Rita’s Guidelines Were:
“Write a story using all the weapons in the original Clue game: a knife, a wrench, a lead pipe, a candlestick, a revolver and a rope. The fun part of this is that these items do not have to be used in a murder scenario, but can be worked into any kind of story in any manner you wish.”
Here’s what I came up with:
Years ago I worked as a receptionist for slave wages at a local nursing home. For the most part, I had nothing in common with anyone. I made a few friends in the office. They were great people but were all familied and coupled up, much older than me, and we remained nothing more than work friends. The office workers were friendly for the most part but pretty miserable when it came to their jobs. I couldn’t blame them. After the billing department wrestled my yearly raise of 35 cents per hour down to 25 cents, and then the following year from 35 cents to 15, I couldn’t imagine how they’d been treated over the years.
Comments Off on The People You Meet While Working in a Nursing Home
Filed under Friendship, Healing, Inspirational, Life Lessons, Random Acts of Kindness
Societies have stigmas. These typically vary from country to country and are based on outliers that differ from what a society deems normal. An unusual physical attribute, a mental or physical disability, is sometimes enough to generate harsh judgment and alienation from others.
In Morocco, being a known “rape victim” is so stigmatized that victims of rape are often forced to marry their rapists in order to avoid this label. Through marrying their rapists, victims escape this scarlet letter, in favor of a typically short and abusive marriage. These victim-rapist nuptials don’t usually last long and end in divorce. In Moroccan society, being labeled “divorced” is much more acceptable than being labeled “raped.”
Rape is my scarlet letter too. Although people cannot tell I’ve been raped through common interactions with me, I used to think they could. As I silently suffered through the aftermath of sexual assault, my friends and family could tell that something was wrong, but didn’t know what. Although it always clouded my consciousness, it still took many years for me to speak about what happened. As a result, my healing process began, and I never would’ve guessed that one day being raped would brand me as undesirable.
Continue reading
Filed under Healing, Sexual Assault
Painting by Hayley Rose
Who says Shaman have to be traditional Native medicine people grandfathered in by an ancient lineage of metaphysical healers? This is what most people think of when they hear the term ‘shaman.’ The truth is that anyone can begin the spiritual practice of reading the signs around them, no journey quest required!
Comments Off on Shamanism: Reading the Signs of Your Life
Filed under Fun, Healing, Inspirational
Comments Off on Happy Holidays and My Weekly Update
Filed under Writing
Last week I shared my new game “Rory’s Story Cubes” with my friends in the Blogosphere. Together we came up with some great stories and even got the attention of Rory’s Story Cubes themselves!
This week, I’ve posted a new Story Cube arrangement and added an optional challenge. Below I reposted my explanation of the Story Cube game and this week’s optional challenge.
“The game is made up of nine dice. Each die has a variety of pictures on it. You roll the dice and then you make up a story based on the order (and pictures) of how the dice fall. It’s kind of like a writing prompt, but I didn’t have much fun playing this game alone…. I’ve posted a cube arrangement below and invite anyone to make a funny or even serious short out of this. I hope this will be fun, I can’t wait to read what transpires.”
This week’s optional challenge: Try to make your stories rhyme!!
I’ve posted a cube arrangement below and invite anyone to make a funny or even serious short out of this. I hope this will be fun, I can’t wait to read what transpires.
This is the order in which they fell, beginning with the letter “L” and ending with the magnifying glass. Please feel free to post any responses in the comment area 
If you would like to get a better feel for what this is all about check out last week’s Story Cube challenge and responses.
My grandmother drove a powder blue Monte Carlo. Whenever she drove anywhere, she was constantly approached by men and teenage boys who wanted to buy her car. She had no interest in selling it. She loved that car intensely and even said she wanted to be buried in it. I’d dismiss her idea as crazy, then quietly wonder how wide of a hole they’d have to dig to do such a thing. I’d picture the grounds keeper sweating profusely as he dug. After half a day, he’d finally finished digging the hole, and like a traffic cop, he signaled the others to lower it into the ground using a crane.
Filed under Fun, Healing, Inspirational, Life Lessons
A few days ago, I received a message in my Inbox titled, “In Memory of Sea Turtles and Dolphins.” Just reading the title made me sick to my stomach, but I opened the email anyways. For the past few years, I’d felt especially close to dolphins. It all started one summer, when I foolishly hopped in the car with my boyfriend to travel across the country. After less than a week of exploring, we found ourselves on Virginia Beach. Little did I know that during an afternoon of sand and shore, the day’s record heat would give me the worst sunburn I’ve ever experienced.
Comments Off on The Future of Wildlife After The Gulf Oil Spill
Filed under Animal Rights, By the Sea
Mariah Carey, Rainbow
Mariah Carey is quoted saying, “Never, never listen to anybody that tries to discourage you,” and she’s right. She is just one example of a person who faced adversity and challenges, yet continued to work hard until she achieved success and then some. When most people think of Mariah Carey, J.K. Rowling, Barack Obama, etc, they often view their great achievements as effortless, and fail to acknowledge the years of hard work they put into getting there. Most people have put them on pedestal so high, they believe it’s impractical for the rest of us to reach such lofty goals, or even dare to dream them.
Filed under Inspirational, Life Lessons, Passion
Our Fiction Friday Rory’s Story Cubes Open Call was a success. Not only did we get a variety of great stories, but we also got some recognition from Rory’s Story Cubes!
Rory’s Story Cubes left me a tweet complimenting your stories, “nice variety of stories inspired by a roll of the cubes.” Below is a screenshot of the tweet:
