Starting the Last Round of Edits

I’ll tell you straight up–I’m terrified. I can’t put my finger on exactly what, but I’m glad I gave myself a goal and am just chugging towards it, because otherwise I think I might just sit here and talk myself out of things. K., as I knew she would, just fucking got into it with [...]

Upon Being the Feminist Bitch

I know there has been some unease, shall we say?, already about this post. Some of it humorous and some of it “Betsy’s a big dyke” (see comment 3, though I did find the screen name, considering the comment, hilarious). But let me be clear. I don’t think this is a “men, go home,” situation. [...]

Hollin Has a Good Idea, But It Doesn’t Fix the Whole Problem

Jamie Hollin has what he’s touting as a solution to HB 600, which bars cities from deciding not to do business with people who discriminate against GLBT folks. Instead of an outright prohibition against doing business with them, he’s now advocating awarding points to people who have a non-discrimination policy, so that, when they bid [...]

Is Mayor Dean Really Going to Preside over the Death of Literary Culture in Nashville?!

I tell you, I just do not understand what the fuck is up with our mayor. Does he not understand what a disaster it is that Nashville proper has no reporting bookstores?* Does he not see that the library has had to step in and provide a place for authors to promote their books? And [...]

Creepy, In Two Ways

Yes, just yesterday, I made fun of myself for all the dog-walking posts, but today really was weird. First, there were a shit-ton of mosquitoes out there. I even had one on my eyelid. Two, the fog rising off the hills was also creepy, with these long fingers of haze just reaching out for us. [...]

Flood Porn

I feel bad, because, as much as flooding along the Mississippi (or anywhere, for that matter) upsets me, there’s this part of me that, when it hears “This terrible thing could happen!” is like “Bring it on! Let’s see it!” It’s a small part, but it’s there. So, I admit that I am fascinated by [...]

I Am Boring

I was telling the Professor at lunch yesterday, after she asked me how the manuscript was going, that I’m afraid I’m becoming boring, because that’s all I talk about. And I was just sitting here thinking about what I should blog about and I was like, ugh, dog walking, tv watching, intestinal issues of my [...]

The Itching

I love gardening. It does not love me. Ticks, mosquito bites, some kind of rash that’s not poison ivy, but is some kind of contact something. I was feeling sorry for myself so I had Ben & Jerry’s for dinner, but… yeah… not a good idea, which also made me feel sorry for myself that [...]

Lunch with the Professor

People, let us talk frankly about the bathroom at Noshville. I was in there with a Southern Woman of a Certain Age, seemingly of a Certain Class. You know the type I mean, small, impeccably put-together, can probably tell fake pearls at 50 paces, the kind of woman who has elevated “Oh, dear” into a [...]

Single Ladies–Ruining It For Everyone

Rachel’s talking about the annual Women’s Health Report  Card and I noticed that, in the Barriers to Health section, passed along without commentary, women in our state are given a “c” in the “Percentage of Households Headed By Women.” As if it is obviously bad healthwise for women to head households and obviously good for [...]

Brief Science Things

1. Crows. Holy shit. You start to see why Odin hung out with them. Odin. Hung. Hee hee. Okay, just me. Fine. 2. I have mixed feelings about this. I believe people should be able to drink local non-pasteurized milk all they want, for whatever reasons they want, and that the farmers should be regularly [...]

Dancing Around Music

The Butcher made me watch that Scott Pilgrim movie last night, which I loved, and bought the soundtrack to, which I assume is probably everyone who worked on the movie’s hope. I have been dancing around to this song all morning. Every time I get something done, I reward myself with a little shimmy around [...]

A Tale of Two Turkeys

So, there we were, the dog and I, tromping through the back yard early this morning, walking towards the creek. And there was a turkey on the creek bank. “Ooo!” I blurted in surprise. “Brlrrk!” his friend down in the creek shouted in surprise back. One turkey took off into the trees and the other [...]

A Gun is a Farm Tool

I don’t feel like I could be any farther left politically without falling off the political spectrum, at least, at times, but much about this story has me baffled. It’s not just that I’m now imagining Campfield and Ford, armed and dangerous, but it honestly never occurred to me that any politician, especially in a [...]

I’m Back In!

Oh, people. I hope the next thing I write is as much fun as this thing is. Anyway, I’m back in. The self-imposed exile is over. I’ve gotten some excellent notes from E. and I should have K.’s comments this week and then… well, I don’t think I’m going to make my goal of sending [...]

Questions I Know the Answers to and Yet…

As I was sitting in my backyard yesterday, talking to friends and getting happily drunk, I said to myself “Why don’t I do this more often?” This is a question I know the answer to. It is, indeed, a question I knew the answer to when I was all “Why yes, I will have a [...]

I Have Become the Kind of Person Who Takes Pictures of Buzzards

I didn’t realize they made noise when they flew, but they were close enough that I could hear it. It sounded like a helicopter just starting up–whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. And they have to take some running hops to get in the air. We have two kinds of vultures in Tennessee–the bald-headed ones and these. [...]

Mother’s Day

I’m going to be thirty-seven in two weeks. I always said that, if I wasn’t a mother by the time I was thirty-five, I would just go ahead and do it. But then you get to be thirty-five and you have a couple of nephews and you have some friends who are parents and you [...]

Talking to the Rose

I went out to finish weeding the front bed up by the house. The Tennessee coneflowers seem to be settling in nicely. I thought they would. That’s a much sunnier bed than where I have them in the back yard. I’m tempted to maybe put some poppies in there, since I never have gotten them [...]

Women in Numbers Workshop

So, I had the pleasu… you know, this is the problem with people who are always polite. They’re like, “I had the pleasure of blah, blah, blah” and you don’t know. They could have hated it. That’s why I think it’s an advantage that I am impolite. That way when I say, “I had the [...]

Pre-Agent Hunt Blogging

If there’s one consistent piece of advice agents give about finding an agent it’s “don’t blog about it; it weirds us out.” And being a superstitious motherfucker, I will not blog about finding an agent once the search begins. But I spent all last night finalizing my list of places to pitch my project and [...]

Turkey

Oh, I got so busy being snarky I forgot to tell y’all about the turkey! So, I’m in the bathroom getting ready to get in the shower when I hear what sounds like the world’s worst turkey call, right up by the house, and I am livid. It’s bad enough that hunters hunt down here [...]

Quick Things

1. I’m sure the non-Christian readers of this Tennessean piece found it deeply relevant to their lives. I’m working on a similar piece for heathens. Are we doing enough to spread our love of drinking, pillaging, cursing, digging up dead witches, and writing long poetry about how Odin has dicked us over? Have those us [...]

Governor “Baby” Haslam Disses the Troops

What the fuck? Haslam spokesman David Smith said the Republican governor had a previously scheduled commitment today to attend a luncheon at the West Tennessee Strawberry Festival in Humboldt. Smith said the governor’s office was also not officially notified of the visit by the White House. Our petulant baby governor needs official notice from the [...]

A Little More Sleep Never Hurt No One

I woke up before, way before, my alarm, got up, peed, went back to bed and then slept through that fucker like it didn’t even bother to go off. What woke me up? Do you even have to ask? Tick crawling up my side. Tick, I appreciate your efforts to make sure I’m not late [...]