Episode 2 - History

Episode 3 has already aired, so its time for me to give a look back at Episode 2!

Now the plan (no guarantees here, just a plan) is that sometime during the week that an episode airs and before the next one does, I will do my re-listen, thoughts, what I missed, etc.  So I'm still behind, maybe I will always be behind. Who Knows? Hopefully, it will be fun and you all will enjoy it immensely.

And to mention Episode 1 again, I would like to encourage some more audience participation?  I wouldn't mind hearing more Mixtape Stories.



~00:56 It is still strange to hear my voice. Amazing how it sounds so different in my head. But then there is the other side, getting to hear DarkWiccan. We've been friends for a year, regularly messaging each other back and for. And I know when we recorded the 1st one it was so bizarre to hear her voice.

~03:46 Seriously guys, I am terrible at editing because I'm the type of writer who does not first draft very well. So writing goes slow as I agonize over wording. And when I review what I've written my brain autocorrects and I just don't catch stuff.

~08:33 When I came out to my parents, my mother said "I've been dreading this day." So they saw it coming, but were not ready for it. They got better. I consider my coming out story a generally positive one.

~10:06 I used to think some of my extended family was super white trash... then I met some of my wife's extended family members....

~11:55 I forgot the Actual part when speaking but..... screenshot as promised

~17:20 When I signed up I was totally okay with being the bumbling sidekick. And I was still fairly nervous and require some prompting from DarkWiccan.

~19:07 Have we gotten comment from Smurf yet about our chanting?

~20:30 Thanks DarkWiccan for aging us. I know we already discussed we were old fogies, but Bob Newhart... reallly?

~26:00 Refer to this tweet about this. Side note: this was the first thing we actually recorded and I was totally nervous and scared.

~34:30  I will keep this botany spiral to a minimum, because I'll probably elaborate more on a separate blog post. Hawkweed!

~37:12 Darlene.... Oh Darlene.

~49:43  "Emily forgot to run it by me first." Will always be THE BEST LINE EVER!

~55:41 Waverly's turn to speak (Smurf just posted Chapter 17 the other day. So go read!)

Also, we are on iTunes now, so subscribe and rate! Goodnight folks!

Episode 1 - Mixtape

I'm a little late to my own game? That's standard operating procedure.

But here is the quick and dirty. I am now involved in a podcast. It is called Earp Fiction Addiction. I read a lot of Fan Fiction. I even occasionally write it. And on top of this awesome project I've been super crazy busy with big life changes.  Got it? Good.  Check this out.  I'll be doing a re-listen and typing some thoughts below.



I can't listen to Olly Anna "Write my Story" on my own playlist without getting the urge to listen to the podcast now.

Geez, that is a lot of nervous giggling on my part. I am of the personal belief that DarkWiccan is way more eloquent than I am on a regular basis. I consider myself better on paper.

I still haven't made headway on any fic since I recorded this first podcast.  Keep in mind we record weeks in advance because that is how we do, so it has been a while since I've written anything.  In fact the last time I typed anything of significance, I believe it was on this blog at the 1st of the year.

I apologize for all the background noise. I had not gotten my fancy microphone yet and I was nervous and shuffling papers and smacking the desk.... I get better about it I promise.

I've heard this podcast before, more than once, after DarkWiccan got it all put together, but I just started listening and got lost. I really hope everyone else is getting sucked into it.

I can't even.... Seriously.  Still can't.

So I really was super excited to talk to Pirate and Smurf. I had a different set up than the first segment. First of all, I was trying to record in a more quiet environment so I borrowed a laptop, hid in my room and told everyone to not bother me.  My room is on the edge of the WiFi signal. I tell everyone to get off. I just didn't have the bandwidth to keep up and kept getting kicked off. So I got to say Hi to Pirate and Smurf but I didn't get to ask them the questions.  DarkWiccan did a great job though.

Smurf can't even. It's a thing.

It is just so amazing to hear Smurf and Pirate's own words speaking about the massive alternate universe that is the 80's Mixtape AU.

Last thoughts....

I've recorded 6 (or so) episodes so far and there is always something that I forget or I don't have a chance to get to. In this particular case, I wanted to ask the podcast peeps about Mixtapes.  So I will pose the question to my audience here, and probably on Twitter and Tumblr.  What is your mixtape story? Have you given or received one? Please tell me about it.

I'll start off with mine, which, since I might be a little drunk right now, I'll go into way too much detail than I should, and also would have had time for to mention on a podcast.

I was away at graduate school, studying Botany in Edinburgh Scotland.  I was in the grad dorms, filled specifically with us foreigners not from the UK.  I'm not super social but I did finally start spending time with my flatmates, the other American and the Canadian, and through them I met more people from other parts of the dorm.

And there was one girl I got super close with. I had recently discovered my gayness, but even halfway around the world where I could have started fresh and open, I did not. I'm sure I've mentioned it at one point on my blog, I just overall wasn't dealing with it very well.  But I had found fan fiction and The Kitten Board, and I was coping, sort of.

We talk about lots of stuff, except the part where I think know I'm gay.  I get her to watch Buffy. I had all of the seasons and she'd come to my room and we'd watch them on my laptop. At one point in our friendship she makes me a CD.  Music she thinks I would like.  I had it on repeat. Would sleep to it.

She introduced me to LiveJournal and NaNoWriMo. She is a history major and knows all about Scotland and is learning Gaelic and shows me all the neat stuff at the Museums. She is a Goddess and god damnit I'm totally falling for her.

I know about her undergrad, just as she knows mine.  She went to a Seven Sisters college. She has had her fair share of female friends come out (and come on) to her. I'm sure she had to have suspected. But I stayed quiet and enjoyed my cuddle buddy.

We take a train to Mallaig and stay in a hostel. We ferry to the Isle of Skye, and see Clydesdale's being ridden along the beach and walk through the gardens of Armadale Castle. Back in Mallaig, we find a bench situated up the road overlooking the water and the Isle and watch the sunset as she is curled up against me in the chilly evening air, my arm around her holding her tight. The train ride back I spent drawing a pentagram, so I could show the tattoo artist how I wanted it shaded, because he didn't get it when I tried to explain it. A week before I left, I got the tattoo and ended up just using my drawing.

When school was over and it was time for me to go home, I received a hand written letter before we joined my parents (who came to visit and bring me home) and my classmates out for drinks, and a request to read it after I got home. I believe I had finally come out to her, which she suspected, especially the night I came back to the dorms black out drunk and called her to help me get into my own room, talking about hitting on the cute Czech bartender, who was giving me free drinks.  But back to the letter. She declared that, out of all the women who had taken interest in her, I was the only one she had ever considered. 

I read it in the bathroom that night. I don't know how I managed to get my shit together and go back out and continue the conversation with everyone like my world hadn't just been turned  upside down.

She also gave me one last CD. Translated from Scottish Gaelic it says "Dream of the Stars." She had, like the one before, drawn a cute CD cover and included in the booklet the list of songs.  The letter mentioned a hidden track in this CD, not on the list and somewhere in the middle.

I never did get that kiss.

We sent a few hand written letters back and forth for a while and a few emails. We are still facebook friends but we don't really talk anymore and my wife still refers to her as my "Scottish Girlfriend" even though she is American and her heritage is mostly Italian.

So that is my drunken TMI - Mixtape story.  What's yours?

Let Me Introduce Myself - For the 3rd Time

My attempts to make a name for myself online have ended in a rather epic fizzle. 

I started this blog back in 2009. I can't seem to figure out when Sally started her appearance, I first mention her in 2010. And I started posting as Delayne on The Kitten Board in 2010, adding a new chapter to an old wiccanbotanist fic. I had a good boost in 2012, which was a year that, at it's end, held major career changes for me.

I have a major career change coming up for me this month. And 2017 has been full of major things too, but they are the start of all the things happening for me in 2018.  

For work, I went to California because summers are slow in Idaho. Turns out it was a trial run, and I've gotten a promotion that will send me back to California.  My wife and I will be doing the long distance relationship thing, and in an attempt to distract myself from being super lonely, I will be spending lots of time reading, writing and social media.

Especially social media, because 2017 was the year of the Pocket Friends!  Now, I've been online for a while now and have interacted with some awesome people over the years. Last year, which ended yesterday so it feels really strange to write that, was epic in that I've finally met many of them, face to face.  And even if I had not, I think they would still be the strongest highlight of my 2017, as they have become so dear to me and supportive, and just... The Best.  And I'm excited that I will get to see more of them in the coming year.

I'm also excited about this new up and coming project that my BFF DarkWiccan and I are doing called the Earp Fiction Addiction Podcast. Yes, it is a podcast about Fan Fiction, in particular about fan fiction (mostly posted on AO3) of the Wynonna Earp TV show. No episodes have aired yet, but we have a few recorded and finished on the production room floor, ready for posting later this month. What DarkWiccan has been doing, besides most of the work, is being really active on Twitter, posting fic recommendations and retweeting other people's recs. We have gained many followers who are ready and waiting for our first episode to air. 

tl;dr - Expect to hear (Podcast) and see (Tumblr) more of me in the coming year. Happy New Year!

Why Do We Write

I was contemplating on this recently, and I wasn't sure where and to whom I should pose the question. I'm curious as to other's answers but I also need to assess my own.

Why do I write?

I consider myself a fiction writer. I also consider myself not very good at it. So, really, why would I keep attempting?

If you take a quick glance at the distance between my posts (or have read the craziness contained within), attempting is a rather accurate description. Back to the "why" question. Or even more so "why are you starting again now, this time, each time..."

Clearly, I'm craving the attention.

This might be funny in the future when I've published real books, (that would be literal, as in a physical item) and/or gained monetary value, and/or have adoring fans who read and comment on my blog posts.

I know... it would help if I were consistent.

A dear friend of mine alluded that in times of crisis, we seek out the familiar. Writing has often been my safe place. I might have never had an audience, nor did I necessarily want one when writing teenage angst in a diary, but it was something that I had to do.  And I was certainly never consistent then as I have at least 5 journals all started, most with maybe 10 pages.

The need still applies. Why write? I need to.  I just fucking need to.

The stories in my head aren't always mine. They come to me asking to be scribed, and I can only hope I do them justice.

The joke about craving attention aside, and I've become more introverted in my increasing age, I can't ignore the fact that I do want an audience. The same dear friend mentioned above also had posted a meme in regards to that idea. The impatience of waiting for replies to a post. Luckily, the forum is a little busier than the blog.

Or to quote a Mary Lambert song "Girls like us are hardly ever wanted, you know. We're used up and we're sad and drunk and perpetually waiting by the phone for someone to pick up and tell us that we did good."

And so I'll be here waiting by the phone. If I'm lucky it will be a story coming in asking to be told or someone telling I told it well.

Hopefully it's not a creditor. I fucking hate those guys.

Pretty Little Liars

My dear best friend got turned down for a job the other day.  Can you guess why?  

She told the truth.

When applying for any job that has a high turn around rate you should never indicate that you have no intention of staying. So when asked if she planned to work at least a year she answered “I don’t know.”  It was honest. And she honestly knew the second it came out of her mouth it was the wrong one.  But she is an Aries like me. We tend to make poor liars (feel free to make a liar out of me if you have other proof).

I had prepared her as best as I could think of but forgot to remind her about that one important rule. Never make any indication that you are a short timer.

How did I get away with it when I got hired on at the call center?  When asked how long I planned to stay I did not lie. I merely avoided the question. I informed them I was looking for a 40 hour per week, permanent, benefited job.  Since I had only been working seasonal, and I think I also used the phrase “Getting too old for that crap.”, I let them make the assumption that I was in it for the long haul. Granted I was hoping to find a job that I could go back to when my season was over.  That happened to not be the job, but that is a different story.

When I talked to her about it she was wondering how I did it. I explained my wording and how people will just assume. I also told her if she grew up gay she might be a little better at it...  In fact now that I think about it this kind of links back to a previous post about how I can gloss over a big part of my life or the one about secrets. Maybe I am a better liar than I thought.

So pretty little liars, when it comes to employment, how often/how severe/just plain how do you lie?  Teeny tiny white lies, “The project is coming along fine.”  “I have no problem working with him/her.” “I’m sick.”  Or do you go all out? “I’ve been working on this project for days!" (in other words I got it done in 10 minutes and have spent all week on Facebook and watching porn).  Let me hear it!

Friendship

Friendships are hard.  Difficult. For me at least.

Let's count down my major friendships over the years.

When we left California, I left a best friend named Denise. And I don't remember much more than that, other than playing in the ball pit at Chuckie Cheese on my 5th birthday. We moved a week later.

I met this girl who I thought looked like a cousin I had just met (my family is Irish/Slav Catholics, I have lots of cousins). But she wasn't. But she did live nearby. We were friends until she moved.  I also hung out with a boy who my mom worked with his dad, but we will discuss him later.

Lets fast forward to freshman year in high school. There was a tiny blonde, a frumpy brunette, and a curvy redhead. Sounds like a bad joke huh? Me... I was the frumpy brunette (still am actually just more curvy). Back then with my raging teenage hormones and the fact I didn't know any better I began dating a senior boy. Even though my hormones raged that relationship never got past first and I got dumped. Hindsight says there was something I gave off that indicated a no go. He very shortly after began fucking my best friend, the redhead.

Sure being dumped sucked but the biggest hurt was the teenage drama and complete collapse of my social circle. The redhead was clearly with him and the tiny blonde didn't want to take sides. After a time everyone was clearly on his side. He was an important senior after all and I just a lowly freshman. I had no friends left.

So I made new ones. A bubbly blonde Mormon girl and our snarky younger "daughter" who we took in under our wings. By the time I was senior I was the top dog in the band-nerd social circle. My favorite story from this time, which I heard about many years later.... Remember the redhead who stole my boyfriend? We had grown up and past that and were friends again. But I also had my new group. The two most attractive girls in the nerd herd were the redhead and the bubbly blonde. All the guys were fighting over their attention. But you know what, they were fighting over me! How cool is that?

So college started. I had developed a crush on the snarky younger girl who had blossomed from the shy girl into quite the pretentious bitch. What can I say, I like girls who are kind of mean to me. But that is a story for another time. I chose a college that many of my friends chose too. Including my childhood boy friend. We had been on again off again in terms of friendship and closeness over the years and in college we began to stick together again (he finally got over me breaking up with him before I got into the other high school mess).

The poor kid has an overbearing mother. He was afraid to have any fun. But I had moved past having fun and into a dark space by the time I hit 22. He got tired of being called only when I needed something and never having time for him otherwise. Granted I was a bad friend. But true friends should recognize when you are drowning and do something about it. Yes, at that time the depression sunk in and I was beginning to get an inkling on how gay I was and I was not dealing with it well. So I drowned myself in alcohol. We are no longer friends (the childhood friend *and* the alcohol).

I made a special friend while I was in Scotland for a year learning to be a botanist. She was special because I wouldn't have survived without her. She was special because even though she has had a lot of lesbians hit on her (she went to a Seven Sisters college after all), I was the only one she had considered switching sides for. We don't really talk anymore but I will never consider her anything less than a friend. That was also the year I lived on The Kitten Board and finally started to deal with who I was. It is still in process of course, hence the need for therapy.

Even though I am a "bad friend" I am the one who puts forth the effor for contact 99% of the time now with my old school chums. Thanks to Facebook I can keep track of them with very little effort and update them about my life in case they happen to care.

I have made one friend recently that I am grateful for. I am glad she wore her HRC shirt one day and that I googled her name to find out what she authored that she couldn't talk about at work.

I am grateful for my online buddies. I can hop on chat and they say hello with all caps and lots of exclamation points. Oh and lots of *hugs* too. It makes me feel special.

This topic is being brought up for a reason of course. My girlfriend also has trouble making friends. I am a supreme social butterfly compared to her. But we are both giving and helpful by nature and we tend to occasionally find friends that need a little bit of help. We had a blow up yesterday with these friends. Kind of in the same way other friends have dissolved. It seems there is a point that if we can no longer help, or for the moment that is, then they don't want to be our friend any more. It just happened again and my girlfriend just might be done with making friends.

I should have ended with all the friends I am grateful for because now I am down again. So on a more happy note I am grateful for alll the people that, even though I never talk to them, I know I could call them up or message them and they would help out if they could because they know I would do the same for them. 

It's Official: I Need Therapy

It is true. The doctor told me so.

The last time I tried it, I talked about everything but the important stuff. Like how I was disappointed in myself for not going to take a walk in the park to visit my squirrel friend that I named Demetri.  I only went like 3 times. Either way it got me the doctor's note I needed to pass a class.

Really that is why I ended up at the doctors this time. I required a doctors note to get out of work. But now I'm done with that job and do not have to worry about it anymore.

But I really should persue the therapy thing. The doc gave me a card, but I don't know if I will be able to afford it. I might have to find somewhere cheaper.  Or I could keep talking to you folks, my nameless faceless friends (with the exception of like one) who don't judge me. I love you guys. And I will keep you updated.

I should probably get back to work. I mean it is a job I like and all....