Women Who Eat Chocolate

At home, I learned later, it was a maelstrom of quiet chaos. When I disappeared, they didn’t know where to look. The white adobe house by the river became a prison for my mom and brother. They wept and grieved and tried to look for me wherever they could. But the means weren’t there for a large-scale search, and they suffered silently because of my stepdad, who wouldn’t allow them to search further. Every time my mom would want to search for me, he would say, “He’s not here. You won’t find him. It’s time to let him go.” His dreams of me not being around had come true. He didn’t care that I was gone. That my mom and brother cried every day meant nothing to him.  My brother ached inside and suffered because he thought it was his fault that I was gone. “I told him to hurry – he didn’t listen. I just don’t know where he went,” he would say to my mom as they cried together silently. I try to imagine, now, what I would do if one of my kids was missing. I would go to the ends of the earth

I knew you to be there, even at three and a half years old. Those opaque, numbered days as a small child in a house of many. Sunbeams filtered through the upstairs hallway as I tip-toed down to your room, the floorboards giving me away under their hundred-year-old weight. Your room was at the end of the hall and I wanted to peak in, perhaps, and catch a glimpse of you. The ceiling light that hung just inside your door reminded me of a skeleton, plastic and groovy-looking, and I would stare at it sometimes when you weren’t there. But today you came out of your bedroom door before I could get there, and you smiled at me, bonking me on the head with a rolled-up piece of paper. This is my first memory of you. Brother. You were sarcastic and funny and sometimes I felt that you weren’t allowed to be mine, that my time with you didn’t count. You left when I was three, graduated and gone. My memories with you were limited to the times you’d come home, arms full of gifts at Christmas-time

Where do we find ourselves at, defending how many school shootings there have been in 2018? What is there to defend? Isn't one shot fired, just one incident, enough? Isn't the compilation of the many murdered and injured enough to matter? Are we defending our guns or the zealous right to carry them wherever and whenever and into every space we can?  No one wants to take your gun away, not even Obama did, who it was sworn up and down would come like a thief into your homes at night to do. I see the words "agenda" and "they" and "our right" thrown around as the blood dries from the murdered children.  Children that parents sent to school, children that had a right to get through the day. People that had a right to go to a festival without being gunned down by a shooter shooting out a hotel window. Small babies in Sandy Hook, slain on their classroom floors as we shook in horror at the scene. Columbine, where I'll always think of video games

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. I

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 albums and now realize I lis

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