So Tired of Being Anonymous

Yes, it's true.  I feel like I'm missing out on something by having to hide behind my red hat.

Okay, I don't have to.  I've chosen to.  And the plan has always been, and still is, to take off the hat and face the world once my debut novel is announced.

So, yes.  It'll happen.  (You know I believe that, or I wouldn't still be here.)

But may I just say how frustrating it is to see WRITERS I KNOW on various social media, and I can't connect?

Not even, yanno, HI, THERE.  YOU DON'T KNOW ME, BUT YOU REALLY DO.

Anyway.  It's okay.  This is my persona, my platform, my gift to the writing community.  I'm fine with it, and, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what name I sign here.  Because, truly, I am about as ME as I can possibly be.  The words you read here are from my heart.  The life experiences I share aren't fictional--they're real.  My struggles, my triumphs, my insecurities--you've seen them all.  So it's not like I'm hiding.  Truly, I'm about as "out" and transparent as one can get without actually revealing the rest of my life details.

Like who I am.  And where I live.  And what else I do besides write.

The absence of that personal information doesn't affect what I do here, or how I connect.  It gives me a sense of loss, is all.

In the beginning, it was terrifying.  I was constantly worried that's I'd slip up.  To this day, I keep my "real me" email separate from my authoress accounts (my Me-mail isn't gmail).  I used to stop and think VERY HARD before signing an email, to make sure I was using AUTHORESS.

It worked the other way, too.  Once I left a comment on my sister's blog as Authoress instead of myself.  It wasn't a big deal -- there was no audience crossover.  But it made my heart beat out of my chest when I realized what I'd done.

It's safe to say that I am now a split personality pro.  I'm not sure if that's something to be proud of, but there you have it.

At any rate, will you indulge me today by allowing me to share some THINGS about me that, in some way, will make me feel less faceless?  In return, I only ask that you share ONE THING about yourself in the comment box.  The ONE THING does NOT have to be about writing!  Just something about you that makes you...well, you.  The quirkier, the better!

THINGS ABOUT AUTHORESS THAT YOU MAY NOT REALLY WANT TO KNOW:

1. I am terrified of ants.  This probably dates back to when I was 2 years old.  You know how ants sometimes come out in huge, terrifying clusters, and spread over the sidewalk?  I was sitting on my little "bike" and rolling over a cluster of ants.  My mom warned me to stop--explained that the ants would crawl on me if I didn't stop.  I kept rolling.  And the ants started crawling up my legs.  It totally served me right.  But to this day, I absolutely freak out if I find an ant anywhere on my body.  Or anywhere else, really.
2. My teen years (and beyond) were devastated by acne.  It's gone now, but the scars remain, both physical and emotional.  As a result, I never feel beautiful.  (And that's about as naked as truth gets.)
3. My feet are 2 different sizes.  They are also quite small (5 and 5.5).  And I can never remember which foot is which size.  (I wear 5.5 shoes; you'd think I'd be able to tell which shoe is slightly looser.)
4. Once, I had a pet mouse named Oscar.  He got some sort of skin thing where he kept scratching, spattering blood on the glass walls of his cage.  I got tired of that, and, being a self-absorbed teen, decided to stop giving him food and water so that he would die.  Which he did.  (This experience probably helps me write troubled teen characters.  Maybe.)
5. My college boyfriend is gay now.  (Well, he was apparently gay then, too.  But he wasn't owning it.)  This is the guy who once checked the time on his watch in the middle of kissing me.  I should have known something was up.
6. My other college boyfriend is now my husband.
7. My piano teacher in college gave me the key to his office so that I could practice on his magnificent piano when he wasn't there.  One day, I fell asleep with my face on the keys.  When I woke up, I discovered I had drooled on his Mason and Hamlin.  Thankfully, he didn't catch me.
8. When I was an administrative assistant, however, my boss did catch me sleeping at my desk.  He assumed I was ill and sent me home.  (I wasn't ill.  I was just...sleeping.)
9. I love sleeping.
10. I have tinnitus.  I don't know what true silence sounds like.  It's not debilitating, like it is for some people.  But I hate it, and wish it would go away.  Constant, clashing overtones in my head does not do much for maintaining inner peace!
11. When I was in first grade, my music teacher was so impressed that I could sing Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful in Latin that she had me come to her fourth grade class and sing it for them.  That was the beginning of my love for audiences.
12. My big lead role was Lili in Carnival.  I was not-quite-17.  And I can still sing all the words to all the songs.  (You can imagine how much Mr. A loves that...)
13. Several months after getting my license, I drove my dad's VW Super Beetle into a tree.
14. He gave me the car a few years later.  It was already old then, and by now it would be vintage. I miss that car dreadfully.  It was the most "me" car I've ever driven.  (Trees notwithstanding.)
15. I love foot massages.  And I almost never get them.
16. My favorite flower is the lilac.  We had 2 gorgeous lilac trees in our back yard, and my dad always cut some and put them in vases.  For my 12th birthday, he cut 12, put them in a vase, and wrote me a poem about them, called "The Things They Don't Say".   It's pretty much the most amazing poem a daddy could write for his daughter.  I still have it.
17. I'm not athletic at all.  But I adore baseball, because my dad used to take me on bus trips to see the Phillies play.  One of my favorite things to do when I visit my parents is to hit some balls with my dad.  I suck at it, but last summer I hit several singles.  (Yeah, that's probably because my dad is older now, so I was able to make it to first.)
18. I am 25% Ukrainian, on my mom's side.  She called her paternal grandparents "Baba" and "Gigi".
19. Once, I jumped off a swing with an umbrella and tried to be Mary Poppins.  It didn't work.
20. I read Alive in seventh grade, and still have visions of human hands hanging on the wall of a make-shift shelter for midnight snacking.  (What seventh-grade teacher puts a book like that on her shelves?!)
21. I can't stand puke.  I close my eyes when I throw up so I don't have to look at it.
22. A number of years ago, I passed out on the toilet and my husband thought I was dead.  He called 911, and they carted me away in an ambulance.  Turns out I was seriously dehydrated (the EMT tried 3 times to get an IV line started on our way to the hospital, but he couldn't find my veins at all).  It took 2 bags of fluid to get me right again.
23. Ambulances are seriously lacking in shock absorbers.  Worst ride of my life.
24. Mr. A tried to teach me to drive a stick shift.  Once.
25. In eighth grade, we were learning about prejudice in Civics class.  Our teacher told us to write down, anonymously, any prejudices we had against any people groups/race/whatever, and to pass them in.  She said it was confidential.  I thought and thought (because, really, I didn't have any seething hatred inside me or anything), and finally I wrote, "The Jews, because of what they did to Jesus."
    
    The next day, this teacher, who had promised confidentiality, railed in front of the whole class about how one of us had written, "The Jews, because of what they did to Jesus", and how she felt SO SORRY for that person, and how it was horrible, and yada yada yada.  And there I sat, WANTING TO DIE A THOUSAND TIMES.  And there, in the class near me, sat A JEWISH BOY.
    
    No, she didn't say my name.  But I felt the sting of her words, and the shame stayed with me for a long, long time.
    
    Yes, my comment was made out of ignorance.  I had never even spoken to a Jewish person.  I knew next to nothing about it.  Honestly, I had to think really hard to even come up with that to pass in something on my anonymous sheet of paper.
    
    What's beautiful is that, today, I have a profound love for Jews.  As a Christian, I share a common faith heritage with them.  I have learned so much about their beliefs and traditions (even attended my first Seder last year!), and I am a fierce supporter of Israel.  And the cream on the cupcake?  God has given me an amazing Jewish man for my agent!  Josh has taught me things without even realizing he has (including obscure Yiddish words that I can't believe I didn't know).
    
    I love the "full circle" of this story in my life.  I love the way I grew from ignorance to appreciation.  I could have done without the intense shaming, for sure.  But at least this story has a happy ending.

On that note, I hand the pen to you.  Share one thing about YOU, and the time I've spent on this post will be well worth it!

(And thank you for letting be ME in 25 bits.  I feel like I can put the red hat back on now, and still breathe.)