Upcoming Events in Gurnee and Chicago

Just a quick note to let you all know that I'm doing two events that I'm really excited about in the next couple days.

This Saturday (3/14) at 2 pm, I will be reading/discussing/signing IWBYJR at Warren Newport Public Library, 224 N. O'Plaine Rd in Gurnee, IL. It's a looooong drive for me so I hope anyone in the area will come out and visit.

Then on Tuesday (St. Paddy's Day 3/17) at 6 pm, I am honored to be reading at the Harold Washington Library (400 S. State) in Chicago as a part of Story Week's Nelson Algren tribute. It's hosted by Nelson Algren-award winner Joe Meno (a former professor of mine who is totally my hero). There will be readings by J. Adams Oaks, Why I Fight; Bayo Ojikutu, Free Burning; and Billy Lombardo, The Logic of a Rose. There will also be a conversation with Nelson Algren photographer, Art Shay, and filmmaker Michael Caplan will show a clip from Algren, his upcoming documentary. Book signing to follow.

Um my book doesn't really have anything to do with Algren, but it's a celebration of Chicago writing and I'm hugely excited to be a part of it and reading at the Harold Washington Library which is kinda a rock star moment for me, not to mention being part of Story Week is huge for me. It feels kinda poetic because I met my agent at Story Week in 2005 and as you know she was a huge champion of IWBYJR and now she is back for Story Week this year and I'm part of it and she'll get to see me read and I just imagine it's going to be a nice moment for both of us, so I hope you'll come and be a part of it if you can.

Now off to do less pleasant things... The thing I've been dreading for months.... Taxes.... I have a feeling I really should have hired someone for this but seeing as I'm broke... Sigh. I guess I'll just slog through.

Wedding stuff and dismemberment

That's an eyecatching title, huh? May have to remember that for a book... I've explain the dismemberment thing shortly. First, I've been neglecting blogging about the wedding. This is mostly because I've been neglecting the wedding period. Deadlines take priority and get me behind on everything.

Fortunately other people have been on top of doing stuff for my wedding, namely Leslie Hamer of Unless Someone Like You who you may remember from my Women Who Rock Weds feature. I love Leslie's art and we went to high school together. Since she's a talented female artist and I've known her a long time obviously I wanted to support her by having her do my wedding invitations. With the economy the way it is, I feel like it is more important now than ever to support artists like Leslie and locally owned businesses so they can survive this mess. That's why I'm doing everything for the wedding locally from flowers to cake to undergarments to party locations.

I wasn't even planning on doing Save the Dates until I saw a fabulous design that Leslie sells here. Scratch off cards with a record player design? I was all over it. I blogged about those, but never got a chance to show off how they looked personalized for me and Scott. So here there since most of them have gone out by now except for a few stragglers whose addys we are still gathering:

Total adorableness. I didn't think I could be happier. But of course, Leslie continued to amaze us.

We met with her for about half an hour to talk about the wedding invitation. All we knew was that we were thinking something involving classic tattoo art since Scott and are both inked and we bonded over tattoos and Sailor Jerry rum (Sailor Jerry is a classic tattoo artist). Next thing we know, we're all comparing tattoos. Leslie notes my roses, Scott's nautical stars. We discuss a heart with a banner and swallows. Then a couple weeks later, an email from Leslie arrives saying she had a brainstorm. She assures us that she's happy to redesign it if we don't like it, but it is basically perfect. We just change up a couple colors and try to figure out what to put below Scott and Stephanie on the banner. It had said Forest Park, IL, but Scott thinks we should have something catchier, more like a real tattoo. We go back and forth between "True Love" and "Forever" and this is what we settled on:  

I couldn't love it more. Now we just have to decide on the type of card to put it on and figure out all the details to go inside. This involves a couple major decisions on our part. 

1. Do we want a wedding website? I don't know, do we???? And if we do, is there a service to go through for this. Is it worth it? Is that sort of thing mostly for informing out of town guests? Because we don't have a lot of those. I mean we aren't even reserving a block of rooms at a hotel because most people are local or can stay with other locals.  So yeah, is there a purpose for this or will it be a waste of money and my (already quite overcommitted) time?

2. Where are we going to register? Ugh. I'd thought registering was going to be the fun part, but honestly it is taking so much time that I don't have that it is starting to be unpleasant. I got some advice from all my married friends (namely register at Bed, Bath and Beyond because they give cash back on returns and they always send out coupons so guests like to shop there) and we are following that. But we'd also wanted to register at Target, mainly because my dishes are already from Target so I wanted more. Then one of my regulars/friends from the Beacon who is also getting married told me how hard it is to return stuff to Target. I thought store credit from Target would be no big deal, we grocery shop there sometimes, but no. Apparently if you return without a receipt (which I doubt people are going to be giving gift receipts since they think, hey you want this, you registered for it), you get store credit for that particular department only. So yeah, possibly worthless. Plus apparently Target doesn't keep your registry updated well so you get lots of duplicates. Ugh. So right now we are looking at Sears for our second place to register. Scott works at Sears so it makes sense to help keep his place of employment afloat. Plus they give you gift cards when you return and that works since he can get tools there. I don't know. hopefully we'll have an hour or so today to look at websites. Any other suggestions? I know people say Crate and Barrel, but I figured only one of those type of stores (and we chose Bed Bath and Beyond) and one department store (no Macy's. It's too pricy for one and for two, we in Chicago still have some bitterness about Macy's taking over Marshall Fields).

So yeah, that is where we're at with the wedding. We also have to find time to go taste cakes. But I've got my dress, we've got a place, we've got photographers and invites. Oh and for favors we are doing mix CDs and Leslie is designing the cases. I swear that woman is amazing and anyone planning a wedding should take advantage of her artistic skills.

Now what is the dismemberment business you speak of, Stephanie?

Yesterday they found a dismembered body in 4 garbage bags a block a way from the house I grew up in. In fact, my mom says from the news footage, it looks like it was the alley behind our house! Creepy dude! Here is an article about it. It's kinda spooky. I mean I used to walk my dog down that alley all the time and I just imagine her sniffing out that bag... gross. But mostly it's a big WTF seriously??? moment for me. I honestly wish it had happened earlier so I could have put a little mention in BALLADS because the characters collect articles about bizarre happenings around the suburbs and "dismembered body parts found in garbage bags in suburban alley"... I couldn't make that shit up! I'll definitely keep my eye on this story because I don't think the Oak Park cops are making the brightest initial deductions about it. Like "we think it was dumped here from Berwyn or Cicero" ummm why? Because the victim was Hispanic? Also "we think it was gang or drug related"... ummm unless the Mexican drug cartel has taking up residence recently, I kinda doubt that. Last I checked, street gangs around here just shoot people and drive off, they don't go to the effort of chopping bodies into little pieces. And if they did, they would probably deliver said pieces to the victim's family or friends to prove a point. Sorry, but this is clearly a psychopath. Maybe a psychopath in a domestic dispute as opposed to a serial killer type psychopath, but still we need Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks on the case. Can someone phone him?

I'll keep you all updated on this. It's almost better than my soap opera where they have the third serial killer in 10 years (seriously, who knew little towns in PA saw so much violent crime!) and they are totally ripping off Twin Peaks with the whole letters under the fingernails bit. OLTL, as usual I'm on the verge of breaking up with you, but I'm sure I won't.

Women Who Rock Wednesday: Amanda Ashby

It's Women Who Rock Wednesday, yay! Which means I have a winner to announce and another rockin' lady to interview. But first, I totally forgot to mention this yesterday.... You have the opportunity to win a signed copy of my book I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE by visiting the lovely birthday girl Liviania's blog and reading my "Ode to my 20's" and following Liv's rules about entering the contest.

Now onto announcing last week's winner of Liz Funk's SUPERGIRLS SPEAK OUT.... that person is Jocelyn from blogger! Jocelyn, please email me with your address to claim your prize.

Okay, today's guest is Amanda Ashby, author of ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH. Zombies definitely rock and so does Amanda, so let's hear all about her and her book!

Welcome to Women Who Rock Wednesday, Amanda! Please give us the lowdown on your fab new book ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH?

So where did you get the idea for the book? I did a fun blog for you about my thoughts about zombies, can you share your thoughts and feelings about zombies and any fave zombie books or movies?

This is really embarrassing to admit but I’ve never particularly been a zombie fan. In fact when I think of zombies I think of B-grade movies and so I use to joke about writing a zombie book in the same way that I’d joke about writing something called Godzilla Goes to Hollywood. Anyway, after all a while I suddenly thought perhaps it would actually be a good idea and so I turned to my husband – who has been a zombie fan from way back and we had a few drinks and brainstormed up an idea.

Of course the most embarrassing thing about having a zombie book out is meeting the other zombie writers – all of whom are hardcore addicts - and I have to admit to my own short comings. But despite my poor heritage there is a lot of zombie movies that I love. Shaun of the Dead, Fido, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Serenity (which after consultation with a few friends, we’ve all agreed that it counts. Firstly because the Ravers are like zombies and secondly because Nathan Fillion is just so gorgeous that it gives him automatic entry into whatever genre he wants!!). And speaking of Nathan, Slither is great – though it’s sort of Alien meets zombie meets gross-me-out-dude.

As for books, well I have to turn to my fellow zombie writers! Mark Henry’s Happy Hour of the Damned and Road Trip of the Living Dead are hilariously snarky! SG Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament is the great American novel – with zombies and is a must for everyone! Stacey Jay’s You Are So Undead to Me is so far up my street that it might as well just move next door and while I’ve yet to read Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth, I plan on grabbing it the minute it comes out.

Now that we've heard about your zombie influences, let's hear about your writing influences. How did you get your start as a writer? Have you been into it since a young age? Who are some of the writers or other artists that inspire your writing. Since it's WWRW, we especially like to hear about the women, but feel free to name guys too!

I wish I could say that I’ve always written but that would be lying! At school I was always very good at English (not so good on the spelling and grammar though!) and at University I studied English and Journalism but I never felt the least interest in writing a book. I was however an avid reader and one day I had the terrible thought ‘what if Jane Austen never sat down and wrote Pride and Prejudice’? That was really the first time I ever thought that perhaps writers were just normal people.

Of course, being lazy, this thought didn’t lead me to write but it must’ve planted a seed and I quite specifically remember just waking up one morning when I was 27 and decided I was going to write a book. And so I did. It took about three weeks to do a 50,000 word romance novel and it was truly awful. However, despite the badness, for the first time I really felt like I had a purpose. I still had a few false starts and I wrote about thirteen full manuscripts without having any success at all.

Then in 2005 my dad died and on the day of the funeral I was helping to clean the house when I had a crazy conversation with him and it was like he was looking down from heaven trying to oversea everything (he had control freak issues at times!!!). Anyway, that was the basis for my debut book YOU HAD ME AT HALO and that’s when I finally cracked through the seemingly impenetrable wall between published and unpublished!!!

As for writers that inspire me – don’t worry they are nearly all women. Some of my favorite authors are Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Ursula LeGuin, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne MaCaffrey, and Janet Evanovich. There are more of course – lots more but I know that these woman have really influenced the way I see the world and what sort of stories I want to tell! (And boy, sorry this was such a long answer. What can I say? I’m a talker!).

You live in New Zealand, which I just think sounds fabulous. Can you share what you love most about living there and maybe a fun fact about NZ that those of us who don't live there wouldn't know?

New Zealand truly is the most gorgeous country in the world (and considering I’m from Australia and have lived in England for quite a long time, I like to think I’m not too biased!!). As for interesting facts, well not only did New Zealand invent bungee jumping and give birth to Peter Jackson but we’ve also had two female Prime Ministers as well as being the first country in the world to give women the vote – though my husband assures me it was because the government wanted to ban alcohol and they figured the best way to do was to let the woman vote since they all wanted the men to stop getting so drunk in the pubs and come home!!!!!

I know ZOMBIE QUEEN just came out, but can you tell us what you are working on now?

I’ve finished my next book for Puffin, which is about a teenage girl who goes to an elite slaying academy where she suddenly starts to see invisible killer fairies. Only problem is that due to a small misunderstanding (think girl who cried wolf and then triple it) no one believes her and she is forced to fight the invisible killer fairies all on her. Fun times. I’m also working on a mid grade book which is lots of fun.

I always ask two standard questions of my Women Who Rock. The first is a two-parter. What was the first album you bought and the first concert you attended? Be honest, we don't judge.

Okay this is really going back in time! The first album I was ever given was Abba Arrival when I was about 8 but the first album (cassette actually) that I ever spent my own cold hard cash on was Bad for Good by Jim Steinmen. Is it wrong that I probably still know all the words as well (actually it is wrong especially when I don’t even know my own cell phone number!!!).

As for concerts. Hmmm, probably the first arena concert I ever saw was David Bowie in his Serious Moonlight Tour (I love him soooo much) and I remember we snuck out of school early to get there in the afternoon so we could get a good spot. It was amazing and I’d love to go see him in concert again. However, before that I use to go and see loads of great Australian/NZ bands at really small venues and while I couldn’t remember what the first one was, some of my favorites were Australian Crawl, INXS and Split Enz

Please dish about the moment where you felt most like a rock star. Maybe it was a moment of big success in your career, an "I'm Not Worthy!" Wayne's World type moment where you met someone cool, or a time where you just got the rock star treatment.

Because I live in NZ and my books come out in the US I’ve never really done much physical promotion for them (or none even!). However, when I went to the RWA conference last year, NAL who published my debut book had a big author signing and all the books were free, which meant there were people lining up waiting for me to sign them. Anyway, yes I know the books were all free, but it was the coolest feeling in the WORLD to look up and see all these people wanting to get a signed copy of your book. I went straight back to my room and smashed a TV just so the feeling wouldn’t end. Hahaha, not really, I think I had a cup of tea and there ended my rock star moment!!!!!

Thanks Amanda! I was quite excited to learn more about New Zealand, I'm jealous of your David Bowie concert experience since I still haven't seen him live, and I think having a cup of tea is totally rock star since I'm having one right now ;) Also since we are confessing embarrasing things (though I don't think your confession about your lack of zombie knowledge is that embarrassing), I'm going say that I still think of Nathan Fillion as Joey from One Life to Live. Yep, I'm a soap addict and I've been watching OLTL for 15 years now so.... He's just forever typecast in my mind.

Okay, time for reader comments on Amanda's interview. Amanda has given you guys a choice of your prize, so in your comment also let me know if you would rather win A. ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH, B. YOU HAD ME AT HALO, or C. A zombie survival kit... I'd probably be opting for C since I'm surrounded by cemeteries, but I'm guessing if you don't have Amanda's books yet you may want one of those.

So comment away, and I'll draw a winner in two weeks. WWRW will be on hiatus next week due to me not having a guest and my agent being in town so I'll be hanging with her.

Contest winners, new hairstyles, and other random things

So today is the day I announce the Inspired By contest winners. I hope everyone had a chance to vote or at least viewed all the entries and if you didn't please go here to check them out. It was a really tight race, everyone was literally within a vote or two from each other.

My Fan Art grand prize winner is Ritsuka. Second Place is Paul with Liviania and Jonathon as runners up.

The Soundtrack grand prize winner is Justine with Kay and Lucile as runners up.

Yay, congrats to everyone since they all did an amazing job and I thank them for entering!

Now I have a bunch of random thoughts and stuff to share. I've been all about Twitter lately (and you should follow me there to experience my random thoughts on a daily basis), but occasionally I have thoughts that don't quite fit into Twitter's 140 characters and yet aren't quite worthy of their own blog. So I'm compiling them into a list today. Most of them are things I'm wondering about and could use input on, so please leave a comment and let me know your opinion!

• So I'm about to run out of my prescription acne face wash, Brevoxyl. Yeah I'm nearly 30 and I still have acne. I blame my dad. I remember him getting zits as an adult too. My mom has perfect skin. Why, why couldn't I have inherited it! Anyway, so this Brevoxyl face wash and Differin cream are the only things keeping my skin semi-clear. But now I have crappy insurance so I can't get any more Brevoxyl :( I grabbed a coupon for that proactiv system at the grocery store the other day. Is anyone using this stuff? Does it work? Or do you have other recommendations?
• I've become a total tea snob. I realized this yesterday when I was at the hair salon and had to drink plain old Lipton green tea. I became addicted to tea while I was doing revisions on BALLADS, now I drink it every morning. My friend Kevin is my fancy tea supplier. He runs Dimensions Gallery Frame Shop in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. What does that have to do with tea? Well, in case you haven't noticed, the economy kinda sucks, so for small business like Kevin's to stay afloat, they have to do unique things, so now Kevin sells frames for your art and tea for your frame of mind :) When I was up in Madison in October, he gave us some samples of his tea and we immediately became addicted, particularly to Starry Night (a black tea with vanilla bits) and Hojicha de la Creme (a green tea with vanilla bits-- that's my every morning tea now). We literally ordered like 50$ worth of tea a few weeks ago. We ordered it by the ounce so it felt funny, like we were ordering drugs. One of the teas we ordered was Immortal Nectar, this ten-year cave-aged Pu-erh that is like the espresso of teas. Kevin described it as like a fine whiskey or expensive cheese. It kinda tastes like cave which I think is awesome. But yeah, total tea snob now. My mom is also a big tea drinker. Like her I also got into gardening a couple years ago. So I'm turning into my mom, which since she is cool, is not a bad thing. I just wish I had her skin :(
• Another frustrating body thing (and I don't have many body issues, I am finally out of that hating myself thing that I was in from like 10 to 25) is that I'm trying to lose 10 pounds, preferably by summer but definitely by my wedding. I'm not overweight, it's about being toned. Summer of 2007, I had my ideal body. Me and my friend Kathy were going to these awesome free classes at our gym at work. I had abs and buns of steel (well, maybe not quite, but as close as I get to that) and I felt good. Its not so much about looks but feeling for me. Last summer it all fell apart. My friend died and my book came out and I went on book tour and I think I was out of the gym for almost 2 months. Soon after that I quit my job so now I don't have access to those cool free classes anymore. I just have my workout DVDs and my elliptical which is just not as good as the gym (I can't go as fast! Scott says more resistance is good, but I want to go fast and get my heart rate way up). I'm working out 5 to 6 days a week, getting some tone back but not losing weight. It is terribly frustrating. And I'm guessing my eating habits are to blame. I suck at portion control. I make a delicious vegan dish and want to eat a ton of it. Also I have big sweet tooth and dude, I love the carbs. Rice, bread, potatoes, mmmm. I don't think the access to popcorn at the Beacon is helping. Argh! 
• Okay enough complaining. I'm randomly curious about how other people listen to music. Not like on what device or what bands, but do you listen to a wide variety of stuff all the time or do you get obsessed. Because I get obsessed. I can't stop listening to certain things or certain bands over and over and over. And I feel kinda guilty about it because I have literally 355 artists on my iPod. When I get a new album, I listen to it repeatedly for a couple weeks. I did this with Tom Gabel's solo EP and the Gaslight Anthem. I'm still doing it with Civet. And then I have my Ballads of Suburbia mix which is like my go-to right now. Or else I'm listening to Rise Against, Nirvana or the Replacements. I feel like I'm neglecting all the other bands. Sometimes I wish I could listen to five different things at once. Do you or am I a total freak?
• Speaking of music, in case you missed my tweet here are two bands you must absolutely check out. They are also on my obsessive listening list: Old Fake and The Brass Beans.
• I don't just develop music obsessions, I also have TV obsessions. I just watched all the seasons of both Weeds and Californication and even though I can't afford it I will be signing up for Showtime as soon as both of those come back. And then, last week I hung out with my friend Jenny and we watched the first three episodes of Veronica Mars. OMG why did I not discover this show earlier??? I don't think I've loved a high school show this much since My So-Called Life. I mean I love me some 90210 and Degrassi for the melodrama, but watching Veronica Mars is like reading a really good book. So much depth. And a TV show that actually addresses class issues. Awesome. I can't wait til Jenny and I can have a marathon.

My last random thing to share with you is my hair. Yesterday I tweeted about getting my bangs bleached out. (And I briefly pondered going platinum again. I have days where I want to be blonde again, but they don't last long enough to justify the extreme torture I'd have to put my hair through. Maybe I just need a good blond wig?) I did this so I could put both blue and pink in my bangs. Y'know, I did pink, then purple, then blue and I couldn't decide what I liked best, so I thought why not have it all? If I do pink and blue, some little purple streaks will result. I think it looks awesome. My stylist's hairdye supplier was out of magenta so we had to do regular pink, which will fade a little lighter than I'd like, but we'll fix that next time. The blue is more visible after it fades a bit, but here it is. What do you think?

Um, yeah obviously I took this in the bathroom (and first thing after I woke up and I'm not leaving the house except for pilates today hence no makeup) so ignore Scott's mess on the sink, but don't you love my pirate themed shower curtain? I had to take it in the bathroom since it is the brightest place in the house and it's dreary out again. But I'm not complaining. I'll take rain over snow any day and it's the perfect day to curl up and read my critique partners work which I am off to do now.

Topic of the Week: Insomnia-- Acupuncture

Two nights in a row of good sleep! I think my acupuncturist's new herbal treatment might really be working! So it's the perfect time to talk about acupuncture, the treatment I finally found for my insomnia that has worked and is truly non-habit-forming.

My new doctor was the first one to mention acupuncture to me. She wrote me a prescription for Ambien since I told her it was all that worked, but I also mentioned that I wanted to get off of it and asked her for any ideas. I rattled off the list of things I tried and she told me quite honestly that Western Medicine doesn't know shit about insomnia. She suggested acupuncture and Chinese medicine. I was impressed and when I told my mother about it, so was she. We both agreed I'd found a pretty cool doctor.

I didn't pursue acupuncture until later that year though. I kept up my attempts at meditation. It wasn't until I was at a charity benefit for the Keep On Keeping On Organization (an amazing foundation based in Chicago that does so much for people with physical disabilities), going through their silent auction prizes when I saw one of the prizes was an acupuncture treatment that I decided the moment had come. Hey, I could try acupuncture and the money would go to a good charity. It seemed like a win win.

So I won the charity auction and set up my appointment for early January 2008, determined that 2008 would be the year I kicked Ambien and conquered insomnia. I filled out a fairly extensive form (immediately I was impressed at the holistic approach that acupuncturists take over Western medicine). We went over the form and the acupuncturist also looked at my tongue which is the big key in Chinese medicine. She ultimately diagnosed me with Heart Blood deficiency, Spleen Qi deficiency, some Liver Qi stagnation, and Kidney Yin deficiency. She put tiny needles in my legs, stomach and forehead and left me in a room with music softly playing.

It's hard to describe the sensations of acupuncture. The needles don't hurt. It's just like a little pinch. Of course I have a high pain tolerance and no real fear of needles. But I've had only two occasions in the year I've been doing it where inserting a needle hurt, and it was some strangely sensitive area near my right wrist. My acupuncturist avoids that area. Sometimes the needles itch a little bit, but for the most part I can forget them as I lay there. Acupuncture relaxes me; I've actually fallen asleep on a few occasions. Sometimes I get this strange sensation that is hard to describe. It's kind of like dizziness but not really. I almost feel like my whole body is rotating head over heels. Sometimes slowly, sometimes faster. The first time I did acupuncture it got really fast and I had to open my eyes because it was almost too dizzying. But I really felt things in my body shifting. Something was happening, I knew this right away. Of course, since I was still addicted to Ambien at that time when I tried to sleep without it, I slept horribly, but I left knowing I wanted to pursue further treatmetnat.

The girl I saw for that first acupuncture treatment was located in a neighborhood in the city pretty far from where I live, so I knew that unless I liked her tons, even if I liked acupuncture, I'd need to find a new practioner. Also as it turned out, she was pretty pricey and moving to the Bay Area in a month. She admitted to me that she thought my problem would take more than a month's worth of treatment and that it would probably be best treated with herbs as well and she didn't have as much expertise there. She seemed relatively new to acupuncture in general (though she was right about the heart blood issue, my current acupuncturist discusses that a lot), so I wanted someone more experienced. Fortunately I mentioned acupuncture to my pilates teacher and she'd told me she knew a woman who had been practicing in Oak Park, the town next to mine, for years and she was so experienced she even taught classes on acupuncture at DePaul (I think its DePaul... it might be Loyola, but anyway, very reputable universities). So I called Jackie at Turtle Creek Healing Arts. Sessions with her cost half as much as the girl in the city and she was a licensed herbalist as well, so it seemed perfect.

I was comfortable with Jackie immediately for a few different reasons. 1. Her office was filled with turtle memorablia. Turtles remind me of my friends Eryn and Jenny S. and also of my childhood pet turtle. 2. She had a stuffed ET poking his head out of an open ceiling tile. ET is also a fond childhood thing for me. 3. She noticed the scars on my arms and asked me about them. I told her honestly, when I was a teenager I cut myself. She said, "That must have been a very hard time for you. I'm really sorry you had to go through that." I almost cried. No doctor had ever, ever acknowledged my scars. They are pretty damn obvious when I'm sitting there shivering in a hospital gown, but no one mentioned them and certainly no one ever said, "I'm sorry." This woman is a keeper and I could be comfortable talking to her which is key because for acupuncture to work you have to be willing to talk about every aspect of your body from your sore throat to your shit to your period. They don't look at insomnia the way Western medicine does. It's not about having restless legs or apnea or else mental health-- something in your head. The whole body is interconnected in Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Your inability to sleep can be linked to your stomach upset, your sore shoulder, etc.

Jackie immediately made the connection between my insomnia and my period. You'd think it would have been a connection doctors would've made, but Jackie was the first one to say, "When did you start menustruating?" 13. "When did the insomnia begin." Oh... 13.  We also quickly realized that my sleep is always the most horrid the week before my period and the best immediately following. Jackie regulates the herbs she prescribes me accordingly 

Jackie varies the patterns of the needles according to my symptoms, what she sees on my tongue and my pulse which she takes on both wrists. I haven't studied acupuncture so I can't tell you how this all works, just that it does. She also sometimes heats the needles up (which I really like the warmth, I must say) and sometimes does cranial massage while I'm relaxing with the needles in. Cranial massage is basically very small movements that massage my head and neck. The types of herbs she prescribes have also varied depending on my symptoms.

As I mentioned back in June of 2008, I was being weaned off the herbs and regular acupuncture treatments and I was sleeping normally until my friend died. Everything got sort of screwed up since then, but in my last visit, Jackie and I discussed my grief, depression, and stomach issues and she came up with a new course of treatment that is really working. So, cross your fingers! I might be sleeping normally again quite soon.

I hope so since acupuncture is expensive and not covered by my insurance. My mom has been helping me pay for it since she sees how much it has helped me. At least I am no longer drug dependent. Also a nice side effect of the acupuncture is it has strengthened my immune system, which may by why I haven't gotten my fiance's cold... knock on wood!

Topic of the Week: Insomnia-- Hypnosis and Meditation

I'm happy to report that I actually got a decent night's sleep last night. Perhaps my acupuncturist's new course of treatment is working. In my blog on Tuesday I think I made it pretty clear how I feel about drug treatments for insomnia (evil), so I'd like to spend today and tomorrow talking about some alternatives I've tried.

One of the things I used most to get to sleep at the beginning of high school before coping with the abusive relationship just made things way too hard was a meditation tape. There was a cool new agey shop in my town that I visited obsessively in junior high when I was super in to tarot (which I was pretty good at) and love spells (total failure) and that sort of thing. I was also really interested in dreaming so I had dreaming dictionaries and also my friend got a tape that was supposed to help you control what you were supposed to dream about. It was a strange tape where two voices talked at the same time. Sometimes the white noise it created really helped me sleep, but more often than not I needed something to focus on. I bought a tape called Rainflowers by a woman named Amber Wolfe. It was this feminist meditation tape, kinda weird, but empowering. You visualized yourself walking down a path, crawling into this rock cave, which was representative of the womb and then there was something about becoming flowers floating in a stream, which represented releasing your worries. If I focused hard enough, this tape could put me to sleep. At least for a little while. Like I said, eventually the insomnia got worse.

But the reason I tell you about walking the path and the cave and the floating and all that was because that became engrained as really comforting imagery for me and it's immediately what I went to when I did hypnosis.

So as I mentioned, I decided to do hypnosis when the stupid sleep study turned out to be useless and I desperately needed to get off the Ambien because I couldn't afford it. Of course insurance didn't cover hypnosis and I could go on a whole huge rant about how insurance is happy to cover these expensive drugs that I'll be on forever, costing them (and me) thousands upon thousands of dollars, but god forbid they cover something like hypnosis or acupuncture which could actually provide a permanent solution for the problem.... Anyway I saw the hypnotist five times and he WAS NOT like the creepy Vegas hypnotist whose billboard I am pictured with above. He was a liscensed psychologist who my psychologist knew. I drove out to Naperville (this was before my driving fear) to be hypnotized in his home office and I paid out of pocket about 80 bucks a visit.

The first couple visits were spent with him hypnotizing me to find out what the cause of my sleeplessness was. Well, of course, at first he had to see if I was susceptible to hypnosis because some people aren't. I was. Now it's been a while since I've been hypnotized, but I'll try to remember how it goes as best I can.

It starts with breathing, deep breaths in and out. Then you visualize/feel all the tension leaving from each part of your body, starting with your toes, working up to your head. Once you are totally relaxed, the counting begins. You sink deeper and deeper into yourself until the hypnotist reaches 10. Now I can't recall if I was encouraged to visualize or if I just naturally did because of my experience with meditation. But I would picture myself walking further and further into this forest. When the hypnotist reached 10, I would be at this house in a pool overlooking the ocean. (I'm a Cancer, I'm water obsessed). A lot of times my childhood cat Snuggle who died when I was 19 would be there, sitting by the pool hanging out with me. This was the safe place where my conscious mind would go while I was under hypnosis. I could hear my psychologist talking to me and feel myself responding to him, but mostly I was just chilling with my dead cat by the pool. I know. I'm a freak. Whatever.

Anyway, I remember that he would ask me to lift one arm and then the other and how weird it felt. And then he would ask me about memories of nights I couldn't sleep. I was not at all surprised when the first memories he uncovered as causes of my insomnia had to do with my abusive relationship. Then the next memory was of that night before 8th grade when my best friend moved away. Again, not so surprising. The shock came when I remembered the night before I started 3rd grade, right when we moved to Oak Park. Apparently I was unable to sleep a lot back then too largely because I feared I was going to be alone and friendless. Apparently the root of my sleep problems go all the way back then! It was weird because I barely remembered what my bedroom looked like at our first house in Oak Park, but I saw it crystal clear under hypnosis.

So once we got to the root of the problem, my psychologist taught me how to do self-hypnosis, in the hopes that I could teach myself to fall asleep in a hypnotized state. Self-hypnosis was basically the same as the hypnosis he did: the breathing, the relaxing of the body, the counting and walking through the forest to the pool...

And it worked quite well. Using self-hypnosis I was able to cut down my Ambien usage from an insane 30 mg/night to 5 mg/night. And honestly, if I hadn't been in a stressful life situation at that time (I was dating an alcoholic, it was not good), I bet could have cut the Ambien out completely.

But yeah, I couldn't. The Ambien usage eventually crept up again, but when I decided to try to quit, I asked my pilates teacher to record some meditations for me (because, sadly, my Rainflowers tape was lost-- I think it might have ended up going with the alcoholic boyfriend in his boombox when he moved out. If anyone can find Rainflowers for download anywhere I will reward you kindly because I have tried and failed). At that point, I just couldn't get off the Ambien without some sort of treatment, though, which brings us to acupuncture. I'll tell ya all about that tomorrow.

But I will say that once the acupuncture does its job and I'm sleeping mostly regularly, I will be going back to using meditation and self-hypnosis as tools for my rough nights. So I will suggest to those of you with insomnia problems to check into meditation CDs. Go to your local library and see if they have some you can check out for free to see if they work for you because I think with meditation, you definitely have to find stuff that suits your mindset. I recommend hypnosis too, if you can afford it and if you can find someone reputable, meaning make sure they are a licensed psychologist or social worker or something, or recommended by licensed psychologist or social work or other doctor. Hypnosis gets a bad rep because there are scam artists out there, but it can be really helpful if you find someone who knows how to do it correctly.

More tomorrow! Feel free to comment about how weird you think my visualizations are :)  

Women Who Rock Wednesday: Liz Funk!

Before we get to WWRW, I want to remind everyone to please please vote for the winner of the Inspired By contest. You can check out the entries and vote here. These entries are just too cool not to be seen and voted on by tons of people!

Okay, welcome to Women Who Rock Wednesday! First things first, last weeks winner of Angel Potions products that our lovely guest Lynn Turkington was nice enough to give away is... DebDesk from blogger! Please email stephanie at stephaniekuehnert dot com with your address, Deb, so your prize can be mailed out!

As usual, you have a chance to win another amazing prize today. Author Liz Funk is visiting us today to talk about her book, Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls, which I think is an incredibly important book that my parents and I could have really used since I definitely pushed myself way too hard trying to be a supergirl. But I'll turn the floor over to Liz to tell you all about it!

Liz, I'm very excited to have you on here because I think your book, Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls, is going to be very very important to girls and probably their parents as well. Can you tell us a bit about it and what led you to write it?

Liz: Thank you! Supergirls Speak Out is a non-fiction look at the lives of “Supergirls”—young women who attempt to be a perfect 10 at everything they attempt, whether it’s school, work, leadership activities, musical instruments and other artistic pursuits, and sports. These girls are so busy all the time and they look really accomplished and well-rounded, but in their private lives, these girls are often struggling with self-esteem issues and are using their accomplishments to show why they matter.

Can you tell us how you got your start writing? Did you love writing from a young age? Who were some of your influences? (We especially like to hear about the women since it is Women Who Rock Wednesday!)

Liz: I always loved writing. I wrote my first story in the 2nd grade; I wrote a ten-page sequel in my composition notebook to the Lord of the Rings. Haha… I wrote novels and screenplays for fun when I got older, and realized that I wanted to make my debut in non-fiction. In high school, I liked all sorts of novelists: Angela Johnson, Meg Cabot, and J. D. Salinger, plus some feminist non-fiction, too, by Betty Friedan and Alexandra Robbins and Ariel Levy. In college, I loved (and still love!) fiction by Nick McDonell, Jonathan Franzen, F. Scott Fitzergerald, Arundati Roy, and Curtis Sittenfeld. I love to read a variety of kinds of books. As such, my favorite books of all time are the Eloise books; I think Eloise is such a mischievous, spirited protagonist.

This week, I'm discussing the topic of insomnia on the blog. It's something I've suffered with since I was in my early teens and part of it definitely had to do with me trying too hard to be a super girl. Did you learn anything about sleep issues and super girls in writing your book or have you had any personal struggles with insomnia?

Liz: This is such a great topic to be discussing—teen girls and sleep—and it has so many intersections with the lives of Supergirls! Teenaged girls are so busy that they frequently don’t get the sleep they need during the week; they do what they can to catch up on sleep during the weekends, but frequently, they’re going on autopilot. I was shocked when I was talking to some high school students who told me that most students don’t get enough sleep, but some kids will drink consecutive Red Bulls during the school day to stay awake. Eek! Also, because most girls never master regular sleep habits, it really affects them in college, where almost no one has a normal sleep schedule, and then I think it carries on into their twenties and so on. I personally don’t have a problem with insomnia. I’m someone who needs a lot of sleep to function (we’re talking ten hours a night). So actually, if I have trouble getting to sleep, it’s usually the canary in the coalmine of my brain telling me that I am super-stressed out and that I need to resolve whatever I’m worried about that is keeping me up.

I know SUPERGIRLS literally just came out yesterday, but what is next for Liz Funk?

Liz: I wish I knew! I’m going to graduate in May, and then we’ll see what happens! The only thing on the agenda right now is: “figure out what you’re writing next” and “move somewhere warmer.” I’ll be going on a lecture tour to promote Supergirls—speaking at schools like Duke, Rice, the University of New England, and NYU, among others—that I’m really looking forward to!

I'm betting a lot of my blog readers out there are "Supergirls," what is your best advice for them about how to get through life, especially high school and college, and actually enjoy it?

Liz: Be yourself! It sounds simple, but in the context of today’s high school and college experience, where it seems like every other girl wears Ugg boots and looks perfect and listens to Taylor Swift, it’s never been such a social statement to be who you really are! If you can work to have a sense of self and a sense of individuality, I guarantee you that you’ll be better off when you’re facing adversity and other challenges as you grow up. You’ll have healthy defenses, because you know who you are. Also, a life coach who I interviewed for my book, named Cathy Wasserman, gave me the best advice I’ve ever heard in my life: “Girls need to be open to exploring the mystery of their lives.”

I always ask two standard questions of my Women Who Rock. What was the first album you bought and the first concert you attended? Be honest, we don't judge.

Liz: The first album—well, cassette tape—I bought was the Spice Girls’ first self-titled album, Spice Girls. The first concert I attended was for Hanson. Needless to say, I’m extremely glad you don’t judge—I’ve always had eclectic taste in music. Now I like Michael Buble, Dave Matthews Band, and Chrisette Michele, plus big band music and classic French music. And Lily Allen! I was on the TODAY Show to talk about Supergirls three weeks ago, and I got my makeup done about five feet away from where she was having her makeup done. I love her song “The Fear”—I think it’s one of the best songs any young female songwriter has yet written in this generation.

Please dish about the moment where you felt most like a rock star. Maybe it was a moment of big success in your career, an "I'm Not Worthy!" Wayne's World type moment where you met someone cool, or a time where you just got the rock star treatment.

Liz: Actually, the day before I went on the TODAY Show last month was a pretty cool moment. I went into New York City in the morning and walked around the New York Public Library, sort of reminiscing about the fact that I wrote a bulk of “Supergirls Speak Out” at the 42nd Street NYPL (the one with the stone lions outside!) and that night my mom and I took an ironic tour of the NBC Studios. The next morning I woke up and was interviewed by Meredith Viera (and met Matt Lauer, who I’ve had a crush on forever). It was definitely a rockstar moment. I hadn’t felt that victorious since I aced my road test!

Thanks for coming, Liz!

I've gotta say Liz's rock star moment is really damn cool and I'm envious. Liz is also being kind enough to give out a signed copy of her book. As usual to enter all you have to do is leave a comment and next week when our guest is the super cool author Amanda Ashby, I'll choose a winner via randomnumber generator. So get to commenting. How about you? Are you a supergirl or superguy?