Snippy

Fiction Friday

Cover Story
by Lila James

Chapter Five

 After an extra long lunch and lots of retail therapy – retail therapy that still didn’t manage to erase the embarrassment of cursing out loud in a court of law and being chastised by an actual judge -- Ava returned to the office around 4:00 that afternoon.

 With Libby at the dentist and Harriet still tending to her spiritual duties, the building was nearly deserted.  Ava kicked off her shoes under the desk and sighed with relief that at least she had an hour to herself before the meeting with Harriet that would cap off an already fabulous day.

 "Knock, knock.”

Ava looked up. “Hi, Bill.”

“How’s your day going?”

“Swimmingly.”

What is the best compliment you've ever received?

This is part of our monthly Icebreaker series, for this month's question click here.

By Laurel Mills

Call it self-indulgent, but lately I've spent a lot of time thinking about compliments. Of course, we all like compliments — they make us feel good about ourselves. And, we've all also experienced the sting of the infamous back-handed compliment: "The extra weight looks good on you." What's most interesting to me though, is the compliments/kudos that we remember years later. When I'm having a bad day (not a simple bad hair day or getting a flat tire in the rain), but I really bad day -- one where I doubt myself, second guess every decision I've made in the last five years, can't seem to find my own self-worth -- thinking about the times my SO [significant other] tells me I look great just aren't enough.

And, I guess that's what I find so fascinating. When I was a little girl, I desperately wanted people to think that I was pretty (probably so that I'd think of myself as pretty), and other compliments rarely mattered to me. Smart, sweet, funny, cute -- there wasn't an adjective I wanted to hear if it wasn't "pretty" or "beautiful," and later in college, "hot." It sounds so vain now, but a validation of my looks was all that I wanted. In true the grass is always greener fashion, I also bet all of the girls told that they were pretty desperately wanted to be acknowledged for something other than their looks -- like a sense of humor or intelligence.

Wisdom for the Recently Unemployed

By Jane Longshore

See our Top 10 list for what to do immediately after you've been laid off.

The recession has brought the first period of prolonged unemployment to many of our lives. Depending on how long you stay unemployed, you can encounter a staggering variety of emotional and psychological repercussions. Here are a few of the coping strategies I — a publishing refugee — have developed to help navigate the uncharted waters of unemployment.

Walk. Walk as often and as far as you can. Henry David Thoreau said, “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” Perhaps no activity clears the mind and makes the world seem more manageable like walking. And for God’s sake, walk outside! Don’t plod away on a treadmill in a murkily fluorescent-lit gym, or circle pointlessly around a concrete oval track. Cover some ground. If you don’t live in a neighborhood with sidewalks, drive to one that has them, or buy a book like 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Birmingham (by Russell Helms, Menasha Ridge Press) and explore the trails around the city. Just the simple act of moving through the landscape, traveling from point A to point B, provides a sense a purpose that can be lost when you suddenly find yourself unemployed.

If you have a dog, all the better – walking is a great leadership exercise with dogs. I can almost guarantee that if you’ve been struggling with behavioral issues with your canine companion, they’ll be lessened, if not eliminated, by the increased exercise and time spent bonding with you. And the health benefits extend to you as well – the physical activity will not only increase your overall well being, it will also help you sleep at night (another difficulty when coping with the stress of unemployment).

Fiction Friday

Cover Story

By Lila James

Chapter Four

The next morning, Ava walked into her office, sat down behind the desk, opened a Diet Coke and pulled up her e-mail inbox.

Just a friendly reminder about Boss’ Day. – Harriet

Lose belly fat fast!!! – skinnyminny465768

Ava, my group gave me the OK. See you at Mexico Lindo 2 tomorrow night. – Rachel

Ava leaned back in her chair. Could this really go somewhere? Would she actually be able to tell a real story?

“Oh, Ava!”

Ava looked around her small office and realized, for the umpteenth time, that she still didn’t have a proper escape route. There were so many reasons to have an office with a window that had nothing to do with status or daylight.

“Oh, Ava, there you are,” Harriet said. “I’ve been looking for you.” Harriet was dressed in a black pant suit. There was no silk scarf today, but there was a beret. When Harriet cocked her head after addressing Ava, the beret looked like it could slide off at any moment.

“Well, you found me,” Ava said. “In my office.”

“Now you’re in your office,” Harriet said. “I don’t think you were here 10 minutes ago.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t find a thing to wear this morning,” Ava said, attempting to excuse her seven minutes of tardiness.

Harriet looked Ava up and down from the waist up as Ava stayed seated behind her desk. “I can see how that would be a problem for you,” she said. “But it’s been a long morning without my number two you know.”

Fiction Friday

Cover Story

By Lila James

Chapter Three

Back at the office, Ava decided to turn to her most-trusted research tool, the ace in the hole for any investigative journalist: Google.com.

As she typed "jack shaw" into the search field, she sipped her third Diet Coke of the day and kicked her shoes off under her desk.

“Jack Shaw – technology specialist.”

“Jack Shaw – Sculptor.”

“Jack Shaw Ministries International.”

Ava realized that she should have known better than to type such a common name into the world’s largest search engine. She tried again with “judge jack shaw,” “jack shaw family court” and “jack shaw springfield.” Finally, some results came through that seemed like they might be on the right track.

“Judge Jack Shaw takes home state bar award ...”

You Give Love a Bad Name

Top 10: Love Gone Bad

The following love stories have the kind of nightmare endings that make us grateful for our own ho-hum toothpaste squabbles and dirty laundry disputes.

1. Astronauts William Oefelein and Lisa Nowak carried on a two-year love affair after each separated from their respective spouses. When Oefelein broke off the relationship, Nowak didn’t exactly take the news well. In February 2007, Nowak traveled hundreds of miles, adult diapers and wig in tow, to get rid of Oefelein’s new girlfriend, Colleen Shipman. Nowak awaits trial on charges of attempted murder and attempted kidnapping.

2. In stereotypical fashion, Clara and David Harris seemed to have it all. The attractive couple practiced dentistry together and shared a rather lucrative lifestyle. But, after Mr. Harris started seeing the couple's receptionist, Clara Harris made national news headlines for running over her cheating husband in a motel parking lot. Mrs. Harris contended that she had acted in the heat of passion, but her step-daughter's presence in the car, and the contention that Clara ran over her philandering husband between two and five times didn't help her defense. Currently, Clara Harris is in the midst of serving the fourth year of her 20-year sentence.

First Love, Vampires and Cynicism

After numerous recommendations, I finally read Twilight this month.

While the book snob in me tries to avoid "popular" fiction, I happen to not-so-secretly love young adult fiction and some sci-fi. Plus, I also have a really-not-secret love of vampire lore. (This does not mean I've ever bought a cape over the Internet, but it does mean that I've seen every episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. I've also seen everything the History channel has to offer on Vlad the Impaler.)

With Twilight, I thought the stage was set for me to fall in love with a book. And boy was I wrong.

* SPOILER ALERT* For those of you who haven't read the book and don't want to know the ending, I suggest you stop reading now.  

A Rose Among Thorns

By Paula Heath

To look at Tricia Robinson’s self -proclaimed “whimsical paintings” no one would ever know the pain from which the bright and swirly brush strokes were born. Through reading and studying other artists, she has found that she is not alone. “So many artists walk through pain and have beautiful music and art to show for it,” Tricia says.

As a freckle-faced, red-headed little girl, Tricia had dreams that were bigger than her small town in Georgia -- she dreamed of designing and creating in New York. Tricia comes from a deep love of art that can be traced back to her great grandmother. Her mother was even her art teacher at her elementary school. But, conventional art classes boxed her in because “having someone tell me exactly what to draw drove me crazy.” She attended art classes here and there, but is primarily self-taught and never really thought her love for art and doodles would turn into a career.

In the summer of 2002 Tricia and her husband Mike had been struggling with the pain of infertility for two years. The dream of having children far surpassed any other dream she ever had. Through a series of tests that summer, Tricia was diagnosed with a rare, chronic blood disorder called essential thrombocytosis. Essential thrombocytosis is characterized by the overproduction of blood platelets. At the time of her testing, her blood platelet count

Fiction Friday

Cover Story

By Lila James

 

Chapter Two

(If you missed it, you can find Chapter One here.)

    “A grande non-fat latte please,” Ava said. She scanned the tables at Starbucks while she waited on her order. A guy with wire-rimmed glasses on his laptop in the corner. Two thirty-somethings in tennis skirts poring over a photo album by the window. Emo kids with purple hair in the back. So far, no one in the coffee shop even remotely fit the bill of the contact Libby had described.

    “So what am I looking for when I meet this coffee date of yours?”

    “I’ve never met her, but she’ll probably be a soccer mom, but not a soccer mom, if you know what I mean,” Libby had said. “Think corporate suit meets minivan. At least, that’s the impression I got from her e-mails.

    Once she got her coffee, Ava took a seat by the sugar station and pulled a notebook from her purse. With one eye on the door, she scanned her to-do list to pass the time.

Warning: Graphic Content

There's been a lot of talk on the web lately about Keira Knightley's new domestic violence ad. (It is posted above, and it is quite graphic, so please watch at your own discretion.) What fascinates me most about the discussion though is how many people are saying that the ad is too graphic and goes too far.

We live in a culture where women are regularly depicted as the objects of violence -- watch any episode of Law & Order, CSI or Criminal Minds, check out a Lifetime movie, or even watch one of the many true crime specials from TruTv to A&E to Dateline if you're not convinced of this. We regularly see women as victims who are brutalized at the hands of others. Just last night, I watched an episode of Medium in which a woman is killed by her brother and then another woman is convinced by this same brother to undergo several painful surgeries so that he can get back into her mother's will. Regardless of how you feel about these shows or what the message behind them is, it is impossible to deny how often we see images of women being physically harmed in the media.