Without Pants, Pam & Paula Gain Pandemic Pounds!

How’s that for click bait alliteration? If I am being totally honest, my sister Paula and I both wore pants during the first year of the pandemic. But, and it’s a big but…they were of the sweat, legging or pajama variety. There were no buttons or zippers acting as a barometer of our expanding mid-sections.

When the library closed in March of 2020, I went from getting 10k steps a day to sedentary sofa sloth who binged daily on sourdough bread and Tiger King. I blame Joe Exotic for my muffin top.

I know you’re probably confused by this post, (where’s the death? the vampires? the menopause?) but I will get there, pinky promise.

That third photo is of my sister and I in 2017. If memory serves, I was visiting her in California and we were at a movie theater watching Wonder Woman (WW). There is probably a box of Hot Tamales on my lap and a bucket of buttered popcorn goodness between our seats. Why? Because the whole point of going to the movie theater is to consume overpriced sweet and savory snacks.

Fast forward a few years to 2022. I had a new full time job and none of my work pants fit. When I bitched and moaned about buying new pants in a bigger size, my sister encouraged me to try WW, formerly Weight Watchers. I hemmed, I hawed, I blamed my lack of movement on the weight gain, but as my sister has told me for as long as I can remember, “You get fit at the gym and you get skinny in the kitchen.” In other words, Pam, if you’re stuffing your pie hole with endless slices of warm toasty fresh baked bread and butter, you can’t possibly work all those calories off on the treadmill and still have time for a full time job.

So, I joined.

Paula and I will be talking about our pantsless pandemic journey to WW on Zibby Owens’ podcast “Moms Don’t Have Time to Move & Shake” on July 21! You can tune in wherever you get your podcasts, like here on Apple Podcasts.

You can also witness my menopausal brain fog in action on this week’s What Fort Worth Reads.

If you are into menopausal vampires or death professions, and let’s be real, who isn’t? I would like to gently nudge you in the direction of your favorite online book retailer to purchase either of my books. These books are cheap, but never easy, and they both explore heavy topics with a dash of dark humor for palatability.

Speaking of patatable things, what’s your favorite snack that you smuggle into the movies?

Comment on this post and I will enter your name into a drawing on August 1 for a special prize.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November.

In case you were wondering, that is not me in the photograph. I can’t even remember the plot for V for Vendetta and I really don’t know anything about Guy Fawkes day, but November 5th is a day I will never forget. You see, way back in November of 2009, I went to Texas to interview Khristian Oliver, a man who was scheduled to be executed on November 5. I did this for my thesis about death and death professions at Goucher College. This thesis later became the book Death Becomes Us.

Anyway, meeting Khristian Oliver had a huge impact on my life. Call me naive or whatever, but I couldn’t believe that the state of Texas was going to kill someone. And they did. I was right outside. And then I went to a funeral home and there he was, cold and lifeless on a gurney. It was absolutely horrifying and surreal.

Then I met his girlfriend, Sonya Reed, who is also incarcerated but shouldn’t be and I adopted her feral cat from the women’s death row unit and went to a Pentecostal Church and scared a bunch of people, mainly myself, and well…read the book. Or just read old entries on this blog.

Anywho, when my agent was unable to sell it to a traditional publisher, I decided to publish it on my own as a way to honor all those people who let me take a peek into their lives. I released it in November of 2015. In February of 2016, I was interviewed by Krys Boyd on NPR’s think and to this day, it has been the highlight of my writing life.

Fastforward a few years. I had an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and what did I do with all that serious nonfiction training? I’ll tell you what I did. I wrote a very weird book about a menopausal vampire on a quest to become mortal again. You would think I would have learned my lesson after the first book. You know, write something that is on an agent’s wishlist. But no, I didn’t do that. Most publishing houses had strung up strands of garlic to keep the vampire tales away. I was told there were too many of them (thanks Twilight and the vampirepalooza it inspired) and they were oh so tired of reading yet another blood sucking novel no matter how original it might be. So, I opted for a small publisher (Fawkes Press, not Guy Fawkes Press, but hmmmmm) with a release date of, you guessed it, November 5, 2020.

And then we all know what happened in 2020. There was a lack of toilet paper. Everyone started baking sourdough bread. I got to hide my RBF behind a mask. I started a book club on Facebook to help other debut authors who had to cancel their launch and in person events.

And then about a month and a half before my book peeked it’s pasty little face out into the sun, the unthinkable happened. First, my stepdad died, and then five days later, my mom became extremely sick and was admitted to the hospital with Covid. It was horrible. It’s still horrible. She died October 21, 2020.

So, let’s just say my head, or my heart, wasn’t in the marketing game after the book’s release. I did manage to get interviewed by Ron Charles of the Washington Post because he loved my press release for the blood drive I had orchestrated for the book’s launch. And then a book to film agent called and wanted to work on getting Forever 51 turned into a series.

So, why am I telling you all of this? It’s November 5th. My book baby is now this many.

So, happy birthday, Veronica and Jenny! I loved getting to know you and bringing your stories to life. I am foregoing the cake and opting for something warm, dark, and red to celebrate your first birthday! Here’s to many more!

f you’d like to gift someone a signed copy of Forever 51 for the holidays, I have a few copies collecting dust on my bookshelf. For twenty bucks, I will sign/inscribe something to your BFF and pop it in the mail for you.

Monday Mourning on a Wednesday

Way back in 2008 when I was researching death professions, I started a blog called “The Death Writer.” On that blog, I used to ask people the same questions that I’m answering in this post. My aim was to allow people to talk about their loved one and the grief they experienced, which might normalize this conversation in some small way.

I am coming up on the one year anniversary of my mom’s death and I still feel the weight of grief. The fact that my mom died of the Covid virus, which is still raging due to the Delta variant, complicates matters. I am not going to lie or sugar coat the fact that I feel a lot of anger towards the people who deny how deadly it is. I guess they have to experience it on a personal level before it gets real. With that said…

Who was the person?

My mom, Ora McCully.

How old were you at the time?

50

How old was the person?

88

Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?

My mom was exposed to Covid 19 when my stepdad was brought home from physical rehab. He had been there for a month and wasn’t getting better. They assured my mom he tested negative, but after a bit of digging, I found that they tested him on the day he was released and the lab report said, “sample spilled in transit, please resubmit.” He died eight days after coming home. Five days after his death, she tested positive for Covid and was admitted to the hospital. I wrote about this experience for CNN. Because she was so healthy, I totally thought she was going to be okay. It wasn’t until she had to be intubated on her birthday that the possibility of death really sunk in. My mom didn’t want to be intubated and the doctor couldn’t do it without her consent. He asked that I come to the hospital to convince her. And I did.

I wrote about my regret about making that decision for an anthology called “The Phone: An Unruly Collection of Second Chances.” This book was inspired by an art installation called “phone of the wind,” which you can read about here. I believe it will be released in December of this year. I will keep you posted.

Did you and the person ever talk about death?

Yes. I had written a book called “Death Becomes Us,” which she had read. She attended one of my Death Over Dinners and I encouraged her to get her affairs in order. At the time of her death, she did have an Advance Directive and a handwritten will, which is legal in Texas, but her spouse died before her, and he didn’t have a will. They were both each other’s beneficiaries, which was incredibly complex to navigate. Please, do your loved ones a favor and draft a will, an advance directive, appoint someone as your medical and/or financial power of attorney. Trust me on this one. It is never too early to think about and plan for the end. It is truly a gift you can give your loved ones.

Had you experienced any other deaths in your life before this person died?

Yes. My grandmother, Lola, when I was fourteen. My mother-in-law, Lovina Skjolsvik and my dad, Bob Johson. My neighbor, Burch Stevens, also died in 2020 and I found his body.

Were people supportive of you in your grief or did they shy away from you when you were grieving?

Because I wrote about my mom on Facebook to update friends and family on her condition, many people reached out to me after she died. People sent cards, sent flowers and dropped off food. But, as is typical and I am just as guilty of it as the next person, after the initial flood of sympathy and concern, people stop talking about her. Why do people, including myself, do this? Because they don’t want to make you feel sad. SPOILER ALERT I am already sad, so you bringing up my mom isn’t going to make me even sadder. If anything, it reminds me that she lives on in the thoughts and memories of others. I may start to cry, but I’ve learned through grief counseling that that is okay. The more we love, the more we are going to grieve. I am going on a year and my grief is still there. While it’s not as raw as the day she died, not a day goes by that I don’t think about my mom or want to call her and tell her what’s going on in my life or ask her a question.

Was the person buried or cremated?

My mom was cremated. Next week, my mom and stepdad will finally be placed in a cemetery. Due to the surge of Covid cases in Texas, the in person memorial service has been postponed.

Did you learn anything about the grieving process you’d like to share?

Because we can’t gather due to Covid and my siblings don’t want to risk their health by traveling to Texas right now, I have learned how important gathering with friends and family is in the grief process. People need people. We also need ceremonies and rituals. We did have a Zoom memorial that I livestreamed on Facebook, which was nice, but I would have preferred to have had one in person. I may not be the huggiest person in the world, but I needed lots of hugs. Still do.

Were there any songs played at the memorial that were important to the person?

Yes. My sister-in-law, Nancy, made a lovely slideshow of my mom. The video plays to the song, “You and Me Against the World” which was a song that she used to play a lot when I was a kid. She said it was our song. It makes me bawl like a baby everytime I hear it. Another song that brings me to tears is “Remember Me” from the animated film Coco. My mom loved music, so there are a ton of songs out there that remind me of her. When I was a teenager, I used to be embarrassed when she would sing in the car with my friends. Now, I would give anything to hear her belt out a show tune.