My husband once told me no one loves the beach as much as I do. And I don’t know whether that makes me feel special or sad—special because maybe I have a connection to it that other people don’t have or sad because other people don’t love it as much. Either way, something about the beach seems to feed my soul. If it’s been too long since I was last there, I feel it. Life starts to feel like it’s piling up on me.
So we try to go to the beach every year. And our vacations do double duty for me, since they’re also research for my books. This June, we spent a week on Topsail Island, NC, where my latest manuscript is set. (more…)
I don’t know whether it’s my Southern culture or the influence of my grandmother’s Eastern European heritage, but I grew up to have a pretty straightforward view of death (coupled with an occasionally morbid sense of humor). Death is something my family has always talked about honestly. So it’s not particularly surprising that I’ve thought about my own death.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit around pondering it, but I’m aware that death can be unexpected. Maybe that’s because I have a heart condition (not life-threatening, it just slightly increases my odds of dropping dead. You can read about it here). Or because the news itself is a constant reminder that life can be ripped away at any moment. Or it’s because of those let’s talk about life insurance cards I get from my insurance company around my birthday every year. (Um, thanks?) (more…)
Everybody’s talking about Wonder Woman these days. And my gosh, am I glad for it. ‘Bout time we got caught up in the awesomeness of a female superhero.
But when I finally went to see it this week, I was still a bit trepidatious. I mean, would it really live up to the hype? Or would it come across as a story filtered through a male fantasy?
Thankfully, it was the former. And hello, shout out to a woman director as well. (More, please.)
It had humor and heart and some awesome fighting. And it made me look at Wonder Woman herself in a new light. Granted, I didn’t know much about the comic book superhero to start with. I haven’t seen the older movie or even Batman vs. Superman. I only knew she wore a ridiculous outfit, which was, fortunately, toned down in this version, becoming more like functional armor and less like a swimsuit. (Glory, hallelujah.) (more…)
It happened a couple weeks ago. My husband came home from work and reminded me that I still had his wedding ring. I’d completely forgotten. He’d had to remove his ring at the doctor’s office a few days before and he gave it to me to hold onto. I tucked it into my purse and promptly forgot about it.
I gasped. “You mean for the past three days, you haven’t been married to me!?”
We joke about this a lot. The truth is, I don’t really care if my husband wears a ring. He’s married to me, ring or not. (more…)
Everybody’s talking about Wonder Woman these days. And my gosh, am I glad for it. ‘Bout time we got caught up in the awesomeness of a female superhero.