: About Me

I don't know who first coined the phrase, " Life begins at 40, " but in my case, life changed direction for the better. Up until then, I'd set the predictable goals and achieved them: I'd worked my way through college, got my degrees, married...Divorced, bought my first home, sold that one to buy my second. Found myself unwillingly defined by a career title, and my accomplishments simply became more of a burden. I resented the long hours, the nights and weekends,and the holidays it required. I felt married to my job and wanted a better quality of life, with more balance between work and home. I remarried after being divorced for over 10 years, and began to learn how to live again. I was fortunate enough to be able to quit working f/t, throw my watch in the ocean,and not look back. I've learned not to take things for granted and remember to count my blessings. I'm on my third home, now, a ( mostly ) renovated house in an historic district which lends itself to entertaining. I'm more sure now of the things I no longer want: I don't want to have to date again; I no longer want to work f/t for anyone, be awakened by an alarm clock, or have to adhere to a schedule set for me by someone else; and I won't move again until I break a hip on the stairs. I never want to become anyone's patient, in a hospital, or a nursing home. My idea of being confined to one level will be living on a small houseboat without an engine, somewhere in the Florida Keys.

My passion is ...

The South. Her people and her flavor.

I know too much about ...

Seeing people at their worst and best. The physical aspects of death and dying. What constitutes a real emergency. Trying to appear caring and competent when I felt neither.

My parents always told me ...

" Never assume anything." ( Then Mom'd spell it out for me, so I understood why).

My childhood ambition ...

ballerina/movie star/veterinarian.

My favorite memory ...

I was hoping it hadn't happened yet.

Why I write ...

to get it out of my system

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

" Bank of America," a short story in a collection entitled, " The Half-Mammals of Dixie," by a South Carolina professor.

My first job ...

Cashier at a Hardee's in a small town in North Carolina, for minimum wage. I find poverty is a great motivator.

My best moment ...

Buying my first 2 homes on my own merit, without a husband or any help from my family

My inspiration ...

My own mortality. I want to write my stories before I expire!

Pets & Animals > Animal Rights & Issues Schools should ban animal dissection

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The first human I had to dissect was an indigent from Los Angeles County. She had an ovarian tumor the size of a football. I'd never had had that opportunity lest I'd survived that first earthworm dissection in the 10th grade. From there, we progressed to frogs...My lab partner refused to initiate a cut, so I did it. It was not that I wanted to; she was just more squeamish than I. I always wondered where our, " specimens," came from. Never really explored that, partly because I wasn't sure I wanted to know... But if it hadn't been for ," Ethel," as we named her, I'd never have progressed t...

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