Shamrocks & Rainbows
We all get a little lost sometimes. It happens to the best of us. I still remember one Shamrock Day when we were visiting our home that wasn’t a home, meaning the retro-futuristic, UFO-shaped house in Cratersville where our father sometimes stayed, not the bohemian style starwagon in the Grove where Wanderlores like our mom […]
Creating Little Creatures
When I was ten, my sister and I discovered an incredible Magic. The Magic came with no instructions on how it was to be used. The only caveat was that if we accepted its contract we couldn’t stop creating—ever. Now, most would have balked at the lack of loopholes, but this didn’t dissuade my sister […]
Love Dragons
It was Candy Hearts Day. The second one to have rolled around since I entered the Creators Realm, but my first one since I started seeing Nori. I was sitting in front of an ancient desk engraved with symbols. My Creation Book was opened in front of me, and I held a rainbow quill* in […]
Surprise
At first, I thought I had escaped the worse of it. It was my birthday, which also meant it was Candy Hearts Day. My birthday flew under the radar with nothing more to show but a lopsided cupcake—heavily frosted—which was waiting for me in my locker when I arrived at school. The cupcake was from […]
Rodent Prognostication Day
Happy Groundhog Day! The day when gobs of otherwise reasonable people, gather in the cold, awaiting that magical moment when a quaintly garbed gentleman pulls a bleary eyed rodent from its burrow in order to prognosticate if there will be an early spring or not. I first discovered this quirky day back in high school […]
Secret Ingredient
I’ve written many times about my lack of cooking skills. I can heat up water for tea. I’ve gotten pretty good at making a seasonal loaf of bread, which—for me—are more like glorified cakes than real kneaded, shaped and risen creations. But, that’s about it. My journey to semi-literacy in the kitchen didn’t come easy. […]
Bring Your Dreams to Life
My father had a book. The book was quite large and to untrained eyes it would appear as nothing more than an ancient grimoire. My father kept this disguised book hidden beneath a velvet-draped table. My sister and I discovered it the summer before third grade. Whenever we visited his theater, we would steal into […]
Here Be Love
I keep a small, parchment* map tacked to the wall of my room. It’s a map of Earth that was created by my sister Poppy while we were teenagers in Cratersville. I had used this beautifully illuminated map to fulfill one of her dearest wishes on the day of the Winter Solstice shortly after I […]
Negotiations
It was mid January. And, according to my calendar it was only a few days away from National Hugging Day. Of course, we didn’t have an official hugging day in Cratersville, but that didn’t stop me from inserting one into my Calendar of Extraordinary Days after I learned of its existence on that great cloudy […]
Negotiations
Before I begin, I should let you know that I don’t have no truck with magic of any kind—at least not if I can help it. I’m not saying that magic isn’t real. Hanging with Jel, I know better than to say that. But, just because something’s real, doesn’t mean that I want to go […]