Distracted By Something Shiny

From Westword Books FB - it’s my book-birthday!
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Today is a very special day - Sunday, February 9, 2020 is the one year anniversary of our first book release, Terrific Tails: Stories From A Pet Guardian. In publishing circles, this is called a “book-birthday”, because to writers, their stories are like their children. Which is why you never ask an author to pick their favorite work, any more than you’d ask a parent to pick their favorite child - (even if we all know they have one!).

We checked in with our author, Adie Weston, to ask her how she feels about it all one year later.

“To be honest, it’s still surreal to think that my words are out there in the form of a book. I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away.”

As for what she’s been working on lately, Adie says, “I admit to taking a break from Book 2 over the holidays to write a few short stories for my niblings. Every writer has to have priorities and for me, my monkeys are always my priority.”

We prodded just a little to see if we could get anything out of her about this so-called Book 2.

She laughs. “The working title is Roller Kids and that’s all you’re getting out of me!”

And then we broke protocol and asked the forbidden question - does she have a favorite child?

“Of my original work, obviously Terrific Tails is my favorite. I adore the subject matter of course, as well the way the project brought my family together. And it certainly has been my biggest labor of love. But in my late teens and early 20s, I went through a phase of writing short plays and there are a few of those I’m still quite proud of.”

We asked her if she had any closing thoughts on Terrific Tails’ first birthday.

“Just how grateful I am to everyone who helped me with this project, especially my older brother and sister. And how grateful I am to every single person who bought and read my freshman book. I’m so happy I was able to do this, not just *for* my Grandma, but *because* of her.” She smiles softly and adds, “Miss you, Grandma.”

You can celebrate the one year release of Terrific Tails: Stories From A Pet Guardian by buying a copy on Amazon today!
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Can’t believe it’s been a year! Wish I was further along on Book 2, but also...omg, I have a book-birthday! That fact alone is mind-blowing! Thanks to all of my LJ writer friends for your support - wouldn’t be here w/o the fanfic community, for sure.

On Sunday my family held a celebration of life for my Uncle John. He left a hole in this family & I am heart-crushed at the loss. I am eternally grateful though, that not only did he get a chance to read my book before he passed, but that he also thoroughly enjoyed it! It gave me a lot of pride to have his stamp of approval. I was literally busting the day my aunt sent me this pic of Uncle John reading my book. It doesn’t get much better than that.



Rest well, Uncle John. Rest well.



But the other thing his memorial had me thinking of - the thing I wished I’d told him - was that his fight in life was an inspiration to me. And I don’t mean against the cancer - though that too - but I mean through every struggle he faced since Day 1 and his ability to get & stay sober, to turn his life around...it inspired me beyond measure when I was getting my own life back on track. I’m not one to talk about emotional family things, so when I get asked on my inspiration for staying sober, I say things like Robert Downey Jr - and that’s true too - but also you, Uncle John. Always you. So thanks for that. I’ll miss you.

‪My sweet old man pupper passed away last night, here at home, in his crate with his favorite blankie, my mom’s pillow & his stuffed monkey, Marcel. Winston was my mom’s dog & we were honored to give him a home when she could not.




Sir Winston 2003-2018
He was a good boy

Today is May 13th!! You know what that means! The Nephew’s birthday! Well, yes. #12 to be exact. It was his 4th birthday the day I started my LJ though. Because, yes, it is my LJ anniversary! #8! And now Dreamwidth too! I came a little late to the game, but I am so glad I still came. Thanks to liptonrm for gifting this to me, setting it up and all, as an early bday present -- she’s the best bday twin a girl could have.

Sometimes I try to imagine, like, what would I be doing with myself if not for fandom? I was a geek/nerd as a kid, but I got older and angrier, and dropped that part of myself somewhere around 16. I was almost ashamed of that side of myself. I thought, for some reason, that you couldn’t be punk and a nerd, but that is SO not true. I can’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t embraced that side of myself again. And fully. I don’t know if I’d even be here still. I would likely be a very angry person.

When I was in my early 20s, and had to move back in with my mom because of bad life choices and worsening health, I fell into such a depression. If I hadn’t stumbled across fanfic -- and realized that thing I had dabbled in as a kid had a name! -- I don’t know what would have pulled me out of that funk I was in. And years later, I fell out a bit, because of health issue, and then it went from there to drugs. But then I got sober and I got into fandom again -- even accidentally stumbled across some old friends from the mailing list days -- and for the three months I was detoxing, reading fic saved my life. When I couldn’t lay down without screaming pain, but I couldn’t sit up without shaking all over -- fanfic distracted me. I devoured it. And then, I started writing again. Like a miracle, like a new self.

Fandom saved my life.

It also connected me with my sister in a way I can’t even describe. The day she anxiously showed me her fic and confessed she too was in fandom and she had just been anxious to share her stuff with me -- that day cemented us beyond belief. And then, shirebound, coming to Michigan and having lunch with some Michigan fangirls, including my sister, and oh, The BFF. And my sister befriended The BFF, and brought her home, and the rest is a beautiful history that led to The BFF setting up this LJ for me! So many friends I’ve made on here -- some I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face; dugindeep, rhymephile, ceitfianna. And now, soon, wolfrider89, who is coming all the way from Sweden to meet me!! I am so EXCITED! She’s got a conference in DC, but if you know the US map, you know Michigan is not a quick jot over from anywhere. I wasn’t sure how I would get to DC. And then she said, “Nah, I’ll just come to you and then fly out to DC after.” I am so fucking blessed by my friends.

The encouragment you have all given me on my publishing career, to stay sober, to keep finding ways to support and enrich my niblings’ lives, to get through the hard stuff with my health and family issues and yet keep going, to just enjoy my hobby of fanfic and not be ashamed of my geek/nerd side anymore.

I love you guys and I just got all emotional, sitting in my room, half laughing/half crying, because this day always marks a celebration of a part of my life that I know saved my damn ass.

For you, if you will, comment below and I will tell you five things I think of when I think of you. <3

I suppose we will start on Monday, when Sis texted me that there was a gas leak at her office, back in the warehouse. Junior Supervisor was in charge, so she did what the emergency card told her to do and called maintenance. Who said, “Yeah, we’ll check that out.” With no mention of when they’d check that out. And no instructions to evacuate the office. Junior did instruct all the warehouse workers to the front office, but like everyone else leaves the office at 4pm, which would have left Sis there alone. I was super uncomfortable and did not want her to get poisoned and her supervisor to just find her body on the office floor in the morning. But maintenance did fix the issue before 4, so it all ended up okay, but it was a very strange day at Sis’ office and I was a little on edge.

( Under the cut for spaceage. )

So, yep, hella’ve a week.

Just doing a very quick review of my 2017! ( My 2017! )

And now, for a New Years favor. After Mom died, I just couldn't handle anything except what had to be done. My mind sort of shut off, understandably. And there was so much to do, with her memorial, burial, estate, house. By the time I hit my pillow with my IPad in hand at 9pm every night, I didn't have time for blogging. Or Friend's Lists. So I missed three months of what is going on in your guys' lives! And I want to know! I plan on doing a mass comment catch-up this weekend and getting back on a blog schedule come 2018. Because I miss this place and I miss you guys and I want to know what's up with you! So, if you would oblige me, PLEASE, and drop a link in the comments from each month - October, November, December - that I missed. Just one link from each, one post you made on your LJ/DW from those months, to let me know what has been going on with my friends. And if you don't have anything major from a month, then drop links to pics of your furry babies or fic recs. Just give me something to get me up to speed, ya'll! PLEASE.

And in case I'm not back here again before the end of the year...

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HERE'S TO AN AWESOME 2018 FOR US ALL!

Today I have lived seven years longer than I should have, than I could have. Today I have been sober for seven years.

It is so strange to go back and read my old posts about each year and how I felt then. I always feel elated, but there is more reflection as the years go on, I think. You can read my old sobriety entries here - 6 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, 6 years.

I don’t know if I have ever shared with anyone the whole story of the day I had my moment of clarity. I will tell you that I used up my Oxy fast, always. And towards the end, to make it stretch, I would make cocktails of skittles - muscle relaxes, benadryl, xanax, cold pills, sleeping pills, anything I could get my hands on. And I was taking way too much Oxy, even with the cocktails. I once took 100mg in a four hour period. I once took 60mg and 2 shots of fire whiskey in a 3 hour period. I was a mess, to say the least.

( Story of my day of clarity under the cut. )

Today I am seven years out from that moment. I have lived seven years longer than I should have. And did you know as a kid all the doctors, parents and naysayers told me I probably wouldn’t live to 30? I am eight and a half years out from that. Some days I get frustrated with myself for not doing enough, for not doing anything, for not beating down the fatigue and getting up. But then I remember that every day is just icing on a very big cake. That as long as I keep breathing, I am defying the odds.

So today I celebrate and eat cake. I don’t actually have cake, but I still have Christmas candy, so I’ll probably eat that. Thank you, all of you, for being on this journey with me. Here’s to tomorrow and the day after that!

Well, I showed up to PT yesterday and had two employees say they were surprised to see me, they thought I’d be in Canada by now. And then ask if I was okay. Like I NEVER talk politics there, a public setting, because you never know who will bring the wrath. But these people just know me well enough by now to know I am gutted. And that, at least, made me smile, when not much else has.

My little brother is a Libertarian - (Idk why, his kids rely on government aid and insurance, but ok) - so he told me that he was voting for Gary Johnson. I argued that Clinton needed every vote, that a third party vote was wasted. He said it wasn’t a wasted vote, it’s a vote for your candidate. I was like, “But your candidate will never win.” He said winning isn’t the goal for him. How? How can a poor, father of two, social issues activist think that way? In an election like this?

So I told him the following - (paraphrasing obvs) - “Okay, I know as a severely disabled person who has been disabled from birth, I will be one of the last to get my benefits cut. But if I do - even if I just lose prescription insurance - I can’t afford my liver meds and without them, I will die. If I die as a direct or indirect result of Trump being president and you voted Gary Jonhson, because ‘winning isn’t the goal’, then you are not welcome at my funeral. And I am not fucking kidding.” He responded with some grumbles and blahblah, but hoy boy, I am NOT fucking kidding.

I may be safer than most in that area - though as a poor, disabled, government dependant, queer woman, I am far from safe - but my brothers and sisters in the disabled community are about to have their health insurance gutted. In our disabled community - because my brother has fibro and bone spurs. We are about to lose people, lose lives, the way we have been losing people in England and no one is talking about it. And it’s not just the disabled, but every marginalized group out there that is about to have their life put in danger, because some people like my brother don’t think winning is the goal. Or ‘vote your conscious’. If all of those third party or absent protest-voters had voted Clinton, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now. And I don’t want to hear a single word from any of them. They forfeited their right to be upset by this outcome. They were warned.

After he was declared president, I made my sister promise that if I do, in fact, die as a direct or indirect result of Trump’s policies, that she is to put the following sign outside of my memorial service: “If you did not vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections, you are a part of the reason that my sister is dead and, per her instructions, you are NOT welcome at this service.”

She promised she would.

And now I leave you with this thought - the deed is done, so let us bond together and protect each other and amplify the voices of the marginalized and stand for those who can’t. And fight. We will take our country back with love, not hate. Let’s form a really big fellowship and throw the goddamn ring in the fire!

My grandmother passed away yesterday. It looks like she went in an instant, no suffering. And at home, like she always wanted. We tried, since Grandpa passed, to convince her to move to a senior apartment. She wouldn't hear of it. It always broke her heart that Grandpa didn't get to pass at home, and she wasn't going to stand for it herself. She almost always got her own way, after all. My grandma was one of those people that you always thought was perfect and then you grow up and realize, naw, she's just human. But even then, you couldn't help but look at her in some way like a person of iconic legend. She would have told you that she was a just a silly old woman, but she was so much more.

She lived through horrid poverty and family illness as a child, married my grandpa less than a week after graduating high school and turning 18. Chased his naval boat across the country, with my 3 month old uncle on her hip. Ran the little village general store all on her own. And oh, she pitched a fit when Grandpa said they were buying a farm. She wanted nothing to do with it. But then there she was, fixing breakfast at 3am so Grandpa and their boys could get to the farm chores. Adopting every stray cat she could get her hands on. She loved a good dog, but Grandma was a cat lady, thru and thru. She never wanted that farm, but oh boy, she wasn't leaving it. She and Grandpa were married for 70 years and she lived just as long as that down a dirt road, at the end of a dusty driveway, in an old farmhouse surrounded by corn and barns and the echoing sound of our childhood whiffle ball games still ringing on the wind.

The last of my grandparents to go, survived by three sons, ten grandkids and fourteen great-grandkids and that is her legacy, the one she is really proud of. Most people would have thought Grandpa was the glue that held this family together, but it was Grandma all along.

She always joked that when she finally got to heaven, that Grandpa would ask her, "What took you so long?!" But neither one of them have to wait another day.

Together now, they can rest in the peace they've so greatly earned.

Ava Marie - May 3, 1925 - August 30th, 2016

Photographer unknown, but Grandma loved her hummingbirds, so that's why I chose this one.

I am getting tired of making these. We have lost too many good ones this year. And the year before that. And the year before that. I feel like ever since Cory Monteith, it has just been one loss after another. And like Cory, this one was taken far, far too young. I remember first seeing Anton in an episode of ER. So young and quiet and conveying the oldest soul, like watching a boy with the wisdom of thousands of years under his skin. But then I'd see videos of him behind the scenes or on the red carpet, and he just seemed like a silly, sweet dork. Good-hearted, very intelligent and just plain sweet. Having watched his work since he was 11 years old, it is very hard to think of him as being gone. We can only hope he didn't suffer. I honestly can't believe we lost another one. This has to stop.



“Who would have thought I’d live so long in such a short time?”
- Pavel Chekov, Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II
RIP Anton.