My Addiction

I actually have many things I'm addicted to: kissing my son's head, buying books, checking email, Facebook...I could go on.

But my major addiction, my curse, is sugar. It took me years to learn that eating sugar was the reason I was so exhausted all the time. I tried cutting out white flour, sleeping more, sleeping less...nothing worked. Finally a few years ago I decided to give up sugar. And, I can't even explain the difference I felt. I was like a different person. I went from feeling so physically exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open during the day, to having so much energy I had to start taking Melatonin just to fall asleep at night.

There are a few major changes when I don't eat sugar for at least two days:

1. I'm am pretty much constantly in a great mood. Nothing makes me mad, impatient, or grouchy. With sugar, on the other hand, I'm quick to snap, moody and, as I mentioned, exhausted.
2. I have boundless energy. I have so much energy I can barely sit still.
3. And my favorite part, I'm much more creative. It's like my mind isn't foggy anymore, instead it's open and clear. I can focus for hours on writing and thinking about my stories. When I eat sugar I can barely concentrate for a few minutes at a time.

So with all this said, why, why, why is it SO hard for me to stay away from sugar? Once I get past two to three days of no sugar, I'm good. I don't want it or crave it. But if I decide that I'm OK and have been feeling great, I'll think, This one cookie/ice cream/sugar-filled snack won't hurt.

But it does. I pay for it for days!

When I knew my dad and his wife were coming for a cookout, my first thought was, "If we can have a bon-fire, I can have a s'more." It's like all of my thoughts revolve around sugar. I was in heaven when I bought a roll of chocolate chip cookie dough to make cookies last week. I knew I'd eat more dough than anything. We didn't even have all of the groceries in the house before I had that roll open and was eating it. We ended up only having enough for nine cookies. I loved every minute of eating the dough, but I paid dearly for it for days. I was miserable. Absolutely miserable.

Does anyone else go through this? Do you have things you just can't stay away from even though you suffer afterwards? How do you stop?

My Braces & Glasses Obsession

When I was in sixth grade I was obsessed with braces. Both for my teeth and one for my back. My friend had scoliosis and got to wear a back brace all the time. I also had a cousin who wore one.

I wanted to wear one. I thought it looked so cool. It was big and metal and made her walk perfectly straight. When we had a nurse check us one day in the locker room for scoliosis, I was thrilled when she said my spine was slightly crooked.

Unfortunately it wasn't crooked enough for a brace.

I also wanted to wear braces so badly on my teeth, that I'd wedge a folded up piece of paper in between my front teeth to move them apart. It would work, but they'd always go back to normal. I did end up getting braces when I was 28 and it was not fun!

Another thing I desperately wanted was to wear glasses. It turned out I have an eye problem called Thygesons that was diagnosed in sixth grade. A few times a year my cornea will grow tiny bumps on it making it painful to blink and blurring my vision. For years I went to a local hospital eye clinic where med students would line up to look at my eyes (sometimes after lunch and they'd have tuna fish-breath). It was a very uncommon disease.

Since my prescription changed almost daily when I had a flare-up, the doctor didn't know what prescription to give me. So he gave me a pair of bi-focals to wear to school.

His nephews bi-focals. Huge metal frames. U-G-L-Y!

I had no idea how to use them and was quickly made fun of. Eventually I got my own glasses. Huge plastic frames that took up most of my face. I hated them so much (we were too poor to afford anything hip), that I yanked the temple off them and told my mom they broke in gym class.

Afterwards I felt terrible because I learned the temple would cost $28 and she didn't have it. My grandma bought me another one. I didn't break that one.

My Kid The Comedian

• On our way to a restaurant with a Mardi Gras theme.
• Me: "Joey, you're going to get beads to wear at this restaurant."
• Joey: "Baked beans?"
• Me: "No, beads not beans."
• Joey: "Green beans?"
• Me: "BEADS!"
• Joey: "Baked beans?"
• Me: "....Yes, baked beans."

• I cringe everytime I have to bring him into a busy restroom in public. I know he's going to say something to embarrass me. It starts with him making a face and scrunching up his nose. I try to distract him ("Oh, look, two rolls of toilet paper!")
• Joey: "Ewww, Mommy! It 'tinky in here. Did you poop?" (And he's always SO loud.)

• My dad has a gas fireplace with a remote control for lighting the fire. He has Joey say "Abracadabra" and he'll secretly light the fire. Now whenever Joey sees a fireplace, he holds his hands up and yells, "Abracadabra!"

• When Joey was little he used to say "ba-ding" for open. One day I sat down with him and was determined to teach him to say it the right way. I used sign language and said, "O-pen."
• Me: "Say O."
• Joey: "O"
• Me: "Say pen."
• Joey: "Pen."
• Me: "O-pen!"
• Joey: "Ba-ding!"

• When he walks around barefoot, Joey says, "I'm barefooting."

So You're a Writer. Big Deal.

I've been writing forever. And if and when most people do ask about my writing, it's usually with a glazed look in their eyes, hoping my answer will just be something like, "Good," so they can move on with the conversation.

And you know how we writers are. Give us an inch and we'll tell you all about why our mc avoids stepping on grass, why she named her dog Wayne Newton. I'm always dying to talk about writing to anyone.

Unfortunately, not many people want to listen (unless they happen to be writers, too).

There are certain people I know (mostly my dad) who have really good ideas. So I know if I say to him, "Let me tell you what I'm working on, I need some advice," he'll be all over it with fresh ideas.

The biggest thing that's happened to me writing-wise so far, is that I co-wrote one short film and wrote and directed another. The first one played at a film festival in town and the second at a local theater and also a bar-type place. I was thrilled to watch them both on a big screen.

My dad and his wife came to the film festival and watched. My girlfriend and her husband came to the second one to watch. I felt like I had a feature premiering in Hollywood. It was really exciting for someone like me, who has a very hard time finishing any writing I start.

Honestly, I felt pretty bad at the time that none of my other family members were even interested in coming. Didn't ask to see the films or even care how the film festival went. It hurt a lot. But, as my husband pointed out, what's important to me isn't necessarily important to other people. Personally, I think if you love someone you share in what's important to them, but I must be in the minority here.

I'm totally over that stuff now. Although, I'm in no hurry to tell anyone what I'm working on anymore, unless I know they really want to know.

How about you? How do your friends and family respond to your writing dreams?

Hairy Arms, Bugs and Eating Roses

1. My dad had a friend named Charlie (just what we needed, another Charlie. We had 7 in our family), who looked like Barry Manilow. He used to come over during the summer and sit in our backyard. He taught me to eat rose petals and said they were good for you. To my mother's horror, I went around our backyard and ate the roses off our rose bushes.
2. In 6th grade I shaved the hair off my right arm hoping it would grow back thick and dark. Luckily that didn't happen.
3. I hate raisins because they remind me of big fat ants.
4. Speaking of ants, I used to collect them on a blue frisbee and bring them into the house to play. I'd let them crawl all over my arms. My mom had a fit trying to figure out why we had ants all over our house.

More of My Weirdness

1. I hated getting up early so much when I was little, I used to sleep in my school uniform so I could sleep longer. I was a wrinkled mess in third grade.
2. Every week in third grade, I paid the cutest boy, Timothy DiImperial, eleven cents to talk to me. I should have paid him more because he never did talk to me.
3. When I was little I had a great-aunt Stella whose head looked like a brussell sprout: it was a big round head with short, cropped gray hair. I didn't like her and I've never liked brussell sprouts because of her.
4. Since I slept over my grandma's so often, she showed me where she kept the smelling salts in case she every fainted. When she was busy, I used to go into the bathroom and smell them and get dizzy.
5. In kindergarten there was a kid who got a pussy willow stuck up his nose, and the teacher had to remove it with tweezers.

A Few Facts From the Little Me

1. In kindergarten I had a best friend named Christine. We were a perfect match because she liked to pinch people and I liked to bite them. I didn't have many friends in kindergarten.
2. I was five when my grandpa died. I don't remember much about him, but for years I thought I had killed him because I used to bug him to play tic-tac-toe all the time, and he didn't really want to.
3. I wanted to take gymnastics so bad in first grade, I just started telling kids I took it. As we stood in line to leave the class and go home, I'd start cutting everyone in line saying, "I have to get to gymnastics."
4. When we lived at the motel, I went to school with a girl who looked just like Holly Hobbie. I called her Holly the entire time I was at that school. She never answered.
5. In second grade, Sister Mary Martha was sitting on a desk in the classroom and slid off onto the floor. I laughed hard and loud and had to go sit in the hall. For a long time.

My Identity Crisis

I had two idols growing up (besides Shaun Cassidy and Chachi): Jan Brady and Jamie Sommers. I loved Jan Brady because she had long hair, and I loved Jamie Sommers because she was bionic (which, by then, so was I).

When I was in fourth grade, on top of all my homework assignments I used to put the name Jan Ciurca or Jamie Ciurca instead of Lisa. My teachers never said anything when they gave my papers back. They must have thought I was nuts.

Good thing they didn't know about my bionic arm.

How to Get Punished by Scaring an Old Lady

I found a little white jewelry box one time, and I cut a hole in the bottom and stuck my finger through. Then I put cotton balls around my finger and added some ketchup for a nice blood effect. I thought this would be a great trick to play on our 70 year old neighbor, Mary.

I ran over to her house, rang her doorbell and waited. When she came to the door I told her I had a present for her. She smiled as I held up the box for her to open.

When she opened it, she screamed.

Loud.

She scared me, so I screamed and ran off her porch and back to my house. I couldn't understand why she screamed instead of laughed. I thought it was really funny.

Although I didn't think it was too funny when she came over and told my mom.

How's a Girl to Find a Writing Buddy?

Ok. So I have this major problem of not being able to finish any writing that I start. Except for the two films I co-wrote and wrote and directed. I'm convinced I only finished those because, one, so many people were involved, and B, they were shorts therefore easy to write.

To make a long story short (you're welcome) I'm working on finishing a novel I started quite a long time ago. I have over 350 (typed) pages done, with 72K words.

I. Want. To. Finish. This. Novel.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm more than halway there.

I reread about 100 pages last night and really like what I have. I think my main character is funny. My problem is the plot. I have a million ideas but no one to bounce them off of. I don't know if I'm trying to add too much to the story, or if it needs more.

I need a writing buddy. I'm more than happy to read what they've written and give feedback, let them bounce ideas off me and be a general all-around writing friend, if they can do the same.

I had a friend from high school read my first chapter. He gave me fantastic feedback....but he's a HE and I know he's not really interested in chick-lit-type writing. I don't blame him. 

Anyway, does anyone know how to go about finding someone? I'm thinking of checking out the Barnes and Noble Writing Group tonight, but I'm not sure.

My Bionic Arm

When my parents had been married twelve years, they decided to renew their wedding vows in a small ceremony in our attic. A lot of our family came to help celebrate.

When the priest shook the holy water onto my parents, a little bit of it got on my left arm. I could actually feel my arm becoming stronger and bionic.

When the ceremony was done, I had all of my cousins come down into my bedroom and I told them about my newly bionic arm. Of course no one believed me, so I proved it by lifting up the end of my twin bed with my left hand.

Their doubtful chit-chat faded and no one said anything. But I think they were impressed.

The Time I Bit My Tongue Off

When I was eight, I was over my babysitters house playing with a bunch of kids in the backyard. My mom was home across the street. We were playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie and when we sang, "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," I fell down hard and bit my tongue at the same time.

I'd never bitten my tongue before, and I thought I had completely bitten it off. I went running out of the backyard screaming like a maniac. I was lucky there were no cars coming because I just darted across the street without looking.

In the process of running across the street screaming, I lost one of my shoes. By the time I got to my house,  my mom was running out the front door because she thought I'd been hit by a car (since I was screaming so loud).

When she finally calmed me down and I realized I still had my tongue, I had to limp back into the street to get my other shoe. Needless to say I was much too embarrassed to go back and play Ring-Around-the-Rosie with my friends.

My Tiger Hunt with Ernie

I was huge into records when I was a kid. Some of my favorites were: Shaun Cassisdy, Barry Manilow Live, Don McLean (American Pie), Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Ernie and Bert (I learned not too long ago they're called Bert and Ernie, but for some reason my brother and I always called them Ernie and Bert. I still have these last three records).

Although I knew every word to every song on each album, my favorite was Ernie and Bert. There was one particular song called Tiger Hunt that was my absolute fav. Ernie and I would go on a tiger hunt together. I'd act it out and do whatever Ernie told me to.

When he said to run up the hill, I jumped onto my bed. When he said run down, I jumped off and kept running. When he said jump over the fence at the bottom of the hill, I jumped. It was actually quite a workout. I not only had to run up and down a hill, but I had to crawl through a thicket, slap mosquitoes away, swim through a lake, tip-toe past the elephants and climb up a tree.

Then, while Ernie and I were looking through our rusty-trusty telescope for tigers, a tiger jumped up and scared us so we had to climb down the tree, tip-toe past the elephants, swim through the lake, slap the mosquitoes away, crawl through the thicket, jump over the fence, run up the hill and back down it really fast to get away from the tiger.

Once me and Ernie were safe inside his house, the doorbell would ring and when we opened it, you guessed it, the tiger was there and he scared us both.

I found this record not too long ago and played it for my husband. I tried to get him to act it out with me, but for some reason he said it was funnier to watch me do it alone.

Show Me the Match!

I was a firebug when I was little. I basically liked to try to light candles, or just light matches then blow them out. One time, when we were living at the motel, my grandma came and spent the night. I was extremely close to her growing up (she died when I was nine). I spent many weekends at her house, and she even tried to get me to come live with her (my parents said no). She told me all kinds of family secrets, and basically spoiled me rotten. In turn, I'd cut material for her to sew things since she had arthritis, (and occassionally act like a brat).

While she was in our living room with me at our motel house, I lit a match, blew it out and shoved it under a bookcase. I never in a million years thought my beloved grandmother would tell on me.

The next thing I knew, my dad came at me with a belt in his hand demanding to know where the match was.

I refused to tell him.

He generously offered me two options: I can tell him what I did with the match, or I could get the belt.

Like an idiot, I chose the belt.

He took me to my room and hit me with the belt a few times. It hurt. But I didn't cry.

Instead I felt a deep satisfaction at the thought that I had won, because after he hit me, he still didn't know where the match was. I did.

Broken Swings & Pinball Machines

When my parents ran the motel the summer of 1977, my brother and I had to find our own things to do. We'd look for snakes in the field (and scream and run away if we saw one), play pinball (we had a pinball machine in the lobby), beg the pop machine guy for a free grape or orange pop (I still think of that motel when I have one) and played on our swingset in the backyard.

Every day we ran out there, we'd fight over who got the "good" swing. There were once two good swings, but one snapped in half while we were fighting over it. I usually won since I was bigger. While swinging, I'd sing songs like, (you've got the cutest little) Baby Face, and the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song.

We also fought over the pinball machine in the lobby. I usually won that battle too, since I was taller. One time while my brother and I were in bed (we shared a room because I was scared of our dog), my dad talked my mom into playing pinball. We could hear her out front playing and laughing when suddenly, a frog hopped into our bedroom.

My terrified four year old brother jumped up onto his bed and started screaming, "A snake! There's a snake in my room!" I thought it was funny, but I went and got my dad who caught the frog and set it free.

Babies Are Made With Iced Tea

When I was seven my family moved from the city out to the country to run a motel. We lived in the house attached to the lobby. Every day I'd help my mom change all the sheets in the motel rooms and clean up.

There were a few people who were regulars and basically lived at the motel. One family had five kids living in their room. I'm not sure where they put them all. I was good friends with one of the boys, Daniel. There was also a family who lived there with a little girl and a baby. 

One day I was hanging outside with Daniel, the little girl and her baby brother. The girl let me hold her baby brother, the first time I'd ever held a baby. at this point I knew nothing about babies or where they came from.

I held the baby close and smelled his head. It smelled like iced tea. The longer I held him and sniffed his head, I was certain of something. Babies were somehow made from iced tea. This baby was black and I figured the more iced tea powder you added to the mix, the darker they were.

A Popcorn Bowl Full of Cereal

When I was seven (why do all of my stories happen at that age?), my brother and I couldn't decide which little box of cereal to eat. So we did what any normal seven and four year old would do. We poured all ten boxes into a big popcorn bowl and added over a half gallon of milk.

At first we dug in, shoving spoonful after spoonful into our mouths. But we got full very quickly. Then my dad came into the kitchen.

He took one look at our enormous bowl still filled with cereal and wasted milk and said, "You're both going to finish that bowl."

I immediately burst into tears...because of the Elvis thing...