#GBE2: Oh, no! Not Again.

How could one so cute break anything?

When I was a little tyke, my "big bother" dubbed me Miss Breaker. After that, I was blamed for everything that broke, whether I'd done it or not. For example, take the large cushy chair in the family room. After many years of use, the back sagged and little 60 pound me was blamed. Okay, I admit I used to climb over the back and somersault into the cushion, but did I really break it? Adult people plopped into that chair all the time. Certainly that wore the back out more than a tiny, innocent child.

I was also blamed for the broken bushes in front of the house. The bushes? Really? Those huge leafy things were twice my size. How could little me have broken them? Okay, I admit my ball landed in the bushes a few times, and I fought branches to get it back, but did I really break them? The wind blew a lot, and we even had an earthquake one day. Certainly the weather wore out the bushes more than a tiny, innocent child.

Of course, I was not the only one blamed for weather. When a rumbling sounded through our home, my dad hollered up the stairs, "Florence! Stop jumping around up there."

To which my mom said, "It's not me! It's an earthquake." 

See, those frequent St. Louis earthquakes do a lot of damage to chairs, bushes, and marriages. So, should one blame a tiny, innocent child . . . again?

#GBE2: Wish

My GBE2 blogging group asked us to post on the topic of "Wish," so here goes. 

I want to publish a novel. Not self published or blog published, but set to print by an editor or a respected house. Caroline Kooney's first eight books were never published; plus, the average writer takes ten years to make their dreams come true . . .  or nightmares begin. I'm not sure how many years I've been writing, but I guarantee it's under ten, and I'm only working on my sixth manuscript. Here's what I've written in order of completion.

I made a Lulu cover.

1. The Friendship Puzzle (MG) - An experiment in novel writing that's missing a plot. Who needs a plot when I've got the gorgeous John Katou and the bubble headed tween who loves him? Okay, this one will never be published, and I dare confess that I did clog a few slush piles with this piece of trash. Sorry if it ever landed across your desk.

2. Don't Eat Chipmunks (MG+) - A promising camp story about a boy lost in the Rockies with his two worst enemies and an injured counselor. The boys must learn to work together or die as my novel did when the Sydney Taylor people were offended by my portrayal of Jewish camp. Sorry guys, but the "Anaf Boys Choir" really did sneak out at night in their underwear to sing Silent Night and the memory was too good not to write about.

3. Being Bompsy Carleffa (YA) - This masterpiece about Ben, a kidnapped mob teen thrust back into his previous world, is filled with roller coaster suspense, action, and clever characters. However, it's also been rejected more than any novel I've written. One agent reported that my main character was "too funny for the trouble he was in." I can't help it! Every time I write, funny pops out. There's got to be a market for it somewhere. It works for Gordon Korman.

The Godfather

4. The Killer Who Loves Me (YA) - This is the sequel to my unpublished Bompsy where Ben finds himself conflicted by the thought that he may actually "like" his criminal father. At least this one does not have multiple rejections. Furthermore, I started the third book in the series but stopped midstream when I read about not writing sequels to books that aren't published. I guess Ben can rest assured that he won't be shot at or beaten until someone picks up Being Bompsy Carleffa.

5. Mrs. Zimmerman's Donuts (MG) - Coddled loser meets Mohawk boy who teaches him to be cool. I wrote this one with the guidance of two published authors telling me what works and what doesn't. I even cracked myself up by getting a kid's head caught in a hand dryer and shooting his spittle across bathroom tiles. There's got to be a market for a kid dealing with a helicopter mom because I've met so many of these overprotected babies.

6. Work in Progress (YA) - I named it Finding Miss Forester only to learn about a movie with a similar title. Dang! I'd never heard of the movie, but I guess my title must change. This is the story of a rambunctious seventh grade boy who spies his first-year teacher crying after another one of his many stunts pulled on her. Overwhelmed with guilt, he decides to behave, but instead, he has a rotten sub to deal with. Did he make Miss Forester quit? No. She's in deep doo doo after whistle blowing on a former boss, and Caleb will get sucked into her problems once I get my act together.

There you go bloggy friends––my wish waiting to be granted. And to think, you knew me when.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I'm the Host for This Post! PAST LIVES

If karma is real, I must have done something dreadful in my past life. Perhaps all of us teachers burned multiple villages and our students were the victims of that wrath. They take pleasure in helping us atone for those heinous crimes. Why else would we step into a classroom?

That might have been my first incarnation, but it wasn't my most recent one. To quote Steve Martin, "I was born a poor black child." Seriously, I looked something like Aunt Jemima as I watched the white folks dance with a fiddle around a campfire. I longed to join the fun but looking at my fat, black thighs, I knew no slave could dance with whites.

I saw this image under hypnosis at a college event at the AEPi house. The fraternity hired a hypnotist for an evening's entertainment. As we sat in a circle, we closed our eyes, traveled back to a previous life, and voila––the slave watching the party.

Each fraternity brother and little sister told a unique tale of guarding castle walls or enjoying picnics with a family. My friend frantically recalled a room filled with people screaming as fog entered vents. The hypnotist immediately snapped him out of his trance.

One may argue that a brief vision of myself as a slave does not mean I was one; however, this image makes a lot of sense. Every t-shirt I own has a stretched out neckline from my compulsion to loosen anything tight around my neck. I've never been able to wear turtlenecks and seeing choker necklaces makes me ill to the point that I once got dizzy from looking at one. I always wear my long sleeves rolled because I despise anything tight around my wrists, too. Even my watch dangles loosely from my arm. Did I once endure tight ropes around my wrists while being led to my hanging?

I also find a natural chemistry between African Americans and myself. No doubt about it, I was a slave.

Before I suffered in the fields under the lash, a family friend, who has been helpful to us over the years, claims to have been Queen Isabella of Spain after a visit with a hypnotist. She has since apologized for her cruel actions toward Jews. I guess karma strikes again.

Furthermore, when my daughter was two, she told me she missed her other mother. I said, "I'm the only mother you've ever had." She insisted she remembered another mother with yellow hair who wore a doctor's outfit. Who knows? Maybe Erica really did remember another mother.

I've found a few interesting reads on the topic of reincarnation. Dr. Brian Weiss was skeptical until he met a patient recalling her past life traumas. He went on to write multiple books on the subject, which I absorbed like a sponge. A few years back, I read a fascinating work of fiction by Ann Brashares called My Name is Memory about a man who remembered all of his past lives and worked through multiple lifetimes trying to make the same woman fall in love with him. This book kept me up all night but after three years, I've yet to see the second book of the trilogy.

Now it's your turn. Since I'm the host of this post, link up after midnight. What do you think about past lives?


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