Part 1.

Can we stipulate that people die?

In any negotiation, one must define one’s terms. The day after Bros #1 & #2, Paul and Nick, went to visit Aunts Susie and Millie, which reception was hostile to begin with, to ask about liquidating Mom’s portion of the house, and got a very hostile response, then left in a state of gasted flabbers, we tried again.

This time it involved a phone, Nick, me, and Mom in a hospital room. We called. Nick was doing the talking, and he asked the profound question and current familial meme that should be the first go-to in any situation where one is tempted to prolong the suffering of a loved one (including animals) because you can’t let go and you’re just that fucking selfish. Yes. Yes, you are.

Can we stipulate that people die?

It took them way too long to answer that question, which, for a 79-year-old and an 83-year-old, is pretty damned weird. It also creates a philosophical/theological quandary:

If you believe in a loving God and a pretty awesome afterlife even before Judgment Day, why are you afraid of dying?

Do you not believe what you profess to believe?

Where is your faith?

In January 2025, my mother lay dying.¹ She was mostly asleep, but when she was awake and willing to speak, her mind was all there. She doesn’t remember any of it because her IQ was doing the heavy lifting. That’s how brilliant she is.

She went in on a Saturday. Sunday evening, she asked me to come back to the hospital so she could give me her final wishes, as I’m her DPOA, POA for healthcare decisions, and executor. It was a rehash of everything she’d ever pounded into me, but I recorded the whole thing.

One thing Mom (81) told me, very clearly, was not to let the house that she co-owned with her sister, Susie (79), go for anything less than $400,000. It was 3000 ft² on 5 acres with a barn. She and Susie lived there with her other sister, Millie (83), and had for 13 years. They could barely take care of themselves, much less each other or a property that big. The ward did most of the work of keeping it up.

So, yeah, the house would have to be sold. It would have had to be no matter which sister went first. Don’t worry, Mom. I’m savvier than to let it go for less, but I had no reason to worry about it. I knew my Aunt Susie would do the right thing and sell the house because half of it didn’t belong to her and honorable people don’t keep what’s not theirs.

My brothers arrived from Orlando and Seattle, respectively, and we worked like a well-oiled machine to get shit done. The usual stuff. You know. Funeral. Interment. Estate settlement.

But before I tell you what kind of family drama went down in a family I didn’t think could have family-rending drama,² I need to explain how my brothers and I were reared with the concept of death and why.³

My father’s family is/was prone to heart disease and early dying. My grandfather died at 63. Heart attack. My father’s first cousin died at 42. Heart attack. My dad died at 51. Heart attack.

He knew this would happen. But you know, I was born in the first wave of GenX to the last gasp of Silent Gen parents, who were the children of the Greatest Generation. My parents’ families were old when I was born, we kept company with them frequently, and then they started dying. By the time I was ten, I’d been to more funerals than I could count, seen more well-casketed dead bodies than I’d seen babies, and I liked collecting flowers at their grave sites to remember them a little longer. I was well versed in death.

My dad made sure of it.

It was a part of life. An inevitability. A furtherance of one’s eternal progression (although he never couched it in those terms; my child’s mind took it to its next logical step). Nothing to fear.

He talked about life insurance, last wishes, mortgage insurance, getting twenty years in with the city so my mom would have his pension, and the business of taking care of business when someone died. He often joked that we were a family of late bloomers and early diers.⁴

Why was this such a frequent topic of dinner-table conversation?

Because his father refused to speak of it at all, much less prepare for it, and left his mother pretty much destitute.

Then … his cousin Bill died. At 42. My dad bought life insurance. Then he went to the doctor. (In that order.) Learned what he expected to learn. And waited.

Waited for the day he’d call in sick because he didn’t feel quite right, then keel over in the back yard. At 51.

Well, we got through it with the acceptance and pragmatism we’d been taught. We grieved. We cried. It didn’t hurt any less for being prepared and having a solid understanding of the afterlife. At that point, my mom made me her DPOA and healthcare POA and executor. She explicitly recorded, with a notary and everything, that she was a DNR and drilled it into me that I was to make sure it was respected.

When my mom lay dying, we children, who had been reared to deal with death in an accepting, pragmatic, and forthright manner, dealt with it in an accepting, pragmatic, and forthright manner.

And that’s where the fights started: with her PCP,⁵ her sisters, and about half the members of the ward—all of whom were so terrified of death that they refused to accept that my mom was dying, but I and my brothers were going to make sure her DNR was respected.

Her PCP and her sisters hounded her relentlessly to do this, that, and some other thing to extend her life even though they could clearly see she was in agony, knew that she had been wanting to die for a while. My brothers and I fought them. We argued. We yelled. They ignored us and her legal documents and got in her ear and bullied her until she acquiesced to dialysis which she had explicitly stated she did not want in front of a notary and everything.

They called us “ghouls” and “greedy” and that we were “trying to kill her so they can get her money.”

They would not listen to us:

• These are Mom’s wishes.
• This is what we’ve been reared to believe, think, and do.

But my brothers and I listened to Susie’s and Millie’s desperate arguments and it slowly dawned on us they didn’t give two shits what Mom wanted—even though they knew as well as we did. They wanted what they wanted, and what they wanted was to not have to give up their living situation and all go on as if they were all going to live forever.

Mom did not die.

At the point we all realized this, we had to start thinking about long-term care. One place we were sent quoted us $13,000 a month. We were shitting bricks. How were we going to pay for this?

She had one asset: Her portion of the house.

Cool-headed Brother 1 (Paul) went to Aunt Susie with hot-headed Brother 2 (Nick) and politely asked her how we could liquidate Mom’s portion of the house, and Susie said, “I’m not selling this house! This is MY house!”

That was not what Paul asked. My brothers didn’t quite know what to do with that, so they left.

The next day, Nick called them up again. Harsh words were said.⁶ To me, this is the important part:

Two days later, we filed suit to force the sale of the property.

But I’d had soft beaten out of me long before then and I was pretty sure I’d never be able to become soft, so I silently rejected his advice as an impossibility. I didn’t know it then (nor did he), but I was angry. There’s just no dealing with anger when you don’t know that’s what it is.

So here I am, 12 years later, and life has just beaten me to a pulp. Am I any softer? Maybe, but that’s the effect of time, like water smoothing out a rock.

But it’s still a rock, and aimed correctly, thrown with enough force, can still kill or at least stun.

I mostly don’t engage in internet scuffles now. I shitpost on 𝕏 when I feel like it, usually about writing, self/publishing, and plain silliness. Obviously I haven’t tended my blog in forever.

I also don’t engage with people much in real life, and certainly don’t go off the handle in public (mostly). I’ve learned to pick my battles.

My latest battles:

• One incompetent physician (heated arguments over my mom’s almost-death bed, complaints to the hospital, a bad review on HealthGrades [which is not visible], and the Missouri Board of Healing Arts).
• One very selfish aunt whom we (my brothers and I) forced into doing the right thing (sell the house that my mother owned half of so we could pay for her medical care) after she flat refused because she valued the property more than everything else, including her sister’s welfare, and thought reality didn’t apply to her because she’d always gotten what she wanted.

I’m still angry, not soft.

I’m just too tired to care much until it’s a bona fide threat.

Part 2  →

It’s been seventeen years since I first published The Proviso, and a very hard ten since I put out the second edition. I can’t stop fiddling with these characters and I can’t stop feeling like I’ve missed something that will make the story richer.

My kids are grown and gone now, but not without a rough few years. Menopause has changed me in ways that have made me a stranger to myself—one I don’t like. My mother went through a medical scare that introduced a great deal of drama into my very large, previously drama-free family, which I never thought could happen. It’s not as intriguing in real life. I’m long past the pack’s age, and they are forever frozen in time.

I’m not sure I’ll write any more books. Menopause took my creativity, real life took my willingness to create trauma and drama for people who don’t exist, thereby reliving it, and my mother’s sisters took any security I had in my Dunham-like family structure and cohesion.

★★★

The current prophet/president of the church has decreed that we not refer to ourselves as “Mormons” or the church as the “Mormon church.” We are to refer to ourselves as “a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

I’m not playing that game. It’s deceptive and I’m not going to hide behind the name of a church no one knows. “Mormon” is shorthand for a cultural touchstone, and is my identity as much as “American” is. Also, you can’t tell a good “a Mormon, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar” joke with such a cumbersome mouthful nobody will grasp immediately.

Centering my characters’ motives around Mormonism allowed me to accomplish two goals: explain a thirty-six-year-old virgin (they exist—well, okay, they did) and put our culture out there accurately and hopefully somewhat objectively. I’ve been accused of making the church look bad, but it has its warts and I’m not afraid of it.

I have a blog post on this cooking.

★★★

I’ve also been accused of writing porn and I’ve endured all the usual derision that genre romance usually engenders. A family member called it “your lady porn,” even though they did immediately apologize for minimizing my work. I’m largely immune to this, but sometimes I get my back up and try to defend it. I can’t. I can’t articulate why genre romance is so different from Penthouse Letters.

So, on to something I saw the other day on 𝕏.

sex is nervous system coregulation and if you think about that a little bit you’ll be a hell of a lot better at it thank me later

That statement — *“sex is nervous system coregulation and if you think about that a little bit you’ll be a hell of a lot better at it”* — is actually quite profound, both biologically and emotionally.

Here’s a breakdown in simple terms:

### What it means:

* **Nervous system coregulation** happens when two people *subconsciously help each other’s nervous systems feel safe, calm, and connected*.
* In sex, it’s not just about physical actions — it’s about *emotional attunement, presence, and mutual regulation*.
* When both partners feel **safe, seen, and synchronized**, the experience becomes much more fulfilling.

### Simple analogy:

Think of two musicians playing jazz together. If they’re not in sync, it’s noise. But if they listen, adjust, and feel each other’s rhythm — *they create magic*. Sex is like that: attunement creates harmony.

### So, how does this insight make someone better at it?

Because it shifts the focus from **performance** to **connection**. When you tune into your partner’s breath, body, tension, or comfort level — and respond with care — you regulate each other’s nervous systems. That deepens intimacy, trust, and pleasure.

Genre romance in 200 words.

★★★

FREE to good home: 1 bunny with supplies

Exasperated parents of a 13-year-old Girl Child are offering

• 1 black male dwarf rabbit, apx 2-3 years old, very sweet disposition
• 1 large cage/playground with wheels and toys
• 1 large water bottle
• 1 large package of pine bedding
• 1-1/4 large bags of feed
• 2 salt licks
• miscellaneous supplies

Here’s the story:

Girl Child’s bestie moved cross-country and couldn’t find a home for the bunny on short notice. Girl Child (GC) pleaded with Maternal Parental Unit (MPU) to take the bunny, promising all sorts of outlandish things such as doing her chores without complaint or ’tude forever and ever, amen.

We will now pause for experienced parental units to groan.

So did Paternal Parental Unit. He even went so far as to accuse MPU of being a “touch”! WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?!

*ahem* Anyway, it has been 2 months. We, the PUs (PPU more so than MPU) are fed up with GC’s inability to clean the kitchen to PPU’s satisfaction (to say nothing of MPU’s!) without suddenly coming down with a litany of illnesses that come with free tears, much contention, and a half-arsed job. MPU has argued for the bunny’s continued residence many times, but last night, PPU put his foot down.

Furthermore, MPU barely convinced PPU not to make GC sit in the back of our pickup at Walmart with a sign that informs the world of her ’tude, instead convincing him to allow MPU to place this ad. “We can’t afford that therapy bill” were the magic words. Marginally.

Note: We like the bunny. He is a sweet bunny. He is also very fuzzy, which we also like. We don’t like GC’s attitude, which will not improve with the giving-away-of-the-bunny, but she made a promise, and we gave her plenty of chances to hold up her end of the bargain. She did not. C’est la vie.

Please contact the Maternal Parental Unit via Craigslist email or text. May you be blessed with more conscientious spawn.

keywords: free rabbit bunny dwarf pet gullible needlessly indulgent

The bus driver then turned around, not focusing on the road, yelled, “I CAN MAKE A RIGHT TURN ON RED!”

So since he wasn’t looking, a city bus came speeding and hit the school bus. Everybody died. The end.

This is why busses don’t turn right on red.

As I was writing Paso Doble, I kept finding myself associating my characters’ meals at tapas bars with romance. Small bites in small dishes. Tasting. A meal of hors d’oeuvres, eaten slowly, from a lover’s hand. I wanted to be able to do that.

As Victoria (from Paso Doble) told Giselle (from The Proviso):

Eating with a man, especially if you let him feed you, let him watch you savor the flavors, is like making love in public. I seduced my husband that way. Feed him. Let him feed you. In, out. It’s a promise more binding than kissing. Sex makes life. Food sustains life. You can see them as chores or you can find joy in them. That’s the choice you make.

I wanted to be able to do that. Except … I don’t like food. I don’t find joy in it. I’ve never found there to be anything about food to find joy in. No, it’s not something I can do, or at least, not right now. I find a food I like and I will eat it for days. Variety is not a requirement for me; efficiency is. Food is the thorn in my paw. It is a chore. It’s the enemy.

And then, for our 14th wedding anniversary, Dude surprised me by taking me to a tapas bar, La Bodega on Southwest Boulevard. We were both nervous. He’s only a little more adventurous than I am and we didn’t want to waste money on food we weren’t sure we were going to like. But tapas are a huge part of my universe’s mythos, so Dude wanted to honor that and, fingers crossed, it might turn out okay.

It was one of the most profound visceral experiences I have ever had, as significant as my rollercoaster enlightenment. The waiter came by to ask me how it was and as I was telling him, I teared up.

For the first time in my life, I found joy in food. Profound joy.

I don’t want to go there too often, though. Joy needs to be parceled out so as not to make it banal. But I’ve found that sort of profound joy twice this year (which is pretty much twice more than most other years), and both of them were because Dude gave me something new to try.

Rollercoaster and appetizers. Sometimes it’s the oddest things.

La Bodega
703 SW Boulevard
KCMO 64108
816.472.8272
La Bodega Facebook
La Bodega Twitter

Thirty years ago, I was at the KC Royals parade after they won the World Series. You know, George Brett. Bret Saberhagen. Those guys.

I didn’t care about baseball much before or after that, not that I was ever anything but a fan-in-name-only because I didn’t understand the game. A childhood watching Little League and trying to figure out radio announcers’ jargon tends to blunt one’s enthusiasm.

And then there was college and life and the strikes and the juicing and the Congressional hearings and who wants to get into baseball when they threw a big temper tantrum for a game that’s all fake anyway? You want more money for your steroid injections? Fuck you.

Somewhere in the last decade I was vaguely aware it had cleaned itself up. Or, at least, I knew everybody was playing and that the Royals were a losing team. All. The. Time.

Last night, I was talking to Dude, who taught me more about baseball during the ALCS last year than I have ever known or suspected could be. I wasn’t interested in learning anything about it until the Royals won the ALCS last year.

This year … Well.

As the season has gone by and I saw them winning, I could start to see why they were winning. Little things. Doing what they did in 1985. The correlation of strategy is spooky. Being nice guys (the Royals recruit for nice guys, you know; not one bad boy amongst ’em). Good to their women, good to their kids, nice to their fans.

But not pushovers. The Royals started the season being the Bad Boys of Baseball. Why? Because everybody else came into the season with a hateboner for them, and they will clear a bench as fast as George Brett and pine tar.

So everybody settled down and played ball. They don’t depend on home runs. They take every possibly viable opportunity no matter the consequences. They shoot through the target, not at it. “Hacking” at the ball. Stealing bases. Having lots of good pitchers. Hitting the wall, even if it tears your ACL. Baby steps. Or, as I found out last night, “Playing the game 90 feet at a time.” They have fun.

As I watched, listened, and read, the Royals managed to give me something I’ve been needing my whole life.

• .366 is the best batting average ever.
• Run for the grass line past first base.
• It’s okay to hit the wall and tear your ACL.
• Hack at the ball.
• Steal bases.
• It’s okay to play 90 feet at a time.
• Hit the fast balls.
• Change up the pitcher. And the pitches.
• Home runs are rare and special.
• Have a deep bullpen.
• Have fun.

So I was telling Dude, who is/was a Dodgers fan, by the way, about the parade I went to in 1985 and I started to tear up. I don’t know why.

But I was there 30 years ago and if they win this year, I’m going to be there and take my kids. And I’m going to tear up. And I won’t know why. And my kids will have that memory like I have mine. And maybe they’ll get to take their kids.

A friend on Facebook asked me how I could bear to throw them away because I earned them. I see her point; they are a trophy and I did earn them. All these years I have not wanted to throw them out (if I thought about it), but something’s been changing in me for a while now, about carrying baggage and grudges.

I carry a lot of grudges that I’m shedding slowly. The one I may never be able to shed, the one I need to shed most, the one I have to consciously shed every day, is the one against myself.

My 7-year-old self for an embarrassing moment.
My 12-year-old self for an embarrassing moment and hurting someone’s feelings.
My 15-year-old self for something that should have gotten me arrested for assault (that’s the one that’s killing me right now).
My 18-year-old self for being starry-eyed, stupid, and too immature to be let loose on the world with no guidance.
My 25-year-old self for …

And all the years before and in between up until yesterday. I’m sure today I will do something today that I will find beyond the pale after I’ve committed the offense.

What prompted this? I don’t know, but I think it was when I had to cut off a dear friend I’d had for years. The relationship had gotten toxic years ago, but since we were separated by distance, it wasn’t an issue. Then I got on Facebook and that changed everything. I tried to resurrect it, but that’s always a bad idea.

Crash.

Burn.

I hate that. I’m one to let friendships fade and it’s only in the past few years they’ve flamed out and left me grieving for a while. Those you can never patch up.

Being married has taught me the value of talking things through instead of letting things flame out. It’s difficult for me, and I have had to evaluate each to figure out if it was worth it. In two very recent cases (one yesterday, as a matter of fact), it was more than worth it. Their friendship means far more to me than walking away feeling righteous and hurt and angry and guilty. People are more understanding (of relationships, of my toxicity) than I ever gave them credit for. I faded away so as to not poison the relationship myself because, in the words of Jack Burton, “Sooner or later I rub everybody the wrong way.”

I realized I was making very slow progress on letting things go when a Twitter friend I’d had for years cut me off in a blaze of fury for … nothing important. That was the second time he’s done it. I grieved the first time. Deeply. It took nine months for him to cool off. This time … I didn’t care. It was time for that relationship to go bye-bye.

Anyway, in thinking about my friend’s question about trashing my karate belts, trying to explain it, I realized that what I got from my time in karate were life lessons and examples to follow (or not). I’m still operating on the principles two men (both my teachers) taught me.

Those two men could not be more different:

Number One was a charismatic lawyer, a salesman if you will. I am (was) susceptible to charismatic people, but I learned my lesson about that. Really well. Occasionally, bits and pieces of him come out in my characters. The bad ones. But. He said something to me one time that I have struggled with ever since and really sort of defined me. At the time it horrified me, because somewhere in my entrepreneurial soul, I knew he was right.

He said, “You paid for your training in sweat, money, tears, and sometimes blood. Why are you giving it away?” I was horrified. I said, “Knowledge should be free!” It’s based on the way I was reared. He just shook his head and walked away. But it spoke to me.

Number Two was a taciturn law student, really mature for his age, quiet, observant, discerning. Unapproachable. Nobody and nothing amused him. Except me. Suffice it to say, I was the teacher’s pet. I wasn’t very good, but I was funny. But then, as I do, I crossed a line and then I wasn’t funny anymore.

These two guys hated each other. I could never figure that out, but I was 18 and stupid. Number One owned the place. Number Two was a subordinate teacher fifteen years younger. There was no question who was the alpha.

Number One was making me crazy, but I didn’t realize it because I was 18 and stupid. I thought something was wrong with me. My time in martial arts faded, but I never let it go.

Anyway, these two guys ended up battling it out in a courtroom some years later. It’s a tale straight out of a lawyer novel (no, I didn’t write it, hint at it, or use it for the basis of anything). It involved knowledge. Who had a monetary right to it and who didn’t, which is where the “You paid for your training in sweat, money, tears, and sometimes blood. Why are you giving it away?” comes in.

Some years later, I was still carrying Number One’s crazymaking and Number Two’s disapproval—heavily—and I worked up the courage to call Number Three, somebody I didn’t know, but who could maybe let me vent and then talk me down out of the trees. It was a huge gamble. It paid off. And I got back in for a while, but first, training was logistically impossible by that time; second, I didn’t have the fire in my belly and I never did. So I let it go.

Almost thirty years later, I’m hanging with my Tax Deductions in the storage room of my house pitching and tossing. It’s past bedtime for a school night, but they’ve both got messed-up Circadian rhythms and I’m a night owl. My 12-year-old XX TD is tossing out sly innuendos at me, making me aware she knows what she’s saying, and, like the bad mother I am, instead of chastising her, I’m snickering along with her. XY is reading and offering his opinions on everything, as per usual. Dude is in his office busy supporting us like the awesome Dude he is.

I open the box (my dad’s wooden Scout ditty box, which is far older than I am) with my belts, nunchakus, bag gloves, and jump rope. It’s musty in there. “Eeww.” I pick up a belt, sniff it, and tell XX, “Those go.”

She protests.

I start singing “Let it Go” just to annoy her and it works. Natch.

And we go on pitching and tossing.