A Chronology

1972 Show up between the Ides of March and St. Patrick’s Day.

1973 Receive super powers when ejected from a 1965 Rambler in a wreck.

1975 Start wearing small glasses.

1977 Learn that I’ll never know what it’s like to have a sister.

1979 Get my highest place and least drab ribbon at the county fair for spending my summer training, bathing, and grooming a cow. 

1981 Write a short, not scary book about a Ghost named Harry. 

1986 Inherit the family’s 1979 pale yellow Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser.

1988 Laugh so hard I spit chocolate milk all over my only high school boyfriend while we’re having lunch in the cafeteria.

1990 Complete phase one: childhood.

1994 Get bachelor of science in Journalism because somebody once said I was good at something that made me think I should get a bachelor of science in Journalism.

1995 Move from the family dairy farm in Apple Creek, Ohio, to an apartment above a dentist’s office in Seattle, Washington.

1997 Walk through the Brussels airport—on my first day ever out of the country—with the back of my skirt fully tucked into my underwear.

1999 Read my words out loud in front of people for the first time and then meet a boy.

2000 Find out the boy and I are moving to Baku, Azerbaijan.

2002 Buy thehitchin.com with the boy, and make family and friends perform at the reception.

2003 Start making my first person, and move to Mississippi. 

2004 Bring my first person into the world—after 47 hours of labor—on very little sleep and some narcotics; drink the most delicious coca-cola in the history of the world; and move back to Seattle.

2005 Make and bring my second person into the world, who—within minutes of taking her first breath—looks between me and the boy until she decides she’ll keep us.

2007 Begin fulfilling duties as resident of the city of Portland.

2008 Build a stage, make a spotlight, and start putting on shows with the boy.

2012 Get whisked away to Paris and drink Clan Campbell from the mini-bar and sing “Rhinestone Cowboy” until the sun comes up.

2015 Start making jokes seriously.

2018 Slowly recover from metaphorically tumbling. Fall in love again. And again.

2019 Start a blog.