I no longer enjoyed writing -- and living -- because I stopped writing and living from the heart.

I realized my heart was dying, and my body was becoming an empty shell.

Believe me. It won't get any worse than that. I won't let it.

It took a long time and I've traveled a long, hard road to bring you the most important (I believe) piece of writerly advice I can give.

That is: You'll go crazy writing what you think other people might want to read and living how you think other people might want you to live. Don't do it. Instead, write what you feel, and don't be afraid to let people see you are real.

Peace and happiness.

A good egg goes bad (and it's all Cadbury's fault)

Don't forget to enter for a chance to win Lisa Harris' new book 'Blood Ransom.'

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Well, it finally happened.

Cadbury Eggs have turned me into a felon.

I'm not proud of it.

There's not much to be proud of when your addiction to a chocolate egg with cream filling leads you to a life of crime. It's not a surprise. The addiction is genetic. My sister once went on a Cadbury bender and ate 20 of those buggers in a weekend.

Thank goodness they're only available a few weeks out of the year. Otherwise who knows what would happen?

My sister would probably be in a diabetic coma. I'd probably be in jail.

I only meant to pop in at a local store on Tuesday, buy some make-up, airplane stickers and Easter supplies and be on my merry way.

When I saw the display of individually wrapped Cadbury Eggs, I decided to buy four -- two caramels, two creams -- one for each member of my family.

Then I headed to the check-out, and the cashier began ringing up my items.

But the cream eggs wouldn't scan. So, the cashier asked if I would grab another egg -- one with a clear bar code -- from the display behind me.

I handed her a good one, watched her scan it, and as I started writing my check, she bagged up the purchases.

All of a sudden, she turned back to her register and said, "Oh."

I glanced up. She looked at me, puzzled.

"How many of those candies did you buy?" she asked.

"I put four on the counter," I said as I ripped the check from my wallet.

"Well, I forgot to ring one up, so you'll owe me a little extra cash."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't have any cash on me." (I restrained myself from adding, That's why I'm writing a check, duh!)

She shrugged. "Then you'll have to put one back."

"I have four people in my family. I picked up four eggs for a reason."

She turned back to her register, looked blankly at it.

"Just add the other egg," I said after watching her fluster in silence for several moments. "I'll use a different check." (Frustrating, yes. But not a big deal in the grand scheme of life.)

She punched a couple of buttons, gave me a new total, and after I paid, I went on my merry way.

I didn't realize my crime until I came home and began putting items away.

You know that extra egg the cashier asked me to grab so she could get the bar code? Yeah, she put that in my bag, too.

So I came home with five Cadbury Eggs. I only paid for four.

And I'm not giving the extra one back.

Go ahead, officer. Cuff me. I'm guilty.

Friday Confessional: Take me to your mullet

I miss hair bands.

Like this... (more below)



I miss seeing rock stars with long, gorgeous hair. (I think this explains a lot about the era in which my first novel is set.)

I don't, however, miss mullets. Like the one my husband once had. He doesn't sport one anymore. Thankfully.


But he did. I used to tell him he looked like one of the survivors of Lynyrd Skynrd's plane crash.


He took it as a compliment. He was proud of his honest-to-goodness, head-banging, Joe-Dirt mullet.

Once -- when he still had his mullet -- we stopped at a gas station in Kansas. A pick-up truck full of redneck teens (hey, they had shotguns in the back window) started pulling out of the parking lot just as we climbed out of the car.

I kid you not: The driver of the truck slammed on his brakes, leaned out the window and cried out, "Hey, that's Joe Dirt!"

The excitement in his voice suggested the kid had just seen God. He hadn't. He'd only seen a hair lord.

Deep down, I'm pretty sure my husband knew the kid was playing with him. Dana didn't care. He pumped his fists in the air and hollered back, "Yeah, man, right on."

And I ducked back into my seat.

Yep, I really miss hair bands. Some of the hair styles. . .not so much.

What's the worst hair style you've ever had?

Thou shall not blaspheme the name of Pat Benatar

It was a little over a decade ago.

The details are kind of sketchy in my mind, but a blog post by Lynn Rush brought the memories rushing back last week.

I think Pat Benatar almost broke up my first band.

Don’t tell Pat. She doesn’t know. I wouldn’t want her to feel bad.

Even so, because of the incident, the legendary pop diva was included, by name, in the “Ten Commandments of Band Life.”

And why shouldn’t she be included?

After releasing hit after hit and inspiring high school girls everywhere in the ‘80s to be just like her (remember Fast Times at Ridgemont High?) Pat Benatar deserves to have her own commandment.

It all started in the late 1990s. I was in a cover band called Mean Persuasion with my husband, Dana, drummer Andrew, guitarist, Diego and bassist Allan.

We practiced at Andrew’s house every weekend and, for some reason, it seemed like it took a long time to build our set list to 40 songs. (And anyone who has been in or followed a cover band knows it doesn’t take long to get tired of those 40 songs.)

So, when Mean P, as we affectionately refer to the band now, had some downtime, Dana and I thought we’d be smart and put down as many fresh songs as possible.

That meant the songs had to be fairly simple to play and easy to remember.

That’s where Ms. Benatar comes in.

Among the songs Dana and I learned was her most recognizable tune, “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.”

Now, by far, that’s not one of my favorites, but we were looking for easy to play, remember?

Well, halfway through our weekend practice, a disagreement arose about why I was forcing my bandmates to learn a song no one particularly cared for.

Personally, I didn’t care what we learned, as long as it was learned quickly and we sounded good playing it. We had already played through “Hit Me…” a couple of times and it sounded decent.

Why toss out a good thing?

The guys in the band, however, didn’t agree. (Diego and Andrew preferred Bob Marley and Deep Purple.)

Being tired and frustrated, I slightly overreacted (which I’ve never done before and haven’t done since).

If we didn’t put that Pat Benatar song on the list, I was going to quit!

Somehow, my meltdown was interpreted as, “Don’t say anything bad about Pat Benatar, or Kat will yank your tongue through your nostril.”

We eventually made up for the disagreement through a series of phone calls during the week.

The following weekend, when we again gathered for practice, Andrew came prepared with a list of “The Ten Commandments of the Band.”

And on the list – you guessed it: “Thou shalt not blaspheme the name of Pat Benatar.”

More than a decade has passed since then, and I still haven’t lived down that tantrum.

In fact, it carried over to into my last musical endeavor. One day, out of the blue, another bass player asked why he wasn’t ever supposed to say anything bad about Pat Benatar.

I just shook my head and thought, “Because there is nothing bad you can say about Pat Benatar.”

Friday Confessional: I'm not a good Catholic girl

I believe if God had wanted me to abstain from red meat on Fridays during Lent, He wouldn't have made me allergic to fish.

Is this really a bad thing?

Okay, everybody sing it with me now.

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip that started from this tropic port aboard this tiny ship…”

Long ago, before the days of TVLand – back when televisions had dials and UHF was a common term – I would spend more than an hour every afternoon watching reruns of “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Brady Bunch,” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

I loved it.

Last week I found out that the characters in the classic TV sitcom “Gilligan’s Island” will be fitted for Hollywood’s silver screen. Considering how much I liked the show, you’d think I’d be excited about this.

Not so much.

I can’t help but wonder how the writers will take the premise of being stranded on a deserted island and turn it into something that hasn’t been done yet.

(Hellooo...Lost? Cast Away?)

Furthermore, if the writers of the new Gilligan's Island movie sets the story in present-day, how will they make the S.S. Minnow crew’s plight to get off of the island believable?

Think about it.

Mr. and Mrs. Howell – the wealthiest passengers of the ill-fated cruise ship – would be stranded in a place where they don’t have to worry about taxes.

Ginger – the Hollywood starlet – wouldn’t have to worry about the paparazzi.

MaryAnn wouldn’t have to worry about the impact climate change will have on the crops on her Kansas farm. Nor will she have to worry about being targeted by PETA for her methods of raising livestock.

The Professor could waste away the rest of his days researching the effects of social isolation on the human psyche.

Without processed food influencing his blood sugar, the Skipper might finally get his anger management and weight issues under control. (I can say this because I have issues of my own.)

And if Gilligan stays on the island, he never has to worry about what Skinny Mulligan will do when he realizes Gilligan wore his shirt without asking.

None of them would have to put up with 24-hour news feeds, political correctness and the endless blatherings of government figureheads.

Gosh. That sounds kind of like heaven to me.

What WOULDN’T you miss if you were stranded on a deserted island?

Don't push my buttons

I get my prescription meds in the pharmacy at a nearby grocery store.

It's a large building with three entrances -- the main door, the customer service door and the smaller, out-of-the way pharmacy entrance.

Despite the building's relative newness, the handicap button that automatically opens the door at the pharmacy entrance is fickle. You have to press it a certain way to get it to work.



The button is so fickle that I stopped trying use it. Instead, I open the door with my hands like God intended us non-handicapped folks to do.

I didn't think this was such a strange concept. Nor did I realize how much people have started relying on automatic door openers at stores.

Then one day I went to pick up a prescription. As I walked up to the store, two other people approached the pharmacy entrance at the same time I did.

The first man (I'll call him Bob) stepped in front of me -- a move I felt was rather impolite, to say the least. The second man (I'll call him Bill) noticed Bob's breach of etiquette, flashed an understanding smile at me and lingered behind.

Together we waited as Bob pressed the button to open the door.

Of course, it's a fickle button. Nothing happened.

He pressed it a second time. Again, nothing happened.

After pressing the button the third time, Bob tisked with disgust, threw up his arms and backed away. He turned and started toward the main entrance.

Bill raised an eyebrow at him, looked back at me, shook his head and smiled before grabbing the door handle and pulling it open.

You wouldn't believe how hard it was to keep a straight face when Bob approached the pharmacy counter.

Does this kind of stuff happen to anyone else?

When the day turns to dust and shadows and the demon is at your door...

Yesterday I updated my Facebook status to: "God, I've prayed so many times just so I could see the things that I want most of all are the same things killin' me."

A couple of people e-mailed me directly, wondering if I was okay. (Thanks.) A few others inquired on Facebook about what had happened to make me leave such dismal words.

Well, it reflected the way I felt: powerless.

The line is from my novel; when the MC is rapt in the throes of addiction, she writes the lyrics to a song called "Other gods" without realizing the darkness it reveals about her current state of mind.

The song title is based on the first commandment: "I am the Lord your God. . . .Do not have other gods before me."

Out of the ten, this was probably the hardest commandment for me to grasp.

The cynic in me used to interpret it as a sort of admission that there are other omnipotent beings in the universe trying to knock God from His pedestal. Early on, I pictured them as mythological titans. Later, I thought maybe it was a reference to the gods found in other religions.

I started to get a firm understanding of the meaning of this commandment when I tried to step inside the mind of an alcoholic while writing about Heather.

Then, while watching my husband struggle to quit drinking, I received a first-hand lesson on what it means to put other gods first.

I realized then that having other gods means zeroing in on that which separates us from grace.

Everyone has one.

It's whatever fills us up but leaves us empty. It's whatever leaves us lusting for affirmation and pleasure from outside sources, when the only source that should matter is the one that lives within us.

For some, an other god is gambling.

For some, it's cigarettes.

For others, it's cocaine, meth, heroin.

For my husband, it's alcohol.

My other god is food. And yesterday it had me on my knees.

But they say the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem.

Now that I've admitted it, the coming days will be a fight to remove that other god from the pedestal on which I placed it and to put my God back where He belongs.

Prayers (if you're a believer) and encouragement (if you're a non-believer) would be greatly appreciated.

And I think Bartles or Jaymes said it best: "Thank you for your support."

(OK, yeah, wine cooler reference was probably inappropriate, but if it made my husband laugh, then you all have to, too.)

Hypothetical: Black cats and sidewalk cracks

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stumbled to the stairs. Under my breath, I cursed my cell phone for beeping a text alert at 4 a.m.

When I reached the main floor of the house, I flipped on the lightswitch.

Forever, I will be grateful that I didn't remain in the dark that morning. I'm afraid of the dark. It freaks me out. So does receiving a text at 4 a.m. that includes a picture like this...

...and a message that says if I don't forward it to at least ten people, the person in the picture will chase me around with a butcher knife until I'm dead, dead, dead.

My friend sent it to me. She thought I'd get a kick out of it. She knows I'm an avid fan of scary movies and creepy stories. In the past, I've managed to give her chills with paranormal tales based on actual events from my childhood.

So, yeah, I probably deserved it.

But anyone who knows me also knows not to poke the bear at 4 a.m. I replied to her text with a few choice names (hey, I lived in a trailer park for nine years and have the vocabulary to prove it). Then I turned off my phone and hid beneath my blankets until the sun came up.

When we stopped laughing about it the following Monday, she told me she had forwarded the message to several people in her address book.

Why?

Superstition. She said the text gave her such a nasty case of the heebie-jeebies she was afraid of what might happen if she didn't send it on.

I rolled my eyes.

How could anyone believe such a thing?

After all, it was a chain text. It was no different than those chain e-mails that say if you don't pass on the inspirational message, it proves you don't believe in God.

I hate chain messages -- texts, e-mail, snail mail.

I never thought I'd consider passing one on until a few days later when a different friend said she received one in her mailbox (chain snail mail still exists?) and wanted advice on what to do.

Apparently, an acquaintance had sent my friend a letter with a $2 lottery ticket in it. She was supposed to buy seven more, mail them out and return one to the sender. I guess the idea is that she would eventually get several more back in the mail, increasing her chances of winning money.

"I like the gal that sent it to me and don't want to offend her, but I ain't doin' it," my friend told me. "Do I scratch the lottery ticket and keep it or send it back? Either way, I look like a (expletive), sort of. Also, if I do send it back to her, what do I say?"

I told my friend to scratch the ticket, do whatever she wants with the winnings -- if there are any -- and let her acquaintance learn a valuable lesson about wasting time and money.

Of course, I still was in a tizzy about receiving a chain text with a homicidal ghoul at 4 a.m.

But I'm curious. What would you would do?

A haunting in Nebraska

I have reason to believe my house is haunted.

I haven’t seen any ghostly apparitions floating between bedrooms. Nor have I heard rattling chains or disembodied voices.

But these ghosts have left evidence of their presence. Lights burning in vacant rooms. Dirty dishes cluttering the counter. Newspapers scattered on the table. Clothing strewn about in my children’s rooms. (They especially like my teenager’s room.)

What’s worse is I believe my children have seen these specters and have talked to them. They know their names: “Not Me,” “I Didn’t Do It,” and “I Don’t Know. Don’t Look At Me.”

My youngest told me about the first ghost one afternoon when I walked into the bathroom and found an empty toilet paper roll hanging on the holder.

“Who used all of the toilet paper and didn’t replace the roll?” I asked.

She replied: “Not Me.”

Last summer, I’d frequently come home from work to find an empty Cheetos bag in the living room. My kids couldn't have done this. They know food belongs in the kitchen.

I’d ask: “Who polished off the Cheetos and didn’t throw away the bag?”

They’d answer: “I Didn’t Do It.”

The other day was the last straw. I found hundreds of Legos spread across the living room floor. Now, I remember boxing these Legos up last summer. I couldn’t understand how they got from the attic to the living room floor all by themselves, so I asked my daughter: “How did these Legos get on the floor?”

She replied: “I Don’t Know. Don’t Look At Me.”

So I’m trying to decide. Do I hire a team of paranormal investigators? Or do I bring in the heavy artillery and contact an exorcist?

My interview with Cuba Gooding Jr.

I grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska. Every day, I get in my car and travel to Norfolk for work.

The founding fathers named this town after the North Fork of the Elkhorn River. When they submitted the name to the federal government, it was spelled Nor'Fork.

But somebody out east screwed up, thought they were naming the town after Norfolk, Virginia.

That's why it's pronounced Norfork, but it's spelled Norfolk. (We can tell the interlopers from the natives in one word.)

So what does this have to do with award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr.?

Everything, when you work for a daily newspaper that's often confused with the one in a city the size of Norfolk, Virginia.

Before I became the business editor, I was the entertainment editor at the Norfolk (pronounced Norfork, lest we get confused) newspaper. In that position, I interviewed everyone from country stars Dierks Bentley and Miranda Lambert to celebrities like Weird Al Yankovic and Bill Engvall.

So I didn't think it was odd when our newspaper received a fax announcing the release of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s movie "Dirty" and that he would be available for interviews.

This was 2005. The actor's incredible performance in the movie, "Radio," was still fresh in everyone's mind. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to feature him in the paper's weekly entertainment tab. (Not only that, Cuba Gooding Jr. had been one of my favorite actors since his minor appearance in "Coming to America.")

I called the publicist's number (located on the fax) and told her we'd love to feature Cuba on the cover.

"Great!" she replied. And we planned the interview to take place just days before the big premiere.

Now, all of my celebrity interviews have been done over the phone (with the exception of Max Carl, lead singer of Grand Funk, former .38 Special). I didn't expect this one to be any different.

The day before the interview (four days before the movie's premiere and three days before the paper's entertainment edition is published), the publicist called to confirm our arrangement.

I asked, "Now, do you want me to call him or do you need my number so he can reach me?"

A long pause filled the line before she said: "He's flying into Norfolk tomorrow for the premiere. We can do a face-to-face interview."

Another long pause filled the conversation. At this point, I realized that after several weeks of planning this big cover-story the publicist had screwed up. I was pretty sure Cuba Gooding Jr. was not flying in to Norfolk, Nebraska's tiny Karl Stefan Memorial Airport.

Oh, how to break it to her lightly?

"Um, you do realize you've set this interview up with the paper in Norfolk, Nebraska, right?"

"Yeah, wait...Excuse me? What?" From the tremor in her voice, I could tell what she was thinking: Oh (insert favorite expletive here) I've just (expletive+ed) up big time.

I felt bad for her. I figured there would be hell to pay for promising the studio, actor, producers that the movie would have the cover of the entertainment section of a major daily like The Virginian Pilot, and then not delivering.

Finally, she said, "I think I've made a huge mistake." (Ya think?) And then she became a little short, "I wish you'd have said something sooner," as if I had misrepresented myself.

Hey, you contacted me.

"He will still be available for this interview, correct?" I still had a cover story to take care of. I'd been promised this interview; I was going to make sure I got it.

But it was obvious she couldn't end the call fast enough. "Well, yes. He can still do the interview, but I'll have to call you back with a time."

Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. And guess what? It never did.

And that's why you can't read about my interview with Cuba Gooding Jr.

But let this be a lesson to all: Always double check the area code.

Random thought for the weekend

I think someone should invent a font specifically for sarcasm.

Anyone with me?

Whoa baby...

I thought it was hilarious in college.

I mean, what's not funny about watching your boyfriend secretly sign up one of his buddies to receive free information about Bedwetters Anonymous?

Can you imagine the confusion that would settle on a guy's face when he found such literature in his mailbox?

How bad would your stomach hurt from restraining the laughter when he says, "Why would someone send me this?" Or how about when he tries to discreetly dispose of the material before anyone sees?

Of course, I was eighteen and extremely immature for my age. And it always has been hard for me to turn my back on a good practical joke.

Unfortunately, I think my husband and I might now be reaping the bad mojo we sewed so many years ago.

My first hint of this came in a box in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Words on the bright yellow container used huge letters to proclaim: Free Samples of Enfamil Baby Formula Inside!

This might not seem like a big deal to you, but I live in a small town. I have neighbors. The postman has a first and last name. People talk.

And if that wasn't enough to get the rumors started, the bright yellow envelope bearing a picture of the Gerber Baby peddling a child-sized life-insurance policy certainly was.

Whoever signed me up for all of these free samples of baby supplies surely is out there laughing it up. Big time.

Well, he (or she) probably would be very happy to know that when the sample of Huggies recently came in the mail, even my husband got a little nervous.

So just for the record (in case anyone might be interested) I'm not knocked up. (But my nephew and his wife will certainly appreciate all of the freebies, and I'm enjoying a good laugh.)