Going home

After 24 years, I went back to Hofstra University and met with teachers I'd be working with this fall as I begin pursuing an MFA in creative writing -- fiction.

I'm beyond excited and can't wait to get started.

This begins Hofstra's first offering of an MFA program headed up by Erik Brogger. It's exciting to say the least.

Bladder Infections

Today, I'm still fighting off whatever it is I have.

On Memorial Day, I woke up...how can I put this delicately...peeing blood. Never happened before. Don't want to do it again. My husband took me to the ER of our local hospital where a wooden doctor perhaps missing just a tad of a bedside manner, did not take x-rays nor check my urine -- too bloody--and diagnosed me with a bladder / urinary tract infection. He wrote up a bunch of perscriptions and sent me along my merry way. Hmmm. Okay.
I was out within an hour, home in bed and my husband soldiered along with our day --the big Memorial Day Parade. I missed my first deadline ever as a writer. I was supposed to attend the parade and blog in a minute-by-minute description.

Do I trust the doctor? I swallowed down the pills for the past five days. Blood stopped. But I still feel woosey, not myself. The uroligists office says they can't see me till all the medication is finished, as well as my yearly (a year overdue) gynecological check up.

I'm writing the next column, waiting...

writing life

Fighting an infection and feeling blue today.

I'm grappling with the next phase of my life now. I want to go back to school for my creative writing MFA. I've wanted to do this for sometime now and feel it's a great way to go for me and the family.

I love to write and love to teach.

Sonya Chung

So, when I interview authors these days, I'm going to blog about them, too.

Sonya Chung wrote a lovely novel called "Long for This World." I was mostly intrigued with the way she cut in and out of time and POV through first person and third person.

Her voice at times was more distant and objectively observant, then crisp and faster paced during first person to tell Jane's story of a photo journalist risking her life at times to capture news moments. Very clever novel and a nice woman. Interesting duality in her own life where she lives in busy Manhattan and a quiet little town in Pennsylvania.

Sonya mentioned that she wasn't as comfortable in the short story form and found her place naturally in novel form.

I've had this discussion many times with writers on both sides of the fence -- journalism or fiction. Many agree, not all writers can write both.

Patch.com

Read my new column in Syosset Patch.com -- AOL's new local news initiative.

http://syosset.patch.com/articles/mewsings-hello-syosset

Brother Can You Spare A Dime?

The holidays are almost over. But here's what our neighborhood is sprinkled with...

Let it snow, let it snow

Baked beer bread from Tastefully Simple -- just a bottle of Killian's Red, mix, stir--bake. Yum. The smell is sweet, bakery fresh; warming on a cold day. The kids are playing in the snow. Daisy, our golden retriever/spaniel/Irish setter mutt is having a ball frolicking in and out of snow drifts.

I'd say we got about 14 inches on Long Island. I watch from the living room bay window as they dig a white tunnel and are writhing in and out of the mounds of snow. I don't remember the last time we had a blizzard. Well we had a lot of snow last March, but this seems like more.

Today was tough. I spent a debilitating hour in bed. Where am I going and what am I doing? Tom's still freelancing thank God but nothing permanent, yet. Do I go back to work? I am not ready for full time workload. I hated when my mother went back to work and I became a latchkey kid coming home from Jr. High, the most hormone whirlwind, identity-forming emotional time of life and I opened the door myself to an empty house and dealt with life and my issues alone. Is it unfair that my mom should have had a life outside of motherhood, too? Sure. Is it unfair that I also want to dress nicely and converse with adults and make some REAL money and have a life outside, too? Sure. But, I'm not ready. I don't want to abandon my kids yet. Isn't that the point and why I wanted to be a mom? To be here for them and guide them through life? I'm in a major transformation lately, re-evaluating just about everything in my life from unhealthy relationships to my priorities. I'm going through some kind of major shift in thinking about who I really am and what do I really want out of life.

I eat beer bread and sip jasmine green tea. The beer bread ran out quickly while our daughters' friend is over. Daisy came in with snow balls crusted all over her fur. I lay my warm hands on her legs to melt the ice.