General/Administrative

Thinking about the ending of one of my favorite blogs, I started to think about beginnings. If I can come up with reasons to end a blog, can I also think up reasons to begin one? Here are the top ten reasons why I keep a blog. Documentation The first blog that I started was my personal blog a couple of years ago. We had just realized how sick my dad really was and I knew that I would want to document the journey of our family into the illness of cancer. I knew that my mind wouldn't be as sharp as usual, wouldn't remember details later on, and I wanted to have some sort of record to look back on during this time, so… [more]

The above link is for an article by Komo News in Seattle. My aunt sent this to all of us to help inform us about this rare form of breast cancer that does not present itself with a lump. "Inflammatory breast cancer almost always presents itself without a lump," says Breast Cancer Specialist Dr. Julie Gralow. Inflammatory breast cancer appears in sheets of cancer, or what doctors call cancer nests. The cancer clogs breast tissue vessels. At this point in time there is very little research and support for women with IBC. Also, not very many women have heard of it and do not know what to look for. Probably the best advice in the whole article, was "It's important to understand your breast, no one… [more]

So I've reached the end of the business week doing my stint as the newly appointed fertility blogger. I'm thinking about where I was emotionally on Monday as opposed to my emotions today. The first post made my nerves exposed, I was jittery with anticipation. As the days went on the blog brought new ideas into my head and little by little a sense of ability as a writer. It has lead me to remember special creative times with my Nana and my sister. It has lead me to learn about the history of May Day, fertility goddesses and modern-day myths. All of this in just 4 short days, with the internet and my keyboard. I was thinking today about how many things… [more]

(Jamie Rector for the New York Times). The caption of this picture from the New York Times says it all: Shad Magness thought his tattoo said "One Love." Six months after he got it he found out it says "Love Hurts." Don't ask me why, but getting a tattoo in a language that you do not speak - specifically Chinese - is the new "in" thing from loving fathers, bikers, to NBA stars according to this article in The New York Times. Best among the anectdotes was Britney Spear's request for a tattoo that said "mysterious" in Chinese, and she got one that said "strange." Someone NBA player wanted his initials - Chinese is not a phonetic language!… [more]

Greetings and thank you for stopping by! Who am I? I am a novelist and 41-year-old woman with one biological child and who is thinking of adding another to our family. Before I had children, I used to state that I thought of each book of mine as a child: something you gestate, nurture, then set free into the world. People told me that after I had a child of my own, I'd realize how that metaphor is totally bunkum, that a child can't compare with some old novel. Au contraire. The comparison with the wild, wicked, beautiful path to motherhood seems more and more apropos every day. Each book I work on has its own weird way of coming into being: sometimes the ending… [more]