Leslea Tash's Blog, page 21
November 3, 2013
thatmadden:
This is an image I made to accompany Oliver...
This is an image I made to accompany Oliver Burkeman’s Column in The Guardian Weekender magazine.
The article was a debate on whether it is better to play to your strengths or to focus on areas where you fall short. As ever, it was a really interesting article that you read here
November 1, 2013
A gorgeous wren & sheet music as wrapping paper! Just my...
A gorgeous wren & sheet music as wrapping paper! Just my style.
I’ll be back to working on Bird After Bird soon. Finally unpacked (ish) and back in the swing with Troll Or Park. Park first, Bird second.
Embroidered Wren by Handmade and Heritage on Flickr.
October 31, 2013
This pretty much sums up my days, the past coupla.TODAY promises...
This pretty much sums up my days, the past coupla.
TODAY promises to be a better day! I am going to have fun with it.
October 30, 2013
Halloween reads provide tricks AND treats
Just to recap—I’m presently taking part in two giveaways (Coffin Hop here on my blog, and Fall Into Fantasy). I’ve just released the audiobook of Troll Or Derby, am featured in two new print/ebook releases, and tomorrow comes new release number FOUR. Busy week.
Oh, This Brilliant Darkness is on sale for $.99 for another day, too.
Read on:
If you’re on my email list or one of the Radishes, you already know this, but…
Two New Releases TODAY! w00t!
Includes a little ditty by me about Death as a bus driver. Sorta. Don’t piss off the dead dude, anyway, right? $.99!
$3.99, all for charity! 178 pages of awesome B-movie horror stories and illustrations by the legendary Nick Caesar of Scary Art fame!
And just for kicks, I put my literary horror novel, the dark fantasy This Brilliant Darkness on sale for less than a buck through Christine’s birthday—that’s to say, through Halloween.
From a recent review:
Red Tash has a beautiful, lyrical style that is unique and fresh. In “This Brilliant Darkness” she’s evoked a realistic, charming setting with just enough dark corners and creepy byways. The cast consists of richly rendered characters including a quirky collection of college-town oddballs and eccentrics, and neomythic, possibly trans-dimensional creatures. Her setting is so well-rendered that I feel like I could drive an hour north and find it. And she manages to create peculiar characters that also ring true and seem completely realistic, no small feat.
COFFIN HOP GIVEAWAY IS LIVE! PLUS 70+ MORE HORROR BLOGS YOU CAN VISIT TO WIN CREEPY READS!
FALL INTO FANTASY IS GOING ON FOR A LIMITED TIME, AS WELL!
How much shit do you take?
"I can do anything to you that I want, Leslea. You will always come back.”
That was one of the last things my mother ever said to me. If you’ve missed out on anything I’ve ever written about my mother, here’s a spoiler: she didn’t apologize for that. She didn’t make nice. She just went ahead and died.
My mother more often showed her disrespect and disdain for me with her actions than her words. Still, I needed her. I needed a mother, anyway—and while I may have felt she owed me motherly love, she never delivered.
I invested in a relationship with her that never paid dividends. I had the dream of a loving mother, and so I juxtaposed that dream onto every sign of positive behavior I could round up. I knew her so well, and celebrated everything that brought her joy. I chose to focus on the good stuff in our relationship whenever it soured. I was patient. I gave, and when it wasn’t enough, I regrouped and gave more.
No matter what I gave, it was never enough to win the kind of treatment I deserved. Put aside the fact that she was my mother—all human beings deserve to be treated with respect, with dignity, and with an equal, equitable regard among family. If someone is a “loved one,” they have the right to expect loving behavior.
It wasn’t the easiest lesson, by any means, but eventually I learned that you really can’t take shit off of people and expect them to come around and change. No matter who they are to you—mother, brother, sister, husband—if they are an adult and they treat you shitty, then that’s the best they can give.
I’m not talking about someone having a bad day once in awhile. I’m not saying that you can’t apologize or give one another space or make things better. That’s humane, civil treatment, and expectations for such are a two-way street. That’s respectful. That’s kind. That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about when someone unapologetically lies to you, when someone yells at you because HE did you wrong, when someone breaks promises, treats you like a doormat, walks all over you and doesn’t think you deserve better.
How long do you stick around and how much more shit do you take?
October 28, 2013
Happy birthday to me
When I was younger, I used to have pity for people born on Christmas Day. Every year, their birthdays were forgotten or overshadowed by a bigger event. They effectively go all their lives without a special day just for them, unless by some miracle, their parents were wise enough to establish a pre-birthday ritual with the appropriate amount of fuss & bother.
Well, the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to accept that my birthday placement is just as bad. Every year on my birthday weekend, all my friends dress up in costumes and head off to someone’s party to celebrate Halloween. They drink, cavort, and carry on. Mostly I am not invited. Sometimes I am. The past couple of years we were invited to a relative’s Halloween party, but this year I just didn’t have the heart to go—it just hurts too much.
I know I’m not supposed to hurt. I know it is not socially accepted. If I had a slice of birthday cake for every person who has texted or FBed me today to tell me how great my life is, and how I have all I need, and how they expect me to be totally blissful and full of joy today, well, I’d have a birthday cake.
Which, of course, I do not have. Just like I did not have a birthday party.
But, Leslea, why did you not THROW YOURSELF a birthday party, you ask?
I tried that last year. Found out 45 min before that the venue was double-booked. It was not going to be acceptable for us to share the space, since my guests and I had small kids and the other crew were teen football players.
Football won. Halloween wins. Self-esteem free falls. I lose.
That’s my birthday, every year. This year I sat and cried all day Friday and Saturday. By the time Sunday rolled around and I caught a photo on FB of someone ELSE with a Halloween birthday being celebrated at a Halloween party with her own birthday cake, I was nearly suicidal.
I googled “birthday depression.” Turns out there are a lot of people who suffer from feelings of disappointment around their birthdays. For some it is about where they are in their lives. For others it is about whether or not the are loved. For still others it is about having a “perfect” birthday.
I read the articles with great interest. I had to ask myself if I were pleased with all I had achieved in my life, or over the past year. Of course I am. I am an amazingly powerful individual who has a way of bending reality to her will. Go me. I am terrific. I might as well be Albus Freaking Dumbledore, I have so much magic in my little pinkie toe, it dwarves mere Muggles by comparison.
But I had to be honest with myself, too. I had a lot of pain in the past year. A lot of loss that I’m still grieving. Early in the year I suffered two miscarriages, and recently I thought I was pregnant again. When I found out I wasn’t, I can’t lie, I cried a lot. It doesn’t matter whether or not I rationally WANT or NEED another child, the promise of that child—those children—one right after the other being broken was too much. Too much for me on the heals of my mother’s death and betrayal by my brother and sister. Betrayal by God, maybe. I don’t know.
All I know is that this year really piled on the pain. Tim and I still have barely any extended family. Those who love us, we adore, but most of our relatives on each side treat us as though we don’t exist. We continue to put ourselves out there to make new friends and keep the old, but in August the person who I was specifically the most happy about building a closer friendship with decided to publicly abuse and humiliate me. I’m still SO hurt and angry about it. She hasn’t asked for my forgiveness, and to be honest, I’d rather she didn’t. I’m afraid of what I would do if she approached me. I’d probably end up in jail. No, I’m not really dealing with betrayal very well anymore.
It occurred to me this weekend that the free passes I’ve given certain friends over the past few years are coming to an end, as well.
I feel like I’ve let friends rule too much of my life. I’ve placed too much importance on friends. They’ve meant so much to me because I had no family, because I needed family. I wanted someone close (like I wrote about the other day in my Seeking a Friend post), but I realize that is envy. I *think* I want what they have, but maybe I don’t. Maybe I wouldn’t have room in my life for that kind of friendship without losing something else. And let me tell you, Universe, God, sweet baby Jesus, and whoever else is manning the cosmic phones today: I DON’T WANT TO LOSE ANYONE ELSE.
I would have been due with a new baby very soon. When I lost that first baby this year, I lost a week of my life. I can’t tell you the last time that happened to me. Maybe when my father died in 1989? I’ve never been so *lost*.
It came to me that I should look into Trying to Conceive After Miscarriage (I put that in caps because this is a “thing.”) Everything I read assured me that back-to-back miscarriages were uncommon, so we tried again. And we conceived again. And I thought “This is it, God! This is it! Whatever you were trying to teach me that first time, I hope I’ve learned it, because this blessing from YOU is the best thing ever!!!”
And, God, was I happy. So deliriously happy. I wanted that baby. I love my husband and I love my kids SO fucking much and I wanted that baby.
Since God took that 2nd baby from me I have felt like 1.) there is no God or 2.) God doesn’t love me or 3.) probably it’s just that there is no God, but if there is, whether or not he loves me, he owes me the world’s biggest fucking apology because what the FUCKING HELL, GOD? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?
I am a lot more broken-up over losing those babies than I’ve been over my mom. Still. I’m not over it.
So, yeah. It has been a hard year, you could say. Losing friends along the way hasn’t made it any easier. Having health problems hasn’t made it any easier. It’s been hard. I’ve hurt a lot physically and emotionally and spiritually I’ve gone very quiet, very numb.
I’d have liked to have had a birthday party.
I’d have liked to have an occasion to focus on the positive.
Okay, so let’s make a list. Not of the things I don’t have, or of the things that cause me pain, but of the precious amazing miracles in my life that other people have jammed down my throat today in a preemptive strike intended to force happiness upon me, because they are uncomfortable with the idea I could actually be dealing with legitimate pain in my life for very understandable reasons.
Let us just do our due birthday diligence here:
My husband. Handsome, gainfully employed, crazy about me. A hick, but not a redneck. Hilarious. Well-read. Faithful. Gets better with age.
My children. Four lovely, healthy children. Sassy, smart, silly, challenging, goofy, worthy of love and time and attention, patient with Mommy (sometimes), full of life. FOUR like that. All too cute for words.
Friends. I have some real gems. Not fake friends, not FB only friends, but real ones. A true friend is worth his weight in gold. I may not have hundreds of “real” friends, but those I have, I love.
Career. I do what I want.
Home. I live where I want.
Pets. Cute, if dumb. Coming soon: chickens.
Age: I’ve lived through enough to understand these feelings will pass. Maybe the issue will remain for awhile, until I get it all worked out, but the intense bouts of crying, the feeling suicidal…that will pass. It always does.
There are a lot of other things I could write, but for now I will close by saying that if you are friends with me, then you are brave. You have to be brave to hang out with me because truth is hard to listen to, unvarnished, I know. Also, you are kind. You must be a kind person because I can use a lot of that in my life and I gravitate toward it. Lastly, you are cool. It takes a truly cool person to be able to see me cry, to see me hurting, and still think I’m awesome enough to make your life better.
If you’re in my life and I don’t make your life better, PLEASE GO AWAY. That’s my present to both of us: permission. Adieu, and happy birthday to me.
By this time next year, I would like to be over this “friend thing.” I really, truly hope I never care ever again.
October 27, 2013
Troll Or Derby audiobook release!
The Troll Or Derby audiobook is out and available, and to celebrate, I’ve added it as a prize to my Coffin Hop giveaway!
I’ve even added a couple more ways to enter the giveaway, so don’t forget to check the rafflecopter out. Some of the entry methods can be performed daily, increasing your chances of winning!
WANT TO SKIP ALL THAT AND BUY A COPY? LINKS BELOW:
Many thanks to narrator Stephanie Bentley for her fun performances of both Harlow and Deb for nearly 8 hours of entertainment!
Readers/listeners can snag a free copy on Audible.com with new sign-up. You just sign up for Audible and they let you have your first book free. So cool.
If you haven’t yet visited the Coffin Hop, click here to read more about it. It’s the most fun you can have with the lid up! I’ve giving away a bunch of horror books, including ecopies of my latest two releases (Death By Drive-In and Night Shade Vol 1), and so much more! Signed novels, swag, gift cards…it’s like Trick or Treat for adults!
And once you’ve entered my thing, keep hopping for 70+ other horror websites doling out art, books, jokes, stories, and creepy tales. Yes, this is for real. Too much fun for the internet to contain, so it only happens once a year!
And, hey…if you entered all that and you STILL want more fantasy reading fun, go Fall Into Fantasy!
Sunday Night Giveaways
Well, tomorrow’s my birthday, but I’m the one giving out all the goodies. What can I say? It’s my party and I’ll give the gifts if I want to!
October 24, 2013
Seeking a friend for the beginning of the world
You ever see that movie starring Steve Carell and Kiera Knightly? Seeking a Friend for the End of the World?
I thought it was going to be another one of those dire, depressing art films starring a well-known comedy actor that was only billed as a comedy for marketing purposes…and while that may have been the case—it wasn’t very funny—the movie was amazingly touching. It stuck with me SO HARD, I think about it way more often than anyone would ever guess.
Essentially, the plot is this: The world is ending. A meteor is going to wipe out all life, and attempts to impede it have failed, completely. It will arrive in about two weeks. Carell’s character is immediately left by his wife. He tries his luck pal’ing around with assorted friends and co-workers (people are being promoted great guns in the final days!), before giving up and setting out to find his first love. He is also seeking a friend to accompany him on this journey. That friend turns out to be Kiera Knightly, who has a few loose ends of her own to tie up—an ex who wants her to join him in his bunker to be Queen of the next age, a family in Europe she’d like to rejoin. Carell intends to use his father’s plane to shuttle her there.
Carell changes his mind about his lost love. I don’t remember enough of the details to tell you how or why this happened, but he and Knightly fall irretrievably in love with one another on their journey. I mean, I don’t think I’ve seen such a convincing portrayal of head-over-heels love as I saw in those two as they prepared for their final moments together. It haunted me. How could they be SO happy in the end of the world? How could they embrace one another so, with the inevitable closing in, second by second?
We stay with them until the very end, through their final moments.
I’ll never forget it.
That movie taught me a lot about love, about the importance of loving and living in what can sometimes feel like a futile environment—we’re all dying, eventually, after all. If not a meteor, then disease, a bus, an accident—SOMETHING. But we’ve got to give life our best. We’ve got to give one another our best. We’ve got to be our very best selves FOR OURSELVES if for no other reason. That is what life is. That is our world.
My old world has recently come to an end, in many ways. I started writing about it yesterday and got cut off, had to post a truncated entry. Sorry about that. I have so little time, even though I have so much more time than I did. Heh.
Anyway, what I want to say is that I think I’ve been auditioning friends for quite a while. Not a friend for the end of the world…as far as I know I’ve got Tim for that. I’d like a friend for the beginning of the world. A friend in addition to Tim. A friend who, like me, needs someone to care for her. A friend who wants to be caring in return. A friend local enough to go out for coffee or dinner once every couple of weeks, or once a month. A friend who understands when I’m busy nailing down this new world—a friend always seeking to nail down hers, as well. A friend like me. Not an exact twin, but someone enough like me to GET ME, to have something to offer, to need what I have to give.
I’ve written so much of my life into existence, I figure, WHY NOT JUST WRITE THIS, TOO?
I want a friend who writes. I want a friend about my age. I want a friend who is kind, patient, funny, smart, and really wants to be my friend. She’s got to have kids. She’s got to have lived enough to understand what my family of origin is like. She doesn’t have to be fucked up emotionally—I’m certainly not, anymore, but it would be great if she’d done enough growing on her own to be at a place of peace with herself.
See, I know hurting people are needy people, but I don’t necessarily need someone who’s hurting all the time. I’ve been there, I’ve given tons, I’ve been shit on in return, and in my times of need, I haven’t been able to lean back. That’s really burnt me on “fucked up” people. I need a friend who has her shit together, even if she doesn’t always have her life together. Make sense?
Look, I’m not perfect, and I know she won’t be, either. Wherever she is, whoever she is, I look forward to welcoming her into my life on a regular basis. I need her friendship. I miss her, already. I look forward to the day I look up and realize “It was you I was writing about.”
Seeking a friend for the beginning of the world, cuz we’ve got our end of the world partners all nailed down. In the meantime, I want us to be there for one another. I want to be your friend.
<3
