11 Random Fun Facts About Me

Last month my blog turned two (they grow up so fast). And that means my About Me fun facts are two years old as well. So I decided it was high time I pulled together 11 Random Fun Facts About Me for everyone's reading pleasure. Enjoy the nerdiness that is yours truly:

1. I’m an official member of the captain planet and the planeteers fan club. Joined at the tender age of 23, I think. I have a patch and everything.

2. My first major in school was art. I wanted to study sequential art at Savannah College of Art and Design. In fact, I still have the portfolio I submitted in my application. I got in, but in the end, I never attend. I decided to pursue English Lit.

3. Speaking of sequential art, I drew a comic strip in middle school called Peanut and Butter. Peanut was a sentient nut that fought crimes with the help of his resourceful sidekick, Butter (Literally, a stick of butter). I remember spending a lot of time trying to get his butter-wrapper cape just right.

4. I’m a huge Anime/Manga fan. My first loves were Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, and Fusigi Yuugi. I spent hours and hours drawing the characters. I guess that's the art nerd version of fan fiction.

5. The first novel I read in a single sitting, start to finish, was a 90210 (the original years) spinoff. So, that was YA before YA was a thing, right? *adjusts hipster eyeglass frames* Such drama. So Amaze. Much Wow.

6. The first book I remember crying over was A Wind in The Door, the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time. It was summer before 6th or 7th grade. My siblings and I would take weekly trips on our bicycles to the local library. Until that point I ‘read’ mostly comic books (like Garfield compilations) and chapter books. Then I stumbled across A Wrinkle in Time and fell in love. Just thinking of A Wind in The Door still takes my breath away.

7. I was rejected by an Army recruiter because my neck was too big. Literally, the recruiter said my neck was too big to fit in their uniforms. Doesn’t seem legit, especially considering my brother served in the military and is universally acknowledged as having the biggest cranium known to man, ah, I mean, in our family, at least. Wouldn’t his neck be even bigger than mine? It would have to be to support his giant skull. Right?

8. I have a gold medal for band – well, not technically band. I have a gold medal because I had the honor of being part of a world championship drum and bugle corps. Which, for those who don’t know, is like professional marching band. We tour and compete all summer long against corps from other parts of the country and world. It’s one of my most prized possessions.

9. I once auditioned for my universities production of a Cabaret-style musical review by singing a Disney song: Part of Your World – The Little Mermaid. One of the best Disney songs eva! I got in, too. Which is hard to believe, I know.

10. My brothers and I had video game RPG club called the Overlords. We would meet on weekends and pull our mattresses out into the living room floor. Then, they’d play FF all night while I drew characters and fell in love with their stories. (I played too, but had a hard time finishing because I hated when they would end.) My favorite RGPs include the FF series, of course, Chrono Trigger, and my first RPG love: the Secret of Mana. I still dream of these characters.

11. I still cry every time I cross the finish line of a Half or Full Marathon. It’s just such an amazing accomplishment. I hope that wonder and awe at what the human body is capable of never fades.


Yep, that's right, *takes deep breath* take it all in, I'm a nerd. Deal with it. *drops mic* *fades to black*

What nerdtastic things are your proud of? Share them here:

Writefully Shamed: Nice trip, see you next fall

By now you know I'm exploring vulnerability as a way to improve my storytelling and, in general, my authenticity in daily life. If you're new to this series check out the history here.

So let’s begin this share session with a question:

Have you ever known someone who is cookie-freaking-cutter-perfect? She or he is successful in business, respected among their peers and in their community. This perfectly annoying person always says the right thing and does the right thing. In this business they have an agent, a publishing deal, and a million fans. They roll out of bed with a thousand words just falling out of their perfectly quaffed hair. Yeah, that’s right, because it’s not enough for this perfect person to be successful and respected. They're obviously beautiful too, with perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect style, and even perfectly manicured nails.




They're at church doing more good than you. They're at school having more friends than you. They're at work with more friends/respect/authority/seniority than you. They can probably even make 'fetch' happen.




These people never get drunk in public, they never act-a-fool, and they certainly never use their powers for evil.

Yeah, you know someone like this. People like this seem to pop up like mosquitoes in the summer – they’re everywhere and they'll suck your blood if you let them.

As a rule, my way of dealing with these perfect people is to by beating the crap out of befriend them. Maybe it's a little bit of 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' and maybe it's a little bit of 'perfect people are people too' but I almost always try to befriend these people.

Don't get me wrong, they're intimidating. And I’m not immune to that fact. I try not to let my fear get between me and a potential learning opportunity.

So when one of these walking manicures at my day job asked me to lunch I was elated. I must be cool if a perfect person is asking me to lunch. Right?

We decided to walk to a restaurant and when we were crossing the street, I thought to myself 'gee, how much would it suck if I tripped right now?'


Well, I’m sure you can guess what happened next.

Immediately after I cleared the cross walk, in the middle of our conversation, the heel of my pump got caught in the cuff of my pants. The resulting stumble/grunt/face-plant on the sidewalk was not my finest moment. My chin was scuffed, my teeth hurt, and my coat was torn.




This perfect person just stood there while I wallowed in my humiliation.




Luckily, nothing was seriously injured except my pride. That doesn't stop my douche bag brain from replaying the fall over and over and over again adding hateful commentary like 'I bet she thinks you're dumb for falling,' 'you looked fat when you bounced off the concrete,' or even'you don't deserve to be an adult if you're going to fail at walking.'

Ultimately, I limped away from that chunk of sidewalk knowing I'm not perfect. Never will be. And as humiliated as I was on that day I’ve slowly come to terms with my lack of perfection. In fact, I’ve learned over the years that the perfect person who witnessed my shame is actually far from perfect (like a million light years from perfect).

I may have tripped and it was embarrassing but it was an accident. Accidents happen and generally can’t be prevented which is why we call them accidents. Whether we’re driving our car or shooting an email to an agent addressed to the wrong name. Crap happens. The measure of our character is not in how perfect we are – it’s in how we recover from mistakes when they occur. Because they will occur.

Embarrassing events in our life need to be relegated to a funny story instead of cycling through our douche bag brain. Here's to sharing shame and releasing its hold over you.

Have you every embarrassed yourself in front of someone you admired? Share your stories here:

Writefully Shamed: Interview failure

A few weeks ago I started a project of self reflection, see the details here. And my first installment in the Writefully Shamed series is here: My embarrassingly true interview failure story.

A lot of people say you never get 'the call' with your first novel. And that could be true. But is it necessarily true for Day Jobs as well?

I was desperate for a job after I graduated. I had nearly 60,000 dollars in student loans holding me down and I needed real money to pay those down. Not the sorta money you make working three crap jobs. I worked my ass off to get my college education and I wanted to put it to good use. So when I got my first interview request for an entry level position at a really-real corporate job I was thrilled.

So all that remained was getting ready for the big event. I'd been out in the real world for 2 years and had gained the real-world-thirty. Pounds, that is. I was able to find one skirt that could still zip and one of my husbands button-downs that I could still button.

I curled my hair and put on makeup for the first time in months. I looked about as Corporate America as Chris Farely in a little coat:




Anyway, we only had one car so my hubby had to take off work to drive me to the interview. I wish it could go without saying that I was sweaty but I'm not a normal sweat-er. I sweat like this guy:




I got a plastic 'Visitors' badge at reception before using the restroom where I stuffed scratchy toilet paper into my pits. It's a tried and true method of keeping my pits dry for a short period of time.

I was as ready as ever when they brought into the interview room: dressed in the only professional-ish clothing that fit, face painted and hair curled, with wads of toilet tissue in my pits. Let's do this!

After what felt like a full day of questions everyone had smiles on their faces. It seemed like I had wow'd them with my dazzling wit. I pitched the TP and did a happy dance all the way back to the car:




Just before I got in the car I felt a breeze across my chest. I looked down and saw my shirt button had come undone. There was a giant gaping opening in my shirt. I was more shocked than this kitty:




Stunned, I opened the car door with a trembling hand. When I lifted my leg to step into the car I felt a breeze on my hip. The zipper on my skirt had come open during the interview.

First the shirt and now the skirt.............

I burst into sobs that would make Britney proud:




My hubby tried to comfort me for days after the interview. "I bet the button didn't come undone until after the interview," He said. "They didn't see anything," He said. "I'm sure you did fine. At least they didn't see the TP up your selves," He said.

But all I could think about was how I ruined my one chance. My one and only chance to get a really-real job. The one thing that my entire childhood had been leading to. All that school. All that debt. All those expectations and hard work were for nothing. All because of a some shitty weight gain and ill fitting clothes.

Weeks later I got the call. They wanted to offer me the job! *cue more happy dancing*

I worked there for several years and I even asked my interviewers if they noticed my shirt or skirt coming open-that would not easily be forgotten-but none of them knew what I was talking about.

In the end, we are always our own worst critics. And we are the cruelest critics when we are the most vulnerable.

Have you ever lost it over reacted like this? Share your stories here.

Writefully Shamed: Vulnerability and the Writer

Like many writers I struggle with shame issues. What if I'm not good enough? What if people don't like my work? What if I never get an agent or traditional pub deal? What does that say about me? (For a great peptalk on the separation of work and self by Jenny Kaczorowski).

When I have thoughts like this I refer to it as "douche bag brain." My douche bag brain can be pretty ruthless. For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a self-help junkie. When I was turned onto some amazing work by Brene Brown, a research professor in social work who has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame, I was very excited. Her work is amazing and you should read her books and watch her TED talks here.

The main things I learned so many things from her work:

Other people have douche bag brains - it's not just me.

Living an authentic life is not something to be ashamed of, nor is it something that comes easily.

When we are the most vulnerable our brains are the douchiest.


Not too long after I began reading her work I thought it should be required reading for all writers because vulnerability is the name of our game. Ernest Hemingway called it when he proclaimed: "There is nothing to writing. All you need to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

We are exposed nerves masquerading as regular people.

And that's what makes us great. Our comfort with being uncomfortable is likely why we are such great storytellers.

As much as we may thrive in the margins of emotion we can easily fall victim to our douche bag brain's. Our thoughts can turn negative and self-defeating. There's probably no better example from within the writing community than the brave, beautiful, and talented Natalie Whipple. See her recent posts on the subject here.

When this happens to me my mind begins a continuous parade of every single embarrassing event of my life. It's a painful trip down Shame Lane.

And it's debilitating. I can get lost in those crappy memories. Sometimes I even chew good memories up in my douche-bag-brain-meat-grinder until they are horrifyingly shameful. These thoughts can stop me from writing, exercising, eating, and even showering (yuck, I know).

Luckily, I can identify my douche bag brain moments and do everything in my power to stop it. One cool bit of advice I picked up from one of Brene's books is to share your shame.

*Gasp!*

Unthinkable, right? But it makes sense because the event only has power over you so long as you treat it like something to be ashamed of.

Being authentic means becoming okay with your flaws. (note to self: stop trying so hard to be a Stepford Wife/Friend/Daughter/Business Woman)



To that end I've developed a series of posts to share embarrassing moments. I'll be posting them here over the coming months becuase if I share them with the world I can't hide them anymore. And hopefully someone out there can get a good laugh. More importantly, my trips down Shame Lane will become shorter and shorter.

I'm sure new moments will take their place. But that's okay. I'm not perfect, as typos in my twitter stream illustrate, and that's okay. Living a more authentic life means embracing the famous line from Wreck-it-Ralph (possibly the cutest movie ever) “There’s no one I’d rather be, than me.”




Are you trying you live authentically? What inspires you to be true to yourself?