Blogging in an alternate universe and right at home…

As my kids grow older I find myself wondering more and more what I’m doing in all of those alternate universes where I took another road.

Blogging and writing is like that. I started a blog 4 months before this one (2 years ago.) I had plans for travel articles and wine reviews. It isn’t like I don’t travel or drink wine. God knows I drink plenty of wine and I’ve traveled quite a bit.

But on a two second whim I started this blog in this universe. It just happened. I didn’t think twice about it. But now I’ve thought a lot about it.

It is like what I’m doing now, sitting in a roller rink while my daughter practices pair skating with her partner. I hear a coach saying to another skater “I like your asshole.” And I think “What is he doing here?” Then I realize she said “I like your axle.”

Sometimes when I write in a public place I feel like I’m writing pornography. Except descriptive words come easier. But it seems so secret. One never tells anyone that one writes. It is letting them in on a secret that you only keep for your readers.

Then when they ask “What is your blog about?” I just say “parenting” or sometimes “musings.” One does not say “I write about Vampires, Zombies and Ghosts.” Then they ask me about Twilight as if I’m the expert on Stephanie Meyers. I only read the first book and half of the second and only because my daughter was reading them and she was only reading them because her friends were. Then they ask about Walking Dead. I’ve only seen it once and everyone shot everyone and wore brown clothing and yelled a lot. I like a little bit of color in my paranormal/horror/rotting flesh TV.

Hey I write about romance and relationships too.  But if I tell anyone about that they’ll give me a look like I just offered them a live slug on a Ritz cracker. Just read the blog I tell them…or maybe it would be better if they didn’t.

I’m not dissing Twilight and Walking Dead – just using them as examples of popular culture.

I don’t even know what my blog is about. I tried to have regular features but got as far as Short Story Sunday, which by the way will resume shortly.

Friday’s are always busy and don’t even have my head wrapped around the whole Valentine thing, even thought I said February would be all about romance. I say a lot of things.

I went to my friend Jack’s office for lunch. After I’ve taken my fangs out of his neck along with a pint of blood he asked me “What are you thinking?” Then he ran his finger down the side of my face. His lips brushed mine. I closed my eyes.  “You’re cold” he whispered.

I’m always cold. But his question threw me off. I was thinking about my next blog post and landscaping stones for the front yard and filling my car up with gas and the price of tea in China… if you get the drift. I’m a busy mom and my mind is always busy. I looked at him with a slight smile and said “I was thinking about you.”

As a Vampire you are a born liar (like a cat.) That isn’t a good thing or a bad thing. It is just a thing. Just like being a writer – you tell a certain truth, even if it might be the truth, say in an alternate universe. You’re only a liar if you tag your work “non-fiction” or if you’re an asshole, but that is another story. Ask Oprah about it.

That is why we have allegories and metaphors and fables and parables and tall tales and the infamous math story problems. We express our lives and experiences through stories. We teach through stories.

So I’m talking with Jack, now out of my own thoughts. He knows what I am. And I know what he is (a lawyer and my friend, no blood sucker jokes please.) We have a symbiotic relationship. Just like an artist and a piece of paper. Like a writer and her reader. Now I know my husband would really laugh and roll his eyes if he read this but he usually isn’t one of my readers. His attitudes on things tends to be much different than mine.

So I’m talking with Jack, now out of my own thoughts. Small talk. Quiet intimate talk of two close friends. I tell him to keep the shades closed for just a few more minutes as I lay back in the dark on his comfortable leather couch. I watch him as he puts back on his shirt but leaves off the tie. After all it is Friday. He doesn’t have any meetings for the rest of the day. I notice how handsome he looks as he brushes his hair off of his forehead and smiles at me again.

“Is that how a lioness look at her prey?” He asks, half joking and half not.

“No,” I say, “a lioness looks at you as a dead thing that will soon be gone. I see you first as a friend. I’d never hurt you. But I could if I wanted to.”

This is dirty talk for Vampires.

So I’m sitting in the dark of the roller rink, only the floor with the skaters is lit up. Only the artistic skaters are practicing. This is no public session but serious sport. With any luck it might even be in the 2020 Olympics.

And I keep writing with ten minutes to go until practice ends. All the while my brain is moving on to other writing projects and what we’ll be doing tonight and Olympic skating and my husband maybe taking off his shirt…

But practice is over so it is time to go and muse again another day. Hell, I’m always musing – at least when I’m not laughing.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman