The Mosher Pit

There’s a hillside that rises up as you’re leaving Front Royal on Rt. 55 that, at night, is dotted with house lights, and framed by the rolling lights of traffic on 66.

I love that view.

Posted in Out and About by: Helen
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10 things that I’m really proud to have accomplished in my lifetime so far, and I’m listing them not because I think I’m better than anyone else for having done them, but so that all who have shared in these with me, or had their own trials, can raise their fists in a collective YEAH!

1. I have conquered mental illness.
2. I have a swell relationship with my kid.
3. I graduated from college despite having to finance most of the gig myself. With honors.
4. I elevated myself out of the welfare system.
5. I have written enough short stories that I can keep myself in slush piles for a goodly while.
6. I have made wonderful friends.
7. I have loved more deeply than a killer like yourself can ever know! Oh, wait, wrong meme.
8. I have really interesting hobbies. Some of them are things I thought I would never do.
9. I have survived abuse–and broken the cycle.
10. I am….

Happy.

Thank you all for sharing this life with me, no matter how big or small your part, and thank you all for letting me share yours, in whatever way you can.

Posted in About Me by: Helen
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No, I love my car, really. but given all the nightmares I’ve heard about VW windows, I was highly annoyed when the passenger window fell off its track on 495. I didn’t realize it had fallen, either–doubtless the result of the window having frozen shut this morning. Thought I had bumped the switch, and so I bumped it back… only to watch with horror as the top corner of the window shot up and out of the vehicle while the other corner dropped forward. Shit.

Drove it all the way home and gingerly pushed the window back into place. Lo, it worked, and engaged.

It’s closed. The motor doesn’t stop when the window hits the top, so it will need to be repaired before too long, but at least I don’t need to be freaked out about it. but if anyone has experience with frozen-shut power windows acting psycho like this, feel free to share.

Posted in Fail! by: Helen
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A bit of headline-inspired flash fiction for everyone..

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/emerge/message/5615

A great wail arose from the Perkins’ household upstairs bathroom, much to Edgar Perkins’ consternation. “What.. What is
wrong, lovey?”

The wail had turned into a penetrating shriek that rattled the windows. Edgar, frantic, jiggled the door handle, calling out against
the cacaphonous protestation.

Finally, when he could stand it no more, he heaved his frame against the door. It burst open, and as he staggered forward to help
his wife, whose body was sagged into a miserable likeness of a flaccid monkey pickle.

She looked up, mascara burning a hot, wet trail down her tear-smudged cheeks. Disconsolate, he took her by the shoulders, and shook her gently. “Whatever is the matter, my dear?”

Her face crumbled through all seventeen contortions that span the emotions between pout and grimace. The wail began anew, but her lips curled around the unholy noise, which became, “I SHAT MY BRAIN.”

The wail was joined by a tenor howling, and in the next flat, Spencer Dowling folded his newspaper closed and muttered, “Who the bloody hell can read annathin’ with those bloody Perkin’s singing’ at the top o’their lungs?”
Helen’s greatest hits… It’s a little disturbing and riddled with in-jokes, but.. remember ODDITIES?

And despite the fact that I’d been in Philly for about eight months when I posted it, that’s the post in which I truly arrived.

Posted in Humor, LOLZ!, Writing by: Helen
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K: ok
K: i might be having dinner
K: gfg
K: fgffg
K: fgfhehe
K: hehe
K: ok call you ’round 7
K: ttyl

Posted in Family, New Media by: Helen
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(That’s an aside. This is a truly odd-looking update page.)

I wish I could write a novel that consisted of nothing but TONE. See, there’s all this drama that goes on next door and it all sounds like Mr. and Mrs. Othmar, with occasional door-pounding, stair-stomping, cabinet-door-slamming, and Pomeranian-yipping. It’s fascinating.

Posted in Life, Random, Writing by: Helen
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I hope there’s weather tomorrow. If so, I can get through another day of this fogginess without having to kill sick or vacation time. Even though I’m working from home a bit, it’s kinda like watching things through a frosted up window. It’s sufficiently frustrating and frightening that I burst into tears while trying to explain to the nurse what I felt was happening to me. At the same time, I haven’t had any communication disasters since, although the waves of exhaustion continue to pour all over me.

So what am I doing in the meantime? going back to bed, for one, but after eating a frightfully Atkinsian dinner I shouldn’t lie down right away. Otherwise I’ll be telling the radiology department to forget the cat-scan and grab the ultrasound.

I will get back to posting about things other than my collection of ailments soon, I promise. Wanna hear more about my slippers?

Ooh, Ooh, I know–I can pull my hair back in a big barrette again! That’s the style I was mostly wearing it in back in the fall. Aha, like this userpic! The difference being no bangs!!!

Progress. Wahoo.

Posted in Ouch!, Wellness by: Helen
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There’s something definitely wrong, we just have no idea what it is. I’m having a cat-scan anyway, but she suspects it has more to do with that persistent but not strep sore throat I had a couple of weeks ago. If I’m not better by the weekend, they’re breaking out the big guns.

This is how people become hypochondriacs, I think. Rick, remember when we went through this as kids? Thirteen times being diagnosed with mono-like viruses. Pshaw.

I do not have time for this!

Posted in Ouch! by: Helen
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I've been stuttering all day, when I haven't been sleeping, which was most of the afternoon and evening (and why I'm awake now, but headed back to bed shortly).

But as long as I concentrate, I can speak clearly enough. In other news, I put a slew of file crates under the offending part of the countertop so as to avoid cracking my head on it ever again. But boy, when I dropped one of my pills under the desk tonight, I came up so slowly I could have balanced a pitcher of milk on my head.

That is one solid hunk of countertop, I tell ya.

Posted in Random by: Helen
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I may have a concussion after all. Doctor tomorrow.

Posted in Ouch! by: Helen
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