Thinker Thursday

Hello, my name is Jess, and I'm an over thinker.  

Nice to meet you.  

Thursday seems a good day - as good as any other, it just happens to be Thursday today - to share more about myself.  

I found a list of 50 questions, and I'll tackle 5 each week.  

1.  What is your name?  Where did it come from?  What does it mean? 
Jessica Brianne.  I shortened Jessica to Jess for my official author name, simply because Jessica Moore is an incredibly common name.  Jess B. Moore is more stand-out.  My name came from two primary things:  1) it's simple to pronounce and spell.  My mother had an difficult to pronounce name, and didn't want to curse me with the same, and 2) my initials match my brother's.  JB1 and JB2.  
I've looked up the meaning before, but I forget.  Do you know?

2.  When and where were you born? 
Late late at night, mid-summer, 1980 in a very small Louisiana town.  

3.  Write about your mom.  What would you want people to know?
Ah, that's a timely query.  Nothing has been on my mind more lately than my mom.  She passed earlier this month, and I spent the last few weeks of her life sitting at her bedside.  But that isn't what I want to tell you.  My mom, with the challenging name, was a beautifully eclectic woman.  Thick curls and dark eyes.  Perfectly rounded fingernails.  Curious, smart, and funny.  She worked hard and felt harder.  Life could be too much for her at times.  She put herself through school and supported me by herself.  She made mistakes and usually blamed herself.  My mom loved me and was always proud of me, and I never doubted either of those things.  She drank too much and kept it a secret.  In the end it turned out she had quite a few secrets.  She smoked, and when she quit smoking she wished she could start back up.  Finding a bargain brought her a thrill.  She loved shoes and makeup, but loved the beach more.  I got my love of art, reading, and music from growing up exposed to all three at her hand.  

4.  Write about your dad.  What would you want people to know? 
I don't know my dad.  Not anymore.  Not for a long time.  I remember him making pancakes on Sundays - I have this image of him standing in the kitchen of our little single-wide trailer, in track shorts, flipping pancakes on the electric griddle.  Then we'd go to the beach.  He liked Westerns and Ninja movies.  For a brief time he drove a sparkly green VW beetle; which he constantly worked on.  My mom and I moved out the summer I turned eight, and he moved away a couple years after.  The last time I saw him was the summer I turned sixteen.  When my mom was sick, one of my aunts called him, and I found out his second wife had died seven years prior and he'd remarried again.  I don't know what you should know, because I don't know anything myself, and I'm okay with that.  

5.  Do you have any siblings?  Write about them.  
Yes.  One.  I had an older brother.  JB1.  When we were little he tormented me or ignored me.  Then he lived with our dad while I lived with my mom, and they moved away.  Not that it much mattered, as he spent more time running away and living who-knows-where than at home.  I never knew him.  There are questions I'd love to ask him now, but will never get the chance.  In a lot of ways he seemed unknowable to me, older, tougher, always in trouble, and completely unreachable.  He lived on the streets.  He spent years in jail/prison.  Mostly I hated him for being a burden on our lives.  Then I grappled with enormous guilt after he died, because I felt relief he was gone.  My first book, The Guilt of a Sparrow, conquers this theme of guilt.  I took a kernel of my real life emotions and turned them into a fictional tale.  

Thanks for reading.  See you next week. 

with love, jess b.