Would You Sell Your Body?

The question gets asked a lot; What would you be willing to do for money? I make the joke that I'll sell my body for money, become a hooker, and work the streets. And then I realize I don't like being naked, or being touched, or you know...being tied up, or freaky, or any of that stuff, and I'm pretty sure if people are paying me for my body, they kind of get to do what they want, no? So then those plans fall apart.

Or so I thought.

The hospital was huge. And I usually got lost.

I've spent the last two weeks being a voluntary lab rat for a drug study. Why? 1) Because I don't like animal testing and I've always said there will be people dumb enough to test drugs for whatever reason. (I am that dumb person :) ) 2) They paid me $300 and I have a lot of bills to pay.

Three times, I spent about an hour getting hooked up to machines that monitored my face muscles and my galvanic responses. As she hooked electrodes up to my de-watched and de-braceleted wrists, I said rather sheepishly, "Please just ignore the cutting scars." The woman placing them on me stopped for a second and said, "Wow, you really have been through a lot, haven't you?"

When that was done, I shoved a syringe up my nose, inhaled deeply, and then got to watch Blue Planet for a half hour (it was lovely. I watched about Polar Bears and whales), and then looked at pictures and answered test questions like, "How attractive do you find this face?" "How likely would you be to approach this person?" "How approachable do you find this face?" One day I was given the placebo. One day I was given the actual drug and had some difficulty breathing/the room kind of spun. (I may have lied when they asked whether or not I have heart problems...)

After, I spent a few minutes answering a survey and then having to get blood drawn. I chatted quite a bit (making sure to sell the fact that I'm an author and that I do presentations because you never know when it'll come in handy).

Baxter takes injections/giving blood
better than I do. 

By today, I look like a heroine addict (turns out one of the days I was dehydrated and it was difficult to get blood). I had my last round of looking at pictures, though because I got no drug or placebo, I didn't have to shove anything up anywhere, or give blood.

As I put on my jacket to leave I started getting kind of sad. I'd spent several hours with the woman hooking me up to machines and poking me with needles. She told me about her family, I showed her pictures of Baxter (and told her about my screwed up family). It was strange coming to an understanding that I probably won't see this woman or the doctor ever again. They both seemed awesome and nice.

The last Tuesday I'd been there, the woman had told me, "Do you plan on having kids?" and while she didn't know about the abortion, I still cringed.

"No," I told her. "I don't want to end up like my mom."

Her voice became very serious. "I don't think you'll EVER have to worry about that. You're nothing like her."

As I drove home from work that night, I ended up crying. What if I do want kids? What if I end up like my mom? Isn't in better to just say you hate kids and that you never want them so you don't end up even potentially destroying them?

As I got up to make my final exit, she stood in front of me, fully stopping my path to freedom and said, "I'm hugging you, and I don't care whether you've showered or not." (I hadn't.) Then she wrapped both of her small around around me, and we embraced. When we parted she looked me square in the eyes and said, "You'll do great things with your life. I'm happy I met you, and I wish you nothing but the best for your future."

She walked me to the elevevator and as I stepped on, I looked back and said, "You know, when people like you give me those little speeches, it kind of reaffirms the fact that I need to become a bad ass and change the world."

I drove home smiling. I get the feeling that she doesn't say or do these things to ever lab rat in the study.

The Truth About Craigslist

Guess what, guys? We have our first real complain about 2013! Aside from Bax being sick. Just when you thought it was safe to forget about all of the quarrels of 2012, one comes creeping back. Kind of like a court case that just doesn't go away...

Wait, that's exactly what it is.

If you missed any of the drama of the Roommate Saga, you may want to freshen up here. Once upon a time, I lived in a super sketchy place because when I moved to Maine I had no place to call home. So I went on Craigslist, and found this place. The landlord said, "Oh, the house keeper is kind of strange, but he's harmless, I swear."

Can we just forget I lived here?
Please?

Turns out, not so harmless. So the other day at work, the arresting officer (in civilian clothing) came up to me as I restocked the liquor aisle. "Remember me?" he asked.

My face lit up. "Of course, how are you?"

"Good, and um, sorry to be the bearer of bad news," he said, handing me a piece of paper.

I opened it, and wham-bam, it's a subpoena. I am now to appear in court any time between January 9th-31st.

I'm trying to tell myself it's just research for a future novel, but really, I just want that whole ordeal to be over. I'd be a happy girl if I never had to see him again. So the truth about Craigslist, is that you may want to fully research your place before you move in. This is the second time things have blown up in my face (the first being that incident with bedbugs).

Any of you have any legal issues? Or, better yet, what's your worst (best) roommate story?

If It's Dead, Let It Die

Caution: This blog may be traumatic for some of you. This definitely has an 8/10 rating on the WTF scale.

Growing up wasn't easy in my house. Sometimes it was an adventure (like the time we went to Niagara Falls), but most times, it usually left scarring memories that would some day equate to yet another, more detailed, memoir. Or hours in therapy. Whichever.

One such instance took place at the Shepherd House. This is the only place I've ever truly called home, and we lived there from the time I was in kindergarten until the early parts of my eighth grade year. With that being said, I can't remember how old I was, I just know it had to have been before I was 14.

My mom had been gone a lot (staying at her boyfriend's house an hour away). Once, late at night, she burst into the house, frantic, throwing newspapers down on the kitchen table (where we ate dinner, mind you). Soon, she carried something grey and lifeless in, and laid it on the table.

"Oh God, oh shit!" she chanted. "Come on bunny!"

"Mom, what happened?" I asked, looking at the fluffy adorable thing sprawled sideways on the table.

Not a bunny.
But we do have a fascination with
dead things now...

"I hit the bunny with my car," she said as she proceeded to administer CPR to the lifeless rabbit. I'd like to blame my youthful ignorance, but as I stood there watching my mom pressing on the small creature, I imagined what it would be like to have a pet bunny (meanwhile, the day after this, we would discover our bird dead in its cage. Why? Oh, we forgot to feed it....for a couple of weeks).

The CPR went on for a few minutes until she dug a mirror out of her purse and held it to the bunny's pale pink nose to test if it was breathing. It wasn't.

Standing at the threshold of the kitchen and living room, I adjusted my position, and saw the underside of the bunny's face. It was streaked red, from its eye downward. Clearly it wouldn't be hopping off the table any time soon.

"Mom," I said, tears threatening to spill out at any second. "It's dead."

"What?" she said. "No, there's still hope!"

I pointed to the blood. "Look."

She flipped the bunny over and pools of blood were left on the newspaper. "Shit." At last she broke down and began crying. "I'm sorry, bunny."

I began to cry, too. The side of the face that wasn't leaking maroon was furry and adorable, and it was here, on my kitchen table, dead at my mother's hands. My sisters and I buried the bunny and the bird together in the animal graveyard to the right of the house.

So, what does this mean for writing?

Well, there's a point in a story or novel, where you just keep trying to give CPR to the dead lifeless sentence, chapter, whatever. You keep trying to breathe life into something that refuses to live. When that happens, you may need to adjust your perspective, it may already be dead and maybe, MAYBE you should bury it. If it's dead, let it die valiantly. (Though save a backup, you know, in case you can fit it in a future work.)

(I just hit 19,000 words with my WIP....In 11,000 I'll have to decide whether or not this novel, like that bunny, is already dead.)

Falling in Love

I've had a lot of time alone to dissect what draws me to people/what repels me from people.

During my stay in Seattle, I met a boy the night Jen and I went to celebrate. I'd been brave and talked to not only agents, but editors as well. Thus, Jen and I put on dresses, and make up, and hit the town.

When I'd ordered a drink, a lovely gentleman with an OK GO t-shirt on called to our waitress, "I'll buy those drinks, actually." What could we do? Of course we asked him to sit with us.

This picture makes me laugh, so hard

After a few minutes of gushing thank yous from both Jen and me (as we're super broke), the drinks (Irish Car Bombs) arrived.

I looked to Jen, and looked to the cute Irish stranger sitting near me. "I'm going to drool all over the table, don't judge."

His response? "I don't judge, I work with drool all day."

I stopped. Jen stopped. Immediately I was attracted (I come from a long line of droolers. It always makes an appearance in my novels.) "What do you do?" I asked.

"I'm a veterinarian." There are two types of people I love in this world. 1) Writers, because we're all batshit crazy. 2) Veterinarians, because they're pet people. (I actually got a degree in Medical Biology for Pre-Vet)

And like that, Jen and I dropped the shot into the mug and chugged. Sure enough, I drooled all over the table. He handed me a napkin and bought the following round. Early in the night he took me and Jen out on the dance floor (allowing us to share him equally).

18 Second Video. Highly recommend watching it
(It is kind of dark though, sorry!)

It was then I knew I loved this stranger. Not only was he a vet (we talked quite a bit about my dog and his work), but he knew how to dance, RESPECTFULLY. He wasn't feeling me up, or groping me, or grinding on me. Instead, he would twirl me, and spin me, and dip me, and lead me the way the guys do in movies.

During one of our magical dances, he dipped me and proceeded to kiss me, which caused heat flashes in every part of my body. He was thirty something, I was twenty something, and in the hours I spent with him, I planned out the rest of my life.

But all fairy tales come to an end, and like Cinderella, my prince had other plans and left the bar around midnight, taking my phone number and never calling again. (In all fairness, by the end of the night, I found another boy to dance with, and when the vet returned, new boy had his arm around me, and he just stood, suddenly very uncomfortable. I excused myself from the table to talk to him, and do you know what he said? DO YOU? "I just came to make sure you guys were okay." And my heart died. I wanted to tell him that I'd leave new boy for him, that I should shoo away the other person, but the damage had been done. He left again, and my little heart went with him.)

So why am I blogging about this?

When I read a book, I want to fall in love with characters. I want to see the things that draw me to them. Sure, tall, dark, and handsome rocks (you know the kind, dark hair, jet blue eyes). But tall, dark, and handsome can have a collection of dead babies in his closet. I need more, I need the flawed, the intense, the spontaneous, or whatever else. This lovely gentleman made this night in Seattle memorable, and now, nearly a year later, I still think of him (and regret not being able to spend more time with him). I knew him for maybe four hours, and his presence resides in my heart.

The question for you, writers, is:

Will your characters steal my heart, too?

Villains and Fear

Last week's YaLitChat revolved around horror, and the chat went from scary, to super scary. We talked about invasion of space (that feeling you get when you think someone has broken in to your place), what really scares us (monsters under the bed), etc. But the things that scare me the most are the things that happen in my head. That whole, "What is he/she willing to do next?" Conveniently, this saga unfolded shortly after this topic:

This is a mile walk from my apartment
I love this. Love it.

I've had my share of horrible living environments. I lived in a place in North Carolina that got infested with bedbugs because of a creepy man in his 50s. Before that I lived with a girl whose dog pooped and peed on the floor so Baxter got a rash, and I got sick for two months.

Then I moved to Maine, and I thought it'd be smooth sailing. My 60-70-80 year old roommate played guitar, talked a bit much when I was writing, but I thought you know, it'd be okay.

Then he and his elderly mother decided to start terrorizing me (yelling, moving/touching my stuff, throwing my food away, locking me out of my room, turning off the heat in the middle of winter, etc), so Baxter and I began staying in my friend's basement. Then, when I returned to the house to get my stuff, he exposed himself to me....and I called the cops. (The arresting officer is a somewhat regular where I work. He's said he thinks he has PTSD from the ordeal. You and me both, kid. You and me both.)

After staying almost two months in my friend's basement, when I found my apartment, I was so blissfully happy. So happy, so excited for the future. The only reservation I had about this place was the driving distance, but soon I rocked out to all sorts of CDs, and on days where I had to be up by 5am, so I could leave by 6am, and make it to work by 7am, I didn't shower (those are overrated, anyway).

The stuff under my name is his response

The neighbors seemed cool for the first couple of weeks. There was one I didn't like because she is living with her boyfriend, and yet spent 2-3 nights all over another guy (classy, huh?). Only one of those nights she was drunk, and so I was judging her pretty much the entire time she was stealing his hat.

Anyways, we'd sit on the porch, and chat, and try out for ninja warrior. I breathed easy for the first time since November. One of my neighbors invited me over for dinner a couple of nights, another let Baxter out while I was at work.

But, as is my luck with living situations, the crazy set it much too quick.

First, it started with the crazy neighbor next door and the wifi (yes, this was the one with the boyfriend). Then it exploded this last week when I went down to the laundry room to find my Tide laundry detergent in the trash (I'm broke, I had half a bottle left. When you get one day a week to do laundry, this is not what you want to find). So I did what any other passive aggressive person would do. I wrote a note:

It was nice to come down to do laundry today and see that someone has stolen all of my Tide. I had about 1/2 a bottle left.
Whoever you are, please replace. I was hiding it for a reason, and that s#$t is expensive. 
Thanks,
Lynn(e)

A bit later, I went to check my laundry, and my note was tapped to my door, with chicken scratch that read:

Next time leave your f@#$ing soap in the house Don't accuse any of us of stealing your s%^t and speaking of s&*t the next time I step in s&*t your gonna hafto buy an extra jug of soap to clean your car. And (neighbor's girl's name) is no longer at your dog watching disposal cos of your being a b@#$h. 


First of all, it was hard for me to take this seriously due to all the cursing, the misuse of your/you're, cos rather than cuz, or even because. (I judge people who misuse words.) At the bottom he wrote other threats, and crossed them off (that purple blue streak.)

Let me explain this a bit more. The neighbor who wrote this, yea, he's been in prison for murdering someone. Clearly I'm not comfortable with having me or my car threatened, and so I called the landlord to let him know. Landlord said he'd talk to the guy, and I figured that'd be it.

Instead, after a long day at work, I came home to find this:

Yep, that's poop.

So, we're adults, right? We're not sixteen years old. The dude is 32 years old, I can hear him screaming at his girlfriend nightly, she's come over after several of their fights, once when he allegedly threw her engagement ring in the bushes. (By the way, she's only 22.) You can look up my twitter feed because the walls are paper thin and I live tweeted them.

So I let Baxter out the poop night, and we get back inside, and I lock the door because that villainous fear crept in, What is he going to do next? Followers on twitter told me to call the cops, and my manager at work said the same thing. Because it wasn't an emergency, so much as annoying, I figured I'd wait until morning.

But instead of him being crazier, it was the wifi neighbor, who created an account that same night specifically to attack me. She tweeted at me about 9 times, all of which I didn't respond to, but continued to complain about the dog poop, the psycho neighbors, etc. Well, around 11:30pm, I heard her yell something and storm over and start pounding on the door. I told her point blank (through the open window), I'm not opening the door, to go home, or I'd call the cops. She told me to call the cops, so I did.

I'd finally started making this place my own!

Well, cop hottie (who is married but let me out of the fine when he pulled me over) showed up about an hour later. He told me this is ridiculous, and I couldn't agree more, but I was somewhat more comfortable because if something happens to me, to Baxter, or to my stuff, there is now a record of this craziness.

I texted a picture of the poop to the landlord saying that he needed to speak with his tenants because this is unacceptable, and by the time I got home from work the following day, the poop was removed from my door step.

None of the neighbors have had contact with me since, though an animal control officer (who walked over from next door), came over yesterday to ask if Baxter was registered because we'd been here for longer than 10 days (yea, bro. We've been here two months. Where were you then?), which leads me to suspect one of them is still trying to make trouble.

I'm very frazzled about all of this. My mangers at work are suggesting a new living arrangement but, I love this place. Not the neighbors, but my apartment. My place to live alone, my punching bag in my bedroom with my air mattress, a mile walk to a river and beautiful views.

But, if we move, it would be closer to work, and I could potentially go home during lunch to let Baxter out. If I could find a cheap place, maybe I could actually start saving up some money.

But if we move, I wouldn't be able to hop the border and head to New Hampshire and avoid sales tax. I'd give up the river, the drive where I get to collect my thoughts (though granted, sometimes the drive sucks). We'd have to give this up:

I'm not sure I'm ready to do that, but maybe giving all of this up is better than you know, coming home to a dead dog, huh?

Research II: Obtaining Sponsorship

You know that moment where you write about something really cool? Like, maybe your MC throws a disc in a game of disc golf, or takes off running in a cross country meet, or stands up in front of peers at prom to sing some karaoke? And then you realize...

Crap. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Me (black) and sister (tie-die) preparing to sing karaoke.
The dismayed, "What am I doing here?" face is why
this picture is here :)

There's a point where you can't just make something up because in fiction, things have to make sense, or at least, be plausible. For example, if you're at a soccer game, you're not going to start dribbling the ball with your hand. Some people may not know that, but a majority will.

This is the point where you have to do research and fully understand what you're writing. Sometimes it's as easy as going to a middle school/high school and chatting with some kids. Sometimes you can google, "What are tents made out of?" (Which I literally did yesterday.)

In My Sister's Memories, Allie and Mike were stellar disc golf players. I sided more with Sarah (the older sister) who ended up in the trees. I'd played a couple of times before, once at church camp when I was in like, 8th grade, and once in August when I'd evacuated for Hurricane Irene. This second time, I played with my friend Jake and his friend Greg, who were extremely good players.

An excellent place to play if you're ever in Burlington, NC

At the time I'd played, I didn't expect disc golf to appear in a novel, but in November, that's what Allie ended up playing. Because I'd taken pictures with Jake and Greg, I had a decent recollection of the day and the game, but it had still been awhile since I'd played.

Now, I lived in Maine and had no idea where disc golf courses were, and didn't own any of my own equipment. So, I contacted Innova Discs, sent a simple e-mail saying:

My name is Lynne Schmidt, and I'm an author doing researching on disc golf for my young adult novel. (I told them the premise of the story), and then said, I was wondering if you'd be willing to donate some discs for my research?

Sure enough, less than a week later, I had an Innova Disc box waiting for me on the kitchen table. It was April before I really got to play, but when I did, I took note of the surroundings, the way I threw (and still managed to end up in the trees). But I got to play, I got to do sponsored research, and it was fun. PLUS! I got to keep the discs for future playing!

So, what's my point? Sometimes we don't have money to fully research our projects (after all, we are writers). But sometimes, we can contact companies, and they'll be willing to help us out in exchange for a blog post. If they're not willing, trust me, the lack of response doesn't hurt nearly as much as getting rejected from agents :)

Here's to research and here's to sponsorship!

The Roommate Saga

So for those of you who haven't heard about the roommate drama, feel free to click on some links. Or if you're really ambitious, go through my twitter feed, there is some interesting stuff going on there. This is a long post today, sorry. I added pictures to make it more fun :)

The house that was lovely...aside from the residents

Long story short, for the last few months I've been living in a crap hole. I was desperate, I had just moved from North Carolina, and I had nowhere to live so I looked on Craigslist. Without really looking into the situation, I moved into the house in Woodstock.

The first thing that went wrong was heating. I don't like to sleep with my door open, because I don't like or trust people. So I would close my door, and then freeze. Then the landlord got on my case about having a space heater, and told me I wasn't supposed to have it because the house could burn down. But I continued doing it so Baxter and I wouldn't freeze to death. Plus, the sketchy old man would leave the oven open, leave the stove doors open (a few times wood exploded out of the fire and lit the floor up). The old man and the cougar roommate also would leave candles on. All. Night. Long. Oh, and there were three cats living in the house, too. They liked to get out counter tops and tables. And yet the space heater was the problem.

I'm so creative :)

The next problem was that the house claimed to be furnished, and yet didn't have a drier. There was only a washer. Which was okay, all of my clothes were crusty, and so were my towels, but eh...I could deal. At first. There are two stoves in the house that were used for heating. One in the living room, and one near the back of the house, which is where my bedroom is. When he started fighting with me, he decided to turn off that stove so that the only source of heat was where he was sleeping...on the couch. Once the stove near the washer had been turned off, my clothes wouldn't dry. They'd freeze over night, and warm the following day and stay wet. So I decided to make my own drier.

But then the old man started fighting with me. All the time. I think it was because I freaked out one day because he was smoking in the house, which he was NOT supposed to do. Either way, I started going into work angry because he'd moved my stuff, stolen my food, picked another fight. Then the only roommate I sort of liked moved out in less than a day, and the sketchy old man stole her computer...which made me start to wonder...

What will he do to my stuff?

I stuck it out for awhile longer. But then things got worse (see Living Situations blog), and I started trying to stay at friend's places more regularly. I also started trying to take Baxter everywhere with me; to work, to friend's. I hated leaving him alone because I was now terrified that they would hurt him to get back to me.

Not only that, but they started picking fights with me when I was trying to just stay in my bedroom and write my memoir, or edit, or just not be around any of them because they were all crazy. It got to the point I was tweeting my complains (on a regular basis) and my friend made me a "Quiet Please, Memoir Writing in Progress" sign. Then I had a friend over one day, and they (at this point they is the Dickey and his mother) picked fights in front of her, too.

Huge gaping hole

I'm not sure when I hit the breaking point, but I hit it fairly recently. I started packing up my room so that way I could just cut and leave as soon as I found a place. Because I came in freaking out every day, my managers all started looking in newspaper ads for places to rent that allowed pets. None of us could find anything. Just recently, I've been spending a lot of nights at a friend's house because well, they feed me, they offer me beer, and they're lovely company. Plus, they allow Baxter.

For the last few days I'd been staying with these friends, in another town, with my pup. Last night I went back to the house so I could move more of my belongings over to their house. I called my mom when I was in my car so that the creepy old guy wouldn't talk to me as I entered the house. I went to the outside stairs to find, amazingly, he'd redone them. Up until now, they'd been removed so Baxter and I had constantly been having to jump up and down the gaping hole (which was incredibly dangerous at night).

When I walked in, out of my peripheral vision I thought I saw that he was naked, but kept my eyes straight ahead and ran up to my room, still on the phone with my mother.

The dog Baxter abandoned me to play with

After barricading myself inside my bedroom (because Baxter decided to stay outside playing with the other dog), the sketchy old man didn't even knock and came into my room. He handed me my mail, where I then fully noticed, he was completely NAKED. And I mean NAKED. Like I saw 62-year-old-man-penis.

Immediately I dropped some f-bombs in the form of "Why the f3$% are you naked?!!!?! Get the f@#$ out of my room!!"

He then tried to take my mail from my hands, and demanded that I give him my house key, which I refused because I don't have all of my stuff moved out yet (and until I get sent to court, it is my legal right to have said key). We continued to scream at each other, he remained naked, completely un-phased by the fact I was flipping out because of seeing his member.

I could tell he was drunk (as all he ever does is drink), and he was naked. In my bedroom. And not leaving. So, I told him if he didn't leave, I'd call the cops. He told me to do it, so I hung up with my mom and called 911.

The only picture I could find of the sketchy
old man. This was a game night I had with
some folks from the mountain

He continued to yell at me until he realized I'd actually called them. Then he disappeared downstairs for awhile while I spoke with the dispatcher. By this point I was shaking (and maybe crying a little bit because why the f#$ was he naked??? IN MY BEDROOM??). The person had me stay on the phone with her until the poliece arrived. During the time of waiting, Dickey decided to come back in my room (I'm not sure if he had clothes on this time) and continued to yell at me, while I was on the phone with the dispatcher. Who (thanks to loudspeaker) told him to get out of my room and leave me alone. It took her about 5 times telling him to leave, and I was terrified that I was going to get shot, knifed, or punched.

The dispatcher asked how long I've been living here, and I answered that I'd been living here since December. She asked if we'd had confrontations before, I told her we had. She asked why I'd never called the cops before, and I answered because he'd never been naked before.

At long last, the cops arrived, and asked me the same questions the dispatcher asked. I showed them my bedroom, explained about the high tensions and the fights, and how they're trying to evict me, but haven't gone to the courts yet, etc, etc, etc. They had me wait in my car, and I ran inside to get my phone to text my friends that I was okay, and would be over ASAP because old man was crazy.

When I left the house, Dickey followed me out and yelled at me to return my house key, and I booked it to the safety of my car. The four officers immediately yelled at Dickey and told him to go back inside (he wasn't listening), and thus, screamed at him until he finally listened. When the coast was clear, they allowed me to re-enter the house, recommended that I not stay there that night, and I kept packing.

It got to the point I was afraid he would hurt Bax
So Bax started coming to work with me

In the end, Dickey got arrested for indecent exposure, and some other stuff that I can't quite remember (I think terrorizing was one of them). When they hauled him out he only had shorts on. Which, I was thankful for (again, who in their right mind would think it's appropriate to be naked???)

I was told that the next time I come to get the rest of my stuff, I am to notify the sheriff's department and to have an escort with me because the old guy is batshit crazy. I was also told that he does in fact reek of alcohol, and weed. Which doesn't surprise me, at all.

The girl is the one whose computer was stolen.
The boy is the kid who got kicked out of the
bar...later that night

When I got to my friend's, a previous roommate texted me, told me to drop everything that is going on with Dickey, and basically sounded like he was threatening me, too. He also called me a psycho (although he spelled it wrong), and said some other mean things, and I just wanted to punch him. (Keep in mind, this roommate was the one who got kicked out of the bar for being a creeper the first and only night me, him, and our female roommate tried going out together. She made him walk home.)

So that was my night on April 20. Baxter and I are currently residing in the basement of a friend's house, and I'm constantly praying that my stuff is okay (as I had to leave some of it). The only downfall of this, is that Baxter and the other dog keep fighting (they've drawn blood a couple of times now), and it terrifies me because I don't want Baxter to get hurt or to be uncomfortable...Ugh. I need to find my own place.

How are you?

Sanity and Writing

This is going to be a short one today, but something I've been thinking about a lot.

How many of you consider yourselves sane? I mean, like...really sane?

I've been wondering for awhile; are all writers a little...off?

I have a friend who constantly tells me that I'm crazy (or some variation thereof), and then recovers to say "But you're a writer...it's to be expected."

What are your thoughts?