New Tattoo!

So here's the final reveal (although I still have another session) of the tattoo I've been working on all Spring!!

It's also a sneak peak at the session from my author photo shoot session! More to come, all taken by the lovely Meagan McLendon!

Author Photo!!!

Heather's First Author Photo:

So, today I got to fulfill a childhood dream: getting an author photo taken. Seriously, ever since 2nd grade when we made little cardboard-bound books for stories we'd written and pasted a school photo at the back (see left), I've been completely enamored with the idea of author photos. I picked out the outfit I would wear TWO YEARS AGO. Before I even had an agent! Seriously, I have thought out what angles work and how I could best show off my tattoos and funky hair and what sitting positions, and yeah, writers are neurotic, and here was another outlet for my neurosis to manifest!!!

And today was the day. I did my own make-up and hair, picked out the perfect jewelry, met up with the photographer I'd contacted through a mutual art-y friend. The weather was perfect, I felt at ease and natural, and basically all around had a blast. I can't wait to see the results. You bet your buns I'll post the best ones here so ya'll can help me decide which one is the best!!!!

Also of note: That's my original hair color, and it's probably the only time you'll ever see it!!

On Love, Libraries, and Disability

There's been a lot of wicked stress in my life lately (though now slowing down), and one person who makes it all bearable: my husband. We've been married almost ten years, some of them rougher than others. We were kids when we got married (I was 19). We'd barely lived in the world out on our own before we were out on our own together. Together. It's a simple enough concept. Two as one, an infused pair, even as different as we are in our interests and temperaments. We went on a date this past Thursday at our favorite little diner where they serve un-ending coffee. Then we went and window-shopped for new wedding rings we'll get for our ten-year-anniversary in December. The ones we have now are 1) yellow gold, which I'm not a fan of and 2) Dragos' is literally going to have to be CUT OFF it's so small. I'm getting two small silver bands, one with a small emerald, and Dragos is getting a simple band, white gold. God, I love this man.

Also big on my Awesome List: The Texas State Alkek University library. I've lived in this area all my life--I grew up in the same county and my brothers went to this university. A few times growing up I walked up the many stairs to the imposing structure, seven stories tall and full of BOOKS! I was in awe of it. It's nestled in among the hills of the campus. Lately all the stairs had become a problem for me because of my chronic illness, which leads me to my last Awesome List Item. I've had CFS for nine years now, but for the first time actually got a disability placard so I can park closer to buildings and save energy.

I don't know WHY I DIDN'T DO THIS SOONER! Suddenly, I can GO to the library again, because I can park right at the back where the elevators are. I don't half to walk the half-block to my favorite coffee shop, stopping three times along the way to rest. I can take limited trips to the grocery store. For such a little thing, it has made such a BIG difference. Good things happening in my life lately. Good things. Good things, my friends.

A River Runs Through

So, I happen to live right by this college town (where I go to college) that has this great river running through it. Not just running through it--it freaking springs up OUT OF THE GROUND right where the college was built - you can take these glass bottom boat tours over the springs and see the freaking river water springing up from underground aquifers. It's bananas.

Anyway, there is this river, and I have lived near it my entire life. And in the past I maybe tubed down it once. ONCE. But in the past two weeks, it's like there's an invisible magnet pulling me to the river. Well, really it started in winter. Then, I used to go, take a camping chair and sit by the river, totally desolate of humans, watching the mists swirl over the water b/c the air was colder than the river water that stays a fairly even 70 degrees no matter what time of year. But then the last two weeks I've actually gotten IN to the river. And suddenly it's like freaking crack to me. I can't stay away.

My six year old and I went today, just to walk around the river-side. We weren't wearing swimming trunks. I didn't have any towels. But as we dangled our feet into the river, I suddenly found it not enough and jumped all the way in, regular clothes and all. Then tried to coax my not-as-adventurous son to come in with me!!

I finally got him in a little, standing on these huge roots of trees that dive down into the river. It's mostly shallow there, my feet could touch and I could walk up right. There's just this delirious weightlessness to wading in water up to your neck. For a person like me who has a chronic illness, where my body feels doubly-heavy so much of the time--suddenly all that weight is lifted. I can float freely on my back in the sunshine, bob gently with my feet touching, all without much effort so I don't get easily tired out like normal. You just can't imagine how ALIVE it makes me feel. How normal. Every day now I find myself constantly thinking--hmm, how can I make it to the river today?

Pretty Rings!!!

The new James Avery catalog (they specialize in quality silver jewelry) came in the mail today and I am lusting after this especially lovely ring!! It's more 3-D and cool looking in person - the flowers explode off the band!

The husband and I were also looking at the wedding rings in the catalog too. Yes, yes, we already have wedding rings, but it's our TEN year anniversary this December, and my husband's ring now cuts off all circulation to his finger :) Also, both our rings are yellow gold, which I don't like anymore. I much favor silver or white gold. For the hubster I think we'll do a simple small band that is thin enough so it doesn't bother him, and for me, a thin silver band and then this for a second band (equivalent of the engagement ring), this one:

Pretty, pretty, pretty. Of course we'll wait for awhile closer to the anniversary, because I have the patience of a gnat and I would want to wear them right away! But maybe the flower ring later this summer :)

Things This Week Has Taught Me

The last two weeks has been about paring down responsibilities to avoid Heather Overload/Spontaneous Combustion. I would love to be that person who always has a deadline and is just always ON. What I've realized this week, well, this whole semester really, is that I only get excited (and therefore productive) about things I'm passionate about. Creative writing, for instance. Deadlines don't stress me out--a huge amount of work that might need to go into revisions, really digging in--this causes me ZERO stress and ALL excitement. So, to recap this week (with a helpful scale of Awesome Vs. Not Awesome):

• Reading about interesting ideas (aka academic research)= Awesome, life affirming


• Being forced to synthesize those ideas into specific narrow thoughts and write a half-ass paper in a week = NOT Awesome


• Panic attacks = Not Awesome


• Dropping a class and cancelling academic conference paper presentation = AWESOME


• Attending aforementioned class on an Auditing basis just to talk about ideas with no stress= Awesome


• Tattoos = AWESOME


• Oh, and Tax Returns = Awesome

Conclusion: I love ideas. I love creative writing and art. I do not love academic writing, and when I go back to it for my thesis slowly over the next year, I'll do it on my terms, slowly, letting the passion for ideas manifest without hard deadlines. Also awesome this week: husbands, cute 6-yr-olds, and the internet (especially all you Apocalypsies!).

The Vespertine - A Decadent Read

The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell - Summary from Goodreads - It’s the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset—visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. However, a forbidden romance with Nathaniel, an artist, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own—still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him. When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia’s world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents, but the cause.

- My Review -

This book was so thick with longing, so achingly decadent in every sense of the word. The writing was lush--written in first person, the novel simultaneously manages to carry a strong and relatable voice and an inescapable sense of the time and era it was written about. You truly believe you're hearing the voice of a seventeen year old girl from 1889. Amelia's naive delight at visiting her relative Zora for a summer season--the only one either of them is likely to have--is easy to get swept up in as a reader. Yet the novel is framed by a sense of tragedy (this isn't a spoiler, it's clear from the first chapter), and it infects and hovers behind all of the gaiety of the girls' dances and laughter and frivolity. The growth that Amelia goes through in the novel is heart-wrenching but unflinchingly honest. And then there is the love story. The unconsummated longing between Amelia and Nathaniel is so delicious. In a time where touching bare hands was considered wanton and dangerous, every intimate look and moment they steal alone has a heightened sense or eroticism (even though all of their contact by today's standard is chaste). But the Victorian setting and forbidden nature of their longing for one another, with added tension because of the supernatural elements of the book, makes for the most exciting love story I've read in a long time. Five stars, which I rarely give.