Women Who Eat Chocolate

The Bargain Hunter , where my column appears, is undergoing website changes. For now, my columns will be posted here:  There’s grace somewhere in the octaves between high-pitched and emergency, where I could hear the timbre of my voice and know that I was one step away from madness. This chaos lies in the line of crooked bangs cut with a dull hair scissors, no longer able to brush them away from the brown eyes of a child you love with such fierceness and agony. She would look at me, taunting, hugging me before she ran from me to do the things that would make my throat quiver. She would get up from her bed twenty-nine times in an evening, her Aladdin nightgown swinging as she descended from the stairs, and nothing I did would make her stay. There’s grace allowed somewhere in that madness. I remember rocking my baby in a rocker that several of our family had bought us for our wedding. The curves of it embraced us, and the nursery was warm with forced air from the furnace...

Shaun Cassidy, Kenny Rogers, and my worn-out speakers This question was posed by my daughter on Twitter yesterday and I decided to take the challenge: What song must you listen to every day without fail? I have long and varied playlists that run the gamut of many different genres: techno, house, old country, pop from the 70’s and 80’s, and metal. There’s a tab on Spotify, my platform of choice, that lets you see how often and who you play the most. I was sure what the top ones would be, but was semi-surprised as it went along. Call me eclectic, or just weird, because I won’t be offended:       1)    Shaun Cassidy: I make no apologies because he has been my favorite ever since he belted out “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Hey Deanie.” He was also Joe Hardy on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries in the late 70’s and that sealed the deal. I was an obsessed reader of the Hardy Boys books, and he came to life for me on that show. I had every one of his albu...

Get Out Released: February 2017 Written & Directed by Jordan Peele Reviewed by: Melissa Herrera **WARNING: MANY SPOILERS PLUS MISSY'S UNRELENTING RELATING TO DISCRIMINATORY SPEECH AND PROFILING. THIS MOVIE USES IT SO IT'S RELEVANT. IF YOU ARE OFFENDED WHEN PEOPLE SAY "WHITE" THEN YOU CAN STOP READING NOW.** The last real movie review I wrote was for Interstellar, back in 2014. It may have been more commentary, which might happen to this review as well. Fair warning. I've watched hundreds of movies since then and nothing has stirred me quite as much. Space, and the thought of time traveling through it, moves me.  Horror movies stroke my inner demons as well, the intimate bond of the movie-goer and a mounting terror you can't put your finger on. If done right, it drips gathering dread through your body until you're squirming in those newly-installed luxury loungers.  I can't say that I paid much attention to the previews for...

Not every immigrant story starts out the same way. Case in point: "My parents came over on a sponsored visa program, backed fully, and entered the port of NYC with the sun on their backs and a good road ahead. They did it the right way." There is no right way. There's only the way it happened. Some of us arrive in the dead of night on a rocking sea, vomit-covered shirt soaked and stained - the boat of tied-together rafts and tires falling apart as it hits the shore. Others stowaway on big steamers that chug their way towards the assumed golden shores of America, weeks and weeks hiding beneath cargo. Then there are others who strip down to their underwear, their belongings in a single plastic bag, plunging their bodies into the cold waters of that snaking river to rise, shaking yet determined, on the other side.  Before these the many who sought their dreams boarded boats and simply arrived, suitcase in hand. Our ancestors out there dreaming and doing. There were n...

Today I found out that I'm classless. Vulgar. Evil. That I "don't know what a real woman is like." That I "have no self respect" or "common-sense." Today I learned that I am a pig.  On Saturday I marched in a Women's March that was held in Wooster, Ohio. I knew that after this very divided election that I must march; that there was never any other choice for me. My husband gave me a kiss and told me to knock 'em dead up there. "Hold your sign up high!" he said. I met up with several other ladies and we arrived at the square. For two hours we felt solidarity, love, and people speaking words of unity. I'm mostly a semi-introvert who writes words from home. We all had our reasons for marching, and I didn't need this march to find somewhere to belong. I needed to do it to stand against hateful words, and for those who have no voice. There's a quote by Albert Einstein that says, "If I were to...

"We are ghosts to you. We don't exist until you want our sympathy or help. You don't think your vote will really count, because you want to see what "happens." It's a vote against us and you don't see that. It's a vote against me. We are ghosts until you want us, but we were never there if you didn't see us until it counted." - quoted by someone I love, 9/24 I am lost.  Awash. Drifting in a sea of distractions. Fraught and edgy. Simple and deep. My thoughts betray me and I cannot sleep. We the people. No longer are we the people we say we are.  We are washed in the blood of Jesus and drowning in our own hypocrisy. We cry out for the blood to flow from the bodies of our brothers and sisters in lands far away - those who cry for our help - as well as turn a blind eye to the ones dying in our streets at alarming levels, shouting, "He should have listened."  We cry "Save the babies!" while we kill those in priso...

On the home stretch of finishing my novel. 62K words! But right now, this is how I feel. Come read me on The Holmes County Bargain Hunter :  I don’t want to write anymore. My brain is tired, and my novel is snugly tucked inside Microsoft Word, where it can’t hurt anyone; yet, I can feel its sharp teeth biting at me, pulling me slowly under where I must acquiesce to the venom it exudes. When it’s done, I will offer it to you like a sacrifice on a golden alter because it had to be written. I’m mostly a writer of small pages, words made shiny and formed cohesively to hold your attention for 10 minutes at a time. I can take a subject and spin it on its head, the heft of the word document filed neatly in the time it takes to ride the words to their crest. I’m a wordsmith of tidy detailed musings, and what possessed me to think I could write a novel still baffles me as the coffee goes down bitter. My husband, lover of all things me, born adrift on a story that propelled him to me long...