Mom Ailments

Perhaps it's a symptom of Momhood. I'm convinced I have some disease that will carry me off before I send Bub out into the world of college and jobs. After all, no one else can raise her just like I can, so it's my nightmare that one of my current illnesses will go viral and take me away to the great Baking Grounds in the sky.


Then my husband will get remarried, and the new mom won't make Bub do her homework or go to sleep by 9 or brush the backs of her front teeth, or the fronts of her back teeth! I just know it!


Here are some of the things I suffer from:


Bubble Wrap Knees - That has to be the explanation for the noises I hear when I stand upright.

Hey, kid. That's my kneecap.

Nose Tumor - Actually, I cured this one. I had a really sensitive nostril for weeks and was convinced that something was really, really wrong. Took care of it with a big blow.


Mad Housewife Syndrome - My propensity for watching The Housewives of New York, of Ocean County, of Beverly Hills can be explained by a psychologist, I'm pretty sure. I can't be picking that stuff to watch just because I WANT to, can I? It's probably all due to brainworms. Yup, brainworms. Get rid of those suckers and I'll watch Nova every night.

I know! I'm not happy about it either!

This last is closely aligned to:


Honey Dipper Syndrome - I'm pretty sure those brainworms are making me play Hidden Object computer games too.


Downwardly Mobile Hair - Why is it all crawling off my head down onto my face? When does this happen, at night? Maybe that's why I wake with...

Dipped in Boiling Oil-itis - There I am, sleeping away quite happily, when I wake up gasping for air and the knowledge that gremlins have turned the heat in the bedroom to 90 degrees. I have to throw all the blankets onto my husband (reason #479 not to remarry - he's used to this by now) and open the window. In the middle of winter. And turn on the fan as well. Scary stuff.


Soppy Sickness - I used to be able to watch melodramas without a box of Kleenex. Now, one Hallmark commercial comes on and I'm a quivering mess.

Don't they know that GEICO Piggy could lose an arm waving pinwheels around?

And there are more, but perhaps you're having a snack as you read this, and I don't want to give you indigestion. So I won't talk about the muffin top, the toe nails ... no, let's not go there.

Steamy Hair

I write steampunk books for kids. In the book I have out now, my heroine, Miriam has black curly hair. And n the book I just edited, an amazing fantasy called The Time Weaver, there is a warrior called Malia who has long, curly blond hair.


That got me thinking about hairstyles in fantasy and steampunk books. Women in fantasy have hair like this:

Oh yeah. Pure fantasy.

or this:

I can just see her as the queen of an alien planet.

or you can have the steampunk lady, like this:

Steamy!

And let's not forget the gentlemen:

The name's Galgadir. James Galgadir.

And we cannot forget:

Yup.

I just notice that no one in fantasy has a shag, or one of those hair helmets, thus:

So, why can't Madge go on a quest for a ring that in the Darkness Binds Them? Eh?

I don't see why not, since she looked pretty fantastical getting that way:

Just look at the caption, above. Nuff said.