You’re going to fall…it’s a given. It’s how you get back up that counts.

Everyone’s got a story…some of us many. Me? I’m a screw-up, a misfit, black sheep. So if you’re looking for perfection, you’re not going to find it here. I want to share my stories, my books, my experiences and day to day life with the people out there who have their own stories that I hope they share.

If you, the reader, have questions, I’ll do my best to respond. I’m not a guru and I sure don’t have all the answers. But I’ve been there, done that and God willing, I’ve learned a few hard lessons in life.

Background:

I married at 20. Back then I thought I was madly in love. Isn’t that what we all thought when we were so young and eager to settle down? Instead I was simply in lust and ended up just settling. I dropped out of college with 13 hours left to graduate. Before marriage, I’d had goals and dreams of being the female Hemingway, sitting on a dock in the Keys with my feet dangling in the water, puffing away on a cigar, a glass of whiskey in my free hand. (Below are quotes by the beloved writer concerning his various feelings about alcohol.)

Oh, I also wanted to be the youngest woman attorney in Oklahoma. That’s where I was born and raised. Though I’ve lived all over, my other home is New Orleans. But I’ll get back to that.

Okay, I’m going to make an attempt not to husband bash. I subscribe to the theory that we allow what happens to us…sort of. Anyway, I tried to be the good wife. How many of you women out there have tried that? Or you men attempting to be the good husband? Well, it didn’t work. I didn’t get it then. It didn’t mean that I was supposed to give up my goals and dreams. It didn’t mean I had to quit college to be someone’s idea of a perfect wife. It sure as hell shouldn’t have meant that I was supposed to stay at home and not get a job so I could make my own money, have my own social security, etc.

But it was a different age back then. I grew up being told that I needed to pretend I wasn’t as smart as men, I needed to let them beat me in games, in life…whatever…or I’d never get a husband…no man would ever want to marry me. Yep, suppressed. Then top it off with a crown of red hair, sun kissed freckles, chameleon eyes and gigantic boobs that popped out of nowhere around 11 years old and you have a mixture for turmoil and one foot on the devil’s doorstep….

Enough…it failed after 23 years. Actually, it failed long before that when the lust died and I figured out there wasn’t anything we had in common. So, yes, I fell. Hard! My daughter had moved out at 18. I packed up and left with literally nothing but my clothes. No car, no dishes, no money…just me and a sense of freedom I can’t even begin to explain. I started a pickle company, with the help of my parents, managed 9 rental properties and worked for my divorce attorney and I wrote….

There is heartache in any breakup, even if you no longer love the person. But nothing can compare to the gut wrenching agony of having your children turn against you. My son was 15 and he chose to stay with his father. If I went into the reasons, I would definitely be getting into husband bashing territory and that’s not what this is all about. It’s about surviving and making the best out of what life gives you.

So, let’s just stop here and enjoy a few words of wisdom from Ernest Hemingway…..

Until tomorrow…..

Wine

“Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.” —Death in the Afternoon

“Wine is a grand thing,” I said. “It makes you forget all the bad.” —A Farewell to Arms

Absinthe

“Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife underhand into the piano.” —Letter to a friend in 1931

Daiquiris

“This frozen daiquiri, so well beaten as it is, looks like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots.” —Islands in the Stream

Whiskey

“Never delay kissing a pretty girl or opening a bottle of whiskey.”