Feeds:
Posts
Comments

The Dreamtime: A Twisted Love Story

July 26, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

More publishing news! It’s been a busy summer. This time my contemporary fantasy story “The Dreamtime” appears online at Buzzy Magazine.

“The Dreamtime” is one of my older stories. I wrote it in the spring of 2010, and it was the story I submitted to Taos Toolbox for the first week critiques. Yes, I got fifteen critiques on this story during that first week at Taos, and almost everyone agreed on one thing: a crucial scene was missing. Yes, missing.

If anyone was looking for a testimonial on the effectiveness of Taos Toolbox as a workshop, I think I can honestly say I would never have sold this story without the revisions I did as a result of attending. I actually ended up adding two major scenes and one very short interlude, as well as deleting (well, combining with another, really) a scene. And the story is much better for all these changes.

Photo by Paul Bica

This story is also an illustration of the important role of persistence in being a writer. I finished the above revisions later that same summer, and as you see, the story is appearing two years later. It was purchased almost a year and a half after I started sending it out to markets. In fact, I was almost ready to give up and put it away for good, but I hated to do that since I still felt I could stand by it as a story. And then along came the new market Buzzy Magazine, paying pro rates and having an editorial focus that made me think “The Dreamtime” might be a good fit. I guess the editors agreed!

As for the story seed, I started out by thinking of the dreamtime as a metaphor for those moments when you begin thinking about someone in your past who you would really rather not think about. And yet there they are, waving at you from your own thoughts. But what if these people could do something similar of their own volition? A psychic phone call, if you will? From this idea was born the character of Mariah, still hung up on a crazy ex-love with the power to roam her dreams. In this way, this story is a twisted kind of love story that shows the emotional aftermath of a relationship gone wrong.

Some of my Taos classmates had trouble believing that a woman would find a man like O’Malley to be attractive since he is arrogant, dismissive, bullying, expects her to do what he wants. I have to respectfully disagree. Of course relationships like this exist in the real world. And even though these relationships are dysfunctional, that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult for the parties involved to disentangle themselves. Love doesn’t disappear so easily. The question in my mind isn’t whether such relationships exist but rather whether the individuals involved (in this case, Mariah) can develop the personal strength to move on.

I hope you enjoy!

Posted in Arts, Science fiction and fantasy, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Sucking the Marrow From Life

July 24, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

Last week Theodora Goss wrote about becoming more fearless, and she had this to say:

“Perhaps it’s when you come to the realization that the point of life isn’t to be rich, or secure, or even to be loved — to be any of the things that people usually think is the point. The point of life is to live as deeply as possible, to experience fully. And that can be done in so many ways.”

I love this so much. I love it not only because I agree with it, but also because it redefines what “success” is. It allows us to be kind with ourselves about the inevitable mistakes and confusion and decisions that didn’t turn out the way we thought they would. Because all of that, the laughter and tears, the messes and triumphs, they all become woven into the tapestries of our lives. And to value all of them seems to me to be celebrating life in a more complete way.

It’s not that the other things Dora lists aren’t important. Money is useful for obvious reasons (read: not starving to death). Security–that feeling that the earth isn’t going to shift underneath you at any moment–well, I think some of us crave security more than others, and for those of us who do crave it, not having it can produce inordinate amounts of stress. And love–we all learned from The Christmas Carol that love, both the personal kind and the more general goodwill towards humans kind, is more important than wealth. And indeed, love of all kinds can be a deeply enriching experience.

However, all of these things can be stripped away. Here today, gone tomorrow. Huge financial crisis, lay-offs at work, a medical crisis, and your money is gone. Career change, bad health news, a house fire, and security is gone. Death, divorce, drifting away, and the love might not be gone, but it has certainly altered. Because the fundamental truth of being human is that the world and our experience of the world are in constant flux, whether we want that or not.

Photo by Dave Morrow

This is why I like what Dora said so very much. Because living as deeply as possible, that does not have to change, at least not until death. “As possible” is key here; we may not get to live as we would choose, but we can still have as our goal to live as fully as possible given our circumstances. There are so many possibilities of what that could look like. Maybe I can’t travel to China this year (wouldn’t that be a fabulous trip to take?), but I can go to Seattle. And write a novel. And read beautiful books. The challenge then becomes creating something meaningful out of what you can make possible.

Living like this takes a lot of courage, I think (which makes sense, given that Dora was talking about fearlessness). It is hard to let go of specific ideas of what we want. It is hard to create meaning when circumscribed in various ways. It is hard to accept that things change when we were comfortable or happy with the way they were before. It is hard to cast ourselves on the winds of life and attempt to steer even though we might not know exactly where we are going. (And if we do know, we are often wrong.)

But when I lie on my deathbed, I think this is what will matter to me, this passionate living of life. I’ll care a bit about the physical comforts that money can bring me, sure. I probably won’t care much about security given that I’ll be dying. I’ll care a lot about the people I love and the time I have been able to spend with them. And I’ll care about how I spent the time I had. I’ll care that I lived with all my being, that I did courageous things, that I listened to Thoreau and sucked the marrow right out of life.

How do you want to spend your life?

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments »

I Am Writing a Book about Social Media

July 19, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

This week I have a guest post up over at BookLifeNow: So You Want to Start a Blog. I go over different points to think about when you are either starting up a blog or trying to give your current blog a face lift. So if you enjoy reading me talking about social media, you might want to check it out.

And speaking of me talking about social media… I have a new project! And it’s way exciting! (Well, at least if you’re me.) I have started work on a nonfiction book about social media strategies for fiction writers.

Yes, there are already a few books on this subject out there. But not as many as you’d think. And the few I’ve seen start at a really basic level, geared towards people who don’t know how to or are uncomfortable using the internet. (For example: Here’s how you sign up for a Twitter account.)  That’s great and definitely needed, but it’s not necessary reading for all fiction writers. I also don’t agree with all the strategies that are presented. And much of the material you can find on the internet is either geared towards companies or nonfiction writers, or is also fairly basic.

So many options!

So what I’m writing is the book on social media strategy that I wanted to read. A book that is targeted for writers who already have basic internet skills. A book that is lean and not stuffed with extra padding so that you’re not wasting time. A book that goes into depth on the fundamental principles behind social media strategy and content creation as well as giving strategies for specific platforms. And while I am going to be specifically targeting fiction writers, I think much of what I’ll be talking about can also be applied to other creative professionals.

As you know, I write a fair amount about social media on this blog, and I’ve been thinking of writing this book since last year. What pushed me over the edge, however, was working on my guest post for BookLifeNow. I was originally writing an article on the different types of writer blogs, and it kept getting longer…and longer…and then I thought, this would be so much better if I could add a few case studies…. That’s when I realized that first off, what I was writing was not a blog post, and second off, I could no longer put off writing this book about social media.

My plans are still fairly fluid right now. I’m working on this book at the same time as I revise The Academy of Forgetting, which is taking priority (since otherwise I might just not do it). I don’t have a target release date yet, although you’ll all be the first to know when I do. I expect that I’ll be self publishing this book when I am finished with it, to get it out into the world in an efficient manner. My other option is Kickstarter, but I’m not confident I have enough of a base to make that work (feel free to tell me your thoughts about this!)

I’ve been avidly studying all things social media for the past few years, and I’m really looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned. My hope is that I can help fiction writers at all stages of their careers craft personal strategies that are both effective and enjoyable.

If you have any thoughts or ideas about what you’d like to see in such a book, please leave me a comment or drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you!

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments »

Travel: A Love Letter

July 17, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

I’ve written before about how travel can cause us to get to know people better. What I didn’t say was that travel can help us learn to know ourselves better.

This fact is perhaps why I care about travelling so deeply. Because all those things you can find out about your traveling companion? If you’re paying attention, you can also discover them about yourself.

Travel forces us to exist in liminal spaces, pushes us into in-betweens. We are no longer inhabiting our familiar landscapes, no longer in our comfortable personal worlds. We are past the comfort zone, pushing boundaries, encouraged to see what is around us with new eyes. Grocery shopping becomes glamorous and the tenth art masterwork we’ve seen today becomes mundane.

A fjord in Norway

Travel is taxing. We are often tired from long sits on airplanes, the passage of too many time zones, making our way from point A to point B in stifling heat or numbing cold. Our bodily needs become complicated as we try to manage our hunger, our thirst, our exposure to the sun, or our aching feet. The food may be different. The language may be different. Things go wrong and fall apart, and we are left feeling simultaneously buffeted by a large, impersonal world and lifted up by strangers’ acts of kindness and generosity.

It is because travel can be so uncomfortable that it is so rewarding. We find edges we didn’t know existed inside of us. We run headlong into our assumptions. Many of our outer trappings are stripped away even while we experiment with creating personal narratives for the people we meet. And meanwhile we are surrounded by brain food or soul food or the seeds of creative inspiration, or all three at once.

Sometimes we lose ourselves, and travel is one way to begin searching. Sometimes we crave change, and travel is one way to explore the possibilities. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we are alive, and travel is one way to find peak experiences.

Exploring in Portugal

Travel is an active doing and a passive waiting. Travel is discomfort and pleasure, sublimity and boredom, a pain in the butt and the best time ever. Travel is flinging ourselves into the world and asking, Will you catch me? Which sometimes turns into, Can I catch myself?

We often think about travel as an exploration of the world. But it can also be an exploration of the self. In removing ourselves from our routines, our comforts, and our surroundings, we gain fresh perspective.

I had a friend ask, “By traveling, aren’t you running away from your problems?”

But sometimes traveling is running directly into our problems. We take ourselves wherever we go. The question is how serious we are about creating change. And traveling is one way to do just that.

Posted in Life, Personal Development | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments »

Man on the Moon Day, or My First Flash

July 11, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

My flash science fiction story Man on the Moon Day is now available on Daily Science Fiction’s website. Hooray! (Make sure you press the “Display Entire Story” button so you don’t miss out on the end.)

For those of you who don’t know what flash fiction is, it is super short fiction. The word limits vary, but in my own mind, I usually define flash fiction as stories of 1000 words or less. Other people say flash fiction is even shorter than that.

I wrote Man on the Moon Day for a contest of the Codex Writers’ Group called Weekend Warrior. The idea is that every weekend for five weeks, the participants are provided with a few prompts to choose from, and must write a story of 750 words or less. Then everyone reads everyone else’s stories and rates them all from 1 to 10 and provides brief comments (a sentence or two).

For me, this contest was a great education in flash fiction, a form of fiction I hadn’t been very familiar with before. I participated in three of the weeks (one weekend I was in Detroit for ConFusion, and the last weekend I was just tired and very steeped in Novel). My first two stories…well, they weren’t very good. And then I wrote Man on the Moon Day, edited it based on contest feedback (it’s now 850 words long instead of 750), and sent it into Daily Science Fiction. Thirty-five days later I received the e-mail saying they wanted to buy it.

This story challenged me in two particular ways (well, besides the challenge of learning to write at a much shorter length, which was hard enough!). First, I was playing with a protagonist who…well, she’s fairly bitter, and many readers did not find her particularly likeable. I actually enjoy writing about protagonists who aren’t likeable but with whom I still have some sympathetic connection, and I figured, if I couldn’t play with that in such a short form, when could I get away with it? The structure of the story doesn’t help this either, as it is just one moment in time in what I consider to be the denouement of the entire story. Showing more of the story would, most likely, have helped to build more sympathy for the main character. So it was definitely a risk to take and doesn’t work for all readers. Indeed, many of the readers on Codex adamantly didn’t like this story.

The second challenge was one of theme and how this story plays into the “great space explorer” trope of science fiction. Because the story should be about the spouse who travels off into the great beyond and founds a colony on the moon…shouldn’t it? Well, I didn’t think so. In this case, I thought it was more interesting to explore what (or in this case, who) the explorer leaves behind and ask the question, at what cost? I’m not trying to make value judgments here about the cost as much as present the question to the reader so they can answer it for themselves. At the same time, the story may cause some readers to question traditional gender roles and how gender privilege sometimes asserts itself into relationships. It certainly caused me to think about that, even though I didn’t originally intend to write a story about that issue.

So this is a story that very much challenged me, as both a writer and a human being, and I hope it will challenge some of you as well.

Meanwhile, if you are wondering why a Wednesday post, it is because I will be on a plane for most of Thursday. I’ll be at Readercon outside of Boston this weekend, my first time at this particular con. I have a group Codex reading on Friday at 12pm in Room NH, at which I’ll be reading this story (it is, after all, a Codex success story). The rest of the time, I’ll be gorging on exciting panels and interesting conversation. If you are going to be there as well, I’d love to say hello!

Posted in Science fiction and fantasy, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Searching for Words, When Confronted by Grief

July 10, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

A couple of recent articles about what to say and not to say to chronically ill people reminded me of an essay I’ve been wanting to write for a long time: an essay about what to say and not to say to grieving people.

This is not that essay.

Instead I’ve been thinking a lot about the fundamental difficulties in communication. Those articles I linked to have excellent advice for how to support people who are ill, and yet… implementing that advice is no easy matter. It can be hard to be supportive, and it can be hard to be supported.

One way to be supportive

I’d love to think that having gone through the experience of losing my own mother would make me some kind of expert when it comes to grief. But it hasn’t. I still find myself at a loss for words. I still don’t always know the best way to support someone experiencing grief. Because people are different, and they need different things.

The reason I wanted to write that essay is because of some profoundly stupid and upsetting things people said to me about losing my mother (both during and afterwards). But I recognize that some of those things that grated against my raw skin would have been comforting to others. So if you don’t know a person extremely well, how do you know? How do you know what they need to hear? The answer is, you don’t. You do your best to be thoughtful and caring, and you listen in hopes of hearing what they need.

Of course, some responses are simply a bad idea. Pushing our religions and religious ideas onto others who don’t share them in a time of grief is shockingly dense. Comparing one grieving person with another one unfavorably is also completely out. (Julie lost her mom last year and is doing great, so why are you such a mess? Ugh.) Continuing a conversation normally as if we didn’t just hear someone tell us about a recent loss? Completely inappropriate. (And yes, these are all responses I received personally.)

But beyond that, some people want alone time, while other people never want to be alone. Sometimes it’s nice to pretend like everything’s okay, and sometimes another minute of pretending seems completely insupportable. Sometimes people will want to talk about it, sometimes they’ll want to cry, and sometimes they’ll want to play video games. Some people will want to talk religion, some will be experiencing grave doubts, and some will simply want to avoid the subject as much as possible. And the relationship between the grieving and the dead will be different in each case as well. But somehow in the aftermath of death we forget this and make assumptions that aren’t always correct.

Our society teaches us to tiptoe around grief. What this often means is a flood of well wishes right after the death of a loved one, followed by…resounding silence. No one knows if they’re supposed to pretend nothing is wrong or if they’re supposed to inquire after you. People don’t know how best to support you. Those who grieve are not always encouraged to figure out what they need or communicate those needs to others. Sometimes they are too upset to have any hope of doing so.

Because this is not that essay, I don’t have any nice, neat conclusions for you. I don’t have definitive answers or a list of ten things you should do to help your friend who is grieving. What I try (and sometimes fail) to do myself is to be compassionate, remember that the other person is not me, and pay attention. I don’t feel like it is enough, but it’s all I’ve got.

If you’ve ever lost a loved one, what kind of support did you need/want? What things did people say to you that were particularly helpful (or unhelpful)?

Posted in Grief, Life | Tagged , , | 26 Comments »

Blog Love Time!

July 5, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

A month or so ago, Mike Allegra was kind enough to nominate me for a Versatile Blogger Award. Which was like an extra special birthday present for the blog. Thank you, Mike!

Mike blogs himself, of course (hence the award). He is a children’s writer too. And he tells very amusing personal anecdotes in a casual and funny style.

Anyhow, I thought this would be a great time to highlight a few other blogs that are in my own reader that I’ve been enjoying lately.

  1. The Book Smugglers: I’ve been enjoying the Book Smugglers for a long time now. They are my favorite book review blog, and their general tastes fit so well with mine it’s almost spooky. They tend to review YA (and some MG as well) and adult SF/F, as well as a little historical and romance on the side. I don’t agree with every single one of their reviews, but they are always thought-provoking and well-reasoned. I learn both about books I’d like to read and more about writing at the same time. I especially love their “On The Smugglers’ Radar” feature every Saturday about upcoming titles.
  1. Blotter Paper: This is the blog of my writer friend Rahul Kanakia. He writes speculative fiction (and has been published in places of note like Clarkesworld, IGMS, and Redstone) and is about to move across the country to begin an MFA program. He writes a lot about the books he reads, which is interesting because he has very eclectic tastes, so I feel like reading about his reading broadens my own horizons. And he is an astute observer of society as well.
  1. Altucher Confidential: This is a bigger blog about personal development, and it amuses me because James’ personality comes out full force in everything he writes. I don’t always agree with him…in fact, I often don’t agree with him. But his world view is interesting and occasionally he says something that really resonates with me.
  1. Letters From Titan: Racheline Martese writes interesting analysis of pop culture and symbolism in pop culture. Her essays about the TV show Glee have possibly prolonged my viewership of said show, that’s how interesting I think they are. Really, my only wish is that she’d write more.
  1. Captain Awkward: This is my absolute favorite new discovery; even its name snaps with awesome. This blog is an advice column that actually dispenses advice I can usually get behind. (I know, right? Who would have thought that was even possible?) Captain Awkward encourages people to get a backbone, say no when appropriate, get their needs met, and improve their communication skills. I love this blog with all the blog love in my heart.

How about you? Got any favorite blogs you’d like to recommend? I’m always looking for new ones to check out.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

The Busy Conundrum

July 3, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

I had a topic all ready to write about today, but I’m throwing it out the window, and instead I’m going to talk about the recent New York Times editorial “The Busy Trap” that people have been sharing like crazy. Sometimes extremely busy people, which is giving the entire conversation an extra dose of (unintentional?) humor.

I am actually very torn by the idea of the culture of busyness that apparently is not just a Silicon Valley thing (although I can’t pretend to be very surprised it also lives in places like Manhattan). First off, the whole conversation automatically comes from a place of privilege–people who can choose whether or not to be busy because they have time that is not taken up with working to support their families or working insane hours so they will not be fired (and I’m sure there are other examples you can think of).

That being said, it’s still an interesting cultural phenomenon for many of those in the middle class. I’ve certainly seen it countless times here in the Bay Area. And on the one hand, I’m impressed by the busy (which is, after all, partly the point), while on the other hand, it irritates me to no end.

Busy busy.

Sometimes, after all, the busy is really cool. I admire people who have decided to embrace their passions, or go out and change the world, or meet tons of fascinating people, or travel around the world. Their social calendars sound exciting, and when you ask them, at the occasional party, what they’ve been up to, they always have something to say beyond, “Eh. I work. And then I don’t work.” There is a certain energy some of these people have that can be quite intoxicating, as they catapult from event to event and obligation to hobby. And I’m really happy for them and encourage them to follow their dreams.

But on the flip side, it’s hard to become Friends with a capital F with these busy people. Because all those activities take time, and it has to come from somewhere. And when you try to get together and have to schedule a month ahead…to have dinner…and there’s not even kids or babysitters or anything involved…and this happens every time you try to schedule…well, it becomes an obstacle. And it is difficult to build intimacy with local friends who you are not able to see once a month or so, at least during some formative period at the beginning of the friendship (honestly I’d say every other week, but Silicon Valley has forced me to adapt my expectations).

I am not busy. Not like that. I have my weeks that go off the rails, and I travel a fair amount, but here is my secret. I like not being busy. I like having time when I’m sitting around thinking. I like having lazy Sundays when I sleep in, take my dog to the park, read a novel, and maybe go out for sushi in the evening. I like having time to write this blog. I like having time to notice what’s going on around me, and I like silence, and I like days when I have nothing scheduled. And sometimes at parties, all I have to say is, “Well, I’ve been writing.”

Not to give you the wrong idea. I still have stuff I have to get done, obligations to meet, appointments to keep, projects going full swing. I vigilantly guard my writing time, even when I’m invited to do fun stuff. But it’s a very different pace. It is definitely a privilege.

And I have the time to appreciate that.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments »

The Practical Free Spirit Turns Two, and a Small Request

June 28, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

My blog, the Practical Free Spirit, turns two this week. On Saturday, June 30th, to be exact. This is my 223rd post. I just read my first post, Originality: Having Something to Say. I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s not so bad. It sounds like me two years ago, which isn’t, after all, so much different from me now.

Would you like some more data? I’ve taken time off for vacation a few times, but other than that, I reliably post twice a week. I’ve never failed to post when I was planning to do so, although I’ve come close once or twice. The blog gets an average of 105 comments per month (thank you for joining the conversation!). Probably about half of those comments are from me, although I’ve been falling a bit behind in the past few months.

The highest traffic month in the blog’s life was April 2012. The most popular post is What is a Free Spirit?, which is apparently more of a pressing question than I would think. (Thank you, Google Search.) Other popular subjects include those I was afraid to write about, introversion, and cool Star Wars pictures. I am still on a quest to bring some much-deserved cuteness fame to Nala because what good is having a blog if you can’t occasionally cute-bomb your long-suffering readership?

Storm troopers create new lives for themselves fighting crime.

I don’t know much about my readers, actually, except the ones who comment. I wish I knew more. I wonder about you sometimes. It’s a strange sort of intimacy we have because I suspect there’s a significant part of me that you can get to know pretty well if you read regularly. Not the entire me, of course, but an important part. I talk about what I care about here (really, there’s no point in me writing a 500-word essay about something I don’t care about). I talk about what I’ve been thinking about. I link to the most interesting articles I’ve read. Once in a while I get teary-eyed while I’m writing one of these posts because it matters so much to me.

I read articles about what I “should” be doing with the blog, and then I ignore a lot of what I read, because we are friends, you and I. And a lot of those shoulds sound sleazy or cheap or fake to me, and I can’t bear to do them. Not to the blog, which has taken on a life of its own. It depends on me, after all; I breathe life into it. I am responsible for it. Before I started, it didn’t ever occur to me to think of a blog as a living entity, and perhaps many blogs aren’t. But this one–well, it just might be.

I am going to ask for a birthday present now, for me or for the blog, or for both of us. Satisfy my curiosity, leave a comment, and tell me about yourself. Who are you? What do you like about this blog? What do you wish I’d do more or less of? What are you glad that I don’t do (and you hope I never start)? What subjects do I talk about that give you a burst of satisfaction?

I would really like to know whatever you’d like to tell me.

Posted in Life, Social Media, Writing | Tagged , , | 32 Comments »

Five Happy Things: Birthday Celebration Week!

June 26, 2012 by Amy Sundberg

It’s that time again! Birthday time! My birthday is tomorrow, but I am celebrating all week. Why? Because I can, that’s why. And because I’m happy to be alive. And because I keep thinking of things to do that sound like excellent birthday-related activities. Like playing an epic game of Battlestar Galactica this past weekend, for example. And visiting Ghirardelli Square. And going to a bookstore (any reason is a good reason to do THAT!)

Last year I wrote about Five Happy Things for my birthday, and I think that’s an excellent tradition, so I’m going to do it again.

1. The Academy of Forgetting. Flawed it might be, but it’s also the best and most ambitious thing I’ve ever written. I’m in the middle of an exciting (and at times turbulent) romance with it, and it reminds me of all the best parts of being a writer.

2. The Writing Community. When I went up to Seattle at the last minute this spring, I sent out an e-mail telling local writers I was going to be in town. I expected to spend most of the trip by myself; maybe a couple of people would be able to get together, I told myself. Instead, I got to see so many writer friends, it blew me away. People who went out of their way to spend time with me, help me (especially with the buses), and show me cool aspects of Seattle (the Underground Tour, the Theo Chocolate Factory, the nightlife, the food). And that’s when it hit me down deep: this is what community is. And I am a part of it. How amazing is that?

3. Food. I love food. I was raised on a bland and narrow diet, and ever since I went away to college, I’ve been on a journey of discovery. I am so happy there are spices! And onions! And different types of cuisines from different countries! Heirloom tomatoes exist, how exciting is that! And beets, and baked sweet potatoes, and cherries, and gnocchi, and sushi, and Ethiopian food, and curries, and white hot chocolate, and… You get the picture.

4. My bathtub. My bathtub is a proper big bathtub, like all bathtubs are meant to be. It also has jets, but I never use them. What I like about my bathtub is that I don’t have to bend my knees to fit in it, and I can be submerged in hot water from my neck to my toes. Sheer bliss.

5. Being able to set my own sleep schedule. I do not like going to bed. However, I do like to sleep and feel well rested. Do you see the inherent quandary? Happily I am able to set my own hours, and therefore I am able to stay up late and still get eight hours of sleep. This is a wonderful thing, and I appreciate it on a pretty much daily basis.

I will leave you all with the adorableness that is Nala. This is maybe my favorite photo of her.

You can see some Jack Russell attitude here. Classic Nala.

Posted in Life | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »