A Song for the Apocalypse

now you see me, now you don't a.k.a. here/not here

Gather round the fire, dears:

Let’s sing a lullaby.

Kiss your loved ones, hold them tight
Do not let them see your fright

Hug your loved ones, hold them dear
This will teach them not to fear

Whisper: “Loved one, you are why,
I have chosen not to cry.

No, instead I’ll win this fight
So that you can sleep at night.”

don’t try this at home unless you can juggle five balls while walking a slackline

I am writing this on Thursday so I don’t actually know what has happened between then and now - or rather I do know now, as you are reading this, but I didn’t write it down because I am writing this on Thursday. Make sense?

What a rollercoaster week. Not in a good way. In the way of you’re having a great time on a rollercoaster and it feels like a vacation when one of the cars derails.

The good news is writing news (it’s below in Writing News).

The bad news is that I’m currently driving up and back to Canada over a weekend to hug a mom whose son was just diagnosed with leukemia. It is vicious of this world to rip rugs out from under the feet of unsuspecting 20 yr old healthy humans who are generous and kind and loving. Absolutely unfathomably painful. My son and I are doing a 500+ mile roadtrip to see them (11 hours each way) leaving Friday and back on Monday. Why? Because this is the sort of horrifying awful unfair dreadful thing that you can do NOTHING about. Taking a ridiculously epic journey at least FEELS like doing something. And if love and loyalty, friendship and community, hope and prayer, and I dunno….“thoughts” …help at all, this journey will generate a PLETHORA of them.

Plus we get to reconnect with friends in Buffalo and Hamilton on the way there and back and add their good wishes to our own. Connecting the world with love.

Also? I keep telling everyone that I am going to visit “our best friend Canada” and I think we Americans should just always refer to Canada that way. "So, I’m going to visit our best friend Canada where my best friend from college now lives…” or “this great ice wine is made by our best friend Canada.”

Just because our government can’t appreciate our best friends, doesn’t mean all of us don’t need to stand up for them.

Writing News:

As I said, rollercoaster week! In addition to my son’s acceptance to a grad school at City College for Architecture which was just a joy all around, there was a lot more good stuff. Attended an illuminating industry showcase for actors from The Actors Studio. Learned a lot! Found some excellent underground bars in the East Village & Lower Manhattan — good times! And more good stuff:

I got a story acceptance! Thanks to a writer-friend who pointed out the call! I wrote a super-cool story about a dragon with Stockholm Syndrome and I earned something like .25/word so that’s pretty great. (I will tell you more when I’ve officially signed contract - publication should be later in the Spring.)

I ran the Book-to-Screen Pen Parentis Literary Salon on Tuesday night. Here’s the whole show if you want to watch it on your own time (total runs about an hour; first half hour is mostly bios and readings).

ALSO: my interview is finally live on Girls Write Now (they are doing a series of interviews of literary nonprofit leaders—I’m actually so honored to be included in this group of amazing people)!

Love the clip they chose to highlight—hmmm—here’s the whole podcast episode:

Pen Parentis with Milda M. De Voe

RANDOM FINAL THOUGHT:

Why do we have conflicting voices in our heads? I mean - if we are ourselves…just a one-person self, why is there more than one voice telling us things in our heads before, during, and after we make choices?

“It’s crowded, wanna get out of here and go somewhere else?”